Economy 16 Chapter XNUMX: Under the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple: Small or large farm

On the cultivation of wheat in the Province of Palaestina - the name given by the Romans to Judea after the suppression of the Great Revolt

"Oh"! How difficult are the days of researchers of ancient times among the people of Israel, especially since the destruction of the Second Temple and onward, because until then it was possible to feed the lines of research with more historiographical information, that is, the writings of Josephus, when they are compared with various archaeological findings, and from the destruction onward, when there is no We have Yosef ben Matthiyahu, although he died thirty years later, but he hardly deals with the history of the province Judah-Yudea, the researchers' hands are handcuffed due to the notable lack of information in the text of the writings of Joseph ben Matthew and they are forced to rely on the literature of sages mainly and above all saturated with quite a bit of legends and other fantasies. Moreover, due to the lack of ability to impose the laws of the Sanhedrin and its regulations on the public The Jew, we will find it very difficult to find out and check whether the Jewish community was active throughout the Land of Israel, especially in the Diaspora of the Sea High schools scattered, according to the instructions of the Sanhedrin in various fields, and especially in the fields of economics, which is the core of the discussions in the discussed research series. However, we will make an effort to listen to the reading of the lines of this chapter, as well as its predecessors and the ones that follow it, and we will understand that the things and conclusions that arise from this chapter are a limited guarantee. .

The Midrash presents us with an instructive picture of the Roman Empire encouraging planting in the Province of Palestine, when the Roman involvement in agricultural issues in the country also emerged in the matter of the "Treasury" as follows: "Rabbi (Yehuda the President) and Rabbi Yossi Barbi Yehuda were walking along the road. They saw one Akoum coming towards them. Amerin three miles he asked Eil Len (they said: three words - questions - he will address us): What will I say? (Who are you?), and what is your art? (Your occupation?) And where will I go? (Where are you going?). What is Athens? : Yehudain. What are you doing? - Pragmatotine (dealers) and where can I get Azelin? To store (buy) wheat from the treasury (shopping center, market) Divanai (Hellenistic? of Yavneh?) (Beresheet Rabba page 8).

We heard more about this treasure from the mouth of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Kousfi and from the mouth of Rabbi Meir who emphasizes - "Rabbi Yossi said: What are the sayings? In the treasure of an individual (that is, a farmer or his family), but in the treasure of kings it is prepared after the majority (in the city or in the Sanhedrin). They said to him: After which instructed us (so in the text) to build a treasury in front of (within) the wall, which is a blood (separation from the grain as a contribution to the priests, and of the rest, one-tenth to the Levites), most were Kutites (Samaritans), but a treasure that is deposited into Israel from abroad, such as Regev's treasure, is liable according to account (according to price or according to the determination of Regev, which is adjacent to the account area west of Gers/Geresh)."

In the Tosveta (Sviiyat 1:XNUMX) Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yossi testify about the "tenth" that eats from the treasure after the harvest" and in the midrashim the "treasure" is mentioned in the Greek-Hellenistic nomenclature as "Tasvariot" and this will make it easier for us to understand the term "treasure" in the Talmudic literature As a constraint imposed on the population to purchase grain from the Roman silos as a kind of tax.

This case involves the almost revolutionary process of making the economy of the Land of Israel more and more intensive, as in the mishna which tells about "the one who receives a field (barrisot) from his friend..." (Bava Metzia 1:XNUMX), so obviously, compared to the later Tosefta which emphasizes that "he who rents a field from his friend and was in it ( in the field) grain to be harvested, grapes to be harvested, olives to be harvested..." (ibid.) as reflecting the transition to the farm intense.

One of the problems that arose in relation to the intensive method was the interest loan. This farm required a relatively large amount of money and a regular supply of materials, seeds, work tools and more, and for this reason Rabbi Yehuda allowed a Jew to be even one party to the usury transaction. And in the Jerusalem Talmud (Baba Metzia chapter 10, end of p. at the beginning of p. 3) in the year Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel the president as follows: "He is a trespasser on his field and there is no fear of usury. How? He received our right (from him, from Floni) for ten Korin Hitin. He said To him: Give me one rock (price) and I will give you twelve kurin to thresh, permitted..." And in this context, the conversation between Matrona (a respectable lady with a lot of assets) and Rabbi Yehuda and the words of Rabbi Haya against usury, which actually indicates its existence among the agricultural community in Israel, is important and significant. Here we have before us another testimony of the victory of reality over the clear biblical teaching in the form of Lanchari Tishikh (take a bite = usury) and your brother do not Tishikh. When this biblical instruction was of almost sacrosanct importance, but, as mentioned, reality prevailed over the instruction and exceeded it: the members of the Sanhedrin behaved more according to the prevailing reality at the time.

The Babylonian Talmud distinguishes well and in an interesting way between the large economy of the "first generations" and the smaller, intensive economy of the "last generations" of the days of Rabbi Yehuda (from the 30s of the second century AD onwards), in terms of a very sharp statement in the chronological context. And even if we compare the Mishnah regarding "from the construction of the grain (a geometrical shape according to the field and the orchard) between the olives" (Pah 1:3) and the Jerusalem Talmud of the days of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, we will confirm the above conclusion. And even Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel states in this context the proper space between field and field in plowing: "So that there are cattle passing through their bones" and in another wording: "a pair of cattle" (Tosefta XNUMXa XNUMX XNUMX).

Elsewhere in the Mishna we are informed that "the one who buries the Luf (in the ground) in the (27th) seventh year, Rabbi Meir says: No less than two saats (that is, he will not bury in one dig less than two saats, which is a dozen cabins) up to a height of three tapahs (2 cm) ) and patted dirt on top of him. And the sages say: no less than four cubits to the height of a hand, and a hand of dirt on top of it" (Sheviyat XNUMX). We have before us an interesting testimony that confirms the trend of intensity in agriculture, and the result is the praise of the fruits. This trend is confirmed, as mentioned, in the deliberations of the Sanhedrin and its laws.

The flax, for example, was sown densely, according to Rabbi Shimon: "The flax in the grain adds (so in the text) one out of twenty-four in the fall to Beit Sa'ah" Kalaim 2). That is, if there is in the seeds mixed one of the twenty-fourths of the amount that is sown with a seed of grain and it is 50 cubits by 50 cubits. But of garden seeds, there are no sowers in this area, but less than that, such as Keb. And if there is grain in the sea, one out of twenty-four grains will be reduced.

In relation to the dilu'ah, the Mishnah says: ten and a half cubits) His field was sown with grain and he asked to plant a row of dilu'in in it, giving it six taphim for its work (vacant, distant from the grain). The growth (the row and the thinned leaves entered into the six taphim) will uproot (the leaves that spread into the six taphim) Rabbi Yossi says: We give it (the row of thinned) four cubits (for) its work. Taphim.) They said to him: This is tougher than the vine (a row of vines, which is not given for its work, but - six taphim in the middle)? He said to them: We find that this is a donkey from the vine..." Here too, as in the previous cases, the members of the Sanhedrin demonstrate a great deal of knowledge about agriculture, especially in relation to the intensive economy.

Into this cauldron of evidence is integrated, so it seems, the whole issue of the seventh issue about its problems and consequences, to which my teacher and rabbi, the late Prof. Shmuel Safrai, devoted a detailed study ("Mitzvah Shaviit in the reality after the destruction of the Second Temple", p. 304 ff.), which opens with the statement that This mitzvah was without a doubt, one of the most difficult mitzvahs for Cayman, and this from an economic point of view for a large public, most of whom live from their work in the fields, And in addition to the prohibitions on sowing and harvesting in the field, pruning and harvesting in the tree, which are included in the Daorita, we find in the Tanait tradition from Darbanan many prohibitions such as the prohibition of eating daffodil, that is, the prohibition of gathering and eating daffodil of grain and vegetables that grew on the seventh day as daffodil from the harvest and gathering of the sixth year. Or the prohibition of tilling the soil in the sixth year, which is not intended for the needs of that year, but is also part of the preparation for the seventh year.

Prof. Safrai assumed that in the decree on the shemita, which Israel did not give a damn about, they mainly mean the demand for the payment of taxes in the year of the shemita, which many in Israel did not face the decree, and the commandment of the Sabbath was loosened as it appears from the sources such as "Collections of the Sabbath" and "Sherodi of the Sabbath", giving up Yes, there seems to be a recognition of this reality and you hear in the Mishnah Dor Usha in the Galilee (after the revolt of Ben Khosva), even On a whole city of "Savior eaters", and thus the laws were established according to the practice of transgressors, of which there were certainly not a few. And those colloquialisms such as "Eaters of Sheviyat" or "Suspects of the Sheviyat" were coined in the reality after the Ben Khosva rebellion. And the evidence about the perpetrators of the Shabbat offenses and the allegations against them do not bring up the reality of plowing and sowing on the Shabbat, but of eating fruits on the Shabbat, and at most - preparing the soil and improving it for the next year.

In Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi's generation there were changes in the status of the seventh, both as a result of his regulations and on the basis of his teaching and method in understanding the place of the seventh in halachahttps://www.hayadan.org.il/wp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=103844&type=image&TB_iframe= 1 (above, p. 324 et seq.). In this spirit, this president exempted Ashkelon from the obligation of the tithes, as well as Beit Shan, Kiserin, Beit Govrin, Kfar Zemach and Kini, both for humanitarian, socio-economic and demographic reasons.

At the same time, the permits that reduced the dependence on the seventh commandment were known, but did not challenge the customs and prohibitions of the seventh as a whole. However, there were other permits of this president to undermine the status of the Sheviyat, and indeed Rabbi Yehuda the Hanasi ordered that there is no Sheviyat at this time from the Torah but from Darbanan (that is, from the instructions of the Sanhedrin), and on this basis the President tried to allow the shemita at all (and I published an article on this in Hidan) And for example, he was allowed to consume vegetables on the evening of Shabbat immediately, and this on the basis of his previous permission to import grain and vegetables from abroad even on the time of Shabbat. Sophisticated processes of first dry and pickled vegetables, and first permitted this in areas such as Babshan and the Golan (where Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi had large areas) and then in other parts of Israel, such as figs and grapes.

These regulations were closely related to the technological changes and innovations of agricultural activity among the Jews of the Land of Israel also due to the effects of Roman agriculture on that of the Land of Israel, such as the promotion of the dates for harvesting vegetables and fruits. For example: "The plantings are scheduled until Rosh Hashanah. Rabbi Yehuda (Bar Ilai) says: If they were blessed before the seventh day, they are also taken on the seventh day" (Tosefta Sheviyat 6:1). Or - "You harvest a field on the eve of Shabbat so that you can raise vegetables on Shabbat, and no longer but even on Shabbat you harvest them so that you raise vegetables at the end of Shabbat. Onions that came in on the eve of Shabbat for Shabbat, you harvest them so that they will be easy to be sterilized" (Tosefta Shem 2:1). "Rabbi Shimon permits plowing in a white field until Pesach, and in an Ilan field until the assembly, and permits taking the leaf from the cluster, even though it was said before him that this work and similar ones are done until Rosh Hashanah" (Mishnat Sheviyat XNUMX:XNUMX-XNUMX). Rabbi Elazar Bar Zadok allows watering the branches of the tree even on the seventh day and Rabbi Shimon allowed to anoint the tree with oil on the seventh day.

These permits, not only eased the difficult living conditions in the seventh year, but they had the effect of undermining the status of the seventh year in general, and this in terms of a real revolution.

In the period in question, we witness exaggerated, somewhat legendary testimonies about the size of the produce, its nature and nature, such as: ""The people of Jericho... gather palm trees all day long" (Mishnat Pesachim 8:XNUMX), and in the Jerusalem Talmud in connection with this practice it was emphasized that "... and with the consent (with the consent) of the Sages ( The members of the Sanhedrin) used to do..." (Talmud Yerushalmi Pesachim, chapter XNUMX XNUMX p. XNUMX).

In Ein Gedi it is written that the vineyard yield reached the norm four to five times a year and Rabbi Meir testified that he saw with his own eyes in Beit Shean "Beit Saa makes seventy chorins" in terms of an unimaginable astronomical yield. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi reported on a horseradish that grew in his neighborhood and it had sixty thousand leaves of husk and prophesied that "In this world the grain lasts for six months and the tree for twelve months, but in the future to come the grain lasts for one month and the tree lasts for two months" (Yerushalmi Talmud, Taaniyot chapter 50 "XNUMX p. a). What's more, according to his prediction, the roots of the wheat will sprout in XNUMX cubits of soil and the roots of the fig sprout in flint at all. Rabbi Haya the Great reported that "an act that weighed seven quarts of ollots (the vineyard) in a bird" (Talmud Yerushalmi Pah ch. XNUMX:XNUMX p. XNUMX) and the vines are the size of goats and the cluster in the vineyard of Rabbi Ferori (Fridi) in Bnei Brak reaches the dimensions of the size of an ox. Rabbi Shimon ben Chalfta praises the mustard in his house that he used to climb and ascend as a fig head testifies to a cob of cabbage in Abba's house that they used to ascend and descend on a ladder and another priestess and priestess of this kind.

The above-mentioned chizbets testify on the one hand to a serious boom in the field of agricultural crops and especially in intensive farms, including farms of the style of Roman villas, against a background of technological and botanical innovations, and on the other hand, the desire of the sages of the Sanhedrin to integrate as many Jews as possible in the fields of agricultural work.