Gleanings from the Land Tony Benson
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The Testimony, May 2005 151 Gleanings from the Land Tony Benson ancient Bashan, where cattle flourished, no doubt Honey on the abundant clover; note the famous “bulls HERE ARE over fifty references to honey in of Bashan” (Ps. 22:12). the Bible—about fifteen of them being the Source: “Bees, honey and grave diggers”, Twell-known description of the Land as Yadin Roman, Eretz, Sept.–Oct. 2004. “flowing with milk and honey”—and a further four references to the producer of honey, the bee. Eating locusts There are, however, no references to beehives or beekeepers, and the honey which people ate in HE other item of John the Baptist’s diet Old Testament times seems to have been wild Tbesides wild honey was locusts. Under the honey, obtained from bees’ nests. Thus Samson Law of Moses locusts can be eaten (Lev. 11:22). ate honey obtained from a bees’ nest in the car- According to the Talmud, only certain species of case of a lion (Judg. 14:8) and the weary Jonathan locust can be eaten, and indeed Leviticus 11:22 revived himself with honey discovered in a wood seems to refer to different species of locusts, using (1 Sam. 14:25-27). three other terms besides “locust”: “bald locust”, The practice of beekeeping seems to have “beetle” and “grasshopper”. Much effort was originated in Egypt and was widespread in Greek devoted by the ancient rabbis to defining the spe- and Roman times. By the time of Jesus it was evi- cies which could be eaten and those which could dently widespread in the Land, as is proved by not. Jews emigrating to the Land from countries the fact that the compilation of rabbinical writings like Yemen and Morocco brought with them a known as the Talmud contains various rules and tradition of eating locusts, a tradition that has regulations to do with beekeeping and beehives. become largely lost. This change from the practices of Old Testament times is indicated by the fact that John the Baptist is stated to have eaten “wild honey” (Mt. 3:4), as distinct from honey from beehives. In the Talmud a beehive was called a kaveret, and modern Hebrew uses this word, with a bee- keeper being called a kavran and beekeeping being referred to as kavranut. However, beekeepers in Drawing: David Willey Israel do not like being called a kavran because Last autumn swarms of locusts moved through in modern Hebrew it is pronounced the same North Africa and the Middle East, with a few as the word for grave digger. Instead they wish million arriving in Israel. This enabled Dr Zohar to be known as devorai, and their profession as Amar, Head of the Department of Land of Israel devoranut, from the Hebrew word for bee, devora Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University (deborah in Young’s Concordance). in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, to take his students In 1989 I visited Israel in the company of a into the field to do some research. Dr Amar had brother who was a beekeeper, and he naturally already spent much time interviewing three eld- hoped to meet an Israeli beekeeper. His hopes erly rabbis from Yemen and Morocco in order to were fulfilled when we stayed for five nights at identify the species they regarded as acceptable to the hotel run by kibbutz Ayyelet Hashahar (now eat, and incorporated these researches into a book turned into a reception centre for immigrants he wrote, The Locust in Jewish Tradition, which has because of the collapse of the tourist trade) in the recently been published in Hebrew. upper Jordan valley close to the site of ancient According to Collins Guide to the Insects of Hazor. Beekeeping turned out to be an important Britain and Western Europe, locusts are simply activity here, with the hives being kept on the large grasshoppers, the name being given in Golan Heights to the east. This was because clover particular to species of large grasshoppers that grows abundantly here, and clover is excellent for have gregarious habits and swarm when they bees. The Golan Heights were part of the area of become very numerous. It depicts the migratory 152 The Testimony, May 2005 A vineyard planted in the Judean Desert at Engedi by the Dead Sea. Picture: Tony Benson locust, which is found in southern Europe and famous Jewish banking family, who had acquired sometimes moves further north, but the one the famous Chateau de Lafi te winery in France which appeared in numbers last autumn in Israel in 1868. Wine is now produced in all parts of was the desert locust. (I recall seeing locusts both the country, even at Kibbutz Sde Boker in the on a hillside track in Israel and in the botanical southern desert. gardens in Funchal, Madeira, and they really are Viticulture and winemaking is thus an im- enormous compared with the typical grasshop- portant part of Israel’s agriculture today, as the pers of Britain.) following facts show: One of the purposes of Dr Amar taking his • vineyards totalling 12,500 acres in extent students out into the fi eld was to investigate what • 120 wineries locusts actually taste like, taking frying pans and • 30 million bottles of wine produced each condiments with them. They apparently make year good eating when fried, the taste varying ac- • twenty per cent of production exported cording what vegetation they have been eating. • hundreds of prizes received worldwide. Nutritionally they are excellent, with plenty of It is all part of the miracle of modern Israel, as protein and vitamins, an illustration surely of the prophet Amos said: “I will bring again the the practical benefi ts of the Law of Moses. The captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall idea of eating such things may seem repulsive build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they to us but is surely little different from eating shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; shrimps and prawns, a practice not permitted they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of under the Law. them” (9:14). Source: News item in the International Jerusalem Post. Source: “The fruity aroma of success”, Michael Ben- Joseph, Eretz, Sept.–Oct. 2004. Wine The Sanhedrin revived UCH more important in providing for the Mdietary needs of the Jews of old than honey ND as soon as it was day, the elders of the or locusts was the grape and the wine obtained “A people and the chief priests and the scribes therefrom; there are getting on for 250 references came together, and led him [Jesus] into their to wine in the Bible. Archaeological excavations council . .” (Lk. 22:66). The “council” referred to have revealed extensive evidence of winemaking here and in other Gospel accounts of the trial of in Biblical times, and it is believed that wine was Jesus, and before which the apostles appeared as exported from Israel to other countries. recorded in Acts, was the Sanhedrin. It consisted Winemaking was revived in the late nineteenth of seventy-one leading members of the Jewish century along the Mediterranean coast of Israel nation, from the three classes referred to in the by Baron Edmund de Rothschild, scion of the verse quoted above. Traditionally it was regarded The Testimony, May 2005 153 as the successor of the body of seventy elders ern Jerusalem and is calling for the monarchy to which assisted Moses (Ex. 24:1; Num. 11:24), a be restored. It was the Sanhedrin of 2,000 years body supposedly revived by Ezra after the return ago that rejected and condemned as worthy of from captivity. It certainly existed from the time death the only one who is truly qualified to rule of the Maccabees onwards and lasted till A.D. 70, on the throne of David over Israel. If the monarchy when it was replaced by an assembly of rabbis is restored by the Jews of modern Israel, it will (sometimes still referred to as the Sanhedrin) with be powerless to save them from the onslaught no judicial authority. of the nations, and “the house of David, and . According to a report in the Jerusalem Post the inhabitants of Jerusalem” will be brought to earlier this year, the institution of the Sanhedrin recognise that it is the one whom their forefathers has been revived. A group of seventy-one Jew- “pierced” who has saved them from their enemies ish scholars met in the Old City of Jerusalem in (Zech. 12:10). October 2004 and claimed to have re-formed this Source: News item in the International Jerusalem Post. ancient institution. They are mostly Kahanists, that is, followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, The Feast of Hanukkah who some years ago became notorious for ex- pounding the view that the Jews should expel N John 10:22 we read, “And it was at Jerusalem all Arabs from the Land of Israel. He was elected Ithe feast of the dedication, and it was winter”. to the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) in 1984 but This feast is the one generally referred to today banned the following year because of his extreme as Hanukkah, which is derived from the He- views. In 1990 he was assassinated in New York brew for ‘dedication’. There is no Biblical origin by a Palestinian. for this feast; it was established at the time of The newly self-appointed ‘Sanhedrin’ has the Maccabees in the second century B.C. and taken up the cause of a group known as the commemorates the rededication of the temple Monarchists, dedicated to the creation of a Jewish by the Maccabees when they had thrown off monarchy in Israel.