this he means to say that] it makes no difference whether the [old] spring has run dry or has not rundry, a newly emerging spring is not to be used. But how [do you arrive at this conclusion]? Perhaps when R.Judah said that a languid plot may bewatered from a newly emerging spring and a Baal-plot may not be,____________________
means lit. ‘a house of channels’, i.e., a plot of land which owing to situation or climate or nature of the soil requires to be watered artificially. It is often a laborious process and at times of vital importance to the crop.
I.e., during the middle period of the two longer Feasts, namely, the ‘Feast of Unleavened Bread’ (Passover) and thatof Tabernacles, v. Introduction.
Lit., ‘the seventh year’. Every seventh year in the Jubilee cycle was ordained to be a year of remissness, or sabbathfor the land, when the regular processes of agriculture for its improvement were to be suspended. V. Ex. XXIII, 10-11;Lev. XXV, 2ff and infra 3a.
the Greek **, a mechanical contrivance for raising water by water-wheel or bucket from a deep well, like theshadoof in Egypt and the denkli or paecottah in India. The reason for the objections is stated in the Gemara.
Circular depressions made about the stem of the vine, or a small trench drawn about a group of vines to retain thewater. V. infra 4b.
Broken wells, cisterns or aqueducts; pools that have become muddy puddles, or blocked drains. (
_ Latincloaculae, Baneth).
For priests and pilgrims to purify themselves ritually or their vessels that have met with defilement. Cf. Lev. XI,24-40; XXII, 1-7.
E.g., removing rubbish and thorns, levelling the road and footways, mending bridges, etc. Cf. infra 5a.
With whitewash of lime to warn passers-by against defilement. Cf. infra 5a.
[MS.M. omits ‘ALSO’ which is difficult to explain. V. Tosaf. Yom Tob].
Lev. XIX, 19: Thou shall not sow thy field with two (or more kinds of) seeds (promiscuously). They are neither tobe sown nor preserved by active process. Infra 2b, 6a and cf. Kil. I, 1, 9; Shek. I, 1, a.
I.e., by erosion, necessitating immediate repair of the damage during the restricted period.
Running on its habitual course.
, lit., ‘Baal's area’, or field — an old pagan denomination of a fertile soil, i.e., a soil favoured by ‘BaalLord of the heavens’, Baal-Shamen, with fertilizing rain and sunshine. V. Cooke's N.S.I. p. 45, n. 1 etc. and RobertsonSmith's Religion of the Semites (ed. 1894) pp. 96-97. Cf. Isa. LV, 10 and Ta'an. 6b: ‘Rain is earth's husband’; alsoKrauss, TA II, p. 546, n. 115.
From here to the end of the sentence is not in DS., being seemingly a gloss from 2b.
From a new or old spring.
Rendered ‘AN IRRIGATED FIELD’.
Or ‘a languid track.’ The term
(channels) is here explained by popular etymology as derived from
interchanging), ‘weary’, ‘exhausted’. V. n. 2.
Deut. XXV, 18. Han. and Aruch s.v.
(VIII, 80b) quote more appropriately Gen. XXV, 29 referring to Esau'sexhaustion and thirst. Cf. Isa. XXIX, 8 and Ps. LXIII, 2.
A participle Shafel from
meaning ‘exhausted’. This derivation is grammatically unsound. In B.B., Sonc. ed. p.271 it is more correctly connected with the root in the sense of sending water across the fields in channels. Cf. Ezek.XXXI, 4;. Ps CIV, 10; Job V, 10. It is surmised that the name of the Pool of Siloam (
) is derived from the sameroot. V. Krauss, TA. II, p. 547, n. 117.
V. supra p. 2, n. 7.
Isa. LXII, 5.
Cf. our expressions husbandry and husbandman.
In the first clause of the Mishnah.
During the Festival week.
I.e., watering a languid soil.
E.g., watering a fertile field to make it still more productive.
Lit., ‘excessive trouble’, e.g., to use rainwater or raise water by swipe.
V. infra 6b, Mishnah.