Our parasha tells the tragic story of the m’ragglim, the spies whom Moshe sent into Canaan in advance of Israel’s invasion. The m’ragglim brought back a largely negative report concerning the awesome military capabilities of the Canaanite tribes, which incited the bnei Yisra’él to panic and despair. The direct result was the forty-year sojourn in the desert, during which all of the adult yotz’ei Mitzrayim perished, before Yehoshua led to successful conquest of the land.
As the m’ragglim entered the country, we read: ויעלו בנגב ויבאו עד חברון ושם אחימן ששי ותלמי ילידי הענק וחברון שבע שהים נבנתה לפני צען מצרים (“And they ascended into the Negev and came to Chevron, and there were Achiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, sons of the giant [he-‘anaq]; and Chevron had been built seven years before Tzo‘an of Egypt”; XIII, 22).
The last clause of our verse seems out of place and irrelevant. Since Moshe sent the m’ragglim out to gather current military and economic intelligence about the Canaanites, why does our verse mention the historical datum that Chevron was founded seven years before Tzo‘an? Rashi was clearly bothered by this (as the Sifthei Chachamim points out) and for that reason looks to the Talmud for relevance, telling us שהיתה מבונה בכל טוב על אחד שבעה בצוען (“that [Chevron] was built up of every good thing seven times over Tzo‘an”; עפ"י סוטה ל"ד).
Ramban is in turn bothered by Rashi’s departure from the pshat, the “simple meaning,” and goes on to lay out the pshat, based on Joshua XIV, 15: Chevron is a later name for the city called Qiryath Arba‘ (“the City of Arba‘”), named after its founder. Arba‘ had a son named ‘Anaq (“Giant”, after whom the city’s inhabitants came to be called ‘anaqim), who in turn had Achiman, Sheshai, and Talmai. The reason for the historical reference, concludes Ramban, is to point out that just as the rulers of Chevron were prodigious in stature, so were they long-lived, since Arba’s grandsons were still alive so many generations after the city’s founding, Tzo‘an being a very ancient Egyptian city, probably founded sometime between 1996, the year of the Great Dispersion of mankind from Shin‘ar, and 2023, the year in which Avraham arrived in the Holy Land, encountered the famine, and took refuge in Egypt, then already an organised state with a government calling itself par ‘o, “big house” in Egyptian (remembering that the current year is 5769).
The only problem in Ramban’s explanation is that our verse refers to the three ‘anaqim as yelidei he-‘anaq, with the definite prefix; it is certainly not normal usage in the Holy Language (unlike, say, in Greek) to attach the definite article to a proper name.
שבעים פנים לתורה, Chazal tell us: Everything in the Torah has seventy facets (אותיות דרבי עקיבא). Given the small grammatical difficulty with the Ramban’s otherwise cogent suggestion, perhaps we are justified in looking for yet another explanation of the apparently incongruous historical reference.
B.
We begin by going even farther back in history than the founding of Chevron or Tzo‘an. Immediately after the Mabbul, on leaving the teiva, the Torah records that Noach planted a vine-yard (Genesis IX, 20). Rashi comments on the verse, following the midrash: כשנכנס לתיבה הכניס עמו זמורות ויחורי תאינים (“When [Noach] had entered the teiva, he brought in with him cuttings [of grapevines] and shoots of figs”).
Noach, in other words, had acted quite deliberately to preserve these two fruits, which the Sifthei Chachamim ad loc. in Rashi calls: נטיעות המביאין לידי תאוה (“plantings which lead to lust”) as we know from the rest of the passage, ibid., vv. 22-26. Indeed, the Talmud debates whether it was the fig or the grape which was the forbidden fruit of the ‘étz ha-da‘ath tov va-ra‘; incontrovertibly the fig was what the first couple used, after discovering that they were naked, to clothe themselves (ibid., III, 7, Rashi ad loc.); אין לך דבר המביא יללה על האדם אלא היין (“There is nothing that brings woe upon a person like wine”; ברכות מ.).
These particular fruits, part of Cham’s “tool kit”, as it were, were probably prominent in his inheritance from his father, more so than in that of his much more virtuous brothers Shem and Yefeth. When it comes to matters of ta’ava and chét’, “lust” and “sin,” it is well documented in both Biblical and extra-Biblical sources that the Egyptians, sons of Mitzrayim ben Cham, and the Canaanites, sons of Kna‘an ben Cham, were engaged in a race to the hedonistic bottom. Is there a way to determine which of them had “pride of place” in this debased competition?
C.
If we return to our parasha, and read the very next verse, we find that on leaving Chevron the m’ragglim traveled along Nachal Eshkol, ויכרתו משם זמורה ואשכל ענבים אחד כו' ומן הרמונים ומן התאנים (“and they cut from there a cutting and one bunch of grapes [eshkol, whence the place-name]...and of the pomegranates and of the figs”). One can ask why they might have picked these fruits in particular, rather than some other produce of the land?
Of the three types mentioned, the t’éna or fig is unique in that, the Talmud tells us, there are two quite distinct species which fall under that designation: One type which ripens very quickly, within the space of 52 days, and another type, called bnoth sheva‘, because they take as much as seven (sheva‘) years to ripen (עיי' בכורות ח., תוספות שם ד"ה בנות).
Armed with this information, we can construct this scenario: If two farmers, Re’uven and Shim‘on decide to plant figs, and Re’uven plants his before Shim‘on, it does not necessarily follow that Re’uven will enjoy his fruit before Shim‘on, since Re’uven may have planted bnoth sheva‘, and Shim‘on the quick-ripening variety. If, however, Re’uven planted his figs at least seven years before Shim‘on, there would be no question as to who it was who had the use of the fruit first.
This, I think, is possibly what the juxtaposition of our two verses is coming to tell us: The fact that Chevron was built seven years before the oldest city in Egypt suggests that the Canaanites had the use of these “sinful fruits” before they came into use in Egypt. (In this connection, it is perhaps apropos to note that although the Egyptians had a word for wine -- spelt ’rp and pronounced arp in Coptic -- their most common drink, as attested in innumerable inscriptions and archaeological finds, was beer [ħnqt, in the old language; the word does not appear to have been preserved in Coptic]. Wine must have ben relatively rare, an aristocratic drink).
Hence, these fruits would not necessarily have been so familiar to the bnei Yisra’él, and would have been viewed as characteristic of and native to the new country they were about to conquer. That is why they gathered them, specifically. It is surely not coincidental that the three fruits listed, grapes, figs, and pomegranates, are amongst the famous seven crops through which the Holy Land is praised (cf. Deuteronomy VIII, 8).
Which leads us to an even deeper significance; aside from its more doleful aspects, wine is also a sacred food. It is used for nesachim, “libations” to accompany sacrifices, and Sabbath and holiday are sanctified over a cup of wine. Indeed, there is a specific mitzva of simchath yom tov, “rejoicing on a holiday,” and Chazal also assert: אין שמחה אלא ביין (“There is no simcha without wine”; פסחים ק"ט.). So what is it that pulls its “sting” and makes it fit for holy purposes?
D.
Another of the Torah’s 613 mitzvoth is the bringing of bikkurim, “first fruits,” of any of the seven crops mentioned in Deuteronomy supra: Wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olive oil and date honey (cf. ibid., XXVI, 1-11). The mishna tells what the Jewish farmer has to do: כיצד מפרידין הבכורים? יורד אדם בתוך שדהו ורואה תאנה שבכרה, אשכול שבכר, רמון שבכר, קושרו בגמי ואומר הרי אלו הבכורים וגו' (“How does one separate the bikkurim? A person goes down into his field and sees a fig which has ripened, an eshkol which has ripened, a pomegranate which has ripened; he ties it with grass and says, These are the bikkurim”; בכורים פ"ג מ"א).
Note that in the list of crops through which the Holy land is praised, figs, grapes, and pomegranates are grouped together; note also that even though bringing bikkurim can be accomplished with any of the seven, our mishna quite specifically lists the same three which the m’ragglim selected as characteristic of the Holy Land.
I have heard from credible sources in the name of the Arizal that the mitzva of bikkurim functions as a tiqqun, a corrective, for the sin of the m’ragglim, when it is performed with the proper kavvanoth, “intentions, directed thoughts.” Where they slandered the Holy Land, we correct their error by showing our profound appreciation of the Land and the seven special crops which particularly characterize it; the wording of our mishna, I believe, alludes directly to the tiqqun chét’ ha-m’ragglim, and it is this use of these fateful crops for mitzvoth which renders them fit for human consumption once again.
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