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Jewish Perspectives on Water
Mayim
Chayyim: The Waters of Life
A Brief Exploration of Water in Jewish Texts and
History
From the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish
Life
The scarcity of water played a central role in
the early history of the Jewish people. In order
to sustain agriculture and replenish wells and
cisterns, our ancestors in Eretz Yisrael (the
Land of Israel) depended upon unpredictable and
often inadequate seasonal rain and dew. This is
the ecological context for the following texts.
For the land you are entering to inherit is not
like the land of Egypt from which you have come,
where, after sowing your seed, you irrigated it
by foot (kicking open an irrigation channel),
like a vegetable garden. But the land you are
entering is a land of hills and valleys, watered
by the rains of the heaven; a land which the Eternal
your God cares for; the eyes of the Eternal are
always upon it, from the beginning of the year
to the end of the year.
And it shall come to pass, if you hearken diligently
to my commandments which I command you this day,
to love the Eternal your God, and to serve God
with all your heart and with all your soul, that
I will give you the rain of your land in its due
season, the early rain and the late rain, that
you may gather in your grain, and your wine, and
your oil. I will provide grass in your field for
your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied.
Beware, lest your heart be seduced and you turn
astray and serve other gods and worship them.
Then the wrath of the Eternal will blaze against
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God will restrain
the heavens so there will be no rain and the earth
will not yield its produce. And you will perish
quickly from the good land which the Eternal gives
you. -- (Deuteronomy 11:13-21)
The word of the eternal, which came to Jeremiah
concerning the droughts: Judah is in mourning,
her settlements languish, men sink to the ground,
and Jerusalem's cry rises. The masters sent the
boys for water; they came to the water holes but
found no water there. They returned with empty
vessels; they were shamed and humiliated, they
bowed their heads. The soil is cracked because
there is no rain.... Even the doe in the field
forsook her newborn fawn because there was no
grass. -- Jeremiah 14:1-6 (650 BC-586 BC)
All of Jerusalem's public water resources, including
the Gihon Spring, were insufficient for the total
needs of the city's constantly growing population.
For this reason, throughout Jerusalem's history,
each house had its own cistern to catch rain runoff.... The home cisterns caught every possible drop of
water that fell on the rooftops and in the courtyards
during the rainy season. -- Nogah Hareuveni, Desert
and Shepherd in Our Biblical Heritage, commenting
on the city of Jerusalem more than 2,000 years
ago
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