Daf Ditty: Eruvin 55: ‫ יוְֹשֵׁבי ְצ ִריִפין‬Nomads

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Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity Daniel Boyarin; Jonathan Boyarin Critical Inquiry, Vol. 19, No. 4.
(Summer, 1993), pp. 693-725.

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After the lengthy aggadic digression, the Gemara returns to the topic of the mishna, extending the
outskirts of a city. The Sages taught in the Tosefta: How does one extend the boundaries of
cities? If the city is long, in the shape of a rectangle, the Shabbat limit is measured from the
boundary as it is. If the city is round, one creates simulated corners for it, rendering it square,
and the Shabbat limit is measured from there. If it is square, one does not create additional
corners for it. If the city was wide on one side and narrow on the other side, one regards it as
though the two sides were of equal length, adding to the narrow side to form a square.

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The Tosefta stated: If the city was shaped like a bow or like the Greek letter gamma, one regards
it as if the interior space were full of houses and courtyards, and one measures two thousand
cubits beginning from there. Rav Huna said: With regard to a city that is shaped like a bow,
the following distinction applies: If there are less than four thousand cubits between the two
ends of the bow, so that the Shabbat limits measured from the two ends of the city overlap, the
interior space of the bow is regarded as if it were filled with houses, and one measures the Shabbat
limit of the city from the imaginary bowstring stretched between the two ends of the bow. But if
that is not the case, and the distance between the two ends of the bow is four thousand cubits or
more, one measures the Shabbat limit from the bow itself.

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The Gemara asks: Did Rav Huna actually say that the distance between two sections of a single
city that renders them separate entities is four thousand cubits? Didn’t Rav Huna say: With regard
to the wall of a city that was breached, even if there is a gap between two sections of the city,
the city is still considered a single entity if the breach is no more than 141⅓ cubits? However, if
the breach is wider, the two sections are considered separate entities. Apparently, a distance of
141⅓ cubits suffices to separate between two sections of a city and to render them separate entities.

Our daf began by presenting a ‫ ברייתא‬that expands on our Mishna on daf 52, and discusses how
to draw the boundaries of cities with six different shapes for the purpose of measuring the ‫שבת‬
‫תחום‬: ‫– שהיא כמות ארוכה‬

A rectangular city keeps its actual boundaries and we do not square it off. ‫– זוויות לה עושין עגולה‬
A circular city IS squared off, and we measure the ‫ תחום‬from the square. ‫– זוויות לה עושין אין מרובעת‬
A square city keeps its normal boundaries, even if its sides are not aligned with east, west, north,
and south. end one on wider is it.

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If – ‫היתה רחבה מצד אחד וקצרה מצד אחר‬and narrower on the other, we draw the boundaries like two
parallel lines to make it a rectangle. ‫– פגום כמין יוצא אחד בית היה‬
If one or two houses stick out beyond the rest of the houses, we draw a straight line past the
protruding house that runs perpendicular to the boundaries on either side.
This is true even if there are two houses that stick out on different sides of the city, and we need
to extend the boundaries on two sides. or shaped bow is city the If – ‫היתה עשויה כמין קשת או כמין גם‬
L-shaped we view the inside area as if it were filled in.

A bow-shaped city - if the two ends of the bow are less than four thousand ‫ אמות‬apart, we view
the entire center space as if it is filled in when measuring the ‫ תחום‬,but if the two ends are more
than 4000 ‫ אמות‬apart, each person would have to measure from his house on the inside of the
bow itself.

Rav Huna

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‫ הונא רב‬had taught elsewhere – ‫ לזו וקרפף לזו קרפף נותנין‬- If a city has a large empty space dividing
it into two, the two halves of the city would share a single ‫ תחום‬only if separated by less than 141
1/3 ‫ אמות‬,the size of two ‫ קרפופים‬- not 4000 ‫?אמות‬

There is a ‫ אמוראים מחלוקת‬whether we view a bow-shaped city as if the center is filled in even
when the middle of the bow and the place where the bowstring would be are more than 2000
‫ אמות‬from each other.

‫ אביי‬paskens like ‫ הונא רב בר דרבה בריה רבא‬that we view it as if it were closed up even if the gap is
more than 2000 ‫ אמות‬,since a person could walk to the bowstring through the bow.

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The Tosefta stated: If the city was shaped like a bow or like the Greek letter gamma, one regards
it as if the interior space were full of houses and courtyards, and one measures two thousand
cubits beginning from there. Rav Huna said: With regard to a city that is shaped like a bow,
the following distinction applies: If there are less than four thousand cubits between the two
ends of the bow, so that the Shabbat limits measured from the two ends of the city overlap, the
interior space of the bow is regarded as if it were filled with houses, and one measures the Shabbat
limit of the city from the imaginary bowstring stretched between the two ends of the bow. But if
that is not the case, and the distance between the two ends of the bow is four thousand cubits or
more, one measures the Shabbat limit from the bow itself.

Jastrow

Steinzaltz (OBM) writes:2

On this daf the Gemara examines how lines are to be drawn around different types of cities in
order to establish their boundaries. A Tosefta is quoted that presents several cases.

1. A round city gets a square drawn around the circle

2. A city that is wider on one side than the other will be "boxed off" - the two sides are
considered of equal length, adding to the narrow side to form a square
3. If there are dwelling places at the edge of the city, the lines will be drawn so that those
houses are included
4. If the city is shaped like a bow or like the Greek letter Gamma, we view the empty space
as though it were filled with houses.

2
https://www.steinsaltz-center.org/home/doc.aspx?mCatID=68446

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Regarding the last case, Rav Huna comments that the ruling will be different if the empty area
between the two ends of the city is larger than 4,000 amot. If there are less than four thousand
cubits between the two ends of the bow, so that the Shabbat limits measured from the two ends of
the city overlap, the interior space of the bow is regarded as if it were filled with houses, and one
measures the Shabbat limit of the city from the imaginary bowstring stretched between the two
ends of the bow. But if that is not the case, and the distance between the two ends of the bow is
four thousand cubits or more, one measures the Shabbat limit from the bow itself.

The question raised by the rishonim about Rav Huna's ruling is that we learned in the Mishna that
dwelling places extending beyond the normal city lines will cause the tehum (=boundary) to be
extended, so that they should be included.

Shouldn't that rule apply to the case of the bow-shaped city, as well?

The Ra'avad accepts this argument and rules that even in the case of the Mishna we will not extend
the boundaries of the city if the dwelling places beyond the city are not within 4,000 amot of one-
another.

The Rashba explains that the extra dwelling places will naturally be spread out throughout the city
and its environs, while the city shaped like a bow, will, by definition, continue to develop in that
shape and direction.

Rav Mordechai Kornfeld writes:3

MEASURING THE "TECHUM" OF A BOW-SHAPED CITY

The Gemara says that in order to determine the Techum of a city when a protuberance (such as a
house) extends beyond the straight line which forms the boundary of the city, we "square" the city,
making each side of the Techum of the city tangent to the farthest protrusion on that side of the
city. We measure the Techum from these extended boundaries and not from the actual boundaries
of the city.

Why, then, does the Gemara discuss how to measure the Techum of a city in the shape of a bow?
Why do the normal guidelines of how to measure a Techum not apply to a bow-shaped city? We
should simply "square" the city, making it a rectangle and not bow-shaped! (RASHBA)

RA'AVAD and RABEINU TAM (cited by the Rashba) answer that it is apparent from this Sugya
that there is a limit to the situations in which we may square a city to establish its Techum. We
may not square a city when the distance from the far end of the Pagum (protruding house) to the
city proper is greater than 4000 Amos.

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Therefore, when a city is shaped like a bow with more than 4000 Amos between its ends, we
cannot apply the rule of squaring the city.

RASHBA suggests that even when a Pagum protrudes more than 2000 Amos from a city, we do
not square the city -- even though it is within a 4000-Amah line from the city. (The Rashba
eventually disproves this suggestion and retracts it.)

Rashba suggests further that when a city is shaped like a bow, it is unlikely that the area between
the ends of the bow will be built up and settled. When the residents of the city build more houses,
they build them at the ends of the bow.

Since the area between the ends of the bow will not become part of the city, we do not square the
city and include that area in the city. We square the city only in the case of a Pagum, since it is
possible that the city will be extended to fill in the entire area adjacent to the Pagum.

MEASURING THE "TECHUM" FROM THE "KESHES"

Rav Huna says that when the two ends of a city shaped like a bow are less than 4000 Amos away
from each other, the city's 2000-Amah Techum is measured from the imaginary line between the
two ends (the "bowstring"). When, however, the two ends of the bow-shaped city are 4000 Amos
or more away from each other, then the 2000-Amah Techum is measured from the inhabited part
of the city (the "bow").

From exactly which point in the bow is the Techum of a house measured when the two ends of the
city are 4000 Amos or more from each other?

RASHI (DH Pachos; 61a, DH Ir ha'Asuyah) writes that "each person measures the Techum from
the entrance of his house." Rashi implies that one may walk only 2000 Amos from his house, even
though he is still within 2000 Amos of the border of the city. Rashi understands that we ignore the
city limits entirely when the city is shaped like a broad bow and we view the house as though it is
in an uninhabited desert. (This is the understanding of the RASHBA and MAGID
MISHNEH (Hilchos Shabbos 28:8) in Rashi's words.)

RITVA and RASHBA disagree with the above approach.

They point out that in every city, the entire area of the city is considered like one's four Amos with
regard to the Shabbos Techum, and the 2000-Amah Techum is measured from the borders of the
city. Similarly, for the people living in the bow-shaped city, when the Techum cannot be measured
from the "bowstring" it is measured from the borders of the "bow" part of the city (i.e., from the
place along the edge of the "bow" that is nearest to the person's house).

The RITVA asserts that this is also the intention of Rashi -- we measure each person's Techum
from the edge of the bow. For those living further inside the bow, we measure 2000 Amos from
the point along the bow that is closest to them. (According to this understanding, Rashi mentions
"each person's house" only to negate the following two opinions.)

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TOSFOS and other Rishonim that the people within the bow may walk 2000 Amos in the direction
of the bowstring, starting from the place where the two separate sides of the bow have not yet
begun to spread apart from each other, so far that an imaginary bowstring of 4000 Amos can be
drawn between the two ends of the bow.

TUR (OC 398) adds that those within the bow may also walk 2000 Amos in the direction of the
bowstring starting from an imaginary bowstring 2000 Amos away from the innermost point of the
bow.

Rashba quotes the RA'AVAD who points out that one who walks in the direction opposite that of
the bowstring may walk not only 2000 Amos from the border of the city, but also 2000 Amos from
an imaginary square that is drawn around the bow's-bend of the city. (That is, this bow-shaped city
is measured the same way the Techum of any city, whose borders are not straight lines, is
measured. A square is drawn around the city, from which the Techum is then measured.)

HALACHAH: The SHULCHAN ARUCH (OC 398:4) writes only that the Techum is measured
from the "bow" part of the city ((b) above). The REMA adds that it is measured from where the
bow widens to more than 4000 Amos ((c) above).

Tent Cities

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The ‫ דף‬concludes by discussing the ‫ הלכות‬of ‫ תחום‬of different types of living spaces. – ‫אמר רב‬
‫הונא יושבי צריפין אין מודדין להן אלא מפתח בתיהן‬People who live in huts should measure their ‫תחום‬
from the doors of their homes, and not from the edge of town, since a group of huts is not
considered a city.

Even though the entire encampment of tents in the ‫ מדבר‬,was considered like a city - that is only
because – ‫על פי ה' יחנו ועל פי ה' יסעו כמאן דקביע להו דמי‬Since ‫ ישראל כלל‬camped by the command of
Hashem it was considered a more permanent residence, even though they were really in tents.

If a community of huts has three ‫ חצירות‬which each have two houses, even ‫ הונא רב‬would agree
that it becomes a city.

The discussion with regard to measuring Shabbat limits has been referring to a properly built
city. Rav Huna said: Those who dwell in huts, i.e., in thatched hovels of straw and willow
branches, are not considered inhabitants of a city. Therefore, one measures the Shabbat limit for
them only from the entrance to their homes; the huts are not combined together and
considered a city.

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Rav Hisda raised an objection: The Torah states with regard to the Jewish people in the desert:

‫ ַﬠד‬,‫ַהַיּ ְרֵדּן ִמֵבּית ַה ְיִשֹׁמת‬-‫מט ַוַיֲּחנוּ ַﬠל‬ 49 And they pitched by the Jordan, from Beth-jeshimoth
{‫ }ס‬.‫ מוָֹאב‬,‫ ְבַּﬠ ְרֹבת‬,‫ָאֵבל ַהִשִּׁטּים‬ even unto Abel-shittim in the plains of Moab. {S}
Num 33:49

“And they pitched by the Jordan, from Beit-Jeshimoth to Avel-Shittim in the plains of
Moab” and Rabba bar bar Ḥana said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: I myself saw that place,
and it is three parasangs [parsa], the equivalent of twelve mil, by three parasangs.

Rava said to him: The banners of the desert, you say? Are you citing a proof from the practice
of the Jewish people as they traveled through the desert according to their tribal banners? Since it
is written with regard to them:

‫ ָיִמים‬,‫כ ְוֵישׁ ֲאֶשׁר ִיְהֶיה ֶהָﬠָנן‬ 20 And sometimes the cloud was a few days upon the tabernacle;
‫ִפּי‬-‫ַﬠל‬ ;‫ַהִמְּשָׁכּן‬-‫ַﬠל‬--‫ִמְסָפּר‬ according to the commandment of the LORD they remained
.‫ִפּי ְיהָוה ִיָסּעוּ‬-‫ ְוַﬠל‬,‫ְיהָוה ַיֲחנוּ‬ encamped, and according to the commandment of the LORD they
journeyed.
Num 9:20

“According to the commandment of the Lord they remained encamped, and according to
the commandment of the Lord they journeyed”, it was considered as though it were a
permanent residence for them. A camp that is established in accordance with the word of God is
regarded as a permanent settlement.

RASHI

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…since the encampments were determined directly by God, they were considered significant
enough to be treated as permanent dwellings…

R.Yosef Engel (Asvan D'Orysa §10) cites a theory advanced by many Acharonim, that all
prohibitions that are time-limited, such as the prohibition to perform melachah on Shabbos or Yom
Tov, only pertain to the gavra — the person who performs the melachah, and not to the cheftza
— the melachah performed.4

Thus, for example, it is only if a Jew cooks that the Shabbos prohibition is violated, and the food
forbidden. However, if the food was cooked without the involvement of a Jew, the food would not
be forbidden (at least not d'oraisa).

Accordingly, writes R' Yosef Engel, one can answer the question posed by the Tosafos Yom Tov
(Shabbos 7:2), why the melachos are described in the Mishnah as "one who plants," and "one who
harvests" (‫הזורע‬, ‫( הקוצר‬etc. — why does it not just say "planting" and "harvesting" (‫ זריעה‬,‫)קצירה‬
etc.?

If we accept, however, that it is not the cheftza of the melachah that is prohibited, but rather the
gavra that is prohibited to do the melachah, we readily understand why the Mishnah is written in
this manner.
R' Yosef Engel cites evidence both for the possibility that Shabbos is a gavra prohibition and for
the possibility that Shabbos is a cheftza prohibition. However, the entire issue is predicated on the
assumption that Shabbos is a time-limited prohibition. This is not necessarily so.

The Shem MeShmuel (Chayei Sarah 5679) posits that the essential quality of Shabbos is Shevisah
— cessation, which in this context means cessation of all mundane concern so as to focus on the
will of Hashem.

Moreover, as Rashi (Shemos 31:15) writes, Shabbos affords us a permanent, or lasting sense of
tranquility ,(not a temporary respite

Asks the Shem MeShmuel, isn't a Sukkah — which is in use for seven days — called a "temporary
dwelling" ?

How then can Shabbos, which is only one day, be defined as permanent?

In answer, the Shem MeShmuel cites his father, the Avnei Nezer, who said that at the onset of
every Shabbos all melachah becomes forbidden forever. It is only that through Motzoei Shabbos
and Havdalah that melachah is again permitted.

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Daf Digest

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The Shem MeShmuel likens this to our Daf, in which Rava states that the construction in the
Midbar was considered permanent because each encampment was permanent — it was only as a
result of a new command from Hashem that they would leave one encampment and travel to
another.

Thus, it is quite possible to define Shabbos not as a time-limited prohibition, but as a permanent
prohibition that is (unfortunately) disrupted by Motzoei Shabbos.

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The Land of Moab5

Prof Yoel Elitzur writes:6

The final verse in the previous parasha Chukat, is the opening verse for the Balak narrative,
according to the accepted division of chapters:

‫ ֵמֵﬠֶבר ְלַי ְרֵדּן‬,‫ ְבֵּני ִיְשָׂרֵאל; ַוַיֲּחנוּ ְבַּﬠ ְרבוֹת מוָֹאב‬,‫א ַו ִיְּסעוּ‬ 1 And the children of Israel journeyed, and
{‫ }ס‬.‫ְיֵרחוֹ‬ pitched in the plains of Moab beyond the
Jordan at Jericho.

“The Israelites then marched on and encamped in the plains of Moab, across the Jordan from
Jericho” (Numbers 22:1). From this point on, through the end of the Torah until Joshua 3, the
people of Israel remain in the same location – the plains of Moab across the Jordan from
Jericho. Our parasha emphasizes that this place is adjacent to the land of Moab: “And Moab said
to the elders of Midian, ‘Now this horde will lick clean all that is about us as an ox licks up the
grass of the field’” (22:4); “There is a people that came out of Egypt; it hides the earth from view,
and it is settled next to me” (22:5).

King Balak of Moab and his dignitaries set out to meet Balaam in:

‫ ִכּי ָבא ִבְלָﬠם; ַוֵיֵּצא‬,‫לו ַו ִיְּשַׁמע ָבָּלק‬ 36 And when Balak heard that Balaam was come, he went
‫ְגּבוּל‬-‫ ֲאֶשׁר ַﬠל‬,‫ִﬠיר מוָֹאב‬-‫ִלְקָראתוֹ ֶאל‬ out to meet him unto Ir-moab, which is on the border of
.‫ ִבְּקֵצה ַהְגּבוּל‬,‫ ֲאֶשׁר‬,‫ַא ְר ֹנן‬ Arnon, which is in the utmost part of the border.
Num 22:36

“Ir-moab, which is in the vicinity of the Arnon, at the edge of the border” and then the entire
party accompanies Balaam to Kiriath-huzoth, where they eat and spend the night. The next
morning, they ascend to Bamoth-baal, where they:

5
Yehudah Elitzur, “Yiftach Be-doro Ki-Shmuel Be-doro,” Israel and the Bible, Ramat-Gan 2000, 85-88 [Hebrew]. Yehudah Elitzur,
“Massa Mo’av U-ketovat Meisha,” Israel and the Bible, Ramat-Gan 2000, 175-182 [Hebrew].

6
https://www.etzion.org.il/en/parashat-balak-land-moab

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 -‫ַו ִיַּקּח ָבָּלק ֶאת‬--‫מא ַו ְיִהי ַבֹבֶּקר‬ 41 And it came to pass in the morning that Balak took Balaam,
‫ ַוַיֲּﬠֵלהוּ ָבּמוֹת ָבַּﬠל; ַוַיּ ְרא‬,‫ִבְּלָﬠם‬ and brought him up into Bamoth-baal, and he saw from thence
.‫ ְקֵצה ָהָﬠם‬,‫ִמָשּׁם‬ the utmost part of the people.
Num 22:41

“could see a portion of the people”. Balaam advances from there on his own until he sees the
entire encampment of Israel, at which point he returns to Balak, bearing a blessing instead of a
curse for the people of Israel. The second attempt to curse Israel occurs at Sedeh-zophim, on the
summit of Pisgah, where only a small portion of the nation’s encampment was visible:

-‫ָנּא ִאִתּי ֶאל‬-¥‫ ְל‬,‫יג ַויּ ֹאֶמר ֵאָליו ָבָּלק‬ 13 And Balak said unto him: 'Come, I pray thee, with me unto
‫ֶאֶפס‬--‫ָמקוֹם ַאֵחר ֲאֶשׁר ִתּ ְרֶאנּוּ ִמָשּׁם‬ another place, from whence thou mayest see them; thou shalt
-‫ ְוֻכלּוֹ ל ֹא ִת ְרֶאה; ְוָקְבנוֹ‬,‫ָקֵצהוּ ִת ְרֶאה‬ see but the utmost part of them, and shalt not see them all;
.‫ ִמָשּׁם‬,‫ִלי‬ and curse me them from thence.'

‫ר ֹאשׁ‬-‫ ֶאל‬,‫יד ַו ִיָּקֵּחהוּ ְשֵׂדה ֹצִפים‬ 14 And he took him into the field of Zophim, to the top of
‫ ַוַיַּﬠל ָפּר‬,‫ַהִפְּסָגּה; ַו ִיֶּבן ִשְׁבָﬠה ִמְזְבֹּחת‬ Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered up a bullock and a
.‫ָוַא ִיל ַבִּמְּזֵבַּח‬ ram on every altar.
Num 23:14-14

This attempt was unsuccessful as well, leading Balak to bring Balaam to:

,‫ ר ֹאשׁ ַהְפּעוֹר‬,‫ִבְּלָﬠם‬-‫ ֶאת‬,‫כח ַו ִיַּקּח ָבָּלק‬ 28 And Balak took Balaam unto the top of Peor, that
.‫ְפֵּני ַה ְיִשׁיֹמן‬-‫ַה ִנְּשָׁקף ַﬠל‬ looketh down upon the desert.
Num 23:28

the peak of Peor, which overlooks the wasteland.

As Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the spirit of God came upon him.
Taking up his theme, he said:

,¥‫ ַיֲﬠֹקב; ִמְשְׁכּ ֹנֶתי‬,¥‫ֹטּבוּ ֹאָהֶלי‬-‫ה ַמה‬ 5 How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, thy dwellings, O
.‫ִיְשָׂרֵאל‬ Israel!
Num 24:5

Word of Balaam… How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel!

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Balak’s furious response to this blessing inspires Balaam to take up his theme once more in the
same place, going on to guarantee to Moab that “in days to come” they are destined to succumb
to Israel, along with “all children of Seth” and the nation of Edom:

‫ ֲאשׁוֶּרנּוּ ְול ֹא‬,‫יז ֶא ְרֶאנּוּ ְול ֹא ַﬠָתּה‬ 17 I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh; there
‫ ְוָקם ֵשֶׁבט‬,‫ָקרוֹב; ָדַּר« כּוָֹכב ִמַיֲּﬠֹקב‬ shall step forth a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out
‫ ְוַק ְרַקר‬,‫ וָּמַחץ ַפֲּאֵתי מוָֹאב‬,‫ִמ ִיְּשָׂרֵאל‬ of Israel, and shall smite through the corners of Moab, and
.‫ֵשׁת‬-‫ְבֵּני‬-‫ָכּל‬ break down all the sons of Seth.

‫ ְוָהָיה ְיֵרָשׁה‬,‫יח ְוָהָיה ֱאדוֹם ְיֵרָשׁה‬ 18 And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also, even his
.‫ ֹעֶשׂה ָח ִיל‬,‫ֹא ְיָביו; ְו ִיְשָׂרֵאל‬--‫ֵשִׂﬠיר‬ enemies, shall be a possession; while Israel doeth valiantly.
Num 24:17-18

From this vantage point, Balaam was also able to look out at Amalek and at the Kenites, who were
encamped next to Israel, and to speak briefly about them as well. Before Balaam returns home, he
ends with a mysterious prophecy concerning events far in the future:

,‫ָמה‬-‫ַﬠד‬--‫ ְלָבֵﬠר ָק ִין‬,‫ ִיְהֶיה‬-‫כב ִכּי ִאם‬ 22 Nevertheless Kain shall be wasted; How long? Asshur shall
.‫ַאשּׁוּר ִתְּשֶׁבָּךּ‬ carry thee away captive.

‫ ִמי‬,‫ אוֹי‬:‫ ַויּ ֹאַמר‬,‫כג ַו ִיָּשּׂא ְמָשׁלוֹ‬ 23 And he took up his parable, and said: Alas, who shall live
.‫ִיְחֶיה ִמֻשּׂמוֹ ֵאל‬ after God hath appointed him?
Num 24:23-24

“Alas, who can survive except God has willed it!”. In total, Balaam delivers seven prophecies.

As usual, in this discussion too, we will focus less on the story itself and on Balaam’s lofty
speeches and more on the geography that is involved.

Most of the places we mentioned above are difficult to identify precisely, but the general
framework of the region is clear.

17
The plains of Moab are a vast, flat area of land in the southeast Jordan River Valley, northeast of
the Dead Sea “across the Jordan from Jericho.”

This region is also known in the Torah as:

{‫ }פ‬.‫ מוּל ֵבּית ְפּעוֹר‬,‫כט ַוֵנֶּשׁב ַבָּגּ ְיא‬ 29 So we abode in the valley over against Beth-peor.
Deut 3:29

“the valley near Beth-peor” (Deuteronomy 3:29 and others), and at the end of the list of the
marches of the people of Israel it is described in detail:

‫ ַﬠד‬,‫ַהַיּ ְרֵדּן ִמֵבּית ַה ְיִשֹׁמת‬-‫מט ַוַיֲּחנוּ ַﬠל‬ 49 And they pitched by the Jordan, from Beth-jeshimoth
{‫ }ס‬.‫ מוָֹאב‬,‫ ְבַּﬠ ְרֹבת‬,‫ָאֵבל ַהִשִּׁטּים‬ even unto Abel-shittim in the plains of Moab. {S}
Num 33:49

“they encamped by the Jordan from Beth-jeshimoth as far as Abel-shittim, in the plains of
Moab” (Numbers 33:49).

Nelson Glueck identified the location as Khirbat Sweimeh.7

7
SOME BIBLICAL SITES IN THE JORDAN VALLEY NELSON GLUECK Hebrew Union College Annual Vol. 23, No. 1, 105-129

18
Beth-jeshimoth is the southern border of this region, generally identified with Suweimeh in the
northeast Dead Sea region, and Abel-shittim is the northern border of the region.

Chazal estimated that the area of this region is twelve mil by twelve mil (Our Daf
Eruvin 55b, Yerushalmi Shevi’it 6:1 and parallels).

This estimate fits quite well with the actual geography of the region (despite its source in
the Bavli – Rabba bar bar Hana, who was known for his exaggerations; in the Yerushalmi, the
estimate is unattributed, indicating that it was a fact that was known to all).

In fact, this estimate is the source of the statement that appears throughout rabbinic literature that
the size of the Israelite camp was twelve mil by twelve mil (Sifrei Devarim 343 and parallels), a
figure that has halakhic ramifications.

All the points where Balak and Balaam stood and looked out upon Israel are located atop hills
that overlook this large plain, and thus cannot have been very far from the plain itself.

The one point that was located at a significant distance from the plain was the first point mentioned
in the narrative – “Ir-moab, which is in the vicinity of the Arnon, at the edge of the border.”
The Arnon River is one of the central streams in the Transjordan, flowing east-west and
discharging into the Dead Sea about twenty-two miles south of Beth-jeshimoth and the plains of
Moab. The Torah refers to this point as “the edge of the border,” and we will soon clarify the
meaning of this name. See map below.

19
20
21
“Ammon and Moab Became Purified Through Sihon”

The primary question here is if the people of Israel were permitted to enter the land of Moab. In Parashat
Chukat (chapter 21), we learned that the people of Israel requested permission from the king of Edom to pass
through his territory.8

Nelson Glueck concludes:

8
When he refused, they circumnavigated his land. In the case of Moab as well, they did not pass through the land, but only through
“the wilderness bordering on Moab to the east” (21:11). In the book of Judges, Jephthah recounts the story from Numbers 21,
adding the clarification: “They also sent a mission to the king of Moab, and he refused… they kept to the east of the land of Moab…
and they never entered Moabite territory” (11:17-18). In his overview of the nation’s journey in Deuteronomy 2, Moses relates that
God was the one who prohibited the people of Israel from entering Mount Seir, the land of Moab and the land of the Ammonites.
The reason for this prohibition was that the land of Seir was given as an inheritance to the descendants of Esau and that the lands
of Moab and the Ammonites were given as an inheritance to the descendants of Lot.

22
Walking from Bnei Brak to Tel Aviv on Shabbos

Rav Avrohom Adler writes:9

As we know, each city has a t’chum Shabbos, a boundary of two thousand amos from the city’s
outer limit, past which it is forbidden to walk.

If cities were shaped like squares or rectangles with straight lines for borders, the t’chum would be
easy to determine. However, must cities have irregular boundaries, which stretch out far away
from the city center at some points, and draw close at others (52b).

The t’chum is then calculated based on the principle of ribu’ah ha’ir, “squaring the city.” The
farthest points of the city in each direction are located, and a square or rectangle is drawn around
the city, with these points on the perimeter.

The t’chum is then drawn from this square, and not from the city’s actual border. This procedure
is a general rule, to which there are many exceptions.

One such exception is discussed in our daf, in the case of a city shaped like a bow.

Furthermore, it is often questionable how to align the square around the city.10

9
http://dafnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Eiruvin_55.pdf
10
see Kiryat Ariel chs. 5 and 7, where the principles used to determine these boundaries are discussed in depth

23
In addition to the complicated halachos involved in measuring a t’chum Shabbos, it is often
difficult to determine the actual border of the city. The city limits as they appear on maps are not
always applicable to our halachic concept of a city.

For example, industrial zones are often located on the outskirts of a city and included in its
limits. However, in regard to t’chum Shabbos a city is measured only by its residential areas
(ibid p. 117).

Greater Tel Aviv:

The principles of ribu’ah ha’ir are of particular interest in regard to the area of Greater Tel Aviv,
which includes the neighboring city of Bnei Brak. The Gemara states that each city is surrounded
by a karfaf of roughly seventy amos. If the karfafs surrounding two cities overlap, they are judged
as one city in regard to t’chum Shabbos.

24
Thus, in practice, if there are less than one hundred and forty amos between two cities, it is
permitted to walk from one city to the other and another two thousand amos past it.

The question then arises whether the seventy amos which may overlap are measured from
the actual border of the city, or from the ribu’ah ha’ir discussed above.

In essence, this question depends upon a precise definition of ribu’ah ha’ir. Did our Sages define
the halachic boundary of the city as the square drawn around its outermost points?

If so, the seventy amah karfaf should also be measured from this square.

Or perhaps the boundary of the city is defined according to the actual location of the houses, and
ribu’ah ha’ir is simply a leniency which our Sages applied to measuring the t’chum Shabbos, but
does not necessary apply to overlapping karfafs.

R’ A. Bockwold (Kiryat Ariel ch. 6) discusses this question at length, and concludes that according
to most Rishonim ribu’ah ha’ir does not apply to the karfaf around a city.

Therefore, the seventy amos that may overlap to combine two cities must be measured from the
actual border of the city, and not from the square discussed above.

At the request of the current Kozhnitzer Rebbe, this question was addressed to R’ Elyashiv. The
Kozhnitzer Beis Midrash is located in northern Tel Aviv.

Since the Ayalon Highway divides Tel Aviv in two, it is questionable whether one may walk from
Bnei Brak to northern Tel Aviv on Shabbos. If we would apply the principles of ribu’ah ha’ir, the
karfafs of the two sides of Tel Aviv would overlap, and one would be permitted to walk from one

25
side to the other. However, R’ Elyashiv ruled that ribu’ah ha’ir should not be applied in
determining the overlapping karfafs. If a person wishes to walk from Bnei Brak to the Kozhnitzer
Beis Midrash in Tel Aviv, he should best set an eiruv t’chumin (Kobetz Beis Aharon V’Yisrael
101, 118).

Jastrow:

On the topic of people who dwell in huts, Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: Those who dwell in
huts, such as shepherds who pass from one place to another and stay in a single location for only
a brief period, and desert travelers, their lives are not lives, i.e., they lead extremely difficult
lives, and their wives and children are not always their own.

Tur Orach Chayim 398

26
Torah T’emimah to Num 9:23

…because they had no fixed abode, (nomadic) therefore we measure 2000 ama only from the
edge of their dwellings…

Nomadism

NOMADISM, a socioeconomic mode of life based on intensive domestication of livestock

which requires a regular movement of the community in an annual cycle in order to sustain the
communal ecological system.

27
The defining feature of pastoral nomadism is movement, which is neither aimless nor boundless,
from pasture to pasture and from watering point to watering point, along well-defined routes, at
fixed periods, in rhythm with the rainy and dry seasons, and in greater or lesser comity with
adjoining nomadic and settled groups. Little or no agriculture is practiced. Nomads necessarily
rely upon trade with or raids upon agriculturalists for food and other necessities or occasional
luxuries not supplied by their herds. Pastoral nomads often supply settled peoples with transport
services by providing animals and serving as caravanners. 11

Occasionally, control of routes and specialization in trade lead to settlement of nomad elites in
commercial centers such as Palmyra in Syria and Petra in Edom. Ethnographers are generally
agreed that pastoral nomadism arose later than the emergence of Neolithic agriculture in the
Middle East. At first it involved herders of sheep and goats who adapted themselves to the spartan
conditions of life on the steppe but who were unable to venture more than one- or two-days’
journey from water.

Full nomadism emerged only in about 1500–1000 B.C.E. with the domestication of camels which
can go as long as 17 days without water. Introduction of the horse at a somewhat later date allowed
for still more flexibility of movement and agility in warfare. Full nomadism never replaced semi
nomadism altogether and agriculturalists learned how to specialize on the side in pastoralism
through a form of nomadism known as transhumance. Actual nomadic groups are extremely varied
according to environmental conditions, types of animals bred, communal forms for establishing
kinship, wealth, and status, historical fortunes of the group, and relations to surrounding nomadic
and settled peoples.

In Ancient Israel
Ancient Israel was in contact with peoples who practiced pastoral nomadism. Some segments of
Israel proper were pastoral nomads for varying periods of time in the arid and semiarid zones of
Sinai and the Negev, Transjordan, and the rain shadow regions of Canaan, i.e., mostly on the
eastern slopes of the central highlands. Excluded from consideration is animal husbandry, which
is frequent in agricultural communities in which a few animals raised by farmers are allowed to
forage in the human settlement and to graze on farmland stubble and fallow land.

The animals referred to in the early Israelite Book of the Covenant (e.g., Ex. 21:28–37; 22:3–4, 9–
12; 23:4–5, 12) reveal that the laws applied to resident farmers for whom animal husbandry was a
secondary activity and among whom vast pasturage as a special ecological aspect shaping the
entire socioeconomic life was absent. Also, we omit all consideration of non-pastoral nomadism,
e.g., wild species moving on their own through an annual cycle and nomadic human communities
of hunters, fishers, and gatherers.

11
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nomadism

28
Full or classic pastoral nomadism entailed maximum independence through human symbiosis with
the camel and, to a lesser degree, with the horse. It allowed the nomad to keep a safe distance from
the settled lands but, when required to trade or raid, he could do so from a position of considerable
strength. The occasional camels mentioned in early Israel, if not an outright anachronism, were for
transport and were too few in number and insufficiently domesticated to have become the basis
for an entire economy.

The only full nomadism directly attested in the Bible is non-Israelite, e.g., a caravan of Ishmaelite-
Midianite merchants who bought Joseph from his brothers (Gen. 37:25–28); Midianites,
Amalekites, and people of the east who carried out camel razzias against Israel in the time of
Gideon (Judg. 6:1–5); and Amalekites who raided southern Judah on a smaller scale in the time of
Saul (I Sam. 30).

SEMINOMADISM

Semi nomadism or partial nomadism (also known as ass nomadism to distinguish the ass from the
camel as the chief form of transport) is a mode of pastoral nomadism loosely applied to peoples
who are often conceived as midway in the process of settling down after an earlier fully nomadic
life. This is misleading in some instances and erroneous in others. In its origins pastoral nomadism
was a specific adaptation of animal domestication to desert conditions after it was first developed
among agriculturalists.

There are of course instances of full nomads reverting to semi nomadism and finally to agricultural
settlement. But there are also cases of agriculturalists who are "depressed" into semi nomadism by
geopolitical circumstances. Sometimes this depression is permanent, while in other cases it is
temporary. There is some reason to believe that the Israelite groups in the wilderness between
Egypt and Canaan were thrown temporarily into a more fully nomadic life than they had known
either in Egypt or prior to their entrance into Egypt and, furthermore, that they were consciously
seeking a return to a more stable and perhaps even largely agricultural existence.

More precisely, semi nomadism indicates the relative dependence of herders of sheep, goats, and
asses on the settled peoples or on full nomads for the sharing of water rights and for permission to
graze. It also refers to their relative military weakness, lacking as they do a striking force of camels
or horses. The concomitant of this reality is the high probability that the seminoma will engage in
some form of limited agriculture. He is often sedentary for part of the year; fields and pasture are
often interspersed; and the herd sizes relative to the human population are much smaller than in
full nomadism.

29
Accordingly, the seminoma will often appear to be an incipient peasant who has not yet attained
his goal or a decadent farmer who has lapsed into a less secure life. In many cases, however, the
seminoma regards his way of life as more satisfying than the softer and more politically lettered
existence of the peasant. Traits of semi nomadism appear frequently in the patriarchal stories
concerning Abraham and Lot (Gen. 12:16; 13:2–12; 18:1–8; 20:14–15; 21:25–26), Isaac (Gen.
26:12–22), Jacob and Esau (Gen. 30:43; 31:17–18; 32:13–15; 33:18–20; 36:6–8), and Joseph
(Gen. 37:2, 7; 42:1–5; 43:11; 46:31–34; 47:6). The precise nature of this type (or these types) of
semi nomadism is difficult to assess in that the movements are not strictly described as regular but
are explained largely with reference to famine, intermarriage, religious pilgrimage, and conflicts
within and between groups.

The Israelites in Egypt are pictured as small stock breeders who also cultivate vegetable gardens
(Ex. 10:24–26; 12:1–13, 31–34, 37–39; Num. 11:4–6). Living close to the Egyptian frontier with
Sinai (Ex. 1:11; 9:26; 12:37), the holy place of their deity is located a three-day journey away in
the desert (Ex. 3:18; 5:3; 8:24). Their relatively self-contained economy was threatened by the
recent imperial policy which forced them to work on state building projects and in state-owned
fields. One tradition has it that, as they departed Egypt with their flocks, the Israelites despoiled
the Egyptians of jewelry and clothing in the manner of a nomadic razzia (Ex. 3:21–22; 12:35–36).
In the wilderness the Israelites present a confused picture of a seminomadic people thrust suddenly
into conditions where only well-provisioned travel parties or full nomads with camels might
normally survive. The Israelites adjusted to this crisis by retaining their flocks for dairy products,
wool, and hides. Occasional sacrifice of their animals provided some meat, but food staples were
supplied by improvising with quail and wild plant products ("manna").

Water was available from oasis to oasis. Even so they seem to have survived only because the
Midianites, into whom Moses is said to have married, supplied them with knowledge of the terrain
and with basic survival skills; at least some of these Midianites accompanied certain of the Israelite
groups into Canaan (Ex. 2:15b–22; 3:1; 18:1ff.; Num. 10:29–32; Judg. 1:16; 4:11). Although
unreported, it is reasonable to suppose that the Israelites cultivated small vegetable plots during
the time they spent at the oases in the vicinity of Kadesh. All available evidence points to the fact
that the component groups in the larger Israelite confederation in Canaan were predominantly
agricultural and engaged in supplementary animal husbandry (cf. the laws of the Covenant Code,
Ex. 20:24 (19)–23:9 and the descriptions of tribal life in Gen. 49 and Deut. 33). This type of
economy characterized a large majority of the population in the highlands of Galilee, Gilead,
Samaria, and Judah – the heartland of ancient Israel. However, a significant minority of Israelites,
who lived in the semiarid regions to the east and south, sustained a seminomadic economy.

A diminishing frequency of references to such seminomadic life in later biblical books suggests
that the percentage of seminomadic Israelites relative to the total population steadily declined.
Given the marginal rainfall of the land, however, and the abiding attraction of the steppe for certain
individuals and groups, semi nomadism never ceased in biblical times. In fact,
the *Rechabites were one group who made a sectarian virtue of their semi nomadism, identifying
it with the pure form of Yahwism and refusing adamantly to build houses or to engage in viticulture
or grain-growing (Jer. 35). According to one tradition these Rechabites were actual descendants
of the Midianite-Kenite group into which Moses married (I Chron. 2:55).

30
A more individualistic version of the tendency to equate holiness with seminomadic culture was
the "consecration" of a person as a nazirite, perhaps originally associated with the spontaneous
leadership of a war chieftain (Num. 6:1–21; Judg. 13:5, 7; 16:17). While such primitivist equations
of Yahwism with semi nomadism were not central to biblical traditions, it is nonetheless striking
that many of the features of the early religion of Israel, although developed by a predominantly
agricultural people, were powerfully indebted to nomadic influences, e.g., the belief that the
original home of YHWH was in the wilderness and the decided preference for a mobile shrine over
that of a fixed shrine.
CUSTOMS AND WAY OF LIFE
As a congeries of ethnically, geographically, economically, socially, and politically diverse people
formed Israel in Canaan, they adopted a framework for their socioeconomic life which drew on
the norms, institutions, and practices of pastoral nomadism, with suitable modifications to settled
conditions. Among these abiding influences were the practice of blood revenge (Gen. 9:5–6; Num.
35:19; Judg. 8:18–21; II Sam. 3:30; 14:4–7; 21:1–14); protection of the integrity of the patriarchal
family (Ex. 20:12, 14, 17; 21:15, 17; 22:15–16, 21; Lev. 18:6–18; Deut. 25:5–10); the institutions
of the ger – the protected resident alien (e.g., Ex. 22:20; Deut. 10:19); and the asylum (Ex. 21:13–
14; Num. 35; Deut. 19), related to the nomad law of hospitality and asylum. Instead of a primitivist
attempt to construct semi nomadism in Canaan, early Israel was a synthetic socioeconomic
formation of loosely federated seminomadic and peasant populations arranged in a socially
fictitious kinship network and cemented by a common cult of YKVK.

The complex transformation and adaptation of the seminomadic elements in the Israelite
confederation are reflected in the ambivalent biblical attitude toward the desert, which is
sometimes idealized as the setting for an originally pure Yahwism but which is more often pictured
as a place of rebellion and division, in itself a region of waste and horror, the quintessence of death
and danger.
Yet another form of pastoral nomadism is transhumance which occurs in communities with
developed agricultural specialization where herds are moved to select pastures for a part of the
year by herders who specialize in their tasks. A common form of transhumance is to take the herds
into mountain ranges for summer upland pasturage after the snows have melted. In Canaan
transhumance took at least two forms. Immediately following the winter rains, herds were taken
some distance into the steppes to feed on the temporary spring growth. As the summer wore on,
and pasturage withered, they were taken to the better watered seaward-facing plains and mountain
slopes. There are some biblical data which may be read as evidence for the practice of
transhumance nomadism among the Israelites. Joseph and his brothers care for the flocks near
Shechem and Dothan while Jacob remains at Hebron (Gen. 37:12–17). Nabal is a man of wealth
in Maon whose hired men or slaves care for his large flocks at Carmel (I Sam. 25).

31
Wealthy landowners in Transjordan provision the exiled David with agricultural and pastoral
products (II Sam. 17:27–29; 19:31–32). The Job of the prose framework (Job. 1:1ff.; 42:12–17) is
a wealthy farmer who also has thousands of domesticated animals cared for by his servants. The
region of Bashan in northern Transjordan was well known as a prime cattle-breeding area, to which
wealthy Israelites appear to have sent their flocks and herds (Ezek. 39:18; Amos 4:1; Ps. 22:13).
Israelite kings capitalized on this process by appointing stewards over royal herds and flocks which
were permanently located in the most attractive pastoral regions (II Sam. 13:23; I Chron. 27:28–
30; II Chron. 26:10; 32:27–29).

In order to achieve a more exact socioeconomic characterization of early Israel, scholars will
increasingly require expertise both in biblical studies and in ethnography and the social sciences.
It is evident that the assumption that Arab Bedouin nomadism supplies the nearest surviving
approximation to Israel's nomadism, while broadly apt, lacks all exactitude unless care is taken to
distinguish among the various sub-forms and historical constellations of Bedouin existence.
It is necessary to reject the vague notion that full nomadism in the Arabian Peninsula was the
temporally original base for Middle Eastern socioeconomic evolutionary development. Far from
full nomadism having been some simple state from which semi nomadism and agriculture grew,
almost precisely the opposite occurred in the Middle East over millennia of time as agriculture
originated animal domestication was introduced into the sparse conditions of the desert and was
elaborated through the eventual introduction of the camel and the horse. Identification of the
mutually illuminating affinities between Arab and Israelite nomadism must not obscure the
complex web of cultural and historical factors at work in the two different contexts from age to
age and from subregion to subregion.

Nomadism is found mostly in marginal areas which support only relatively sparse populations,
particularly in the arid and semi-arid regions of Africa and Asia. It is a traditional form of society
that allows the mobility and flexibility necessary for relatively even use of vegetation over large
areas of low-quality rangeland.

It also facilitates more social interaction than would be possible among people living in small
scattered settlements. Since nomads cope successfully with both social and ecological problems in
areas where other people don't want to live, their way of life deserves careful attention. Nomadism
involves ways of thinking about space and people which may be important for successful economic
development in marginal areas.

Nomadism, as a way of life, is rarely explicable simply as ecological adaptation. In modern

conditions, seasonal movement could in many cases be accomplished by commuting shepherds as
well as by migrating families. But the intimacy and commitment nomadism forges between the
family and the range in marginal conditions is probably unattainable by any other means and more
promising ecologically in the long run than any other feasible use strategy. Moreover, the nomads'
knowledge and understanding of the total territory is an important support for other sectors of the
economy and for the society's general conception of nature, the relationship between the total
society and its environment.

32
An increasing number of people are sleeping outside in tents, doorways, and under bridges. In
England, 4,751 people “slept rough” on a single night in autumn 2017, an increase of 15% from
2016. In the United States, 192,875 people were unsheltered on a given night in January, a 9%
increase from 2016.

Both the UK and the US, and many other countries around the world, are witnessing a visible rise
in tent encampments, legal and illegal. Tent cities have been reported in London, as well as
in Milton Keynes, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester, Oxford and Sheffield. Across the US, tent cities
are growing in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, St. Louis, Las Cruces, Indianapolis
and Honolulu.

In the US, the city of Seattle is as an important – but relatively overlooked – part of this trend.
Seattle recently declared a state of emergency on homelessness and is expanding legally
sanctioned tent cities, setting it apart nationally and globally. Seattle’s Tent City 3 is the oldest
sanctioned tent encampment in the US. The democratically organized encampment operates under
a strict code of conduct and moves between churches, neighborhoods and universities every 90
days in accordance with a city charter.

33
Between 2012 and 2018, Seattle Pacific University has hosted Tent City 3 three times. During
their stays we conducted interviews with over 60 residents. The data challenges what we think we
know about the causes of homelessness and the character of the people who experience it.

W.R. Jones writes:12

On various occasions civilized man has found himself marching side by side with men at lower
(or different) levels of social and cultural development. The great civilizations were accustomed
to compare themselves quite favorably with these barbarian neighbors, whom they viewed with
varying degrees of condescension, suspicion, scorn, and dread. Civilized man, with his urban
institutions, his agrarian way of life, his technological and economic sophistication, and his
conspicuous literary and plastic artistry, conceived of himself as superior to these other folks with
whom he sometimes competed for domination of the richer parts of the world.

Long before the ancient Greeks invented the word 'barbarian' to describe the Scythians and other
peoples who differed from them in not subscribing to the ideals of Greek culture, other civilized
men had expressed similar sentiments toward alien peoples with whom they came into contact.
This was the point that the old Akkadian author was trying to make when he spoke of neighboring
tribes as people 'who knew not grain' and who 'had never known a city'.13

Subsequently, both in Asia and Europe the spokesmen of a civilized style of life expressed their
dislike or distrust of the barbarian by means of a stereotyped image of him which was couched in
terms favorable to civilization. A Chinese chronicler, for example, remarked of the fierce Hsiung-
Nu, who troubled the peace of the Middle Kingdom, that 'their only concern is self-advantage, and
they know nothing of propriety and righteousness'.14

After the conversion of the Uighurs from nomadism to agriculture, from warfare to peace, and
from heathenism to Manicheanism, a memorialist of his people commented proudly on his tribe's
progress from barbarism to civilization: 'This land of barbarous customs, smoking with blood, was
transformed into a vegetarian state, and this land of slaughter became a land devoted to good
works'.

Comparable attitudes were displayed by a considerable number of Greek and Latin authors. The
barbarian, whose way of life was viewed as less excellent than that of classical Greece, was
frequently libelled by Hellenic writers;15 and most Roman commentators, following this lead,

12
http://www.kroraina.com/varia/pdfs/jones_The%20Image%20of%20the%20Barbarian%20in%20Medieval%20Europe.pdf.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct. 1971), pp. 376-407 Published by: Cambridge University Press
13
S. Piggott, Ancient Europe from the Beginnings of Agriculture to Classical Antiquity (Chicago, 1965), p. 256; S. N. Kramer,
The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (Chicago, 1963), p. 63.
14
Records of the Grand Historian of China translated from the Shih Chi of Ssu-ma Ch'ien, trans. B. Watson (2 Vols.; New York,
1961-3), II, 155.
15
The authoritative work on the Greek view of the barbarian is J. Juthner, Hellenen und Barbaren aus der Geschichte des
Nationalbewusstseins (Leipzig, 1923). s See A. N. Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome (Cambri

34
viewed Germanic and other kinds of barbarism as far too wild and woolly for their liking. Such
rhetoric and the prejudices which it embodied contributed toward the fashioning of medieval
opinion of barbarians.

The civilized bias against barbarism insofar, that is, as it is reflected in Hellenic literature, was
not significantly affected by the widening horizon of Greek knowledge and experience.
Alexander the Great and the new cultural cosmopolitanism which Macedonian imperialism
inaugurated divorced Greek culture from the Greek race and spread it to former barbarian
peoples; but the old antagonism between Greek civilization and barbarism, with its ethical
connotations, remained alive and compelling.16

The Romans received the word and its message from the Greeks. During the era of imperial
expansion, they applied it to those various tribes, particularly the Celts and the Germans, who
pressed against their widening frontiers. Cultural pride and contempt for barbarians, reinforced
by the Greek example, were sharpened by actual clashes with such peoples during the course of
Roman expansion. Like the Greeks, the Romans often portrayed the contest of civilization and
barbarism in moral terms. Manners and morals, Cicero observed, rather than language
constituted the principal difference between the two cultures.17

Was trading by nomads crucial to the rise of cities?

Andrew Lawler writes:18

16
Polybius remarked, in The Histories, XI, 34, that the invasion of nomads threatened a region with a lapse into barbarism. See the
edition by W. R. Paton for the Loeb Classical Library [LCL] (6 Vols.; Cambridge, Mass., 1960), IV, 300-2.
17
De Re Publica, I, 37, 58, ed. C. W. Keyes, LCL (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), p. 86.
18
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/was-trading-nomads-crucial-rise-cities

35
Nearly 4000 years ago, in the royal palace of the Mesopotamian city of Mari, King Zimri-Lim
awoke from a nightmare in which nomads from the surrounding desert had captured his beloved
wife. Archaeologists have long thought that that Zimri-Lim’s fear, described in a cuneiform text,
reflects the key roles that nomads played in early urban life.

These mobile marauders, powerful enough to trouble the sleep of rulers, were tolerated for the
exotic goods they carried from faraway places. Traveling hundreds of kilometers in search of
grazing land, pastoralists have long been seen as likely architects of the long-distance trade
networks that helped spur the rise of the world’s first civilization around 3000 B.C.E., in what is
now Iraq.

Because physical traces of ancient pastoralists are often all but invisible, researchers relied heavily
on comparative studies of 20th century Middle Eastern nomads in building this picture. But
archaeologists are increasingly using new methods to read the faint clues left by ancient nomads.
Armed with data from animal dung, bones, dental calculus, and plant remains, these researchers
suggest herders mainly stuck close to and served the needs of specific urban areas, rather than
migrating between far-flung cities. “They were not traveling long distances, so they are not the
natural conduit for trade,” says Emily Hammer, an archaeologist at the University of
Pennsylvania.

That assertion, which Hammer and archaeologist Ben Arbuckle of the University of North
Carolina in Chapel Hill lay out in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Archaeological Research,
has touched off intense debate about how early urban life flourished. To Abbas Alizadeh of the
University of Chicago in Illinois, who has spent decades studying pastoralists such as the Bakhtiari
of southwest Iran, Hammer and Arbuckle “are completely wrong—I bet they’ve never even seen
a nomad in their life.”

Archaeologists generally agree that not long after humans started farming in the Near East about
10,000 years ago, pastoralists began caring for newly domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle. But
researchers debate just when these groups began to travel vast distances in a seasonal cycle to seek
greener pastures.

Alizadeh and archaeologists such as Yale University’s Frank Hole assert that pastoralists on the
fringes of Mesopotamia migrated hundreds of kilometers as early as 7000 B.C.E. They base this
conclusion on the movements of modern pastoralists who drive flocks of sheep and goats up and
down the steep valleys of the Zagros Mountains in Iraq and Iran. The researchers also point to
excavations of seasonal villages and graves that hint at a prehistoric roving life.

Once the first urban areas arose, valuable stones, metals, and timber from Afghanistan, Iran, and
Anatolia poured into southern Mesopotamia. By 2000 B.C.E., an organized trading system
supplied materials from as far east as the Indus civilization and as far west as the Levant to the
wealthy city-state of Ur. Although archaeologists have long thought nomadic herders were a key
conduit, few early texts record who moved these goods. “Trade is textually almost invisible,” says
Piotr Michalowski, a cuneiform specialist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “We don’t
know how they got their stuff.”

36
 Archaeologist Emily Hammer examines stone foundations, a marker of
ancient herding life, at a Turkish site where modern Kurdish pastoralists still
pitch their tents.

The new techniques now suggest that before 1000 B.C.E., pastoralists in Jordan, Syria, Turkey,
and Iran stayed too close to home to have served as international middlemen. At a site in Amman,
for example, Cheryl Makarewicz, an archaeozoologist at Germany’s University of Kiel, analyzed
sheep and goat tooth enamel dating to about 7000 B.C.E. for ratios of carbon and oxygen isotopes.
Because those isotopes can reflect local soil and water, they provide a geographic fingerprint of
where an animal grazed. She discovered that the animals fed in the vicinity, rather than in distant
grasslands. At the 7000 B.C.E. town of Çatalhöyük in eastern Turkey, another team analyzed
carbon and nitrogen isotopes from sheep and goat teeth collagen and found that there, too, the
animals grazed nearby. Their dung also revealed that they ate more fodder than wild grass, a sign
the animals lived mainly in pens rather than wandering long distances.

Later, as cities arose, Hammer and Arbuckle, along with archaeologist Dan Potts of New York
University in New York City, argue that pastoralists stayed largely on the outskirts to meet urban
demand for meat and milk, as well as the wool that helped drive the Mesopotamian textile industry.
“There are livestock processing centers,” Hammer notes. “You can’t take the animals too far.”

37
If nomads weren’t the long-distance traders of the ancient world, most goods must have moved by
other means—and discoveries in the past decade suggest one possibility. Archaeologists have
found that cities and towns were far more common in the Bronze Age Middle East than once
thought. That would have allowed trade to be sustained through social networks, created by royal
marriages and traveling merchants, rather than nomads, Potts says.

Texts from around 1900 B.C.E. found at the Anatolian town of Kanesh describe how merchant
families organized donkey caravans that crossed 1000 kilometers to reach Assur, a city south of
today’s Mosul in Iraq. “These are urban people, and there is no reason to think this wasn’t going
on in 3000 B.C.E. or even 3500 B.C.E.,” Potts adds. Michalowski agrees: “There were a lot of
entrepreneurs, and trade seems to have been mainly in private hands. … You don’t have to invoke
mobile pastoralists.”

Only when domesticated dromedary camels appeared in the first millennium B.C.E. did nomads
begin long seasonal treks, Hammer, Arbuckle, and Potts say. “We are not denying pastoralists
exist,” Hammer says. “Only that they were traveling long distances and living in tents. And we
have the bones, the campsites, and the paleobotany to show this.”

38
John Noble Wilford writes:19

Ancient Greeks had a word for the people who lived on the wild, arid Eurasian steppes stretching
from the Black Sea to the border of China. They were nomads, which meant “roaming about for
pasture.” They were wanderers and, not infrequently, fierce mounted warriors. Essentially, they
were “the other” to the agricultural and increasingly urban civilizations that emerged in the first
millennium B.C.

As the nomads left no writing, no one knows what they called themselves. To their literate
neighbors, they were the ubiquitous and mysterious Scythians or the Saka, perhaps one and the
same people. In any case, these nomads were looked down on — the other often is — as an
intermediate or an arrested stage in cultural evolution. They had taken a step beyond hunter-

19
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/science/from-their-graves-ancient-nomads-speak.html

39
gatherers but were well short of settling down to planting and reaping, or the more socially and
economically complex life in town.

But archaeologists in recent years have moved beyond this mind-set by breaking through some of
the vast silences of the Central Asian past.

These excavations dispel notions that nomadic societies were less developed than many sedentary
ones. Grave goods from as early as the eighth century B.C. show that these people were prospering
through a mobile pastoral strategy, maintaining networks of cultural exchange (not always
peacefully) with powerful foreign neighbors like the Persians and later the Chinese.

Some of the most illuminating discoveries supporting this revised image are now coming from
burial mounds, called kurgans, in the Altai Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan, near the borders with
Russia and China. From the quality and workmanship of the artifacts and the number of sacrificed
horses, archaeologists have concluded that these were burials of the society’s elite in the late fourth
and early third centuries B.C. By gift, barter or theft, they had acquired prestige goods, and in time
their artisans adapted them in their own impressive artistic repertory.

40