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Abstract
This essay uses New Materialist approaches to religious practice to demonstrate that early rabbinic (c. second–third centuries CE) Jewish prescriptions for Jewish farmers are part of assemblages of human and material forces. The Jewish farmer must show that his fields, gardens, and vineyards do not contain prohibited “mixed-kinds” (Deuteronomy 22:9–11), but the ways in which early rabbinic literature demands adherence to the commandment take into account forces beyond the human, such as wind, rain, and the unpredictable growth of the crops. These assemblages show the limits of human intention and action, as the Jewish farmer must react to the material world. Moreover, the analyses in this essay show how a New Materialist approach deepens our understanding of the entangled world of Jewish life and practice in Late Antiquity, as well as uncovers a non-anthropocentric view of the human in a material world within the Mishnah itself.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 I prefer the term “assemblage” as a means of describing the complex relations between things (including the human), but other terms can be used: “entanglement” (Hodder Citation2012), “network” (Latour Citation2005), “carrier bag” (Le Guin Citation1996), or “coexistence” (Morton Citation2016), for example.
2 See also Marcus and Saka Citation2006.
3 Exodus 23:10–11 and Leviticus 25:1–7.
4 See also Ehrenfeld and Bentley (Citation2001, 130); and Weisberg (Citation2019).
5 See also Neis (Citation2019a) and the review of Critical Animal Studies in Jewish Studies in Berkowitz (Citation2019).
6 For example, as Weisberg discusses the opening of fields to wild animals during the Sabbatical year, he states “The inclusion of animals into the social and political in such a visible way would force humans to acknowledge the place of animals in their world as well as animal needs…mandating an awareness of the lives of wild animals and the poor” (Citation2019, 315).
7 See, for example, Berkowitz (Citation2006), Rosen-Zvi (Citation2012), Cohn (Citation2013), Neis (Citation2013), and Balberg (Citation2017).
8 All translations of rabbinic texts are my own.
9 The Tosefta is a parallel text to the Mishnah, containing “additions” (as the Hebrew root that gives the text its name suggests) that are not edited into the normative Mishnah itself. The debate between whether the Tosefta or the Mishnah is primary or older need not concern us here. See Alexander (Citation2006).
10 For discussion of such difficulties in classifying Allium in California alone, see Mortola and McNeal (Citation1985).
11 “‘Companion planting’ is one specific type of polyculture, under which two plant species are grown together that are known, or believed, to synergistically improve on another’s growth” (Parker et all Citation2013, 1). 1.
12 “Biointensive” agriculture has the potential to raise productivity, use less resources, and combat food insecurity (See Jeavons Citation2017).
13 See also Tosefta Kil’ayim 2:13–14.
14 The verb I have translated as “to hurl,” ‘il’il, is related to the word for tempest or hurricane.
15 See, for example, m. Kil’ayim 4:2–4.
16 See also Tosefta Kil’ayim 3:12, particularly the Erfurt manuscript. Lieberman (Citation1955, 216 ad loc).
17 “Peah” is the corner or edge of a field that is left unharvested such that the poor can come and glean the remainder for themselves. See Leviticus 19:9; 23:22, and Deuteronomy 24:19–21.
18 Latour, for his part, does attempt to de-anthropomorphize the objects in these assemblages by terming them “actants” (Citation2004, 75).
19 See also Vásquez (Citation2011, 286).
20 See also Hodder (Citation2012).
21 Order Zera’im (“Seeds”) constitutes one sixth of the Mishnah, including topics related to agricultural practices, including the sabbatical year (Shevi’it), tithes (Maaser, Maaser Sheni, and Demai), harvest left for the poor (Peah), etc.
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John Mandsager
John Mandsager is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. He is a religious studies scholar who investigates space and place in Jewish Late Antiquity.