By -

Can Water Flow Uphill?

 Yoma 31

In the context of the Kohen Gadol’s preparations for the avoda, we hear about his requirement to use the mikveh numerous times during Yom Kippur.  Abaye mentions that the water for the mikveh above Shaar haMayim comes from Ein Eitam עין עיתם . This spring must be 23 amot higher than the floor of the azara because  the gates in the azara are twenty amot high, plus another three amot for the depth of the mikveh.

I wanted to write a simple post about the identity of Ein Eitam and its connection to the water supply of Har haBayit. However, the more I researched, the more murky the topic became. But I will set out a few ideas and suggestions here, with further reading for those who are interested.

Our first question is where is Ein Eitam? It is mentioned as the source for the mikveh here and in the Yerushalmi (Yoma 3:8) as the source for the waters in the כיור, brought by an aqueduct.  Tanakh does not have a reference to a spring called Eitam but we do hear in Divrei HaYamim 2(11:6)  of an Eitam that is one of Rehobam’s fortress cities. There it is sandwiched between Bethehem and Tekoa, leading us to a location southeast of Jerusalem.

Rashi identifies Ein Eitam with Mei Naftoah מי נפתוח  mentioned in Yehoshua 15 as the border between Judah and Benjamin. Mei Naftoah is traditionally identified with Lifta, west of Jerusalem:



However, this is a problematic identification because Lifta is 30 meters lower than Har Habayit and as Rashi explains on our daf:
שאי אפשר למים לעלות להר שהוא גבוה ממקום שנובעין ב ו

So where else can we place Ein Eitam? The Maharam Habib (Rabbi Moshe ibn Habib 1654-1696, Jerusalem)  identifies Ein Eitam with a spring on the road from Hebron to Jerusalem:

הם מעין עיתם שהוא בדרך הבאים מחברון לירושלים . . . והמשיכו המים מזמן מלכי בית דוד על ידי צינור מתחת לארץ עד תוך ירושלים . . . (גט פשוט, מובא בארץ הצבי מאת הרב שרגא וייס)

This information fits nicely with what we know today: the lower aqueduct האמה התחתונה  that brought water to Jerusalem from the area of Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem uses as one one of its sources the spring Ein al Etan עין אל עטן , a very close match to  עין עיטם



Moreover,  this spring near Bethlehem is 765 meters above sea level, a full thirty meters higher than Har HaBayit. That’s almost triple what Abaye suggests (twenty three amot = eleven and a half meters) but still far more plausible than thirty meters LOWER than Har haBayit.

The upper and lower aqueducts were amazing projects, begun by the Hasmoneans and continued by Herod and the Romans, to bring the abundant waters of Gush Etzion to Jerusalem. A great illustration of part of the lower aqueduct can be seen in a mosaic right above one of the shafts of the aqueduct, in Armon HaNetziv:



For a different angle on where the water for the mikveh came from, check out Arnon Segal’s article: http://the--temple.blogspot.co.il/2013/09/blog-post_13.html


Thanks to the resources brought in ארץ הצבי ואתריה במקורותינו  by Rav Shraga Weiss and thanks to Ruchama Alter for asking the question. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

By -
Image
What’s Cookin’? Shabbat 38 What did our ancestors’ kitchens look like? What are all these terms thrown around in Shabbat and in Menachot: tanur תנור , kirah כירה , kupach קופח , furni פורני ? Are they at all parallel to the baking and cooling appliances we use today? To answer that question I looked at three sources: Zeev and Shmuel Safrai’s Mishnat Eretz Yisrael, Shmuel Avitzur’s encyclopedia of traditional tools אדם ועמלו , and Dr. Rafi Frankel’s comprehensive article on baking in Talmudic time (Catedra 2011, link at bottom of the post). Safrai tells us that unless you were very wealthy, no one in ancient times had a kitchen as we think of it. Not only was most of the preparing, baking and cooking done outside in the communal courtyard (everyone knows what is or isn’t in your pots!) but there rarely were surfaces to work on. The women would squat or sit on the floor and the baking and cooking “appliances” were on the floor too. Safrai gives a short description of a ta
Read more
By -
Image
Queen for a Day  Nazir 19   Our mishnah is one of the places where we hear about the intriguing figure of Queen Helene or Heleni HaMalka. Here she is described as taking a Nazirite vow while still in the Diaspora, and then having to redo part (or all) of it when she arrives in the land of Israel. Who is Helene, where is she from and what can archaeology tell us about her? We hear about Helene and her sons Monbaz and Izates in a number of places. Josephus, who was almost her contemporary (she probably died when he was a child, in the mid first century CE), writes about the family’s conversion to Judaism. Helene and her husband Monbaz were the rulers of a country called Adiabene or חדייב in Hebrew. It is located on the northern end of the Tigris River, near ancient Nineveh and the Assyrian kingdom. Today it is in northern Iraq, in Kurdistan:   http://womenofhistory.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/queen-helena-of-adiabene.html Adiabene’s location was on a major trade route a
Read more
By -
Image
A Tale of Two Marys   Hagigah 4b   At the end of this daf we have a rather unusual, if not bizarre, story told by the angel of death to Rav Bibi bar Abbaye. In it he explains that he has confused two women named Miriam, taking one when he should have taken the other. The plot of the story may remind old movie afficianados of the great film Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty. Who knew the guys in Hollywood learned Daf Yomi? Wikipedia I will not attempt to explain this story but what caught my eye were the names of the two women, both of whom have the word מגדלא  in their surname. One is מרים מגדלא שיער נשיא , Miriam the women’s hairdresser, and the other is מרים מגדלא דרדקי , Miriam the nanny (literally, growing women’s hair and growing children, respectively).  These professions and the name Miriam are rather common, what is interesting is מגדלא   which could also mean from Migdal. The most famous Miriam from Migdal is the figure from the New Testament called Mary Magd
Read more