Ketubot  112

A Bridge Over the River Jordan

Our masechet ends with paeans to the beauty and prosperity of the land of Israel. To me, one of the most powerful aliya stories is on our page, the story of Rabbi Zera. My neighbor Dr. Beni Gesundheit calls Rabbi Zera the ultimate oleh hadash, new immigrant, based on the many stories about his life as a “greenhorn” in Eretz Yisrael.

After hearing a few pages ago about Rabbi Zera’s disagreements with his rebbe, Rabbi Yehudah, about moving to the land of Israel, here we find out that indeed he made it:

“When R. Zera went up to the Land of Israel and could not find a ferry wherein to cross [a certain river]  he grasped a rope bridge and crossed.”

Coming from Babylonia, we will assume that the river that needed crossing was the Jordan. Despite there being several organized bridges and crossing points to the Jordan, then and now, Rabbi Zera was not at one of those and therefore had to “grasp a rope bridge and cross.” What is a rope bridge? Rashi comes to our aid:

“there are places without a bridge and one throws a log across the river but it is not wide enough to walk on. So he holds on a rope strung between the two sides of the river.”

According to Rashi, Rabbi Zera is crossing the Jordan on a primitive kind of zip line:

not the safest or most secure way to go. Along comes a Sadducee and mocks him for being headstrong and impulsive, like his ancestors who accepted the Torah without knowing what was in it. Rabbi Zera’s answer is as powerful as it is surprising:

“ 'The spot', the former replied. 'which Moses and Aaron were not worthy [of entering] who could assure me that I should be worthy [of entering]?”

Rabbi Zera replies that he had better get into the land quickly, almost as if he is saying, before God notices, because perhaps he won’t merit entrance. How often do we think about our living in the land of Israel as a zechut, a merit that we may not be worthy of?

And if the message of the story is not enough, there is a great visual connection as well. In the sixth century, about two hundred years after Rabbi Zera lived, a phenomenal mosaic of the land of Israel was created as the floor of a church in Medba, Jordan . This floor, discovered in the late nineteenth century, is a”snapshot” of the country at the time and provides us with much valuable information. Take a look at the section that shows the river Jordan:

ferrelljenkins,wordpress.com

Right next to the boat and the (giant) fish is a מצרא, the rope bridge that Rashi describes. Presumably it continued to be used in the time of the map and centuries and miles later in medieval France. Ashreinu that not only have we merited to return to our land but we have also merited to rediscover its ancient treasures!