[Avodah] Edges and diversity

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 09:46:28AM +0200, Shoshana L. Boublil wrote:
: Note:  In monoculture, the edge of the field is razed to prevent this
: diversity as it interferes with modern growing methods and calculations. 

: In the lecture this was related to Mitzvat Pe'ah - leaving the corners (part
: of the edge) of the field to the poor. This is actually an area of abundance
: [there is a higher yield at the edge than in the center of the field]
: created by Hashem, and so Hashem gives part of the edge to the poor.

Also, Y-mi Mes' Kelaim is about how to define boundries between fields,
vinyards, or vegetables in your garden. How much gap is needed, how many
plots can one fit into a fixed area.

One commonly used device is the rosh tor -- having the corner of one field
come up to the side of another.

...
: There are of course additional issues that Israel teaches the nations -
: including the most important - Emunah BaHashem.  It is the belief in Hashem
: and the Torah which has maintained Israel when all the other
: agriculture-cultures have slowly but surely been lost. Not just the
: Persians, Greeks and Romans that are usually mentioned in such discourses.
: The loss has continued over the centuries, with the destruction of the
: chinampas system of the Aztecs by the Spanish .... In India, an ancient
: successful agricultural
: system known as Vedic agriculture  is also disappearing...

In general, the emunah of someone who lives in an urban space, who
associates chagim with going to shul, who lives by a clock, has a very
different character than the emunah of a farmer who wakes and sleeps
with the sun, whose workflow is also with the natural rhythm of the
year, whose chag ha'asif is a real chag ha'asif and that colors his
perception of commemorating the midbar, etc... All the moreso in EY,
where the water supply is so rain dependent.

Then HQBH sticks us at the crossroads of three continents, so that
anything we learn from the Torah could be spread across the world as
rapidly as possible.

And, r"l, every time the classical empires clashed, we ended up in the
dispute -- Mitzrayim vs Ashur, Paras vs the Greeks, the Saleucids vs
the Ptolmeys, Rome vs the Greek Empires... And each brought its galus.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness
micha at aishdas.org        which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost
http://www.aishdas.org   again. Fulfillment lies not in a final goal,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH