“And Abel was a keeper of sheep, while Cain was a tiller of the ground" (Genesis 4:2). The Sforno comments: “‘And Abel was a keeper of sheep’ - for it was a more skilled occupation than working the soil." In light of the growth in the number of farms in our country today, many of them raising abundant flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, it is fitting that we take a closer look at this important profession, which began with Abel, and perhaps even with Adam, or more precisely, with Eve - Eve, whose name means “mother of all living."
Interestingly, in the hierarchy of professions taught by the school of thought of the Chatam Sofer, agriculture appears, at first glance, to hold the highest place in importance among the various occupations. Thus, commenting on the verse, “And the profit of the earth is in all things; the king himself is subject to the field" (Ecclesiastes 5:8), he writes: “Know that the advantage of the earth is in everything, and the field mentioned here refers to the world as a whole, the earth and everything upon it, the seas and everything within them, and man rules over all - he is the master of the land and the field, sowing, plowing, harvesting, planting, raising, and so forth. This is the earth and its settlement." The Sages likewise said in the chapter of Rabbi Akiva (Shabbat 85a): “‘The sons of Seir the Horite, inhabitants of the land’ (Genesis 36:20) - they were knowledgeable in settling the land, and they were the foundation of the land; without them, there would be no world" (Derashot Chatam Sofer, Vol. II, Jerusalem, 1974, Passover sermon of 1836, p. 276).
Moreover, the Mishnah in Tractate Bava Kamma (7:7) is well known: “One may not raise small livestock in the Land of Israel, but one may raise them in Syria and in the wildernesses of the Land of Israel." Rashi explains that the reason is concern for settling the Land of Israel, since sheep and goats “destroy the fields, and presumably all the fields of the Land of Israel belong to Jews" (Bava Kamma 79b). This was also codified in the Shulchan Aruch, with an additional reason: such animals customarily graze in other people’s fields, and the damage they cause is common. Yet the Shulchan Aruch adds that, in his time in the 16th century, since it was uncommon for Jews to own fields in the Land of Israel, raising such animals appeared to be permitted (Choshen Mishpat 409:1). The Chatam Sofer likewise maintains that in his time, when the majority of Jews did not live on their land, the prohibition did not apply with the same severity, because most of the fields were not Jewish-owned. Therefore, raising sheep did not cause the direct harm to the settlement of the Land of Israel that it had caused during the Temple era (Chiddushei Chatam Sofer on Bava Kamma 82).
Yet this seems perplexing. Today, we recognize the enormous contribution of farms to settling the Land of Israel, both by preventing our enemies from seizing and taking control of land and by preventing smuggling across the Jordan River. To understand the deeper dimensions of this issue, it is worth examining the debates that took place exactly one hundred years ago, in 1927, when the Shepherds’ Association was established in the Land of Israel, receiving the blessing of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. In his letter to them, he wrote that shepherding was the second profession completing the great vision expressed by the prophet Jeremiah: “Upon this I awoke, and looked, and my sleep was sweet to me" (Jeremiah 31:25). This was part of the settlement of the land through grazing, so that alongside farmers we would also have shepherds traveling with their flocks (Igrot HaRa'ayah, letter dated the eve of 14 Adar I, 1927). Moreover, Rabbi Kook served as the organization’s honorary president, and one of its board members was Rabbi Moshe Segal, whom we know as one of the pioneers who renewed the Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Old City following the Six-Day War.
Rabbi Moshe later became famous for blowing the shofar at the Western Wall at the conclusion of Yom Kippur in 1930, in defiance of the prohibition imposed by the British. He was consequently arrested and imprisoned in the Kishle fortress. The incident so distressed Rabbi Kook that he called the British police headquarters and announced that if Rabbi Moshe Segal was not released immediately, he would continue fasting even though the holiday had ended. The gesture made a deep impression, and Rabbi Segal was released.
Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun - only the motivations for developing this branch of shepherding were different. During those years, Baron Rothschild, the “well-known philanthropist," redeemed large tracts of land, where the settlers engaged in agriculture, including the lands of Be'er Tuvia, on which we established the Karmei HaNadiv neighborhood. Agricultural work did not always succeed, to put it mildly. It depended largely on funds provided by the Baron through his officials, and it was not suitable for everyone - particularly the many immigrants who arrived in the Land of Israel without agricultural training, among them shoemakers, milkmen, tailors, builders, carpenters, metalworkers, shopkeepers, and others. Shepherding therefore served as a complement to agriculture, just as the Ministry of Agriculture today is responsible for both branches - the animal and the plant alike.
It is no coincidence that the Shepherds’ Association received the blessing of Rabbi Kook. I would add that it was also no coincidence that the organization was named after Moses - “the faithful shepherd," who tended the flocks of Jethro before becoming the shepherd of Israel. This profession was also practiced by his great-grandfather Jacob, and before him by our forefathers Abraham and Isaac, and later by King David. According to the Midrash (Exodus Rabbah 2:2), while Moses was tending Jethro’s flock, one kid escaped and ran into a ravine, where it found a pool of water. Moses ran after it and found it drinking. He showed compassion toward the animal, and when he saw that it was exhausted, he carried it back to the pasture on his shoulders. This was a clear indication of his ability to lead Israel.
We decorate the sukkah with the Ushpizin, the seven guests, in an expression of love and fellowship. Indeed, raising sheep requires great love and sensitivity toward every individual sheep in the flock and toward the flock as a whole. The only one of the great leaders who is not said to have been a shepherd was Aaron the High Priest, who instead offered the sheep in the Temple service. Yet Aaron knew how to see every individual within the people of God. He was a lover and pursuer of peace, bringing peace among his flock.
We are therefore left with the question: How is shepherding permitted when the Mishnah explicitly states that small livestock may not be raised in the Land of Israel? The prohibition was so serious that shepherds were even disqualified from testifying in court, since they were presumed likely to engage in theft (Sanhedrin 25b). Moreover, Rabbi Kook himself, in a letter written more than a decade earlier, explicitly criticized the settlement committee of Rehovot for raising small livestock that damaged the orchards (Igrot HaRa'ayah, Vol. I, 33).
My late friend Rabbi Shmuel Emanuel, one of the founders of Kibbutz Sha'alvim - whose sheep-milking facilities, incidentally, served my brothers and me as an excellent amusement during our vacations - answered this question by pointing out that, unlike the approach of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank held that once a decree has been nullified for a period of time, it cannot simply return without a new enactment. Since the decree had been nullified during the long exile, it had lost its force (Har Tzvi, Choshen Mishpat 409). Rabbi Weinberg likewise ruled in Tzitz Eliezer (Vol. VII, 24-25), adding that farmers had cultivated their crops on the understanding that sheep would also be raised in the Land of Israel (Birkat Asher, Leviticus 3:6).
As for the Chatam Sofer, it appears that shepherding was included within agriculture and falls under his description of the virtues of agricultural work: “sowing, plowing, harvesting, planting, raising, shearing, spinning, and weaving" - all of which are associated with the work of shepherds. As for the prohibition against raising small livestock, it seems to be a wrong that can be remedied - and the remedy is to prevent the damage. It appears that even in 1927, shepherding was permitted not merely because the members of the organization were honest, like Abraham’s shepherds, who were careful to avoid theft, but because the Shepherds’ Association had strict regulations governing the obligations of its members. Among these was an absolute requirement to exercise caution and graze livestock only in permitted areas, such as ownerless fields or fields for which permission had been granted. They were warned that they must never cause even the slightest suspicion of theft or damage to crops.
In addition, we all hope for the rebuilding of the Temple speedily in our days. If so, how will there be animals available for sacrifices if raising small livestock in the Land of Israel is prohibited? Are we to depend on importing animals from abroad? Yet the Gemara in Bava Kamma (79b) already identifies exceptions: although one may not raise small livestock in the Land of Israel, one may raise them in the forests of the Land of Israel, in Syria, and in the wildernesses of the Land of Israel. This was likewise codified in the Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat 409:1).
Today, in addition to all of the above, the screening process for the men and women who establish and operate these farms is extremely rigorous. Almost all of them are God-fearing people who devote themselves wholeheartedly to the Land of Israel, the people of Israel, and no less importantly, the Torah of Israel. The concern over theft is therefore as distant as east from west. Furthermore, today the farm communities serve a genuine security need and are part of the security system, with its blessing and in full cooperation with it. The security establishment is responsible for guarding our land against those who seek our harm and the seizure of our territory. The farms, with God's help, settle the land while simultaneously preventing our enemies from taking control of more than 1200 square kilometers, in addition to preventing the smuggling of weapons and drugs.
As the statement attributed to Joseph Trumpeldor puts it: “Our land ends wherever Jews stop plowing." In keeping with our times, we can add: “Where the Jewish cow or sheep grazes, there the boundaries of our land will be established."
The prophet Isaiah (2:4) tells us that in the future we will be blessed with a world in which “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." But today, there are those for whom the plowshares and pruning hooks - the sheep and the cows - also serve as spears.
We began with the Shepherds’ Association of a century ago. It is therefore fitting to mention the “Tractor War" that took place about sixty years ago, in 1965. It happened at Kibbutz Sha'alvim on the Shabbat of Parashat Bereishit, when kibbutz members were asked to go out and plow, in the midst of Shabbat, the lands of the no-man’s-land near the kibbutz, in order to secure our hold on the area and prevent the Jordanians from encroaching on it with their tractors.
When the commander, Central Command chief Major General Yosef Geva, ordered that the plowing take place on Shabbat, Kibbutz Sha'alvim - then a frontier settlement - faced a serious halachic question. The question was referred to the kibbutz rabbi, Rabbi Meir Shlesinger, and concerned whether it was permissible to go out and plow under the exceptional circumstances of that Shabbat.
The rabbi ruled that it was permitted, and he also received the agreement of the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, of blessed memory. This was based on the principle that one may go to war on Shabbat even over matters involving straw and hay when the settlement is near the frontier. The ruling follows the Gemara in Eruvin (45a), which states that in a city near the frontier, even if an enemy comes not to take lives but merely to seize straw and hay, the residents go out against them with weapons and desecrate the Sabbath. Rashi adds that a city separating the border of Israel from the border of the nations must defend itself on Shabbat, lest it be captured, for through its capture the land would become easier for the enemy to conquer.
Let us return, then, to Cain and Abel in this week's Torah portion. It seems that had Cain not been jealous of Abel, Abel's shepherding would have complemented Cain's work as a farmer - providing both food and clothing produced from sheep and cattle. Cain, who needed clothing, murdered his brother Abel instead of making him his partner, thereby cutting down the very tree under which he himself was meant to sit. The Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 22:7) elaborates on their quarrel:
“What were they arguing about? They said: Come, let us divide the world between us. One took the land and the other took the movable property. Cain said: The land on which you stand belongs to me, and Abel said: What you are wearing belongs to me. One said: Strip off your clothes! The other said: Fly in the air! And from this, ‘Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.’"
Cain was disappointed that his offering was not accepted, and he was jealous that Abel's offering was accepted. Yet it appears that their quarrel began even before the offerings were brought, when they rejected the obvious possibility of partnership - a partnership in which the animal would complement the plant, the plant would complement the animal, and the land would complement the living creature walking upon it.
Instead, the brothers wanted to divide the world between themselves and separate from one another. Cain and Abel did not want to be joint owners of the world. Each wanted to be his own master and the sole owner of a particular portion of the world. Once all the real estate belonged to one brother and all the movable property in the world belonged to the other, neither could live in the world without the other's consent. Each had a veto over the other.
Thus, instead of creating the obvious partnership, Cain chose an extreme solution: he rose against his brother and killed him. Of course, the final “hammer blow" - literally - was the rejection of Cain's offering.
Today, it seems that we have learned the lesson. It is widely understood and accepted that the integration of disciplines and resources, spare parts and supplies, and the combination of different enterprises toward a common goal - while each partner restrains his own ego - are fundamental building blocks for the success of any enterprise.
Advanced industries in Israel and around the world depend on close integration between different production technologies, because the proper combination of disciplines makes it possible to produce complex systems with high mechanical strength, maximum geometric precision, and durability under extreme working conditions.
The same is true of the Jewish people's hold on the Land of Israel. It requires the integration of different forms of settlement: farms, rural communities, and urban communities, alongside a diverse industrial base encompassing both high-tech and low-tech industries. And in light of the lessons of the most recent war, we must also ensure independence in the supply of spare parts for military equipment, as we make our way toward the complete redemption.
The Torah portion therefore deals, following the creation of the world, with the question of the dichotomy and complementarity between shepherding and working the land, as embodied in the story of Cain and Abel. This issue continues to occupy humanity and the people of Israel, all the way to settlement and security in the State of Israel today.
We have raised the economic and halachic tension between the prohibition against raising small livestock in the Land of Israel - because of the potential damage to fields and the settlement of the land - and the development of shepherding farms in modern times as a strategic and organic tool for maintaining a Jewish presence on the land.
As with Rabbi Kook's approach and the establishment of the Shepherds’ Association a century ago, we should adopt a systemic and integrated approach that combines crop agriculture, sheep grazing and cattle raising, security, and industry as complementary tools for advancing the redemption of Israel in its inheritance.
And to the men and women of the farms, we say: Be strong, and may God be with you.
The author is the CEO of Tzifha International Real Estate.