Here's an interesting scene from today's daf. The Talmud explains that as Sancheiriv marched his troops to besiege Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah (see II Kings 19) an interesting thing happened to Israel's landscape. As it turns out there were so many troops with Sancheiriv that after the first wave swam across the Jordan river toward Jerusalem, they took with them so much water in their clothes and hair that the water table decreased. The second wave therefore could wade through this water. After this second wave passed a third wave approached the river. Because this second group too had drenched their clothes and hair the third group did not face any water in the Jordan. Rather they crossed through dust.
I've been thinking about this text since I read it. I know these people didn't mean to dry up the river but nevertheless their army was so large that they couldn't avoid it.
I would like to think that people today don't want to "dry up our rivers" (however this metaphor manifests itself). I would like to think that they want our forests to stay intact, that our endangered species will continue to live. However, like Sancheiriv's army, these things are unavoidable if we become too populous.
To read about the dangers of overpopulation, click here.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
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It seems to me that this aggadah is a reworking of the Biblical account of Joshua and the people crossing the Jordan (which temporarily dried up at their crossing-point, see Josh. 3:14-17), which itself is a less dramatic retelling of keriat yam suf. Only here, of course, the drying up of the river isn't a miracle; it's a consequence of the large size of the invading army. God is absent and silent.
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