Here is the key excerpt:

Pentagon spokesman, George Little, told the press, “We have absolutely no indication whatsoever the Iranian ships ever docked in Syrian ports.”

What’s going on here? One day there are two Iranian ships docking in Syria. Three days later, it seems that, like the Flying Dutchman, they never made port. Whatever they did during their swing through the eastern Mediterranean, they are now reported as having left the area, heading back through the Suez Canal.
These are not phantoms, or flyspecks invisible to the hi-tech eye. These are ships, substantial objects, which the U.S. certainly has the ability to track. I can’t claim to know what actually happened, and, alas, I have no inside sources here. So this is pure speculation. But it sounds as if the Iranian ships were indeed heading for Tartus, and then ran into some reason to back off — leaving the Iranian government to bluster that the ships had docked, rather than admit they’d chickened out.

I’m not going to write a formal post on the subject, as it’s all just too dicey, including the cryptic Pentagon assertion, which comes off to my ear as rather carefully worded. (And I don’t want to make too much of that. It could mean nothing.) The Israeli Defense Ministry isn’t commenting publicly on the Pentagon’s assertion either.

At any rate, I want to point out a comment from another naval professional at Claudia’s PJ Mediapost:

Michael Hoskins, USN Ret

FYI, A destroyer needs to visit a gas station every 5 to 7 days. Fuel supply can be pushed out further but at risk of getting too low to respond to anything. Supply ship is not an oiler and Iran does not know how to refuel at sea (A US tour de force and a NATO skill set).

Agreed.

Something is very odd about this whole thing. By operating conservatively, the destroyer could have made it from Port Said and back between 17 Feb, when it reportedly entered the Med, and its return for a southbound transit through the Canal on the 21st (again, according to reports). That would imply refueling in Egypt.

But there are discrepancies in this whole incident. Originally, the Mehr News Agency reported that the ships arrived in Syria on the 17th. (Maybe; although a tad doubtful if the ships were northbound in the Canal on the 17th.)

Press TV then said they arrived in Syria on the 18th. That was the story picked up by all the world’s news agencies. Israeli military spokesmen were interviewed that day on the Iranian warship issue, as were Suez Canal officials, who said the ships were declared for Tartus, Syria.

The next wave hit on the 20th, Monday, when foreign news agencies started reporting that the ships had arrived in Tartus on the 20th.

On the 21st, the reports came out that the ships were headed back for the Canal, presumably having left Tartus that morning.

Syrian News (a heavily propagandistic website aligned with the Assad regime) reported on the 20th that the city of Tartus welcomed the Iranian flotilla over the weekend, seeming to confirm the reports of arrival on the 18th.

Al Jazeera did a phone interview with the captain of the Iranian destroyer during the period when the ships were reportedly in Tartus. In the interview, the captain referred to the ships being in Tartus.

In the past day, Lebanese and Israeli reporting quotes Syrian opposition sources as saying that the Iranian supply ship offloaded weapons and electronic warfare equipment for the Assad regime.

There are no photos of the ships in port at all, which would seem to be telling, although the Syrian regime is so hunkered down that it might not be able to (or want to) bring off photo or video documentation. The Russians run the naval base at Tartus, but it is not clear which area of the port complex the Iranian ships supposedly stopped in.

A number of reports circulating in Europe and the Middle East referred to the ships “dropping anchor” in Tartus. That may have simply been ignorance and the inaccurate use of nautical expressions, but there is also the possibility that one or both of the ships spent most of their time anchored offshore, rather than moored to a pier in the port complex itself. The offshore depth is shallow, a good way out from the Syrian coast, and commercial imagery from recent years shows lots of tankers and cargo ships still anchoring out, a long-time practice in the area. To offload cargo, the Syrian supply ship would have gone to a pier, but perhaps not for more than 8-10 hours, and perhaps during a period when there was no US surveillance.

One would want a little more detail about this incident to accept that it just didn’t happen. But it would be good to think that, even if we don’t stop Russian ships from bringing arms to Syria, or Venezuelan ships from bringing diesel fuel for tanks and APCs, we are stopping the Iranians.

It’s February in Israel and, mercifully, we’ve been having one of the wettest winters in many years. The level of the Sea of Galilee is now almost 3ft above where it was this time last year.

But stark headlines are screaming of summer electricity shortages. In June, pioneering electric car company Better Place will begin delivering to customers in Israel the battery-switch capable Renault Fluence ZE sedan – just a month into peak air conditioning season. How irresponsible is it to load the grid with electric cars when there is a recognized shortfall in generating capacity? There is a very clever reason these cars may actually help, and it relates to a controversial law that Israel has passed: charging an electric car from the regular electricity system is illegal. You may only use (at present) a Better Place charge point. Critics are screaming about state-appointed monopolies and rewards for crony lobbyists.

First some background on Israel’s electricity infrastructure: The so called ‘Arab spring’ has seen Israel’s supply of natural gas from Egypt interrupted by pipeline sabotage numerous times in the last year. Israel gets 61% of its electricity from imported coal, 37% from gas and the rest from fuel oil (source: Israel Electric Company). Israel has its own small gas field on stream now but the more major recent finds are not on stream yet.

Israel is a hot, desert country and summer is by far the peak time for energy use – with air-conditioning at a near-ubiquitous usage. The average daily summer temperature on the coast in Tel Aviv is above 87℉from March to November, while Eilat in the southern dessert is much hotter.  A little-known mitigating factor is the almost universal use of simple radiated heat – solar water heaters in 90% of homes and businesses for hot water. These cheap, simple devices were made mandatory for new residential building in the early 1990s meaning there is very little hot water heating during the summer.

Whatever the internal causes, the news right now is full of predictions that Israel will have production reserves of only 2-3% in the summer. Energy minister, Uzi Landau has said “There is a great danger that the electricity grid will fail if there is any type of breakdown at the power station, especially during peak usage hours.” Plans are in place to ship in portable 25 megawatt generating equipment to help out.

For those who don’t know, Better Place is on the verge of going live in Israel with the first all electric cars to be offered to the public in Israel. These Better Place cars differ from other electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf because their depleted battery can be swapped for a full one in around 4 minutes. The Renault ZE is also larger than the Nissan or the Chevy: sized more like a Honda Accord a real, practical family car.

The cars are sold to consumers with a big sticker: “battery not included”. The battery, and most importantly, all the electricity you will ever put into your car, are bought from Better Place in the form of a monthly subscription. These subscriptions are dependent on the number of miles you plan to drive but start at a relatively high level of 12,000 miles per year. Better Place does not want low mileage drivers: Better Place’s business model makes it’s money per mile! By not forcing the consumer to buy the most expensive single part of the car, it’s battery, the sticker price of the car is competitive with similarly-equipped gasoline cars on the Israeli market. Right now, Better Place is fixing the subscription price for the next four years. The price is highly competitive when compared to the cost of gasoline in Israel — which is over double the price in the US.

So how does that square with a car that can only drive 100 miles on a full charge? Included in the purchase price is the complete installation of a home charging point with it’s own meter and separate connection to the power company – it does not appear on the home owner’s electricity bill. Commit to 16,000 miles per year and you can have one at your place of work too. So, for many users who drive less than 100 miles per day or 100 miles each way to a place of work, home charging will be their sole source of power. Better Place is also installing public charge spots in mall parking lots and other locations. Each owner has a smart card that identifies them and opens a public charge port for them.

The unique part of Better Place, however, is the network of battery switch stations they’re rolling out along every major route in Israel. Drive into one, it looks like an automatic car wash, sit in the car and 5 minutes later drive out with 100% charge. Your depleted battery is taken inside, cooled to 40℉ and rapidly charged ready for another car. Israel is a small country. East to west through Tel Aviv you can cross the country and return on a single charge. North to south would take two or three battery swaps. Around 60 stations are enough for the whole country.

Lieberman told Channel 2 news that the US and Russia may apply pressure on Israel not to conduct pre-emptive strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, but that the decision is “not their business.”

“The security of the citizens of Israel, the future of the state of Israel, this is the Israeli government’s responsibility,” he said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov called a military option against Iran “catastrophic”, and told reporters at a news conference that he “hope[s] Israel understands all these consequences.”  The US has also discouraged Israel from launching an attack.

Israel has publicly confirmed that it is weighing the option of a military attack on Iran, considering that frequent calls from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – backed by national spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini – for the eradication of the State of Israel could become more than rhetoric if Iran acquires atomic weapons.

Representatives of the  International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on a mission to investigate the Iranian nuclear program and resolve the escalating tensions  reported Wednesday that they had met with a lack of cooperation from Iran.

The inspectors were denied access to the heavily-guarded Parchin military base during two days of meetings which ended on Tuesday.  “We couldn’t get access and we couldn’t finalize a way forward,” IAEA chief inspector Herman Nackaerts told reports in Vienna on Wednesday.

Iran has consistently denied seeking nuclear energy for military purposes, despite previous findings by the IAEA that the nuclear program is most likely being used to attain weapons.  Notwithstanding, Iran has refused to cooperate with investigations for nearly four years.  Several countries have responded with economic sanctions intended to cow the country into cooperation.

Brigade Chaplain Captain Rabbi Zev Runes had participated in rehearsals for the ceremony and was expected to speak about the fighting spirit and Jewish heritage, but was dismissed from the program at the last minute as the ceremony was starting, on the Brigade Commander’s orders.

Col. Hochman told his brigade rabbi that he was not going to allow him to speak in the presence of soldiers’ families out of concern that he might deliver messages which are incompatible with the spirit of  the brigade or of the IDF. Hochman explained that, according to regulations, rabbis are supposed to speak only at swearing in ceremonies, and not at other events.

Policy regarding the exclusion of IDF rabbis from official ceremonies at armored and infantry brigades has been instituted recently, in light of the exclusion of women on various occasions in Israel, and the decision of the General Staff to limit visits by civilian rabbis to Army units.

In response to a Jewish Press inquiry, the IDF Spokesman’s office replied: “A thorough investigation revealed that this incident didn’t happen. We regret that the website in question failed to investigate its facts prior to publication.”

The 460 Armored Corps Brigade, also known as the “Bnei Or” (children of the light) Division, is the training academy for the Armored Corps, located at the Shezifon base in the Negev.

TOWF was founded in 2004 when two women, Liza Levy and Robin Hettelman Weinberg, realized that there was no Jewish grant-making organization in the Washington DC area dedicated exclusively to bettering the lives of women and girls. With assistance provided by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, the United Jewish Endowment Fund and the Vivian Rabineau Endowment fund, the two set about creating a vehicle that would not only support women’s causes, but would give women the opportunity to exercise their philanthropic muscles by having them fund and run the foundation. By providing women with the opportunity to use their leadership skills and financial resources in a charitable venue, it enables them to use both their talents and their assets to transform their communities, addressing the social issues and concerns they think are most relevant and timely.

The Rockville, Maryland based foundation lives up to its name. Tikkun Olam means “bettering the world” and TOWF strives to do exactly that by preventing social issues before they occur, attacking problems at their roots instead of just dealing with their manifestations.

“Our goal is not to provide social services,” said Sara Gorfinkel, Director of Tikkun Olam and its only full time employee. “We focus on social change, so that women don’t get to the point where they require social services. We don’t want to fund programs that deal with victims of domestic abuse. We want to prevent domestic abuse before it ever happens.”

Currently, TOWF has approximately sixty members, known as trustees, ranging in age from twenty-five to eighty plus. Membership requires a monetary gift to the foundation, payable over a five-year period. A five-year membership to Tikkun Olam requires a donation of $15,000. Lifetime memberships are available for $45,000, but with a $100,000 financial commitment, it is upgraded to an inter-generational membership that can be shared with daughters, daughters-in-law and granddaughters. Women under the age of thirty-five have the option of joining the foundation for three years with a $4,500 associate membership.

“While we do have women who prefer to just make a donation to the foundation, for many of our trustees, becoming part of Tikkun Olam is exactly the opposite of just writing out a check,” explained Gorfinkel. “TOWF gives women the opportunity to be hands on in their philanthropy, reviewing requests from organizations and researching them. It is empowering to see women taking on different leadership roles and responsibilities and getting involved in different committees. Yet every woman, no matter what her financial commitment, comes to the table with the same voice and the same vote, irrespective of how much she is donating.”

Sara Gorfinkel

Tikkun Olam’s grant cycle runs from July to June, with grants awarded during the summer. TOWF’s first grants were distributed in 2006 and the foundation is currently in its seventh grant cycle. The foundation distributed a record $100,000 in 2011 with grants awarded to nine different organizations that strive to bring about social change for women and girls – both locally and in Israel. Among last year’s grant recipients were Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse, which received TOWF’s first ever multi-year grant to fund a teen-dating awareness and violence prevention program; Jewish Council for the Aging, to provide training, mentoring and support for women over fifty five who face age and gender discrimination in their job search, and the Israel based Mavoi Satum, to ensure the operation of private rabbinical courts which would protect women’s rights during both marriage and divorce. Other grant recipients included Jews United for Justice, Economic Empowerment for Women, Eretz Acheret and Mahut Center. Two Washington DC based charities, CASA de Maryland and Empowered Women International, which serve local immigrant women, were also awarded grants as TOWF trustees felt that as Jews living in America, we understand all too well the plight of those who have recently come to these shores in search of a better life.

While Tikkun Olam takes great pride in its own work, it is also part of a larger network, the Jewish Women’s Collaborative International Fund, which is working to put together a joint grant that will distribute funds in Israel.

“We found that many of the Jewish women’s funds were overlapping in grants they were making to organizations in Israel,” said Gorfinkel. “We decided to pool our resources in order to produce more effective donations to those organizations.”

Jews Of The Mediterranean Islands (Continued From Last Month)

Delos

On the islands of the Cyclades [Translator’s note: south of the Greek mainland], north of Naxos, an island that played an important role in ancient times, there was a Jewish community in the second century BCE which – as shown in inscriptions – while heavily influenced by Greek culture, was genuinely loyal to Jewish law and Jewish teaching.

A French excavation from the year 1912 exposed the remains of a synagogue from the second century BCE. The ruins were found not far from the sea in the northeastern part of the island. The synagogue was expanded in the following century. Following a certain trouble the Jews experienced in the year 46 BCE, the Romans granted an official, published, unrestricted grant of religious freedom. [This was the year Julius Caesar seized total control of the Roman Empire from his opponents. In his own way, Caesar was as renowned for tolerance as was Alexander the Great.]

In the following centuries all traces of Jews on Delos disappeared. Today the island is abandoned.

Sardinia

In Sulcis, traces of a Jewish settlement from Roman imperial times have been found. In the capital city of Cagliari, a synagogue from the 6th century has been discovered. From the time when the Kingdom of Aragon took control in 1325, Sardinia received a steady flow of refugees from Barcelona and the Balearic Islands. Alghero also had a growing Jewish population.

The professional structure of Jews on Sardinia was similar to that on Sicily where, next to trade, craftsmanship was well represented. There were Jewish locksmiths, smiths, silver workers, and weavers, whose lively labor even brought forth an anti-noise movement, when King Ferdinand banned “noisy commerce” on Christian holidays.

The Baleric Islands

The Balearic Islands are an archipelago found in the western Mediterranean Sea. Palma is the capital of Mallorca, Mahon the capital of Minorca, and Ibiza the capital of the island of that same name.

One hears of the conversion of Jews in Mahon in the 5th century. During the period of Arab control, the Jews lived in a fortified section of Palma. In the middle of the 12th century, after the rebellion by the Almohadens, there was a large wave of Jewish refugees from the Spanish mainland. Under Aragonese control in the following century, the Balearics received more refugees from southern France, North Africa, Egypt, and other lands of the Mediterranean. The islands achieved a growing significance for trade, thanks to their favorable position between Spain and Sicily.

Material gains corresponded to a growth in all areas of cultural life. Mallorca was the homeland of Jewish mapmakers. Abraham and Joseph Cresques of Mallorca created the conditions for the groundbreaking discoveries of their colleagues through their “portolanos.”

The Balearics were an important meeting point for well-known Jews. Leo Mosconi came from the Balkans; he died in Palma and left behind an important library. Simon ben Zemach Duran came from Palma, and fled to Algeria in 1391 after an outbreak of religious persecution, where he became a noted teacher, religious philosopher, and Kabbalist. His name was mentioned in the evening prayers for Yom Kippur.

After the community on Mallorca went under, the Aragonese authorities took pains to resettle Jews from Portugal on Mallorca. But the fate of this community was also sealed. In 1435, a blood libel found a willing reception among the masses. Baptism seemed to offer the single way out of this very dangerous circumstance, and also opened the door to certain occupations, such as the spinning of wool, which remained unavailable to “strangers and new immigrants.” [Here Wischnitzer probably means such professions were available only for the converted.]

The descendants of the converts were called “chuetas” [pig-eaters; the Balearic equivalent of “Marranos”]. They became a special class. The Inquisition watched them carefully, and the Christian community avoided and hated them. These baptized ones became craftsmen, especially goldsmiths. However, in 1782, the goldsmiths were locked out of the jewelry business on Mallorca. In the churches, the Chuetas stood shyly together, forced into particular corners. They had a special place in the cemeteries.

The island of Minorca was occupied in 1713 by England, which protected the Jewish refugees. A synagogue was built in Mahon and Jewish life began to unfold. But control of Minorca was threatened by Spain and France. In 1781 Mahon was attacked. Jews and Moors defended the city, and then surrendered. Along with the English garrison, the Jews left the island.

Israeli defense officials played down the decision, suggesting construction won’t start for years.

The U.N.’s Mideast envoy, Robert Serry, called the Israeli announcement “deplorable” and said it “moves us further away from the goal of a two-state solution.”

Yariv Oppenheimer, director of Peace Now, which tracks and publicizes settlement construction, called it the biggest settlement construction plan since Netanyahu took office three years ago.

If you put it that way, it actually sounds quite modest…

Palestinian spokesman Ghassan Khatib said Wednesday’s announcement “shows how Israel has no respect for the international community or international laws, while at the same time it sheds a light on the lack of effective actions by international community toward Israeli settlement policy.”

In January, 1978, a modern community was established on deserted land adjacent to the ancient biblical site, now called Tel Shilo, when a group affiliated with Gush Emunim arrived at the location to assert revenant rights. In 1979, the Israeli government officially authorized Shiloh’s status as a recognized village, administrated by the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council.

Shvut Rachel is named after Rachela Druk, a resident of Shiloh and mother of 7, and bus-driver Isaak Rofe, who were killed by terrorist fire in November, 1991. That same night a group of people settled at the place of the murder, today’s Rechelim. A little later, on the night of the two victims’ funerals, a group of students from the Shiloh Yeshiva founded Shvut Rachel in the name of the victims. Since then, Shvut Rachel has been growing and is of now teeming with life.

Answer: Last week we noted that Rav Eliezer Silver would remark to women that a courtly bow, rather than a handshake, is the proper method of greeting a woman.

We also cited the Yerushalmi (Sotah 13b) which discusses the Torah’s requirement for a kohen to place his hands under those of a sotah offering her special korban. The Gemara suggests that an elderly kohen (who presumably will not have improper sexual thoughts) performs this function. The Gemara also suggests that a young kohen could perhaps perform this function and we are not concerned about him having improper sexual thoughts since he is only touching the sotah’s hands for a very short period of time.

Based on this second suggestion, it would seem that shaking a woman’s hand should be permitted. Indeed Rav Ahron Soloveichik ruled accordingly. However, according to the Gemara’s first suggestion it would seem to be prohibited (except for older men). Since the Gemara offers two suggestions, it appears that the matter is in doubt.

* * * * *

In Hilchot Sotah 3:15, the Rambam writes that “the kohen places his hand under [the sotah’s] and lifts [the korban] up.” He mentions nothing about the kohen being older. The Torah Temimah contends that the Rambam is simply followed his general tendency to favor second opinions mentioned in the Gemara. Thus, any kohen may perform the service since he is only touching the sotah’s hands for a brief period of time.

This position also seems logical since how would we judge when a kohen becomes “old”? At what age would a kohen not have improper sexual thoughts? It makes much more sense to adopt the Gemara’s other answer so as to avoid this kind of subjective analysis.

It is interesting that the Gemara only offers two suggestions for why a kohen may touch a sotah, but doesn’t offer a third logical answer: namely, that a kohen may touch her because he is busy fulfilling a mitzvah and a person doesn’t have improper thoughts at such a time. Indeed, this is why the Shach permits a doctor to examine the body of a niddah. His mind is focused on medical concerns. This is also why people involved in raising cattle may breed animals. They are concentrating on their professions; thus, they wont have improper thoughts.

The Gemara, however, does not offer this suggestion. Hence, the fact that the kohen may touch the sotah has nothing to do with him concentrating on doing a mitzvah. Rather, it has to do with the fact that he is only touching her for a brief period of time. Hence, shaking a woman’s hand would also be permitted.

We find support for interpreting the Gemara in this manner by examining its original question. The Gemara asked, “Isn’t is repugnant for a kohen to touch a sotah?” It didn’t ask, “Isn’t it sinful?” In other words, the Gemara does not even suggest that it is prohibited for a kohen to touch a sotah in this context. The Torah commanded that he wave the korban with her and therefore it is a mitzvah to do so whether we appreciate the process or not.

The Gemara was concerned, however, for the subjective feelings of the kohen: Isn’t touching a sotah repugnant to him? To this the Gemara responds that the process is not even repugnant; there is nothing wrong at all. Why? Since the encounter is brief, improper thoughts will not arise.

A number of rabbis have told me that they do not initiate a handshake with a woman, but if a woman extends her hand to them, they won’t refuse to shake it. They reason that once a woman extends her hand, an additional factor comes into the equation: kavod habriyot. It is prohibited to shame a woman by refusing to shake her hand. This position, however, only has merit if one maintains that shaking hands with women is a rabbinic prohibition. Kavod habriyot may trump a rabbinical, but not a biblical prohibition.

The above analysis is a form of limud zechut, providing a halachic basis for those who shake hands with women and consider themselves to be shomrei torah u’mitzvot. It also is an attempt to bolster the halachic ruling of Rav Ahron Soloveichik.

Rabbi Cohen, a Jerusalem Prize recipient, has written several books on Jewish law. His latest, “Shabbat The Right Way: Resolving Halachic Dilemmas” (Urim Publications), is available at Judaica stores and Amazon.com.

By any standards it is a part of the Torah that cries out for explanation. The first thing that strikes us is the sheer length of the account: one third of the book of Shemot, and five parshiyot – Terumah, Tetzaveh, half of Ki Tisa, Vayakhel and Pekudei, interrupted only by the story of the Golden Calf.

This becomes even more perplexing when we compare it with another act of creation, namely G-d’s creation of the universe. That story is told with the utmost brevity: a mere 34 verses. Why take some 15 times as long to tell the story of the Sanctuary?

The question becomes harder still when we recall that the mishkan was not a permanent feature of the spiritual life of the children of Israel. It was specifically designed to be carried on their journey through the wilderness. Later, in the days of Solomon, it would be replaced by the Temple in Jerusalem. What enduring message are we supposed to learn from a construction that was not designed to endure?

Even more puzzling is the fact that the story is part of the book of Shemot. Shemot is about the birth of a nation; hence Egypt, slavery, Pharaoh, the Plagues, the Exodus, the journey through the sea, and the covenant at Mount Sinai. All these things would become part of the people’s collective memory. But the Sanctuary, where sacrifices were offered, surely belongs to the book of Vayikra, otherwise known as Torat Kohanim, or Leviticus, the book of priestly things. It seems to have no connection with Exodus whatsoever.

The answer, I believe, is profound.

The transition from the books of Bereishit to Shemot, Genesis to Exodus, is about the change from family to nation. When the Israelites entered Egypt they were a single extended family. By the time they left they had become a sizeable people, divided into 12 tribes plus an amorphous collection of fellow travelers known as the erev rav, the mixed multitude.

What united them was a fate. They were the people whom the Egyptians distrusted and enslaved. The Israelites had a common enemy. Beyond that they had a memory of the patriarchs and their G-d. They shared a past. What was to prove difficult, almost impossible, was to get them to share responsibility for the future.

Everything we read in Shemot tells us that, as is so often the case among people long deprived of freedom, they were passive and they were easily moved to complain. The two often go together. They expected someone else, Moses or G-d himself, to provide them with food and water, lead them to safety, and take them to the Promised Land.

At every setback, they complained. They complained when Moses’s first intervention failed: “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us” (Exodus 5:21).

At the Red Sea they complained again: “They said to Moses: Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert” (Exodus 14:11-12).

After the division of the Red Sea, the Torah says: “When the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in him and in Moses his servant” (Exodus 14:31). But after a mere three days they were complaining again. There was no water. Then there was water but it was bitter. Then there was no food.

The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death” (Exodus 16:3).

Soon Moses himself is saying, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me” (Exodus 17:4).

By now G-d has performed signs and wonders on the people’s behalf, taken them out of Egypt, divided the sea for them, given them water from a rock and manna from heaven – and still they do not cohere as a nation. They are a group of individuals, unwilling or unable to take responsibility, to act collectively rather than complain.

The second category into which land in Israel was classified for the purpose of determining the scope of reversionary rights during the era when the Jubilee laws applied was known as “batei arei chomah,” houses or other constructions in walled cities.

The reversionary rights the Torah gave to the original owners of batei arei chomah differed from those given to the original owners of sdeh achuzah, ancestral fields, in the following four significant ways.

First, whereas the original owners of sdeh achuzah were precluded by the Torah from exercising their right of mandatory redemption of the ancestral field for a period of two years from the sale, the original owners of batei arei chomah were permitted to exercise their right of mandatory redemption and buy back the property immediately following the sale.

Second, whereas the mandatory redemption rights of the original owners of sdeh achuzah could be exercised at any time two years from the date of the sale until the Jubilee year, the mandatory redemption rights of the original owners of batei arei chomah expired 365 days after the sale.

Third, whereas sdeh achuzah automatically reverted back to the original owners upon the arrival of the Jubilee year, even if the original owners did not exercise their buyback rights, batei arei chomah remained with the purchaser forever and did not revert back to the ownership of the original owners if they did not exercise their buyback rights within one year.

Fourth, whereas upon exercising buyback rights the original owners of sdeh achuzah were permitted to deduct from the buyback price the value of the crops that buyers enjoyed prior to the buyback, the original owners of batei arei chomah were not permitted to deduct any amount for the use that the buyers enjoyed prior to the buyback, but had to refund the full purchase price to the buyer.

Because of these significant differences in reversionary rights, it was important to know the definition of batei arei chomah.

Batei arei chomah are structures (of at least six to eight square feet) in towns consisting of at least three courtyards with two buildings each, with a predominantly Jewish population – provided that such towns were surrounded by a wall in the time of Joshua even though they may no longer be surrounded by a wall at the time of the sale or buyback. Batei arei chomah included not only residential houses fitting that description, but also structures used for business in such times – olive presses, bath houses, storehouses, dovecots, cisterns, vaults.

The laws of Batei arei chomah applied only to structures sold together with the land upon which they were built, but not to structures that were sold “without” land. Since, according to one Tannaic opinion, the land of Jerusalem was not apportioned to any particular tribe, but was designated as Temple property to which all tribes had equal access, land in Jerusalem – as opposed to structures – could not be privately sold and therefore the sale of structures in Jerusalem was not subject to the laws of batei arei chomah but rather to the different laws of batei chatzerim, open towns, which shall be discussed separately.

The fact that purchasers of batei arei chomah were refunded the purchase price in full upon a buyback and did not have to pay the original owners anything for the use that they enjoyed prior to the buyback, caused some concern in so far as this free use might be construed as being contrary to the laws of ribit, interest on loans, which the Torah prohibits, whether paid in cash or in kind.

If the original owner who sold his house for $1,000,000, which he received as the “purchase price” from the buyer, redeemed his house prior to one year and refunded the purchase price in full, this transaction could be construed as a loan of $1,000,000 for one year for which the house was put up as collateral, to be foreclosed upon should the loan not be repaid.

In fact, if one takes the position that prior to the expiration of twelve months there is no real sale at all, but only a conditional sale, it looks even more like a loan. There are two approaches to this concern, one of the Mishnah and one of the Braitah.

According to the Mishnah, which looks at the transaction at the commencement of the transaction, the free use, though reminiscent of interest, is not really interest at all because the free use arises from a sale and not a loan. According to the Braitah, which looks at the conclusion of the transaction, it turns out that the money in the hands of the original owner was in fact a loan, which he now has to pay back and the free use of the property by the buyer is in fact interest.