What is the halakhic status of a beehive? More specifically, if a beehive is attached to the ground with clay, is it considered to have the halakhic status of land or the status of a movable object?
On today’s daf, the Talmud presents two different answers to this question and explains the consequences of the ruling:
Rabbi Eliezer says: It is like land, and one may write a document that prevents the sabbatical year from canceling an outstanding debt based upon it. And it is not susceptible to ritual impurity as long as it is fixed in its place. And one who removes honey from it on Shabbat is liable to bring a sin-offering.
Rabbi Eliezer believes that the beehive is considered land and therefore all the rabbinic laws about land ownership, ritual impurity and harvesting from the land are operative on it. But the rabbis disagree, insisting that the beehive, even if attached to the land, is considered a movable object, with important legal consequences.
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But the rabbis say: It is not like land, and one may not write a prosbol (a document that prevents the sabbatical year from cancelling a debt) based upon it, and it is susceptible to ritual impurity in its place, and one who removes honey from it on Shabbat is exempt.
The rabbis’ position is reasonable. After all, a beehive is not actually the same thing as a field or a tree; it’s a human-made object, even if later attached to the ground. So then why would Rabbi Eliezer insist that it is actually the same (legally) as a tree? Rabbi Elazar explains:
As it is written: “And he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it in the honeycomb.” (I Samuel 14:27)
The biblical Hebrew word for a honeycomb is ya’arat devash, which literally translates to “honey forest.” Rabbi Elazar argues that this meaning is not just a poetic way to describe a honeycomb, but has important legal implications:
Just as in a forest, one who picks anything from a tree on Shabbat is liable to bring a sin-offering, so too with regard to honey, one who removes honey from it on Shabbat is liable to bring a sin-offering.
Interestingly, both Maimonides and Rabbi Yosef Karo (in his legal code the Shulkhan Arukh) side with Rabbi Eliezer. Jewish law concludes that a beehive is like a forest and it is forbidden to remove honey from it on Shabbat. While the legal conclusion is interesting, and perhaps even relevant to amateur beekeepers who have installed hives in their backyards, this rabbinic discussion also reminds us that, for the rabbis as much as for us today, the natural world is full of wonder, from the enormous — striking vistas, majestic woods — to the minute — ants building labyrinthine colonies and bees creating elaborate honeycombs and “growing” honey. Rabbi Elazar’s literal but creative reading of biblical Hebrew reminds us not to miss the forest for the trees, or in this case, perhaps, for the bees.
Read all of Bava Batra 66 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 30, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
