Which would you rather be, a mighty cedar or an unremarkable reed? The Talmud’s answer might surprise you.
On yesterday’s daf, we began a discussion of four private individuals who, according to the Mishnah, have no share in the World to Come. The first is the gentile prophet Balaam who was hired by a Moabite king to curse the Israelites. Due to divine (and asinine, in the original sense of the word) intervention, he instead delivered a series of blessings, including Mah Tovu, which Jews subsequently incorporated into their liturgy. The analysis of Balaam’s words spills over onto today’s daf:
Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani says that Rabbi Yonatan says: What is the meaning of that which is written: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are importunate” (Proverbs 27:6)? Better is the curse that Ahijah the Shilonite cursed the Jewish people than the blessing that Balaam the wicked blessed them. Ahijah the Shilonite cursed Israel with a reed, as it is stated: “For the Lord shall smite Israel until it sways like a reed in water.” (I Kings 14:15)
Ahijah the prophet lived during the reign of King Jeroboam of Israel and foretold the latter’s downfall. In his prophecy, Ahijah denigrated Israel by comparing them to a flimsy reed. By contrast, Balaam, though he intended to curse Israel, in fact blessed them with words that are likely familiar in part from morning liturgy: “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel! . . . Like cedars beside the water.”
These two botanical comparisons, the positive comparison to a cedar and the negative comparison to a reed, are put into conversation using the verse from Proverbs that affirms “wounds from a friend” (like Ahijah’s curse that Israel will be like reeds) are better than “kisses from an enemy” (Balaam’s blessing that they are like a cedars). Proverbs thereby suggests that the reed curse is superior to the cedar blessing. This gives the rabbis license to offer a different spin on the reed comparison:
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Israel is just like a reed that stands in a place near water, as the water sustains it, and its stalk replenishes itself, as if it is cut another grows, and its roots are numerous. And even if all the winds that are in the world come and gust against it, they do not move it from its place and uproot it. Rather, it goes and comes with the winds. And once the winds subside the reed remains in its place.
The humble reed may not be as visibly majestic as the mighty cedar, but the Gemara notes it has many underrated attributes: flexibility, resilience, strong-rootedness. All of these can be ascribed to the Jewish people in a good way, even if Ahijah’s original intent was less than flattering. And the cedar?
They will be just like a cedar that does not stand in a place near water, and its roots are few relative to its height, and its trunk does not replenish itself, as if it is cut it does not grow back. And even if all the winds that are in the world come and gust against it, they do not move it from its place and uproot it; but once a southern wind gusts it immediately uproots the cedar and overturns it on its face.
Although Balaam’s words were taken as a blessing, the comparison to the cedar may not be so positive: Despite its grandeur, the Gemara sees the cedar as ultimately vulnerable, ill-equipped to recover from many of the forces that assail it.
Contemporary sources and later commentators alike lean into this positive view of the humble reed and the comparison between this insignificant plant and the people of Israel. In a story on Ta’anit 20, Rabbi Elazar’s arrogance led to a public chastisement and his acknowledgement that “a person should always be soft like a reed, not stiff like a cedar.” In the 17th century, the Kli Yakar (Prague) remarked that reedy characteristics of the Jewish people have been essential to their very survival: “Torah exists only through those with humility like a reed and not like a person who is rigid like a cedar.”
Fittingly, then, Talmud concludes this sugya with a final tribute to the reed:
Moreover, it is the reed that was privileged to have a quill taken from it to write scrolls of Torah, Prophets and Writings.
In the text’s plain meaning, a reed quill has a place of honor as an essential tool for writing a sefer torah and other sacred texts. But the Maharsha (16th-17th centuries, Poland) goes even deeper: “Even if the reed is uprooted from its place, it still is privileged to have a quill taken from it for use in another context. So it is with Israel: Even in their exile and having been uprooted from their place, they are privileged to study Torah in their exile.” When the cedar is uprooted, he goes on to explain, it succumbs to fire and destruction, not unlike a nation that withers in diaspora. But Israel — just as the reed that is plucked to become a pen and write down new ideas — flourishes when it is uprooted.
Read all of Sanhedrin 106 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on April 1, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
