For some blessings, like those in the daily liturgy or those connected with eating, we have the opportunity to say them every day. Others, like the one for seeing a friend that you haven’t seen in over a year or the blessing for seeing a rainbow, are recited infrequently — if at all. I have a friend who keeps track of these rarer blessings. It’s his dream to be able to say each and every blessing in its proper place or time. I thought of my friend as I read today’s daf.
Last on the long list of people who, according to the Talmud, do not have a place in the World to Come, are residents of an idolatrous city:
The residents of an idolatrous city have no share in the World to Come, as it is stated: “Certain men, wicked persons, are gone out from your midst, and have subverted the inhabitants of their city, saying: Let us go and let us worship other gods.” (Deuteronomy 13:14)
As they have done regularly in Tractate Sanhedrin, the rabbis adopt a literal understanding of the verse which allows them to limit the possibility that a town will actually fall into this category. For example, because the verse says the subverters have come from our midst, the rabbis require that the people of the town be led astray by their fellow townspeople who are from the same tribe.
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Once a city is found guilty of being an idolatrous one, it is destroyed. What happens to the land afterward is a matter of a rabbinic dispute:
It is written: “And it shall be a heap forever.” (Deuteronomy 13:17), meaning the idolatrous city shall not be converted even into gardens and orchards. This is the statement of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili.
Rabbi Akiva says: From the end of that verse: “It shall not be built again,” it is derived that to restore it to the way it was before destruction, it may not be built; but it may be converted into gardens and orchards.
According to Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, the fate of an idolatrous city is to be a heap of rubble for all of time. But Rabbi Akiva maintains that while the town may not be actively rebuilt, it can be rezoned for agricultural purposes. (This debate does not take up much ink in the Talmud or later legal commentaries, but Maimonides sides with Rabbi Akiva, allowing the land to be repurposed.)
Back in Tractate Berakhot, which covered all manner of blessings, we learned the blessing recited upon seeing a place from which idol worship was eradicated:
“Blessed are You, God, Ruler of the Universe, Who eradicated idolatry from our land.”
The Gemara in Berakhot suggested that we tack on the following:
“Just as it was eradicated from this place, so too may it be eradicated from all places of Israel, and restore the hearts of their worshippers to worship You.”
Reading today’s daf, I wondered: How would you even know when you’ve come upon a place from which idolatry has been eradicated? If we follow Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, and forbid any kind of rebuilding on the site of a condemned city, the rubble itself serves as a marker that idol worship was once practiced there and has since been removed. But the law follows Rabbi Akiva which means that, in time, destroyed cities likely become parks, gardens or orchards. In this case, the memory of the idolatry is nearly guaranteed to fade, as that piece of land becomes beautiful, productive and otherwise unremarkable. Perhaps ultimately this is better — a step toward the creation of a more perfect world, rather than a permanent scar attesting to human error. Unless, of course, you too, like my friend, are looking for your chance to bless God in all the ways the rabbis imagined a person could.
