The Myth of the’Ôṣār in Second Temple Period Ritual Baths: An Anachronistic Interpretation of...

j o u r n a l o f j e w i s h s t u d i e s | v o l . l x v | n o . 2 | a u t u m n 2 01 4

The myth of the ’ôṣār in Second Temple-period ritual baths: an anachronistic interpretation of a modern-era innovation

Y o n a t a n a d l e ra r i e l u n i v e r s i t Y C e n t e r o f s a m a r i a

a b s t r aC t The first installation to be identified as an ancient Jewish ritual bath (miqweh) was discovered by Yigael Yadin at Masada in 1963–64, and consisted of a stepped pool connected to an adjacent pool via a hole in the wall shared by the two installations. Yadin identified one installation as the immersion pool of the miqweh, and the second as an ’ôṣār (lit. ‘reservoir’), used to ritually purify the water in the immersion pool. Yadin’s explanation regarding the functioning of this double-pool ritual bath has gone unchallenged since it was first suggested almost half a century ago, and set the stage for future identifications of ’ôṣār installations found adjacent to other Second Temple-period ritual baths. This article argues that the ’ôṣār is an innovation of the modern period, and that the commonly accepted view that an ’ôṣār was employed in ritual baths dating to as early as the Second Temple period is no more than an unqualified anachronism.

T wo f u n da m e n ta l p r i nC i p l e s underlie early rabbinic prescriptions regarding the miqweh (pl. miqwā’ôt), the Jewish ritual bath. The first

rule is that the bath must contain a minimum volume of water which would allow for the full immersion of an adult, a volume measured in rabbinic metrological terms as forty sĕ’â, probably equivalent to about half a cubic metre.1 The second regulation is that this minimum volume of water must

I would like to thank Prof. Stuart S. Miller for the many conversations and correspondences in which we shared with one another our thoughts regarding various issues directly related to this study. My thanks are also extended to Dr David Amit for serving as a constructive sounding board for the ideas expressed in this article. Part of the research for this study was undertaken during time spent in 2011 as a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, a Recognized Independent Centre of the University of Oxford.

1. E.g. mMiqw. 1:4, 7; 2:1–3, 5, 10; 3:1; 4:4; 5:6; 6:3, 8; 7:1–4, 6. Based on mKelim 17:11, Daniel Sperber has suggested that the basic standard of volume used in tannaitic literature was probably linked to the Roman one, so that the sĕ’â equaled 1½ modii (approx. 13 litres); see D. Sperber, ‘Weights and Measures: In the Talmud’, in Encyclopedia Judaica,2 vol. XX, p. 707.

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This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by the Journal of Jewish Studies

(vol. 65, 2014, pp. 263–283), available from: http://www.jjs-online.net/archives/article/3183

2 | j o u r n a l o f j e w i s h s t u d i e s

derive from either rain or spring water channelled directly into the miqweh, as drawn water would render the bath unfit for ritual use.2 Since nearly all of the yearly rainfall in Israel occurs during its winter season, the question arises as to how ritual baths based on rainwater catchment could have been filled during the dry summer months. Even assuming that miqwā’ôt were initially filled during the rainy season, one may still be left wondering how the used water in these baths was regularly changed during the long dry season.

Archaeological excavations and surveys in Israel and Jordan have uncovered over 850 stepped water installations that have been identified as miqwā’ôt dating to the Late Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods.3 In a few cases, an additional water installation has been found adjacent to the ritual bath, with either a pipe or an above-ground channel connecting the two pools. Scholars uniformly interpret that the function of these installations was to solve the very problem outlined above – to provide a way to change the used, squalid rainwater in the miqweh with fresh drawn water in a fashion sanctioned by rabbinic law. According to this theory, the pool adjoining the miqweh, termed an ’ôṣār (lit. ‘reservoir’),4 was filled with the required minimum volume of 40 sĕ’â of rainwater. The used water in the immersion pool, the theory continues, was regularly removed and changed with clean drawn water, which was made ritually suitable for miqweh use by being brought into physical contact with the rainwater in the ’ôṣār. Two methods are commonly suggested to explain how this was accomplished: (1) after the used water in the bath was removed, fresh drawn water was poured directly into the empty miqweh and made contact with the pure rainwater in the ’ôṣār via the connecting pipe between the two pools; (2) drawn water was poured into the rainwater-filled ’ôṣār, causing the latter to overflow into the empty miqweh via the pipe or channel connecting the two pools.

To be sure, employing an ’ôṣār using one or both of the methods just described is an almost universal practice in the daily upkeep of contemporary ritual baths in Jewish communities throughout the world. The aim of the

2. E.g. mMiqw. 2:3–9; 3:1–4; 4:1–5; 5:1; 6:3. 3. For the most up-to-date list of ancient ritual baths in Israel, see Y. Adler, ‘The Archaeology of Purity: Archaeological Evidence for the Observance of Ritual Purity in Ereẓ-Israel from the Hasmonean Period until the End of the Talmudic Era (164 b C e –400 C e)’, Ph.D. thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 2011, pp. 319–43 (in Hebrew). 4. Use of the word ’ôṣār as a terminus technicus for an installation associated with ritual baths began only in modern times (see below, n. 30).

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t h e m Y t h o f t h e ’ôṣā r i n r i t ua l b at h s | 3

present study is to investigate the conventional assumption that such an installation was in use beginning in ancient times. To anticipate my conclu-sions, I will argue that the ’ôṣār is an innovation of the modern period, and that the commonly accepted view that an ’ôṣār was employed in ritual baths dating to as early as the Second Temple period is no more than an unqualified anachronism.

History of research

The first installation to be identified as an ancient miqweh was discovered during the first season of excavations directed by Yigael Yadin at Masada in 1963–64.5 The installation, found in the southern casemate wall at the site, was covered with hydraulic plaster and fitted with four steps leading to its floor. Adjacent to this was a smaller plastered pool with three steps, connected to the first pool via a hole in the wall shared by the two installations. Yadin immediately identified the two installations as a miqweh complex dating to the Sicarii occupation of Masada (66–73 C e), and described how the two pools functioned together:

According to Jewish religious law, such a bath, without which no orthodox Jew could live, particularly in those days, had to be filled for the most part with rain-water flowing into it directly, and not brought to it with buckets or the like. This of course was not possible in Palestine during most of the months of the year, when there is simply no rain, and the law therefore prescribes that it is sufficient if part of the water is ‘pure’; additional water, drawn and brought from elsewhere and not direct-flowing rain-water, becomes ‘purified’ on contact with the pure water. They therefore built two pools. In one – in ours at Masada the one nearest the entrance – water was gathered during the rainy season and stored; the second was the actual bath itself. Before using it, they would open the bung in the connecting pipe allowing some drops of the stored, direct, rain-water to flow into the bathing pool and thus purify it.

A second miqweh complex was identified by Yadin in the north-eastern corner of the large administration building uncovered in the northern section of Masada:

5. This find was first published by Yadin in his popular book on the excavations at Masada: Y. Yadin, Masada: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealots’ Last Stand (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966), pp. 164–7. The scientific publication of this miqweh complex appears in the site’s final excavation report: E. Netzer, Masada, vol. III: The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965, Final Reports: The Buildings: Stratigraphy and Architecture ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1991), pp. 507–10.

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We discovered the mikve when we excavated its courtyard. Here, too, may be seen the carefully installed communicating pipe between the ‘pure’ water pool and the immersion pool. This device, incidentally, shed light on a number of hitherto obscure passages in the Mishna. It also illustrates … that the defenders of Masada were devout Jews, so that even here, on dry Masada, they had gone to arduous lengths of building these ritual baths in scrupulous conformity with the injunctions of traditional Jewish law.6

Aside from some minor details, Yadin’s explanation regarding the func-tioning of the two double-pool ritual baths uncovered at Masada has gone unchallenged since it was first suggested almost half a century ago. Yadin’s interpretation of the finds at Masada set the stage for future identifications of ’ôṣār installations found adjacent to other ancient miqwā’ôt. Thus, for example, in 1978 Ehud Netzer identified seven pools uncovered at the Hasmonean and Herodian palace complexes in Jericho as ritual baths, each with an adjacent ’ôṣār.7 The earliest of these was dated by Netzer to the reign of John Hyrcanus I in the late second century b C e .8 In 1980, Netzer identified an installation uncovered at Herodium as a ritual bath with an adjoining ’ôṣār.9

Dozens of stepped water installations were uncovered in the excavations conducted by Benjamin Mazar adjacent to the Temple Mount (1968–78) as well as in the excavations carried out under the supervision of Nahman Avigad in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem (1969–82); however, hardly any of these had an adjacent ’ôṣār pool. Ronny Reich, at the time one of Avigad’s senior assistants, identified these installations as ritual baths, pointing out that an ’ôṣār is in fact not required for an installation to function as a ritual bath. Reich’s groundbreaking work was summarized in 1990 in a corpus which numbered 300 ancient ritual baths found throughout Israel.10 Of these, Reich counted only 16 examples of ritual baths in which

6. Yadin, Masada, p. 167. The scientific publication of this miqweh complex appears in Masada’s final excavation report: Netzer, Masada, pp. 13–17. 7. E. Netzer, ‘Miqvaot (Ritual Baths) of the Second Temple Period at Jericho’, Qadmoniot 42–3 (1978), pp. 54–9 (in Hebrew). 8. E. Netzer, Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho: Final Reports of the 1973–1987 Excavations, vol. I: Stratigraphy and Architecture ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001), pp. 2, 39–43. 9. E. Netzer, Herodium (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Ariel, 1980), p. 16. For a detailed description of these installations, see A. Grossberg, R. Porat, D. Amit and E. Netzer, ‘Unique Ritual Baths at Herodium from the Time of the Uprisings Against Rome’, Judea and Samaria Research Studies 20 (2011), pp. 68–70 (in Hebrew); idem, ‘A “Miqweh above a Miqweh” from the Time of the Uprisings against the Romans that was Found at Herodium’, Teḥumin 31 (2011), pp. 393–4 (in Hebrew). 10. R. Reich, ‘Miqwa’ot ( Jewish Ritual Immersion Bath) in Eretz-Israel in the Second Temple and the Mishna and Talmud Periods’, Ph.D. thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1990 (in Hebrew).

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he considered the presence of an ’ôṣār to be certain, and an additional 18 examples in which the presence of an ’ôṣār remained uncertain.11 Notably, of the approximately 150 miqwā’ôt in Reich’s corpus which were uncovered in Jerusalem, only one miqweh was found to have an adjacent installation that Reich unquestionably considered to be an ’ôṣār.12

After Reich had shown that only a small minority of ancient ritual baths had an adjoining ’ôṣār, scholars began to grapple with the question, why did only some miqwā’ôt make use of an ’ôṣār while most did not? E.P. Sanders argued that it was only the Pharisees (and later the rabbis) who believed that drawn water invalidated a miqweh, whereas the ‘common’ Jews of the late Second Temple period, as well the priests and the aristocracy, did not follow this ruling.13 Consequentially, Sanders suggested that the baths with an ’ôṣār were strictly Pharisaic, as only the Pharisees would have required such an installation whose purpose was to ritually validate drawn water.

Like Sanders, Carol Selkin also argued that miqwā’ôt with an ’ôṣār were strictly Pharisaic; however, the rationale behind her argument was completely different.14 According to Selkin, all Jews during the late Second Temple period would have agreed that drawn water was invalid for a miqweh; it was an innovation of the Pharisees to allow the use of an ’ôṣār to validate drawn water.15 A similar argument was made by Eyal Regev, who contended that the

11. See ibid., pp. 74–80. Reich identified baths with a definite ’ôṣār at Herodium (two pools), Jeri-cho (11 pools), Jerusalem (one pool) and Masada (two pools). Possible ’ôṣār installations were identified at Gezer (one pool), Aḥuzat Ḥazan (one pool), Jericho (four pools), Jerusalem (six pools), Masada (four pools) and Qumran (two pools). An additional installation, the basin (L1062/2) adjoining the miqweh located west of the synagogue at Gamla, was identified by its excavator, Shmarya Gutman, as an ’ôṣār (S. Gutman, Gamla: A City in Rebellion [in Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defence, 1994], p. 106), a possibility deliberated by Reich (‘Miqwa’ot’, p. 254). For more on this installation, see below, n. 51. 12. This installation was published in Avigad’s popular book on the Jewish Quarter excavations: N. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson, 1980), p. 139, figs 145, 175. Contrary to the claim of Meir Ben-Dov that a ritual bath with an adjacent ’ôṣār was found ‘in every one of the houses uncovered on the slopes of the western hill’ of Jerusalem (M. Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple: The Discovery of Ancient Jerusalem [Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1985], p. 152), Reich did not find in this area a single example of an installation which in his view could possibly be identified as an ’ôṣār (see Reich, ‘Miqwa’ot’, p. 26). 13. E.P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies (London: SCM Press, 1990), pp. 214–27. 14. C.B. Selkin, ‘Exegesis and Identity: The Hermeneutics of Miqwa’ot in the Greco-Roman Period’, Ph.D. thesis, Duke University, Durham NC, 1993, pp. 134–49, 160–61; C. Selkin Wise, ‘Miqwā’ôt and Second Temple Sectarianism’, in D.R. Edwards and C.T. McCollough (eds), The Archaeology of Difference: Gender, Ethnicity Class and the ‘Other’ in Antiquity: Studies in Honor of Eric M. Meyers (AASOR vol. 60/61; Boston MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2007), pp. 181–200. 15. Selkin argued that the issue is related to the question of the ritual purity status of nīṣôq/mûṣāqôt,

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Pharisees were known to be lenient in their halakhic legislation, particularly with regard to matters relating to ritual purity.16 According to Regev, the Sadducees and the Qumran sectarians would not have accepted the Pharisaic concept that an ’ôṣār could make drawn water suitable for miqweh use.

Finally, a plethora of essays written from a traditional, uncritical perspec-tive has addressed the question of how the ’ôṣār functioned in various ancient miqwā’ôt, with most of these studies going to great lengths in trying to harmonize the archaeological finds with prescriptions found in substantially later rabbinic literature, some of which postdate the archaeological remains by over a thousand years.17 Curiously enough, one such study has recently been published in a volume of the final excavation reports on Masada.18

The past two decades have seen a surge in the number of ritual baths discovered in archaeological excavations and surveys throughout the country, with over 850 ritual baths known today dating from the Late Hellenistic period through the Roman and Byzantine periods.19 Of the hundreds of

liquids poured from one container into another, a matter of contention between the Sadducees and Pharisees (mYad. 4:7) and between the author(s) of Miqṣat Ma‘ase Ha-torah (4QMMT) and its addressees (4QMMT a [4Q394] 8 iv, 5–8, published in E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4 V: Miqṣat Ma‘aśe Ha-torah [Discoveries in the Judean Desert vol. X; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994], p. 12). Following a provisional suggestion originally raised by Ya‘acov Sussman (‘The History of the Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Talmudic Observations on Miqṣat Ma‘aśe Ha-torah [4QMMT]’, in Qimron and Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4 V, p. 188), Selkin contended that the question of intermingling drawn water with rainwater in a miqweh is addressed explicitly in 4QMMT. For a critique of this suggestion, see Y. Elman, ‘Some Remarks on 4QMMT and Rabbinic Tradition: Or, When is a Parallel not a Parallel’, in J. Kampen and M.J. Bernstein (eds), Reading 4QMMT: New Perspectives on Qumran Law and History (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), pp. 99–128. 16. E. Regev, ‘Ritual Baths of Jewish Groups and Sects in the Second Temple Period’, Cathedra 79 (1996), pp. 3–21, esp. pp. 12–20 (in Hebrew); idem, ‘Archaeology and the Mishnah’s Halakhic Tradition: The Case of Stone Vessels and Ritual Baths’, in A.J. Avery-Peck and J. Neusner (eds), The Mishnah in Contemporary Perspective (vol. II; Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section one: The Near and Middle East, vol. 87; Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 149–51. For critical reviews of Regev’s theory, see D. Amit, ‘Ritual Baths (Mikva’ot) from the Second Temple Period in the Hebron Mountains’, M.A. thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1996, p. 57 (in Hebrew); A. Grossberg, ‘Ritual Baths in Second Temple Period Jerusalem and How They Were Ritually Prepared’, Cathedra 83 (1997), pp. 151–68 (in Hebrew); see also Regev’s reply to Grossberg: E. Regev, ‘More on Ritual Baths of Jewish Groups and Sects: On Research Methods and Archaeological Evidence — A Reply to A. Grossberg’, Cathedra 83 (1997), pp. 169–76 (in Hebrew). 17. The first study of this sort was published by Shemuel Hacohen Weingarten: ‘The Mikveh at Masada (A Halakhic Study)’, Sinai 67 (1970), pp. 83–93 (in Hebrew). Weingarten was one of the six-member rabbinic contingent that visited Masada shortly after the discovery of the miqweh found in the southern casemate wall at the site; see below, nn. 54–5. 18. A. Grossberg, ‘The Miqva’ot (Ritual Baths) at Masada’, in Masada, vol. VIII: The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965: Final Reports ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007), pp. 95–126. For an up-to-date bibliography of this genre of studies, see the bibliographic list in Grossberg et al., ‘Unique Ritual Baths at Herodium’, pp. 78–9. 19. See above, n. 3.

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miqwā’ôt discovered since Reich compiled his corpus in 1990, only a handful have been found with an adjoining installation that could be identified as an ’ôṣār.20

The ’ôṣār in textual sources

While the written sources from the late Second Temple period abound in references to the practice of purificatory immersion in water,21 no mention is ever made of a specific type of installation which may have been used for this rite. Even the type of water necessary for ritual immersion is never discussed, with the exception of a somewhat cryptic statement found in the Damascus Document which appears to prescribe that water used for ablutions must be neither polluted nor overly shallow.22

The earliest source to describe a water installation designated specifically for ritual immersion is the Mishnah, redacted in the first quarter of the third century C e . It is in the Mishnah that we also find the first detailed prescrip-tions regarding the type of water necessary for effecting ritual purification, including the 40 sĕ’â minimum volume requirement and the specification that this minimum volume must derive from either rain or spring water channelled directly into the pool.23 A large number of complex rules and regulations concerning ritual baths is concentrated in Tractate Miqwā’ôt of the Mishnah as well as in a tractate with the same name in the Tosefta, while additional laws are scattered throughout various tannaitic and amoraitic works.

20. See e.g. Z. Weiss, ‘Ẓippori (Sepphoris) – 1998’, ESI 110 (1999), p. 22*; U. Dahari and U. ‘Ad, ‘Shoham Bypass Road’, ESI 20 (2000), p. 57*; Ḥ. Hizmi, ‘New Discoveries at the Second Temple Period Site of Archelais’, Qadmoniot 128 (2004), pp. 97–9 (in Hebrew); E. Netzer, Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho: Final Reports of the 1973-1987 Excavations, vol. II: Stratigraphy and Architecture ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jeru-salem, 2004), pp. 178–80; S.S. Miller, ‘Stepped Pools and the Non-Existent Monolithic “Miqveh”’, in Edwards and McCollough (eds), The Archaeology of Difference, p. 219; O. Shmueli and L. Barda, ‘Shilat: Development Survey in the Moshav: Final Report’, ESI 120 (2008), accessed 29 August 2012, www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.asp?id=738&mag_id=114; Grossberg et al., ‘Unique Ritual Baths at Herodium’; idem, ‘Miqweh above Miqweh’; Z. Greenhut, ‘A Domestic Quarter from the Second Temple Period on the Lower Slopes of the Central Valley (Tyropoeon)’, in G. Avni and K. Galor (eds), Unearthing Jerusalem: 150 Years of Archaeological Research in the Holy City (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011), pp. 270–72. 21. E.g. Josephus, AJ 3.263; Mark 7:3–4; Luke 11:38. 22. The text reads: ‘על הטהר במים אל ירחץ איש במים צואים ומעוטים מדי מרעיל איש אל יטהר .(CD X:10–12; cf. 4QD e 6 iv 21) ’במה כלי 23. See above, notes 1–2.

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Where, then, is mention of an ’ôṣār installation to be found within the corpus of Talmudic literature? The answer is as simple as it is unequivocal: it is nowhere to be found. This assertion deserves an explanation.

The proof text commonly adduced to explain how the drawn water in a miqweh can become suitable through the use of an ’ôṣār appears in the following statement of the Mishnah:

They may purify miqwā’ôt, whether a higher [pool] from a lower [pool], or a distant [pool] from one which is nearby. How so? One brings a pipe of earthenware or of lead and places his hand beneath it until it is filled with water [from one pool], and he has drawn it along and brought [this water] into contact [with the water of the other pool]; even if it touches by a hair’s breadth – it suffices. (mMiqw. 6:8)24

The issue under discussion is a case where the water in one miqweh has become impure, presumably due to the fact that drawn water had invalidated the pool prior to its having been filled with the prerequisite 40 sĕ’â minimum volume, and as such the water in the pool would have become susceptible to ritual impurity since it does not have the status of valid miqweh water. The Mishnah thus provides a solution for ritually ‘fixing’ a miqweh containing drawn water – by bringing its water into contact with the water of a second, valid miqweh. The method the Mishnah describes for bringing the water in the two pools into physical contact is quite cumbersome: a portable pipe is brought and filled with water from one pool, and while one end of the pipe is still submerged in this pool the second end is stopped up by hand, brought over to the second pool and placed onto the surface of its water. The clumsy technique described here is no more than a stopgap measure which can be used, when in straits, to fix an invalid miqweh.25 It is true that, theoretically,

24. Cf. tMiqw. 5:5 (ed. Zuckermandel, p. 657), quoted in n. 25 below. Cf. also Sifra, Shemini 9:2 (ed. Weiss, p. 55d), where purification of a miqweh through a spring, another miqweh or a cistern is sanctioned, but no specific technique for doing so is described. 25. The method described in the parallel toseftan source is no less clumsy and cumbersome: ‘One brings a pipe of wood, of bone or of glass and places his hand beneath it until it is filled with water [from one pool], and he has drawn it along and brought [this water] into contact [with the water of the other pool]; even if it touches by a hair’s breadth – it suffices. However, if the pipe bends even a small amount it is invalid. In what case are these things said? When one [pool] was higher than the second. If, however, both [pools] were next to one another [on the same level], one brings an elbow-shaped pipe to one [pool], and [another] elbow-shaped pipe to the second [pool], with another pipe in the middle [connecting the first two]. One then brings [the water in both ends of the pipe] into contact [with both pools], descends and immerses.’ (tMiqw. 5:5 [ed. Zuckermandel, p. 657]; see also S. Lieberman, Tosefeth Rishonim: A Commentary [in Hebrew; vol. IV; Jerusalem: Mossad Rabbi Kook Press, 1939], p. 23.)

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one could take the rationale behind the method outlined here one step further, and from the start design a miqweh with a built-in pipe connecting it to a second, adjacent miqweh in such a way that the water in one miqweh could be regularly changed and replaced with fresh drawn water, which would then be made suitable by being brought into contact with the rainwater in the second pool via the pipe. This second pool, of course, would be the ’ôṣār that we seek. However, by no stretch of the imagination can mMiqw. 6:8 be interpreted as describing such an intentionally designed miqweh-with-’ôṣār pair of installations. Nor does this source describe a technique used to regularly replace squalid water found in a miqweh with fresh drawn water in a way that rabbinic legislation would find permissible. All that is described is an ex post facto, impromptu solution to permit the ritual restoration of an invalid miqweh.

The continuation of this Mishnah as well has often been sought as a proof text for the existence and employment of ’ôṣār installations in tannaitic times:

If there were forty sĕ’â in the upper [pool] and nothing in the lower, one may draw water [in vessels, carry them] on the shoulder, and pour [the drawn water] into the upper pool until forty sĕ’â [of water] flows down into the lower [pool]. (mMiqw. 6:8)

This source describes how a miqweh pool which happens to be empty of water may be filled using drawn water: the drawn water is poured into a second miqweh already filled with the prerequisite 40 sĕ’â minimum volume of water until the water overflows into the empty miqweh and fills it with the required 40 sĕ’â of water. Once again, in principle, one could take the rationale behind the method outlined here one step further, and from the outset construct a miqweh with an adjacent pool in such a way that the squalid water in the miqweh could be regularly removed and replaced with fresh drawn water by pouring the drawn water into the second pool until it overflows into the miqweh and refills it. This second pool would be our sought-after ’ôṣār. The Mishnah, however, is clearly not describing such a miqweh and ’ôṣār pair of installations specifically designed to allow the cleaning and regular replacement of water in the miqweh through the use of an ’ôṣār.

Other passages commonly quoted by scholars as Talmudic source texts for the ’ôṣār are those which refer to the halakhic concept called ‘ērûb miqwā’ôt

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(lit. ‘combining of miqwā’ôt’).26 This concept involves the ways in which connected waters gathered in more than one locus are nominally deemed to constitute a single body of water. Through the principle of ‘ērûb miqwā’ôt, the rabbis ruled that one may immerse in a miqweh which contains a volume smaller than 40 sĕ’â if this miqweh is connected to another body of water as long as the sum of the two volumes of water meets the minimum requirement of 40 sĕ’â.27 The same principle is adduced to allow the immersion of vessels in the water collected in small cavities and crevices found in the walls of a miqweh, such as may commonly be found in the case of water gathered in an irregularly shaped cave.28 Nowhere in the Talmudic literature, however, is the principle of ‘ērûb miqwā’ôt called upon to explain how the water of a miqweh may be changed and replaced with drawn water by means of an adjoining installation filled with rainwater and which had been built for this express purpose (i.e. an ’ôṣār).29

If, then, no hint of the existence of an ’ôṣār installation can be found anywhere in the Talmudic literature, where is the first textual attestation to the employment of an ’ôṣār to be found? A careful study of the rabbinic literature of the post-Talmudic era, the writings of the Ge’onic period in Babylonia and Palestine, reveals no trace of evidence that such an installation may have been in use at the time. Similarly, a thorough examination of the medieval and early modern halakhic literature provides not a single indication that a miqweh with an adjoining ’ôṣār was in use in any Jewish community. To be perfectly clear, what I seek here is not the manifestation of the word ’ôṣār, which in fact first appears in rabbinic literature with regard to miqwā’ôt

26. The concept of ‘ērûb miqwā’ôt as manifested in the rules and regulations surrounding its practical implementation is the main subject of the sixth chapter of Tractate Miqwā’ôt of the Mishnah. 27. See mMiqw. 6:3. This issue appears to be the subject of mMiqw. 6:7, 9 as well. 28. See mMiqw. 6:1; tMiqw. 5:1 (ed. Zuckermandel 656–7). 29. Four tannaitic passages mention an enigmatic water installation (or pair of installations) called a mĕṭahereth (or perhaps maṭhereth) which was located in a bathhouse and which could be used for ritual ablutions (mMiqw. 6:11; tMiqw. 5:8 [ed. Zuckermandel 657]; tMiqw. 6:4 [ed. Zuckermandel 658]; cf. t‘Erub. 8:8 [ed. Lieberman 133–34]). The Hebrew root of mĕṭahereth is likely ṭhr, meaning ‘pure’ or ‘clean’. (For a suggestion that the word should be amended to merhāṭath, formed from the root rhṭ, meaning ‘water trough’, see S. Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshuṭah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta [in Hebrew; vol. III; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962], p. 456). At times this mĕṭahereth could be found to contain rainwater, while at other times it contained drawn water which could be connected to another installation containing valid water. Both traditional commentators and modern scholars alike have grappled with the task of interpreting what exactly the nature of this installation was and how it was used. The mĕṭahereth is never mentioned in con-nection with replacing the water of a miqweh; nor is it ever found in any context other than that of the bathhouse, and as such should not be understood as some kind of ’ôṣār.

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beginning only in the late nineteenth century,30 but rather any reference to the existence of a ritual bath with an adjoining installation built specifically to allow the regular replacement of the water in the miqweh with drawn water. Despite the many sources which expound at great length on the rules and regulations relating to the structure of ritual baths and the ways in which these baths functioned, I have found not a single allusion to the existence of an installation resembling an ’ôṣār anywhere in the published halakhic codes or responsa literature dating from the post-Talmudic era until early modern times.

As far as I am aware, the earliest textual evidence for the existence of an ’ôṣār appears in a responsum penned by Rabbi Moses Schreiber (Sofer), of Pressburg (Bratislava), Hungary, and addressed to Rabbi Wolf Chajes, head of the rabbinical court at Várpalota, Hungary, dated 14 December 1813:

Regarding the construction of a miqweh in your city … it would be optimal if they were to make two pools adjacent to one another, with an opening near the top of the wall which divides the two installations in such a fashion that if one pool were full, the other pool would be filled [by overflow] through this opening. In this way, the [ritual] character [of the miqwā’ôt] will never be compromised, for since one had been filled with rainwater or snow in a permissible manner, they may then pour drawn water from vessels into this [full] miqweh. Since [the pool] is already a valid [miqweh] filled with rainwater, it can never become invalidated as a result of drawn water [being poured into it], and any [water] that is poured in thereafter automatically becomes valid miqweh [water]. When the first [miqweh] overflows its capacity, the second [miqweh] will be filled via the opening between the two [pools]. Once the second [miqweh] too has become filled, if they then wish to clean out one [of the pools], they may empty it of all its water, clean it, and afterwards refill it by pouring drawn water into the full [pool] until [it overflows and] the empty [pool] is filled. Once the empty [pool] has been thus refilled, they may then empty the other [pool of its water], clean out its grime and mud, and then refill it by pouring drawn water into the first pool, and so on ad infinitum. This is what we do with the large miqweh here [in Pressburg], such that the ritual character of the water is never compromised. This is a sound and fitting recommendation and [the validity of this method] is indisputable.31

30. To the best of my knowledge, the first use of the term appears in a responsum dating to 1880, written by Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer of Berlin and addressed to Rabbi Gedalya Goitein of Karlsruhe, Germany: A. Hildesheimer, Responsa of Azriel Hildesheimer on ’Ôraḥ Ḥayyîm and Yôreh Dē‘â (Tel-Aviv: L. Friedman, 1969), p. 242. 31. Ḥātham Sôpēr Responsa, Yôreh Dē‘â 203 (ed. Nussenzweig, pp. 405–6).

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The miqweh of Pressburg is described twice more in Schreiber’s responsa,32 and in all three cases the lengthy and in-depth explanations about how the miqweh functioned indicate that the design of this miqweh, with its adjoining ’ôṣār installation, was quite unique for its time. It is unclear exactly when this twin-pool miqweh was first built, although it apparently pre-dated Schreiber’s arrival in Pressburg in 1806, as he attributed its construction to his rabbinic predecessors in the city (‘the wise men of past generations’ and ‘the great sages of yore’).33 Although Schreiber insisted that the halakhic status of the innovative method which he described was ‘indisputable’, his ruling in fact ignited a fierce polemic among rabbinic authorities of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, with numerous rabbis altogether forbidding the use of an ’ôṣār.34 Despite this early opposition, the ’ôṣār eventually became a common feature in miqwā’ôt built during the course of the nineteenth century, and in various forms was ultimately adopted almost universally during the course of the twentieth century. It appears that one of the driving forces behind the widespread adoption of the ’ôṣār during this period was an increased concern for hygiene and sanitization, as an ’ôṣār provided the opportunity to regularly change used water in a miqweh with fresh water.35 Another important impetus was surely the increasing availability of tap water, which made the regular exchange of water in miqwā’ôt, through the use of an ’ôṣār, into a truly feasible and widely accessible option for the first time in history.36

32. The first of these was addressed to Rabbi Elyakim Getz Koenigsberg, head of the rabbinical court of Körmend, Hungary, and dated to 1823; see Ḥātham Sôpēr Responsa, Yôreh Dē‘â 212 (ed. Nussenzweig, p. 424). The second responsum was addressed to Rabbi Benjamin Wolf Hamburg of Fürth, Germany, and is undated; see ibid. 214 (ed. Nussenzweig, pp. 427–8). 33. See sources referred to above in n. 32. 34. For an extensive review of the debate surrounding Schreiber’s ruling as reflected in the responsa literature of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, see Y.D. Goldstein, Sēper Līqûṭê He’ārôth (in Hebrew; vol. 4; Jerusalem: Ḥātham Sôpēr Institute, 1981), pp. 256–60, 318–34, 347–8. 35. Concerns regarding the sanitary conditions in miqwā’ôt during this period were not only an internal Jewish issue; beginning in the early nineteenth century, for example, the secular authorities in various German regions began to regulate the daily functioning of Jewish ritual baths, including enforcement of regular changing of the water in miqwā’ôt. See T. Schlich, ‘Medicalization and Secularization: The Jewish Ritual Bath as a Problem of Hygiene (Germany 1820s–1840s)’, Social History of Medicine 8, no. 3 (1995), pp. 423–42, esp. p. 437 n. 89. 36. For a history of the proliferation of municipal water supply systems during the course of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, see J.P. Goubert, The Conquest of Water: The Advent of Health in the Industrial Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989).

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A re-examination of the archaeological data in context

Thus far we have seen that prior to the nineteenth century no textual evidence exists for the practice of exchanging the used water in a miqweh with drawn water and then ritually purifying this water through the use of an ’ôṣār specially designed for this purpose. We shall now turn to the archaeological data to in order to examine the claim that certain water installations adjoining Second Temple period ritual baths were in fact ’ôṣār pools built to serve this exact purpose.

We must preface our investigation by pointing out two implicit assump-tions regarding the historical development of the laws of miqwā’ôt that are made by all scholars who posit the existence of the ’ôṣār as early as the Second Temple period:

1. The stipulation that a ritual bath must contain a minimum volume of either rainwater or spring water, while drawn water invalidates a miqweh, was followed by at least some Jews by the time of the late Second Temple period.

2. The concept that drawn water could be validated for use in a miqweh by being brought into contact with rainwater, or by being poured into a minimum volume of rainwater, was in existence and accepted by some Jews as early as the Second Temple period.

Although the first assumption is not supported by any texts dating to the Second Temple period itself, rabbinic sources redacted in the third century C e relate that this regulation was acknowledged by sages living towards the end of the first century b C e .37 If we accept the historicity of the attribution of this legal rule to such early sages, an entirely reasonable possibility in my mind,38 then there is a basis for the assumption that at least some Jews believed that drawn water invalidates a miqweh, although we have no way of telling how prevalent such a notion was.

The second assumption outlined above is significantly more problematic. The tannaitic proof texts for the concept that drawn water may be made valid for ritual immersion by being brought into contact with a valid miqweh are

37. See m‘Ed. 1:3; t‘Ed.1:3 (ed. Zuckermandel 454–5). 38. See also J. Neusner, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities, vol. XIV: Miqvaot: Literary and Historical Problems (SJLA vol. VI; Leiden: Brill, 1976), pp. 123–6, 173–4.

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unattributed,39 and as such cannot be dated with certainty to any time prior to the beginning of the third century C e .40 The notion that drawn water becomes valid when poured into a miqweh containing a certain minimum volume of rainwater is not attributed to any sage prior to 70 C e .41 As such, there is no evidence which might indicate that any Jews living during the Second Temple period would have considered an ’ôṣār to be at all effective.

For argument’s sake, I shall here adopt both assumptions outlined above, and take as a given that at least some Second Temple-period Jews believed that drawn water invalidates a miqweh, and that bringing drawn water into contact with a minimum quantity of valid water could make the drawn water suitable for miqweh use. After adopting these legal-historical assumptions, we may now turn to the archaeological finds in order to examine whether or not the remains themselves provide any indication that the water installations identified by scholars as ’ôṣār pools actually served as such.

As we have seen, the sole purpose of an ’ôṣār is to provide a way to replace the used, squalid rainwater in a miqweh with fresh drawn water in such a way that the new water is rendered ritually suitable for immersion. Presumably an ’ôṣār would have been installed in miqwā’ôt which were to be cleaned on a somewhat regular basis. The amount of water needed in order to operate a miqweh with an ’ôṣār is the product of the volume of the ritual bath in question multiplied by the number of times the water is to be changed. To illustrate the point, we may take as an example the one miqweh uncovered in Jerusalem with an adjoining installation positively identified by Reich as an ’ôṣār – the one found in a residential house in Area T-4 of the excavations

39. See mMiqw. 6:8; tMiqw. 5:5 (ed. Zuckermandel, p. 657); Sifra, Shemini 9:2 (ed. Weiss, p. 55d). Although we find attributed to the Houses of Hillel and Shamai the concept that impure water in a vessel may be purified if brought into contact with valid miqweh water (mBeṣah 2:3; mMiqw. 10:6), this does not imply that a disqualified ritual bath may be made valid through contact with a valid miqweh. 40. Jacob Neusner (A History, pp. 153, 178) has contended that the notion of validating water in a ritual bath through its mingling with already valid miqweh water is not assigned to any authorities predating the Ushan period. Neusner, however, did not distinguish between the concept of ‘ērûb miqwā’ôt (see above, n. 26), which does indeed have Ushan attributions, and the notion of validation of drawn water through contact with suitable miqweh water, which is unattributed. 41. See Neusner, A History, pp. 125, 173. Although tŠeqal. 1:1 (ed. Lieberman, p. 200) seems to indicate that drawn water may be poured into a valid miqweh which already contains at least 40 sĕ’â, this passage is not attributed to any sage. The fact that the pericope describes a practice purportedly associated with pilgrimage to Jerusalem does not ipso facto indicate that the notion behind the practice should be dated to the Second Temple period. Cf. the parallel source in mŠeqal. 1:1, which lacks this ruling.

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in the Jewish Quarter conducted by Avigad.42 The capacity of this miqweh is approximately 7 m3. If we were to suppose that the miqweh was cleaned out once a month, over the course of seven months (the approximate dura-tion of the dry season in Israel) the miqweh would consume 49 m3 of water. Conjecturing a more frequent cleaning of the bath, let’s say once a week, this miqweh would consume 210 m3 of water over the course of the 30-week dry season. This is a rather extravagant use of fresh water in a semi-arid area of the country such as Jerusalem. We should also keep in mind that this volume of water had to be manually removed from the miqweh, and an equal amount drawn from a cistern and poured into the miqweh – an effort which certainly required many man-hours worth of labour. Considering these practical implications, having an ’ôṣār installed in a miqweh complex was certainly a luxury available only to the affluent who could afford the expenses involved.

Another factor to be considered is that an ’ôṣār is necessary only if one wishes to completely empty the miqweh in order to refill it entirely with fresh water. According to rabbinic law (remember that we are currently working under the assumption that these rules were already being followed during the Second Temple period), the water in a miqweh could be exchanged as long as a minimum volume of 40 sĕ’â (approx. 0.5 m3 ) of the original water remained in the pool.43 Since most ancient miqwā’ôt held a capacity measuring many times this volume, most of the water in these baths could have been replaced with fresh drawn-water and a relatively high water quality in the immersion pools could be maintained without the need of an ’ôṣār. This fact only strengthens our suggestion that an ’ôṣār was a luxurious amenity, to be sought in the homes of the upper classes.

Surprisingly, however, there does not seem to be any correlation between the presence of a supposed ’ôṣār in miqwā’ôt and contextual socio-economic indicators. As we have seen, only one ’ôṣār adjoining a ritual bath has been identified among the dozens of miqwā’ôt uncovered in the affluent residential quarter excavated in the Upper City of Jerusalem. Similarly, not a single ’ôṣār has been identified among the numerous miqwā’ôt uncovered in the Herodian palaces at Masada, Machaerus, Cypros and Caesarea, while only

42. For a preliminary description of the installation, see Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem, p. 139, figs 145, 175; Reich, Miqwa’ot, pp. 201–2. 43. For the measurement of the sĕ’â , see above, n. 1.

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one ’ôṣār has been identified among the Herodian period miqwā’ôt uncovered at Herodium.44 On the other hand, ’ôṣār installations have been identified at sites where we would least expect to find them, such as two to six miqwā’ôt built by the Sicarii at Masada as well as in a miqweh built by the Jewish rebels at Herodium. Those who wish to identify these as ’ôṣār installations must persuasively explain why Jewish rebels in the heat of fighting a desperate war against the Romans would have expended energy and resources in building such superfluous luxury installations – and this in the arid climate of the Judean Desert.

Another problem with the identification of many of these installations as ’ôṣār pools lies in the fact that they tend to be much larger than is necessary for their supposed function. As we have seen, tannaitic law allows drawn water to be made suitable if it comes into contact with 40 sĕ’â of rainwater. In principle, there would be no reason to construct an ’ôṣār significantly larger than this volume, equal to about 0.5 m3. In practice, however, most of the installations identified as ’ôṣār pools are many times larger than this. For example, the installation uncovered in the southern casemate wall of Masada and identified by Yadin as an ’ôṣār holds a capacity of 3 m3, a volume six times more than necessary had this installation actually been intended to serve as an ’ôṣār.45 Some of the installations at Jericho identified as ’ôṣār pools hold capacities of 14 m3, 16 m3, 20 m3, 22 m3 and even 57 m3 – the last measuring 114 times more than would be necessary if it were to serve as an ’ôṣār.46

44. E. Netzer, Greater Herodium (Qedem vol. XIII; Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1981), pp. 47–9. For a discussion of the miqwā’ôt uncovered in the Hasmo-nean and Herodian palaces at Jericho, see below. 45. The capacity of the installation if filled only up to the height of the hole in the wall connecting this installation with the adjoining miqweh; see Netzer, Masada, pp. 507–10; Reich, Miqwa’ot, pp. 296–8. Contra Yadin, Reich argued that this installation may have served as an immersion pool, while the adjoining installation served as an ’ôṣār. 46. Pool A(L)283, adjoining ritual bath A(L)350, holds a capacity of 14 m3; see Netzer, Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces, I, p. 215, illus. 310–11. Pool AH28, adjoining ritual bath AH21, holds a capac-ity of 16 m3; see E. Netzer, Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho: Final Reports of the 1973-1987 Excavations, vol. II: Stratigraphy and Architecture ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2004), pp. 149–50. Pool A(A)243, adjoining ritual bath A(A)209, holds a capacity of 20 m3; see Netzer, Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces, I, p. 39–43, illus. 55–60. Pool F176, adjoining ritual bath F182, holds a capacity of 22 m3; see Netzer, Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces, II, pp. 75–6, illus. 94–6. In ‘Herod’s First Palace’ at Jericho (located south of Wadi Qelt), the pool in Room 10, adjoining the ritual bath in Room 9, holds a capacity of 57 m3; see J.B. Pritchard, The Excavation at Herodian Jericho, 1951 (AASOR vols. XXXII–XXXIII; New Haven CT: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1958), pp. 9–10, pls 5:1–2.

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One more issue that needs to be addressed is the problem of the supposed ’ôṣār installations uncovered at the site of the Hasmonean and Herodian palaces at Jericho. Of the 16 examples of ritual baths in which Reich consid-ered the presence of an ’ôṣār to be certain, 11 were found at Jericho.47 Unlike most known ancient miqwā’ôt, which relied on rainwater catchment for their water supply, the miqwā’ôt at Jericho were fed by the aqueducts which channelled water from the nearby perennial springs in Wadi Qelt and the springs of Na‘aran and ‘Ein el ‘Auja.48 As such, even if these miqwā’ôt were regularly cleaned and the used water in them was completely removed, the baths would have been quickly refilled with ritually valid spring water from the aqueducts. Since the sole purpose of an ’ôṣār is to make drawn water poured into a miqweh ritually suitable for immersion, there would have been no need for any ’ôṣār installations at Jericho. Aware of this problem, Netzer suggested that ’ôṣār pools were nevertheless required at Jericho for the rare occasions when there was no regular water supply, such as times when the aqueducts were temporarily damaged as a result of downpours and flooding in the region.49 In such cases, according to Netzer, the water in the miqwā’ôt would be replaced with water drawn from storage pools, which would then have to be made suitable for use by being brought into contact with the water in the ’ôṣār installations. To say the least, this solution is highly implausible. Can we really imagine that anyone would have gone to such great lengths as to build these large pools, some with capacities of tens of cubic metres, if they were to be used only on the rare and short-lived occasions when there was a problem with the regular water supply? Even in such contingencies, would it not have been far easier and faster to simply repair the damaged aqueducts – something which had to be done in any event – rather than to manually replace the huge volumes of water in the miqwā’ôt with drawn water? Bearing in mind the fact that each of the miqwā’ôt under considera-tion held many times the minimum 40 sĕ’â of water, why didn’t those who planned the construction of these baths with an eye on rare emergency situations simply rely on the fact that the used water in these miqwā’ôt could have been replaced with drawn water so long as the minimum 40 sĕ’â was

47. See above, n. 11. 48. See E. Netzer and G. Garbrecht, ‘Water Channels and a Royal Estate of the Late Hellenistic Period in Jericho’s Western Plains’, in D. Amit, J. Patrich and Y. Hirschfeld (eds), The Aqueducts of Israel ( JRASup vol. XLVI; Portsmouth RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2002), pp. 367–80. 49. Netzer, Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces, I, p. 42.

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left in the miqweh? All of this considered, it seems most improbable that any of these installations were designed to be used as ôṣār pools. Disqualifying the installations at Jericho as possible ôṣār candidates leaves us with very few contenders left for consideration.

What was the function of the so-called ’ôṣār installations?

If, as I contend, the ôṣār did not exist in ancient times, how are we to explain the function of the installations discovered adjoining some Second Temple period ritual baths? If we discount the possibility that these were ôṣār pools, we must consider what these water installations may have been used for and why they were connected to miqwā’ôt via a pipe or a channel. It stands to reason that no single functional purpose was shared by every water installation purported to have been an ôṣār. Here we shall examine some of the possible ways that the installations under discussion may have been used.

In some cases, the so-called ôṣār is actually a stepped pool – just like the miqweh that adjoins it. One example of this is the first installation to have been identified as an ôṣār, the one found by Yadin in the southern casemate wall of Masada. It seems likely that the two pools, both the one identified as a miqweh and the other interpreted as an ôṣār, served as two separate ritual baths. Another example is the installation found in Area T-4 of the Jewish Quarter excavations, also a stepped installation which probably served as a miqweh alongside another, larger ritual bath. Reich has already noted that it is not uncommon to find two miqwā’ôt built immediately adjacent to one another.50 While in most cases there was no physical connection between the two installations, in the cases of the miqwā’ôt at Masada and the Jewish Quarter it seems that a pipe was installed between the pairs of pools in order to take advantage of a single rainwater catchment system for the two instal-lations; instead of constructing two separate conduits to channel rainwater from the roof or from a nearby courtyard into the two pools, the water was conducted into only one of the pools, while the second was filled from the overflow of the first.

In other cases, the supposed ‘ôṣār’ may have served as a settling tank for the adjacent miqweh. Water channelled into the miqweh would first pass

50. Reich, Miqwa’ot, pp. 40–46. For suggestions as to why some miqwā’ôt were built in pairs, see ibid., pp. 43–6.

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through this pool, where mud, pebbles and other pollutants picked up while en route from the rainwater catchment area would sink to the floor of the installation, allowing only clean water to continue into the immersion pool. One example of such an installation is the pool found adjacent to the miqweh located west of the synagogue at Gamla.51 Another example is the installation adjoining the miqweh built into the floor of the peristyle court at Herodium.52

Other installations identified as ôṣār pools may simply have been storage tanks from which water was drawn to replenish the adjacent miqweh. Another possibility is that the water in some of these installations was used by those visiting the miqweh for the purpose of washing themselves prior to immersion, a practice which would have helped keep the miqweh water clean as well as prevent the possibility of any dirt or foreign objects intervening between the water of the miqweh and the body of the one immersing.53 Finally, in many cases the water in a supposed ôṣār may have been used for purposes wholly unrelated to the functioning of the miqweh. In all of these instances, a pipe connecting the miqweh to the adjacent installation may have been simply a matter of wise plumbing design, arranged to take advantage of a single water supply system to feed both pools.

51. For the identification of this installation as an ôṣār, see Gutman, Gamla, p. 106. Danny Syon and Zvi Yavor originally suggested that the installation may have served at the same time both as an ôṣār and as a settling tank for the adjacent miqweh (D. Syon and Z. Yavor, ‘Gamla: Old and New’, Qadmoniot 121 [2001], p. 11 [in Hebrew]), although later Yavor wrote that the installation served either one or the other of these two functions (Z. Yavor, ‘The Architecture and Stratigraphy of the Eastern and Western Quarters’, in D. Syon and Z. Yavor, Gamla, vol. II: The Architecture: The Shmarya Gutmann Excavations, 1976–1988 [IAA Reports vol. XLIV; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2010], pp. 58–60). David Amit argued that although this installation may have served as an ôṣār, it more likely functioned as a settling and flow-regulating tank (D. Amit, ‘The Miqva’ot’, in Syon and Yavor, Gamla, II, p. 195). 52. This installation, first excavated by Netzer in 1975 and later re-examined by him together with Roi Porat in 2009 during conservation work done at the site, still awaits full scientific pub-lication. For a brief description of this installation, accompanied by a complex explanation about how it functioned as an ôṣār, see Grossberg et al., ‘Unique Baths’; idem, ‘Miqweh above Miqweh’. Accompanied by the authors of these articles, I visited the site on 11 November 2009, and climbed into the installation under discussion in order to examine it first-hand. I am thankful to the late Prof. Netzer and to Mr Roi Porat for allowing me full access to study this installation. 53. For the rabbinic understanding of the problem of interpolation between miqweh water and the body of persons or objects being immersed, see mMiqw. 9:1–7.

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2 0 | j o u r n a l o f j e w i s h s t u d i e s

Concluding remarks

Historically, as we have shown, the first attested use of an ôṣār is to be found in nineteenth century Europe. Neither the textual evidence nor the archaeological data support the pervasive notion that such installations existed in Second Temple-period Judea. How, then, did such a grossly anachronistic conception come about?

It will be recalled that the first installation to be identified as an ancient miqweh was uncovered by Yigael Yadin in the southern casemate wall of Masada during his first season of excavations at the site in 1963–64. At the time, the Israeli public followed the excavations at Masada with keen interest, and news of the discovery of a miqweh dating to the Second Temple period spread quickly. On 11 February 1964, Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi David Münzberg led a six-member rabbinic contingent to the summit of Masada in order to inspect first-hand the freshly uncovered miqweh, a visit romantically recorded by Yadin in his popular book on the excavations at Masada:

The aged Rabbi Muntzberg immediately went into one of the pools, a tape-measure in his hand, to examine whether in fact the volume of this mikve was the ‘forty measures’ required by the ritual law. I photographed him and his companions in the process. It remains one of my favorite pictures of the Masada dig … I confess that during Rabbi Muntzberg’s examination I was rather anxious. What would be his finding? His face throughout bore a serious expression, and at times he furrowed his brows as if in doubt as to whether the bath was kosher. But when he completed his meticulous study, he announced with beaming face and to the delight of us all, that this mikve was indeed a ritual bath ‘among the finest of the finest, seven times seven’.54

The visit of the rabbinic delegation to Masada clearly left a deep impres-sion on Yadin. A local newspaper report on this unusual event described how the rabbis spent over two hours explaining to Yadin the detailed laws of miqwā’ôt, after which Yadin was quoted as telling reporters: ‘The explanations of the rabbis clarified for me a number of ambiguous points, and solved for me numerous archaeological problems.’ 55 Following the visit, Münzberg presented Yadin with a copy of his recently published guide on the practical laws of miqwā’ôt, a booklet detailing how ôṣār pools of various

54. Yadin, Masada, p. 166. 55. M. Barash, ‘The Defenders of Masada were also “Miqweh Engineers”’, Yediot Aharonot, 17 February 1964, p. 5 (in Hebrew).

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types are to be constructed in contemporary ritual baths.56 It seems that Yadin’s interpretation of the installations uncovered at Masada was strongly indebted to Münzberg’s presentation of modern-day Jewish practice regarding the design and functioning of miqwā’ôt, while failing to subject the issue at hand to a rigorous historical-critical study.

Close to half a century has passed, and yet scholarship today remains bound to the anachronistic conception first popularized by Yadin. I shall feel duly rewarded if the present study proves successful in challenging the myth of the ancient ôṣār, and in providing impetus for others to undertake a thorough investigation into the history of the innovation and development of the ôṣār in Jewish ritual baths during the course of the modern era.

56. D. Münzberg, The Structure of Miqwā’ôt and Ways to Render them Ritually Valid: Laws and Customs Concerning the Validation of Miqwā’ôt (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: National Center for Family Purity in Israel, 1963). The booklet, inscribed with a personal dedication from Münzberg to Yadin, is housed today in the Yadin personal library collection at the S. Zalman and Ayala Abramov Library at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem.

Adler.indd 21 24/07/2014 15:33

The Myth of the’Ôṣār in Second Temple Period Ritual Baths: An Anachronistic Interpretation of...

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