"Tilling and Tending":

Water Management at Neot Kedumim

Israel is the "land watered by the rains of heaven" (Deuteronomy 11:11).
It was this fact of life that Moses emphasized when describing the promised but unknown land to the apprehensive Israelites. Life in Israel today still depends on unpredictable winter rains. Consistently throughout the Bible, "rain for your land in season" is the greatest blessing; "shutting up the heavens" is the worst disaster. How different from the prevalent view of rain in wetter climates, which is closer to that expressed by the New England poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "Into each life some rain must fall; some days must be dark and dreary."

Another major theme in the Bible is human partnership with the Creator. In the biblical ideal, people are not passive residents of the earth, but active participants in helping the earth sustain life:
"No shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because the Lord God had not yet sent rain upon the earth, and there was no human to till the soil" (Genesis 2:5).
"The Lord God took Adam and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it" (Genesis 2:15).

Wadi Natuf

These two powerful biblical ideas––dependence on rain and human partnership with Creation––are two sides of the same coin. If we just sit around and wait for it to rain, we're not going to survive––now as then. Israel's ecology makes "tilling and tending" a real and live issue.

At Neot Kedumim

In our own bit of the "land watered by the rains of heaven," we both study and practice this biblically-ordained stewardship.

The land NK founder Nogah Hareuveni was allotted in 1965 was a particularly barren and desolate part of the Judean foothills, eroded down to the bedrock. Fortunately, Nogah was not one to be deterred by the fact that the land he was given for a biblical nature reserve had no soil on it. The tiny staff trucked earth up from the wadis, back to the hillsides, reversing centuries of erosion.

The Pool of the Shepherds: 1973 and today

Because Israel's rains are concentrated in some five months and not scattered throughout the year, the much-needed rain is often heavy and can cause damage instead of benefit. In the words of hydrologist Daniel Hillel, "Ironically, the beneficent rain that is so desperately needed and eagerly awaited by the farmers can become an agent of destruction, a voracious monster gnawing at the soil and wearing away the land." (Rivers of Eden, p. 47).


The Pool of the Sycomores, with its silting basin

This problem is especially severe in the area where Neot Kedumim is located, between the western slopes of the Judean Hills and the heavily populated Tel Aviv area. The extensive building of roads and urban areas that cover the ground with concrete prevents the water from seeping into the earth. Instead of replenishing the groundwater reserves for use in dry years, the water causes floods. On the one hand, Israel faces a chronic water shortage; on the other, the streets of Tel Aviv become rivers and huge quantities of water run off into the Mediterranean.

Nahal Eshkol

The prayer for rain traditionally recited on the last day of Sukkot, the beginning of Israel's rainy season, asks for rain that will be "a blessing and not a curse." Neot Kedumim is working toward making that happen.

"I made pools of water, to irrigate a forest of growing trees" (Ecclesiastes 2:6).
The Natuf wadi, whose source is in the Judean Hills, runs through Neot Kedumim, past Ben-Gurion Airport, into the Ayalon stream, and from there into the Mediterranean. Every few years, when the rains are intense, the Natuf overflows its banks, flooding the adjacent agricultural fields and causing road damage. In order to contain the runoff that gathers in small rivulets flowing into the Natuf, NK has created six reservoir pools of some 3,000 cubic meters each, in areas that have large catchment basins.

Wadi Natuf: summer (l.) and winter (R.)

On each side of a central divide, runoff flows into an upper, a middle, and a lower pool¹ ––on one side, the Pool of the Etrogim, the Pool of the Willows, and the Pool of the Date Palms; on the other side, the Pool of the Sycomores, the Pool of Solomon, and the Pool of the Shepherds. Water flows down from the hills into the pools, and from the upper pools to the lower pools. These reservoir pools provide multiple benefits:

The Pool of the Etrogim	The Pool of the Willows	The Pool of the Date Palms	Solomon's Pool	The Pool of the Sycomores

• The pools allow propogation, without irrigation, of water-loving plants. Each pool is planted with trees appropriate to its educational theme, for example, willows in the Four Species of Sukkot area.
  
• These trees, in turn, shade the pool and diminish evaporation. (60% of all precipitation in Israel is lost to evaporation.)
  
• The water remaining in the pools in the summer, when water is scarce elsewhere, attracts a variety of birds and animals (birds, frogs², foxes, jackals, and gazelles) that come to drink and rest.

Adjacent to each reservoir pool is a smaller pool for silt deposition. These "silting basins" serve a double purpose: 1) Keeping the reservoir water clear: The silt washed down from the hills with the rainwater sinks into the silting basin. When the water in the basin rises to the level of the reservoir, clear water flows into the reservoir, leaving the silt at the bottom of the basin. 2) Soil preservation: After the rainy season, when the silting basin dries, the precious silt is brought back to the hillside terraces where wheat, barley, and other crops are planted.

Retrieving the silt perpetuates a technique practiced by farmers who worked this land centuries ago. Examination of a talmudic-period (fourth-fifth century) terrace found at NK shows that the soil of the terrace is of the same type as the soil in the wadi below.

Water and Peace
Not surprisingly, many of the early biblical disputes were over water. Abraham and the local ruler Avimelech contest a well (Genesis 21) and then swear an oath of agreement, signified by seven sheep, at Beersheba ("well of oath" or "well of seven"). In the next generation, Isaac faces a similar dispute over wells in the same desert region, and also concludes a pact at Beersheba (Genesis 26).

Like that of Abraham and Isaac, our survival depends on cooperation in managing our water resources. The more we progress on our winding, rocky path toward peace, the better our chances. No wonder the prophet Isaiah links water and peace: "Had you hearkened to My commandments, then your peace would be like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea" (48:18). "Behold, I extend peace like a river, and the honor of nations like a flowing stream" (66:12).

May it be so.

1 A similar system of pools was apparently built in Jerusalem during the times of Isaiah: "Go out with your son Shear-yashuv to meet Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the Upper Pool…" (Isaiah 7:3) "They took up a position near the conduit of the Upper Pool" (Isaiah 36:2).

2 "When King David finished composing the book of Psalms, he was filled with pride, and said: Lord of the Universe, is there any creature in the world who can create song as I can? Along came a frog and said to him: Don't be so proud; my song is better than yours…" (Yalkut Shimoni, Tehillim, 247, 889).