Sotah 109

2:
At the very end of mishnah 12 Rabbi Yosé is quoted as saying that "even the oozing of fruit has been taken away" by the anguish of the times. Now, in our present mishnah, another sage, Rabbi Shim'on ben-El'azar, goes even further. He says that with the cessation of the observance of the rules of ritual purity the fruits seem to have lost their taste and fragrance, and the increasing lack of diligence in observing the rules of tithes have deprived the grains (wheat, barley, oats etc) of their fullness.

3:
In our mishnah, the rest of the sages have an additional explanation as to why life seemed so bleak and tasteless after the destruction of the Bet Mikdash: "promiscuity and witchcraft have ruined everything". Our mishnah seems to be pointing to a general decline in both ritual and moral observance towards the end of the first century and during the first half of the second. The people in general paid less and less attention to the laws of ritual purity (rendering the produce ritually impure) and to the rules and regulations concerning the payment of tithes (and produce could not be eaten before these tithes had been paid); but the people also seem – in the eyes of the sages – to have taken less and less seriously the laws of sexual restraint and to have engaged in all the mumbo-jumbo of the magical incantations of the idolatrous world in which Israel lived.

I wrote [in #106]: The 'bashers' refers to a reprehensible custom that was prevalent at this time. It seems that people bringing their sacrifices would aim a hard blow on the animal's forehead so that blood would gush between their eyes thus blinding them and making it easier for them to be shackled in preparation for slaughter. Alas, the Gemara [Sotah 48a] does not attribute the discontinuation of this practice to humanitarian considerations but to the fact that the animal would appear to be suffering from a disqualifying physical blemish.

Ed Frankel writes:

Is it not amazing how what goes around comes around? The custom listed here as reprehensible is always cropping up in discussions of slaughterhouse practices. Jews do not use stun guns or other forms of "bashing" when we ritually slaughter animals for meat, and yet there are many that argue that to stun the animal first is to limit its suffering and should be done. It does seem to be the means used by Gentiles in much of their meat preparation. This leads me to wonder if the act of bashing was always reprehensible, or was it already the method used by the Gentiles by the time the Mishna was published,and therefore was reprehensible as an imitation of the customs of foreigners?

I respond:

Ed has indeed raised an interesting issue here – an issue which, sadly, is still prevalent (and at this time of writing is threatening the kashrut of meat in several countries of western Europe, including the UK). To assist the discussion perhaps it would be useful if I bring here the relevant passage from the Gemara [Sotah 48a]:

Feel free to comment, but please remember not to attack innocent people – I and others in this Bet Midrash are vegetarian or vegan.

I know that many participants find it difficult to keep up with the pace of these shiurim so I am always happy to post queries and comments even when the material covered is comparatively 'old'. For instance, Daniel Burstyn writes that "a night of shmira [guard duty] on the kibbutz gave me the chance to finally catch up!" I had originally written [#108]: Our mishnah also says that from that date there was no more "sweetest honeycomb". The term is borrowed from Psalm 19:11 where the poet declares that the details of God's law are sweeter for him that "sweetest honeycomb". The Gemara [Sotah 48a] has some surprising definitions of this honeycomb, including some kind of sweet-tasting pastry straight out of the oven. But most commentators accept that the reference is to the honey of bees. I have not found any source which explains why bees' honey was less sweet after the destruction of the first Bet Mikdash than afterwards. Perhaps this part of our mishnah should be understood as referring more to the state of things after the destruction of the second Bet Mikdash.

Daniel Burstyn writes:

I learned from Rabbi Richard Israel, z"l, back in 1985, that the three banded honey bee was introduced to Eretz Yisrael by the Romans (presumably in the decades prior to the destruction of the second Temple, but possibly earlier). The bees mentioned in the Tanakh, then, were wild bees. Perhaps it is the wild honey which is referred to in this mishna. Feral honey bees would surely have supplanted the wild bees over the course of a few decades (in spite of the large population of Bee-eaters – Shrakrakim – still around today).