[nationwide] holidays (as distinct from the Land of Israel’s three day ban).”
Safrai, among others, is only willing to attribute such changes to a later
stage. But it is necessary to recognize that the texts cannot be categorized
into such neat layers of prohibition followed by permission. We must rec-
ognize that each generation of Sages could offer variant approaches.
Scholars also are anxious to credit all these changes to economic neces-
sity. How could this be? After all, the Mishnah(Avodah Zarah) is motivated
by a host of other considerations as well. Mishnah1:8, for example, names
various ways in which land is to be sold (or not sold) to pagans. If these
anonymous sayings are the product of the third century CE(a position
assumed by most scholars), then we must reckon with the phenomenon of
a wide takeover of Palestinian land by non-Jews. However, many of these
prohibitions seem to respond to such fears, seeking to keep Israelites in the
Land of Israel at all costs. Isaiah Gafni (1992), for one, believes that the reg-
ulations in question were motivated by this very reality, i.e., not only by eco-
nomic necessity but also by ideology, theology, and the like. The question
of the fair, in Tannaitic and Talmudic literature, demonstrates the Sages’
multi-level approach to the issue of paganism, pagans, and the Israelite as
such. To this end, we must strive for a more nuanced view of the whole
murky relationship between these two groups, who, at times, stirred the
same pot (cf. Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah 1:4).
nora
(Nora)
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