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Re: receding water level at the Dead Sea



Dear all those who are following this discussion,
According to Ezekiek 47:7-12 the prophet touring the temple and land of 
the future reports ::"As I came back, I saw trees in great profusion on 
both banks of the stream. The water, he told me, runs out to the eastern 
sea, into the sea of foul waters (so NJPS for yamah hammutsaim), the 
water will be healed. Every living creature that swarms will be able to 
livbe whereever this stream goes;the fish will be very abundant once 
these waters have reached there.  It will be healed and everything will 
live wherever the stream goes.  Fisherman will stand beside it all the 
way from En-Gedi to En-Eglaim; it shall be a place for drying nets; andd 
the fish will be of various kinds and most plentiful, like the fish of 
the Great Sea. But its swamps and marshes shall not be healed, they will 
serve to supply salt.  Al kinds of trees for food will grow up on both 
bans of the sreams.  Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail' 
they will yield new fruit every month, because the water for them flows 
from the Temple. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for 
healing.
nOte the uses of the verbs hay and rafa, living and healing, used 
throughout this pericope.  They show that the sea before hand was 
certainly considered dead, even though there is no indication that the 
name yam hammawet was ever actually used.  In fact, there may have been 
an ancient name yam hammawet along with yam hammeleh (salt sea) which is 
only attested in written sources of later periods.
Also interesting, is the reference to fishermen and drying their nets.  
Nets are used by fishermen fishing in boats, thus indicating that at 
least in the future there will be a marina on the dead sea.

By the way, this passage obviously gives us the aetiology of the Jewish 
custom of eating herring on Shabbat, as a taste of the world to come.  
ANother opinion is that the herring, usually plit open, is in memory of 
Tiamat whose body, according to enuma elish was split open like a fish 
for drying by Marduk when creating the world out of her corpse.  So 
eating herring on shabbos at kiddush must be in memory of the creation, 
while eating the same fish at shalshudos is in anticipation of the 
messianic age and resurrection of the dead.
TO all, have a happy holiday, kima parsushu u pilludeshu (that's akkadian 
for kekol huqqotaw ukekol mishpataw)
Avigdor Hurowitz