Rabbotai,
1) The Gemara indicates that witnesses of the new moon were held back by Rebbe Akiva at Lod (or by someone else who was demoted for this action). Is it possible to walk from Lod to Yerushalayim in a day or did they go by horseback or camel?
2) The Gemara discusses the lighting of torches from various mountains in Israel which would then be seen by the people in Bavel who would light fires on the roofs. Bavel doesn't border on Eretz Yisrael. There is Lebanon, (I don't know if this was a separate land in ancient days or part of Israel and Syria between them. What did the did the Gemara mean by omitting that?
1) It seems that Lod is within a day's walking distance of Yerushalayim. This is evident from the Mishnah in Ma'aser Sheni (5:2), which is quoted later in Rosh Hashanah (31b) and in Beitzah (5a), which states that the Chachamim decreed that fruit of Kerem Reva'i which is grown within one day's traveling time of Yerushalayim must be brought to and eaten in Yerushalayim (in order to adorn the streets of Yerushalayim with fruits). The Mishnah says that the furthermost limit to the west of Yerushalayim is Lod. The phrase of the Mishnah, "Mehalech Yom Echad," implies traveling by foot.
The reason why the witnesses were detained was because their traveling to Yerushalayim from Lod would entail transgressing the Isur of Techumim on Shabbos.
2) Lebanon and Syria at the times of the Beis ha'Mikdash were either part of Eretz Yisrael or part of the Babylonian Empire. They were not separate independent states.
TOSFOS (23b, DH Kamah) asks a question similar to yours. The Gemara there calculates that there were 8 Parsa'os between each mountain top, for a total of 32 Parsa'os, which means that 32 Parsa'os outside of Yerushalayim was Bavel in those days. Tosfos asks that the Gemara in Ta'anis (10a)clearly states that from Yerushalayim until the edge of Eretz Yisrael (the border with Bavel) was a 15-day traveling distance, while 32 Parsa'os takes
less than 4 days to walk (a person can walk 10 Parsa'os in one day). Tosfos says that it must be that there was a "strip" of Eretz Yisrael that continued beyond the main mass of land, in between parts of Bavel, like the diagram below.
From Yerushalayim to the closest section of Bavel, then, was 32 Parsa'os.
Y. Shaw
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Chart for Rosh Hashanah 21
__________
| Bavel
|______
Eretz |
| Bavel
Yisrael _______|
|
__________| Bavel
Thank you for your response. Doesn't the Gemara often mention a special status of Syria as a kibbush yachid of Dovid Hamelech? This effects terumot and maasrot and other agricultural laws. I don't know if it had kedushat Eretz Yisrael or if someone living there was considered living in Eretz Yisrael. Did it have such kedusha and would such a person be yotze living in Israel?
B'kavod,
Sam Kosofsky
Yes, Syria is mentioned as being part of Kibush Yachid of David ha'Melech.
The extent of the Kedushah of Syria is the subject of discussion in the Gemara in Gitin (8b). Whether or not one is Yotzei the Mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisrael or not is an interesting question which, IY'H, we will discuss it when we come to it there.
All the best,
Y. Shaw