© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/157007012X622917 Te Review of Rabbinic Judaism 15 (2012) 43–60 brill.nl/rrj Following the Path of the Water Libation Itzhak Brand Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel 52900 Itzhak.brand@biu.ac.il Abstract Some of the precepts pertaining to the holiday of Sukkot involve water and the prayer for rain; of these, the most prominent is nissukh ha-mayim, the water libation. Te water libation has an eschatological and cosmological character. According to R. Eliezer b. Jacob in the Mishnah, the water was brought to the altar through the Water Gate, because “the water that will flow from under the threshold of the House in the future [i.e., in the messianic age] trickles through it.” Tis alludes to Ezekiel’s vision of a thin stream of water that emerges from the Temple and grows until it becomes a flowing river whose waters have special properties of blessing and healing. Te scholarly literature has addressed the eschatological interpretation of the water libation ritual in various contexts. Here I expand on this and show how the elements of the vision correspond closely to the elements of the ritual. Te focus will be on the path by which the water was brought into the Temple and then to the altar, first in the ritual and then in the vision. Keywords Nissukh ha-Mayim; Water Libation; Ezekiel’s Vision; Eschatological Interpretation; Simhat Beit ha-Sho’evah; Rejoicing at the Place of the Water-Drawing; Siloam 1. What is the Source for the Water Libation Ritual on Sukkot? Some of the precepts pertaining to the holiday of Sukkot involve water and the prayer for rain; 1 of these, the most prominent is nissukh ha-mayim, the water liba- tion. Te Tannaim and Amoraim tried to find a scriptural source for this precept 2 1 So too, the Four Species, which “are intended only to request water” (B. Ta. 2b), as well additional precepts. See Joseph Tabory, Jewish Festivals in the Time of the Mishnah and the Tal- mud (Heb.) ( Jerusalem, 5760), p. 199 and nn. 171–172; Yakov Nagen, Water, Creation and Immanence: Te Philosophy of the Festival of Sukkot (Heb.) (Jerusalem, 5768), pp. 204–208. 2 Te meticulous search for a biblical source for the water libation can be explained in the context of the polemics between the Pharisees and Sadducees about this precept, probably on these grounds precisely. See Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, “Te Sadducees and the Water Libation,” Jewish Quarterly Review 84(4) (1994), p. 417, n. 1 and pp. 427–429. Another view is that the Sadducees did accept the validity of the precept and contested only whether it could be con- ducted on the Sabbath (ibid, pp. 439–444).