Chapter 74: It's Planting Seeds In A Garden...

''He said to himself: Is there really a person who can sleep and dream for seventy years? How is it possible to compare the seventy-year exile in Babylonia to a dream? One day, he was walking along the road when he saw a certain man planting a carob tree. Honi said to him: This tree, after how many years will it bear fruit? The man said to him: It will not produce fruit until seventy years have passed. Honi said to him: Is it apparent to you that you will live seventy years, that you expect to benefit from this tree? He said to him: I found a world full of carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants. Honi sat and ate bread. Sleep overcame him and he slept. A cliff formed around him, and he disappeared from sight and slept for seventy years. When he awoke, he saw a certain man gathering carobs from that tree. Honi said to him: Are you the one who planted this tree? The man said to him: I am his son's son.''

-The Parable of Honi and the Carob Tree, The Talmud, Taanit 23a

Trivia

 * The epigraph for this chapter came from a real text. The story is a real parable from the Talmud.

Foreshadowing
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Epigraph Tie-In

 * The epigraph is a Jewish parable themed around providing for future generations with the labour of those in the present. The chapter shows the Jews from Rouen benefitting from the groundwork done by Dror ben Ezra decades ago.

Links to the Chapter
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