Since the second sanctification took effect through Jewish settlement, it applied wherever Jews settled during the Second Temple period. As the settlement of olei Bavel expanded, so too did the boundaries of the sanctity, and these areas became known as gevul olei Bavel, “the territory of olei Bavel.” At first, those who ascended from Babylonia settled in Yehuda and Binyamin. In later generations, as the Hasmonean kingdom expanded Jewish rule, and as immigration and natural population growth continued, Jewish settlement spread to Shomron, the Lower and Upper Galilee, the coastal plain from Ashkelon to Akko, the Golan, and the eastern side of the Jordan.
When Ezra and his court sanctified the places of Jewish settlement, the sanctity was reawakened in all the areas previously conquered by olei Mitzrayim, on both sides of the Jordan, and even extended to Syria. However, they determined that in gevul olei Bavel, the sanctity would apply by Torah law, while in gevul olei Mitzrayim and Syria, it would apply only by rabbinic enactment.
The Men of the Great Assembly could have determined that the second sanctification would extend fully to all of gevul olei Mitzrayim and Syria. Since those areas were not properly settled by Jews, however, they left them subject only to a less stringent rabbinic obligation, thereby easing matters somewhat for the poor. At the same time, they did not leave these regions outside the obligation entirely. They wanted the poor living there to benefit from terumot and ma’asrot and from produce being left ownerless during shemita. Thus, these areas had an intermediate status: not the full status of gevul olei Bavel, but not the status of ordinary territory outside the Land either.
A similar distinction existed even within the broader area of gevul olei Bavel. Some cities, such as Beit She’an and Ashkelon, were inhabited mainly by non-Jews, and the Sages did not give them the full status of the rest of gevul olei Bavel (Ḥagiga 3b; Ḥullin 7a). In those days, people knew which places had the full status of gevul olei Bavel, which places had the lesser status of gevul olei Mitzrayim or Syria, and which cities were treated more leniently because they were not properly settled by Jews. Over time, however, that knowledge was forgotten, and the authorities disagree about the status of these places, as explained below in section 12.
In any case, once the Men of the Great Assembly sanctified the Land with respect to the communal-national mitzvot dependent on it, they did not need to sanctify each additional place where Jewish settlement later expanded during the Second Temple period. Rather, as Jewish settlement spread, the sanctity spread with it. Even after the destruction of the Second Temple, that sanctity remained throughout gevul olei Bavel, for any place sanctified through the second sanctification never loses its sanctity again. As explained above in section 7, the Sages derived that after the second sanctification, through which the Men of the Great Assembly sanctified the Land, the Jewish people would never again need to sanctify it. It follows that when we say that in gevul olei Mitzrayim one is obligated in the communal-national mitzvot only rabbinically, this refers specifically to places that did not have organized Jewish settlement during the Second Temple period. [9]
[9]. The sources indicate that gevul olei Bavel covered extensive areas; see Tosefta, Shevi’it 4:11; Sifrei, Ekev 51; and Yerushalmi, Shevi’it 9:2. Although in Ezra’s own day the Jews settled only a limited area around Jerusalem (Ezra ch. 2), we must say that as Jewish settlement spread, the sanctity extended with it. As the Yerushalmi states: “Your fathers [in the days of Yehoshua bin Nun] did not become obligated until they had acquired all of it; but you – each place is acquired, and the people become obligated in it, as it is settled” (Yerushalmi, Shevi’it 6:1; see also Bava Metzia 28a).
During the Hasmonean kingdom, Jewish rule extended beyond the areas that were actually settled by Jews. Those places were not sanctified for all generations. Enduring sanctity applied only where there was substantial, organized Jewish settlement. This is implied by Mor U-ketzi’a 306; see Peninei Halakha: Shemita Ve-yovel 5, end of note 7.
It appears that from the sanctity of gevul olei Bavel, a certain measure of sanctity extended to gevul olei Mitzrayim and Syria, even though many Jews did not live there. Their status therefore depended on the Sages’ determination. The Sages gave them an intermediate standing: the communal-national mitzvot dependent on the Land applied there by rabbinic enactment, but not with the full force of gevul olei Bavel. This is the meaning of the Sages’ statement that certain areas were “left so that the poor could rely on them during shemita” (Ḥullin 7a). The Sages did not want to remove gevul olei Mitzrayim from the mitzvot of terumot, ma’asrot, and shemita entirely, because the poor there also benefited from those mitzvot – from the gifts and tithes, and from access to produce during shemita; see MT, Laws of Terumot 1:5 and its commentators. At the same time, they did not want to impose there all the stringencies of gevul olei Bavel, because that would make matters harder for the poor, for field owners, and for those gathering ownerless produce. Therefore, stringencies that the Sages added in gevul olei Bavel, such as the prohibitions of sefiḥim and demai, were not applied in gevul olei Mitzrayim; see Kaftor Va-feraḥ, ch. 5.
