**Edited, an important comment has been added at the bottom::::::::
Why am I looking for barley that is in dough stage rather than the stage when the grain is not divisible?
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In the photo below are my shoes from the first year (2016) that I was in the wild barley fields. I’m standing in the location is where the Jordan Valley Rift and the Jezreel Valley converge. I was send here to check the condition of the barley. My coach was on video camera with me over the app called ‘what sap’. I was told that the barley was absolutely ‘aviv’ (indivisible by my thumb nail). I remember that day, it was the first time I had inspected, opened a grain of barley to examine it. The grain was still a bit flexible but it could not be divided.
I also remember that my coach sent out an announcement with my photo saying of the photo, ‘if it were anymore aviv than this it would be laying on the ground’…..or something there about.
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**The barley this photo is what the other groups calls aviv. This happened to my shoes as I walked into the field and then to the top of a little knoll to check the condition of the grain by request. The grains were shattering with the action of my walking into the field.
If walking through barley plants that have grains that are indivisible by my thumb nail causes such shattering of the grain heads, what would a sickle do to the same grains heads?
In the first year, this didn’t bother me because I didn’t understand much, it never occurred to me that there was a need to preserve every grain. But as I’ve come to see the barley as a first fruits offering and food for a nation, this bothered me.
If I harvest the barley a bit earlier before the barley shatters but after the starches have begun to develop I have time to transport a wave sheaf to Jerusalem and I have much more food for my family.
All of the slander and accusation is because I believe a bit differently than my old coach. Honestly, nothing more.
This is a personal plea to who ever is feeding my old coach information; please stop it. You are being a platform for division, a platform for slander, a platform for serving rotten fruit to others as my old coach daily writes reviews and corrections and uses hateful words and derogatory phrases. To the person that’s passing information, check your heart and your motives; then if you still cannot reframe, please leave the group because you don’t understand what spirit you are serving.
***(It is important that I add this little bit of information here.
The timing of these photos were friday morning before wave sheaf. My coach told me when he had traveled to Israel a month earlier that ‘this field was not even in the running for a wave sheaf’. He did tell me it was in from a field in the South they had determined the beginning of the year by. ***
*** It is very important to understand the ramification of this statement. ***
***It is normal for the southern wild barley grains to develop ahead of those in the north. Normal. If this barley is shattering what was the condition of the barley in the south? One can only guess because the truth is I don’t know. But IF it was further developed than this barley, as per norm, what would the families have had for food within that specific year? ***
***It is my understanding that the harvesting of food (i.e sections of ripe fields [not the first fruit omer]) could not happen any place in Israel until the day of Wave Sheaf when the First fruits had been offered in the temple. And btw, everyone would be in J’elm for the Week of Unleavened and not able to start the harvest until they returned home (depending on how that fell within any one particular year). So, in the year of this photo a LOT of important food would have been lost under these conditions.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt these barley plants would not have survived the violence of the sickle)***Updated Mar 17, 2020, 2:29 PM