Benebarak ("Sons of Barak") ( he,
בְּנֵי בְּרַק, ''Bnei Brak'') was a biblical city mentioned in the
Book of Joshua
The Book of Joshua ( he, סֵפֶר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ ', Tiberian: ''Sēp̄er Yŏhōšūaʿ'') is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Isra ...
. According to the biblical account it was allocated to the
Tribe of Dan
The Tribe of Dan (, "Judge") was one of the twelve tribes of Israel, according to the Torah. They were allocated a coastal portion of land when the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, later moving northwards.
Biblical narrative
In th ...
. Its archaeological site is .
In the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
ic era, Beneberak became the seat of the court of
Rabbi Akiva
Akiva ben Yosef (Mishnaic Hebrew: ''ʿĂqīvāʾ ben Yōsēf''; – 28 September 135 CE), also known as Rabbi Akiva (), was a leading Jewish scholar and sage, a '' tanna'' of the latter part of the first century and the beginning of the second c ...
, and is identified as the site of his all-night ''
seder
The Passover Seder (; he, סדר פסח , 'Passover order/arrangement'; yi, סדר ) is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the eve of the 15th day of '' in the
'' in the Passover ''Haggadah of Pesach">Haggadah
The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each J ...
''.
Benebarak was also associated with agriculture, as evident from the Talmudic account of the sage Rami bar Yehezkel, who declared that he understood the meaning of the Torah's description of the ''Land of Israel'' as a "land flowing with milk and honey" after a scene he witnessed in Beneberak. He saw goats grazing beneath Common fig, fig trees and the honey oozing from the very ripe figs merged with the milk dripping from the goats and formed a stream of milk and honey.
The Palestinian village of ''Ibn Ibraq'' ("Son of Ibraq/Barak") was located on the site of the biblical city and its name was seen as a continuation of the name of the ancient site. In 1924, the Jewish agricultural settlement of
, which was named for the ancient city, was established to the north. Ibn Ibraq's Arab villagers subsequently renamed it ''
'' to distinguish it from Bnei Brak.
.
A large
.