Rabbi 'Aḥai ben Josiah says:

He who purchases grain in the market place, to what may he be likened? To an infant whose mother died: although he is taken from door to door to other wet nurses, he is not satisfied.

He who buys bread in the market place, what is he like? He is as good as dead and buried.

He who eats of his own is like an infant raised at its mother's breast.

At the beginning of the creation of the world, the Holy One, blessed be he, began with planting first.

For it is written:

“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden”

You too when you enter the land shall engage in nothing but planting. Therefore it is written:

“And when ye shall come into the land, ye shall have planted…”

Though he works and worries, the farmer

never reaches down to where the seed turns

into summer. The earth grants.