WHEN YOU BESIEGE A CITY FOR MANY

DAYS TO WAGE WAR AGAINST IT TO CAPTURE IT, YOU SHALL NOT DESTROY ITS TREES BY

WIELDING AN AX AGAINST THEM, FOR YOU MAY EAT FROM IT, BUT YOU SHALL NOT CUT IT

DOWN. IS THE TREE OF THE FIELD A MAN, TO GO INTO THE SIEGE BEFORE YOU?

(Devarim 20:19)

For you

may eat from it, but you shall not cut it down. Is the

tree of the field a man – That the tree of the

field gives life to man [translator's note: Ibn Ezra

does not understand this passage as a rhetorical question, making it the

tree of the field is a man]. This is similar to the verse, For he destroys the soul (Devarim 24:6), for

he destroys that which sustains the soul. You shall not cut it down – this

goes together with [the phrase] to go into the siege before

you. You shall not destroy fruit trees which give life to man, you are

allowed only to eat from them, and you are forbidden to destroy them as part of

the imposition of a siege upon the city. The proof that this interpretation is

correct is the verse and you cut down [trees] and built a siege.

(Ibn Ezra Devarim

ad loc)

for

you may eat from it, but you shall not cut it down – Clericus and HaKorem

interpret it thus: Do not cut it down, for perhaps you may need it if the siege

takes many days and the soldiers will want for food and they will need to eat

the fruit of the trees. Don Yitzhak and Our Rabbi Ovadia

Seforno and the author of Minha

Belula explained that you shall eat of it when

the city is trapped, so it is not good for you to destroy it. I do not think

that the Torah was given for such purposes, i.e., in order to teach people how

to plan things out for their own benefit. Rather, it was given for the opposite

purpose; to strengthen in our hearts the compassion and mercy that are contrary

to our own self-interest. Philo and Josephus Flavius both interpreted this rule

as promoting compassion and mercy and banishing cruelty. What I see is that the

main idea of the commandment is that we must not cut down the tree after eating

its fruits in order to keep people from being ungrateful and to accustom them

to love those who benefit them and not to cast them behind their backs once

they do not expect to reap any additional benefit from them… It is strange

that Elisha said in the war against Moab (II Kings3:19) And

every good tree. Even if it was customary to act this way in wars Elisha should not have supported those who transgress and

he should have warned them not to do this. However, according to my

interpretation there is no problem; destruction [of trees] was only forbidden

after [their fruits] were eaten, When you besiege a city for many days and

eat the fruit of the trees in your enemy's land, do not cut down the trees

whose fruit you have eaten.

(ShaDaL ad loc)

In memory of my father and teacher,

Michael son of Ruth and Max Marx

The Lord is his inheritance

Dalia

Marx

Immediately following its presentation of the laws of the king, our

parasha deals with the status of the Levites. The

latter do not receive a portion of the land in the manner of the other tribes,

rather The Lord's fire offerings and His inheritance they shall eat (Devarim 18:1). The

Levite shall dwell in the Temple and be supported by it, thus The Lord is

his inheritance (vs.2). The idea of

God as inheritance comes to supply the landless Levites with an alternative

kind of belonging. The Torah does not state that the Levite shall dwell with

God or in His house, but rather that God Himself is the Levite's

inheritance. In other words, the Levite dwells, so to speak, inside the Holy

One blessed be He. A literal explanation cannot encapsulate the meaning of this

formulation.

Bamidbar 35:34 describes Gods presence in the Land with

these words:

And you shall

not defile the land where you reside, in which I dwell, for I am the Lord Who

dwells among the children of Israel.

Contrastingly,

Devarim usually depicts a transcendent God who

observes the world from outside of it:

A land the

Lord, your God, looks after; the eyes of The Lord your God are

always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. (11:12)

A dictum

attributed to R. Ami speaks of this tension: "Why is the Holy One blessed be He referred to by the appellation Makom

His place" (Bereishit

Rabba 68:9). All of this makes the notion that

God is the Levites' inheritance, the inheritance of those called upon to the

holy service, who lack a geographic inheritance of

their own, fascinating and thought provoking.

The unusual

expressiveness of the phrase The Lord is his inheritance and its

comforting tenderness seem to have prompted its choice as the expression of the

hopes harbored by the living for the dead, so that it found its way into the

prayer El Male Rahamim ["God, full of

Compassion"].

In the next

few paragraphs, I shall consider some of the scriptural and midrashic

formulations that appear in the Ashkenazi burial prayer, El Male Rahamim which appears to have been composed following

the anti-Semitic rampages that inflamed the Ukraine in the years 1648-9. Then I

will offer an example of how, in turn, the prayer influenced Jewish and Modern

Hebrew creative literature, in order to demonstrate the notion that "The

words of Torah are fruitful and multiply."

Here is the

prayer (in the male gender). The phrases to be discussed (without any pretense

of comprehensiveness) appear in bold print:

God full of compassion, who dwells on high

Grant complete rest on [or: under] the wings of the

Divine Presence,¹

Among the holy

and the pure, who shine like the brightness of the sky,²

To the soul of

_______ who has passed on to his eternal habitation.

For I shall – bli neder [this not

being a formal vow] give charity in his soul's memory,

May his repose

be in the Garden of Eden.

Therefore, the

Master of Compassion shall hide him away in the secret place of His wings

for eternity.³

And bundle

up his soul in the bundle of life.⁴

The Lord is his inheritance,⁵ he shall rest peacefully

where he lies. And let us say, "Amen."

1) Since the

composition of El Male Rahamim was quite late

and gained popularity throughout various Jewish communities before its formulation

became fixed, it appears in several variants. The best known variation occurs

in its opening lines: "God full of compassion, who dwells on high Grant

rightful repose on [variant: under] the wings of the Divine Presence." Even

though this is a simple switch of prepositions (al = "on" vs. tahat = "under"), the two readings present

quite different pictures. Are we asking that the departed be carried upon

the wings of the Divine Presence, as per the song of Ha'Azinu:

it spreads its wings, taking them and carrying them on its pinions (Devarim 32:11, see Rashi there)? Or is our hope that the departed will

find warmth and protection under the sheltering wings of the Divine Presence?¹ This expression is borrowed from a midrash describing Abraham's activity among the gentiles: "Abraham

would convert them and enter them under the wings of the Divine Presence (Midrash Tana'im on Devarim 6:5).

This, by the way, is the reason why the Holy SheLaH

opposed the formulation "under the wings of the Divine Presence."²

Both the verse and the midrash

about Abraham speak of God's preserving life, without any special connection to

death or mourning.

2) The phrase,

"who shine like the brightness of the sky" is borrowed from

the Book of Daniel (12:2-3): And many

the stars forever and ever. This is perhaps the only direct scriptural

reference to what will be later referred to as "the resurrection of the

dead." The prayer's anonymous author saw fit to include the verse in a

prayer requesting mercy for the deceased.

3) Hope that

God will protect the deceased finds vivid expression in the phrase, "may

He bundle up his soul in the bundle of life," which speaks explicitly

of the world of the living. Abigail used it when she managed in her wisdom to

convince King David not to destroy her and her family: But my lord's soul

your enemies, the Lord will sling it with the hollow of the sling (I Samuel 25:29). Apparently, the prayer's

author did no have the biblical verse itself in mind, but rather the midrashic use to which it had been put. R. Eliezer brings it to support the notion that "the

souls of the righteous are hidden away under the Throne of Glory" (Shabbat 152b); since then the phrase "bundle

of life" [tzror hahayyim]

has been used in this sense.³

5) The phrase "The

Lord is his inheritance," which appears in our parasha

is concerned with life in this world and the well-being of the Levites, but it

has also been use to describe the condition of the deceased. Now that he has no

inheritance in this world, the Lord is his inheritance. The picture of a God

full of compassion⁴ Who protects and shows

compassion, Who serves as a home for the deceased, is a theologically powerful

and challenging image.

Jewish prayers

do not usually concern themselves with questions regarding the afterlife, the

World to Come, the Garden of Eden, and that which is

hidden "behind the curtain." Our prayers deal with life in this

world. El Male Rahamim is unusual on this

account. It seems that the need to console mourners (even very partially) led

its creators to deal with post-mortem existence. The phrase "The Lord is

his inheritance" traveled a long road from being a description of the

Levite's portion in this world to describing the hoped-for portion of the

deceased in the World to Come.

Just as the

biblical expression "The Lord is his portion" remained intact while

its meaning changed as it moved into a liturgical context, a similar change has

occurred in recent generations when liturgical expressions are transplanted and

embedded in modern poetical contexts. Let us examine two instances in which

expressions originating in the prayer El Male Rahamim

(or which owe their familiarity to their presence in that prayer) are used in modern Hebrew poetry in a manner that changes their meaning

while preserving their vitality.

First we shall

consider Haim Nahman Bialik's well known poem which he wrote in Odessa in the

year 5665 and which begins with the words:

Gather me in

under your wings

And be for me

a mother and sister

And let your

lap be my head's refuge

Nest of my

distant prayers.

These

beautiful lines have invited many interpretations; here I shall understand them

as speaking of love's hopelessness and despair. The speaker cannot aspire to

having the addressee become his lover in the full sense of the word; at best

she can be his "mother and sister." He asks for her shelter, "Gather

me in under your wings" (as per our prayer's formulation) but cannot

hope for reciprocal cooperation. In addition, this love can only be fulfilled

in death, since only then does one enter under the wings of the Divine

Presence. It is possible to claim that Bialik was not

relating to the image presented by the prayer, but rather to that offered by

the midrash, i.e., of converts entering and gathering

under the wings of the Divine Presence. However, that interpretation smacks of

a sense of alienation and loneliness that love cannot overcome.

The Israeli

poet Yehuda Amichai used a

phrase from the burial prayer to make a complaint against God. Here is the

first part of his poem:

God full of

compassion

If God were

not full of compassion

There would be

compassion in the world, and not only in Him.

I, who picked

flowers on the mountain,

And gazed upon

all the valleys,

I, who brought

corpses from the hills,

Know to say

that the world is empty of compassion.

In Amichai's song the liturgical phrase becomes an indictment

of God, Who is "full of compassion," i.e., holds back His

compassion within Himself and does not reveal it in His world. Amichai's poem describes a very Israeli experience, that of

a soldier telling of the outcome of a deadly battle in which he participated. It

simultaneously reflects separation and closeness, both alienation from tradition

and a longing for it. Above all it demonstrates that when an Israelite wishes

to express anger and perhaps lack of faith, he remains in need of language

internal to Judaism. Dr. Ariel Hischfeld, a literary

scholar, writes in this regard:

 [Religion] is one of the central topics [of

Hebrew literature], if not its very most central topic. Faith, its contents and

attending doubts, God's presence, the means of contact with Him and the forms

of His revelation in the world, in the life of the individual and of the

collective, religious experience both mystical and non-mystical, and love of

God – these are the subject matter of the great and most decisive pages in the

writings of Bialik, Agnon,

Greenberg, Alterman, Bat-Miriam, Yizhar,

Amichai, Guri, Zach, Horowitz,

Wollach, Laskaly, Laor, Kaplun, Pediah…⁵

We have been

blessed to live in a generation in which our ancestral language is alive and

fresh in our mouths. Without the living relationship with Hebrew, Bialik and Amichai would not have

been able to write their poems. The fact that Hebrew is alive and kicking

requires us Israelis to face special challenges when approaching our people's

heritage, challenges spared previous generation for whom Hebrew was not their

vernacular natural language.

Happy are we

that the Lord is our inheritance and that His words, which were spoken in a

single utterance, are alive and are heard in myriad voices and cords.

May the words

of Torah and prayer that are in or mouths be sweetened; may

they be fertile and multiply and bear good and worthy fruits!

[1].

We must bear in mind the philological connection between rahamim

that the Sages some times refer to the womb as kever

under discussion. I thank Pinchas Leiser,

the editor of Shabbat Shalom for this comment.

2. The SheLaH

writes: "It is found that the converts are placed below the wings of the

Divine Presence, while Israelites are carried on its wings. Therefore, cantors

who recite the memorial prayer for important people and say, "Grant

rightful repose under the wings of the Divine Presence, etc." would be

better off remaining silent, for they lower [the status of he deceased]

downwards." (Shnei Luhot

HaBrit, Hagahot le'Massekhet Shavu'ot, Torah or tzav hagoyim)

3. See, for example, the RaMBaM's Hilkhot Teshuva 8:7)

4. The depiction of God as

merciful is already found in Scripture (e.g., The Lord, The Lord, God, Who

is compassionate and gracious [Shemot 34:6) and

the expression "full of compassion" is found in the midrash, for example: "[God] was revealed on Mount

Sinai as an old man who was full of compassion" (Mekhilta

BaHodesh 5).

5. A. Hirschfeld,

"HaShira HaIvrit

Ve'ha'Yetzer Ha'Ra,"

Culture and Literature supplement, Haaretz 5.6.2004. See

also his article: "Al Mekomo shel Elohim BaShira

HaIvrit BaDor HaAharon" in Y. Bratel,

ed. Ha'Agala Ha'Melei'a

(Jerusalem 5762) pp. 165-176.

Dr. Dalia Marx

teaches at Hebrew Union College and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Judges and officials are you to provide for

yourselves within all your gates – in every city.

For your tribal districts – Even if all in the city are of one family, appoint judges.

They are to judge the people with equitable

justice – This is to teach us that both parties are

treated equitably/charitably; the party favored by the verdict receives that

which belongs to him, and the party found against is relieved of stolen

property in his possession.

Another exposition: Equitable

justice – when they [the judges] judge equitably, they are

giving charity to people and saving them from misfortune, as is written (Psalms 85) Truth sprouts from

the earth – when a truthful verdict sprouts from the earth, justice is

viewed from heaven, The Holy One, Blessed Be He acts charitably with people and

saves them from misfortune and from suffering, and goodness comes into the

world.

(Tanhuma,

Shoftim 6)

Equity, equity are you

to pursue – one [equity] for law-based verdict and

one for compromise. An example? Two boats alongside

each other on the river; if both try to pass together, both sink; one after the

other, both pass. And so it is when two camels walking alongside each other

ascend the hill-paths of Beit Horon.

If both try to go up together, both fall; one following the other, both go up. How

unloaded one grants right of way to the loaded one. If one is closer to its

destination than the other, let the closer one grant right of way to the

distant one. If they were equidistant, impose a compromise, and let one

reimburse the other.

(Sanhedrin 32b)

If a slain person be found

in the land which the Lord, your God is giving you to possess, lying in the field, [and] it is not known who slew him, then

not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see [this crime]."

 (Devarim 21)

Our hands did not shed this

blood, etc. Did it really occur to us that the [members of] the law

court are shedders of blood? Rather, that he did not come to us and we sent

him off, we did not see him and leave him.

(Mishnah Sotah 9:6)

The local Rabbis [i.e., in the

Land of Israel] interpret the verse [and the Mishnah's

subsequent explication of it] as referring to he who killed, while the Rabbis of Babylonia interpret the verse as referring

to the one who was killed.

The local Rabbis interpret the

verse as referring to he who killed – he did not come to us and we sent

him of without killing him; we did not see him and leave him after disregarding

his case.

While the Rabbis of Babylonia

interpret the verse as referring to the one who was killed – he did not

come to us and we sent him off without escort; we did not see him and leave him

without sustenance.

(J. Sotah 9:6)

Moral Decline Expels the

Divine Presence from Israel

R. Yohanan

ben Zakkai says: When the

murderers became numerous, the egla arufa [decapitated calf] ritual was revoked, since the egla arufa is only

performed in doubtful cases, but now many kill openly.

When the adulterers became

numerous, the bitter waters were revoked, because the bitter waters are only

used in doubtful cases, but now many are seen openly…

When the whisperers in court

became numerous, actions became warped, rulings were spoiled, and the Divine

Presence departed from Israel.

When those who favored people in

judgment became numerous, You shall not favor

persons in judgment… you shall not fear any man (Devarim 1) was revoked. They removed

the yoke of Heaven from themselves and took upon themselves the yoke of mortals…

(Tosefta Sota 14:1)

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