THEN WE TURNED AND WENT UP THE

WAY OF BASHAN, AND OG, THE KING OF BASHAN, CAME FORTH TOWARD US, HE AND ALL HIS

PEOPLE, TO WAR AT EDREI AND THE LORD SAID TO ME, "DO

NOT FEAR HIM, FOR I HAVE GIVEN HIM, ALL HIS PEOPLE, AND HIS LAND INTO YOUR

HAND, AND YOU SHALL DO TO HIM AS YOU DID TO SIHON, KING OF THE AMORITES, WHO

DWELT IN HESHBON."

(Devarim

3:1-2)

and Og, the king of

Bashan – If Og was not difficult

difficult [to do battle with him]; and if the country would not have been

difficult but Og dwelt there, it would have [still] been difficult, for the

king was difficult; all the more so when both the king and the state are

difficult.

(Sifri

Devarim 3)

Then we turned and went

up – the term then

we turned refers to a situation in which one ascends and looks behind

to see if it is right and worthwhile to ascend or not. It already became clear

in the book of Bamidbar (21:23-4) that was not

necessary to do battle against Og. On the contrary; Moses did not want to

conquer his land until after the conquest of the Land of Israel. However,

Israel did not take heed of the matter and they ended up ascending through the

Bashan, but in truth this had been directed by God.

Do not fear him [al tira oto] – It also becomes

clear that this alludes to Moses' fear, since they had brought about war

without great necessity. him [oto] – Shouldn't it be mimenu?

something" and being afraid "of something" – translator] Rather,

Father Abraham, and see what we wrote in the book of Bereishit (32;12) regarding Jacob and Esau [and Jacob's

statement] for I fear him [oto]. Here too it refers to the merit of our

Father Abraham, and as it states in the tractate Nidda: "You can ascertain

what was in his heart from the answer of that righteous man" – meaning,

from the answer that the Holy One blessed be He gave to Moses, al tira oto

rather than al tira mimenu, we learn that Moses was not afraid of his

Abraham]/

(Ha'Emek

Davar 3: 1-2)

"Shall

I Weep in the Fifth Month?"

Yehonatan Chipman

Following the creation of the State of Israel, and even more so after the

liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six Day War, voices began to

be heard in the religious world asking whether the various practices of

mourning related to Tisha b'Av and the period preceding it should continue to

be observed as has been done by Jewish communities since time immemorial, as if

nothing of significance had changed in the situation of the Jewish people.

In the mid-1960's, the

late Professor Ephraim E. Urbach founded a small movement of religious

intellectuals, Ha-Tenu'ah le-Yahadut shel Torah ("The Movement for

Torah Judaism"), whose slogan was "The holy will be renewed, and the

new made holy." This group was devoted to examining the entire gamut of

issues raised by the confrontation between traditional Judaism and modernity,

particularly those precipitated by the return to Zion and the creation of the

Jewish state, and to investigating new approaches to those issues, to be rooted

in halakhic precedent but attentive to the modern spirit. After the 1967 War,

this group turned its attention to some of the issues related to the mourning

practices, focusing on three areas: (a) the continued observance of minor fast

days, such as the 17^th of Tammuz and 10^th of Tevet; (b) the

various customs of mourning observed during the Three Weeks ("Bein

ha-Metzarim) and the first Nine Days of Av; (c) the liturgy of Tisha b'Av

itself – specifically, revision of the Nahem prayer recited at Minhah on

that day.

Moshe David Herr,

Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University, who was among the leaders

of that group, described the atmosphere of those days:¹ "There

was a tremendous feeling of euphoria after the war. On that first Tisha B'av, the

atmosphere at the Kotel was more like a festival day than of a day of mourning."

He continued to describe how, on the 17th of Tammuz of that year, barely six

weeks after the victory in the war, a number of members of the movement

gathered at a private home for the weekday morning service – without Selihot

and the other additions for fast days; afterwards cake and wine were

served, and they all drank Le-hayyim.

Regarding the various

mourning practices: there was a general consensus that Tisha B'av should

continue to be observed as a fast – ­because of the Temple, which remained to

be rebuilt; because of the many troubles throughout Jewish history associated

with this date; and because of the horrendous destruction of European Jewry in

the Holocaust. Nevertheless, it seemed to most that the mourning period need

not be so strict as it had become over the centuries, particularly among

Ashkenazic Jewry, and a return was suggested to the norms found in the Mishnah

and Talmud, which are essentially those observed by Sephardic Jewry: namely, no

mourning whatever between the 17th of Tammuz and Rosh Hodesh Av; restrictions

on excessive rejoicing  – weddings, etc.

– only from Rosh Hodesh Av; and limiting the restrictions on eating meat and

drinking wine, bathing and washing clothes, and cutting hair and shaving, to

the week of Tisha B'Av itself.

The Nahem prayer

recited on Tisha B'Av afternoon seemed particularly anomalous. The traditional

text speaks of "the city in mourning and in ruins, despised and

desolate… without her children… like an abandoned woman… ruined by

legions, inherited by Gentiles…" etc. This text was clearly not an

accurate representation of contemporary reality. Prof. Urbach, together with

his late son Abraham, compiled a new version of the Nahem text, drawing

upon sources from the Jerusalem Talmud, from the Siddurim of R. Amram Gaon and

R. Saadya Gaon, from Maimonides and from the Italian and Yemenite rites, and

from the existing text. In this version, rather than depicting the city as

being in mourning and ruin in actuality, reference is made to the rebuilt

Jerusalem as we know it, alongside bewailing the pain and mourning of past

generations and the blood that was spilled. The prayer concludes with thanks to

the Almighty for the inheritance of the land, and a prayer for peace. In this

version, one prays:

רחם ה' אלקינו ברחמיך הרבים ובחסדיך הנאמנים

עלינו ועל עמך ישראל ועל ירושלים עירך, הנבנית מחורבנה, המקוממת מהריסותיה,

ומיושבת משוממותיה; על חסידי עליון שנהרגו בזדון ועל עמך ישראל שהוטל לחרב, ועל

בניו אשר מסרו נפשם ושפכו דמם עליה. ציון במר תבכה וירושלים תתן קולה, לבי לבי על

חלליהם, מעי מעי על חלליהם, והעיר אשר פדית מידי עריצים ולגיונות. ולישראל עמך נתת

נחלה ולזרע ישורון ירושה הורשת. פרוש עליה סכת שלומך כנהר שלום, לקים מה שנאמר: ואני

אהיה לה, נאם ה', חומת אש סביב ולכבוד אהיה בתוכה. ברוך אתה ה' מנחם ציון ובונה

ירושלים.

Have mercy, O Lord our God,

With Your great compassion and faithful

lovingkindness,

Upon us and upon Your people Israel and

Jerusalem Your city,

Rebuilt from its ruins, arisen from its

rubble, and resettled from its desolation.

For the supreme saints who were brazenly

killed,

and your people Israel who were put to the

sword,

and upon its sons who gave their lives and

spilled their blood for her.

Zion weeps bitterly, and Jerusalem lets forth

its voice.

My heart, my heart aches for their slain,

My innards, my innards ache for their slain.

And for the city which You have redeemed

from the hands of arrogant ones and legions,

And to your people Israel you gave a

possession,

and to the seed of Jeshurun you gave an

inheritance

Spread over it the tabernacle of Your peace like a tranquil

river, to fulfill what is said:

"And I shall be to her, says the Lord,

As a wall of fire around, and I shall be for

glory within her" (Zech 2:9).

Blessed art thou, O Lord, who comforts Zion

and rebuilds Jerusalem.

Other noted sages,

such as Rabbi Shlomo Goren, at the time Chief Rabbi of the IDF; Rabbi Hayyim

David Halevi, late Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Tel Aviv; and Rabbi Abraham

Rosenfeld of Great Britain (all of blessed memory), also formulated revised

versions of the Nahem text.²

There is historical

precedence for such rethinking. The book of Zechariah relates that, after the

return to Zion in 536 bce, certain

people approached the prophet with the query, "Shall I weep in the fifth

month, as I have done these many years?" (7:3). The prophet prefaced

his answer with an exhortation concerning the ethical aim of fasting – to

pursue truth and justice, kindness and mercy to ones fellow, etc. – and concludes

with the hopeful words, "The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the

fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be seasons of

joy and gladness and cheerful feasts to the house of Judah" (Zech.

8:19).

The Talmud (Rosh

Hashana 18b) puzzles over these words: why are these fast days referred to in one

place as "fasts" and elsewhere as "days of joy"? The answer

given is that, in times of peace (that is, when Jews are not under the hands of

the Gentile nations – thus Rashi), these shall indeed be days of joy; during

times of persecution, they shall be fast days; if the situation is somewhere in

between, "if they wish, they shall fast; if they wish, they need not fast."

True, historically it was accepted Jewish practice to fast on all four "minor"

fast days, and it is codified thus in the great law codes, Rambam's Yad,

Tur, and Shulhan Arukh; and with good reason, for Jews perceived

their situation as far closer to "persecution" than to "peace."

But following the return to Zion and the creation of an independent Jewish

state, and particularly after the unification of Jerusalem in 1967, many people

began to feel that this ancient practice was anomalous, a matter of religious

rote. Why, then, have these proposed changes not taken root within the

religious world? Prof. Herr sees this as unthinking conservatism, symptomatic

of rigidity and fossilization in religious thinking (mitzvat anashim

melumadah).

This issue raises

basic questions pertaining, not only to Tisha b'Av and the season proximate to

it, but also regarding our attitude towards history and its relevance to religious

life. Do we see our liturgy and our religious observances as relating to our

actual situation in the real world, or as timeless, eternal, "Platonic"

archetypes? There is respectable precedent for the latter position among some

of the leading Jewish thinkers of the modern age. Thus, Franz Rosenzweig spoke

of the Jewish people as living its life in a kind of niche of eternity, outside

the vagaries of temporal history. The intellectual historian David Myers has

identified an entire school of thinkers espousing an approach that "defies"

history: among them Hermann Cohen, Yitzhak Breuer, and Leo Strauss.³

But is such an approach cogent and acceptable to us?

On the opposite

extreme, there is a widespread approach in our day to see the present era as "the

beginning of redemption," anticipating the rebuilding the Temple, the

restoration of sacrifices, the Sanhedrin and the Davidic monarchy – not to

mention the exclusive sovereignty of the Jewish people over the "Greater

Land of Israel." But are galut and geulah in fact to be seen

as a bipolar reality? Either complete redemption, or a secular Jewish state

without any religious significance whatsoever? Then there are those who see

Zionism – perhaps in reaction to the excesses of present-day organized

religious Zionism – in purely secular, political, practical terms. (Such, for

example, was the position of the late Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz: "We're

fed up of being dependent upon the mercies of the goyim!")

But it seems to me

that there is yet another possibility, located somewhere between the poles of

denying history altogether and realized pre-messianism: one that sees the

unfolding of history in gradual, naturalistic terms, yet as nevertheless

representing the stage upon which the Divine manifests itself in our lives. The

return of the people of Israel to history is an opportunity to shape our

national life in light of the values of justice and righteousness of the Torah,

while taking responsibility for our destiny and the quality of the society we

create. Neither exile nor supra-historical eschatological redemption: rather

something new, a new kind of age, not anticipated in the past, within the

earthly history of the people of Israel.

[1]. In an interview I conducted with him about ten years ago, for an

article that appeared in the Jerusalem Post's local supplement, In Jerusalem, on July 18,

1997.

2. For a more

extensive discussion of the issue of Nahem in the contemporary

situation, see the paper by Dr. Yael Levine, "The Text of Tefillat

Nahem" [Hebrew], Tehumin 21 (2001), 71-90. For a collection of

some of the various texts proposed, in Hebnrew and with English translation,

see what I write in my blog, http://hitzeiyehonatan.blogspot.com/01_07_2006_archive.html,

under the heading "Tisha b'Av (Liturgy)."

3. This

is discussed, for example, in a recent book by David N. Myers, Resisting

History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought

(Princeton: Princeton UP, 2003).

Rabbi

Yehonatan Chipman is a translator by profession, and a scholar in Jewish

studies. He writes a weekly sheet (in English) on the portion of the week and

the Haftara, titled "Hitsei Yehonatan". (Anyone interested in

ordering a sample of subscription can write via email to: yonarand@internet-zahav.net.)

What is the connection between Parashat Devarim, the Vision of Isaiah,

and the Ninth of Av?

Shabbat "Devarim"

is "Shabbat Hazon" the Shabbat of the Vision, the Shabbat preceding

the Ninth of Av… At first blush there would seem to be no connection between

this harsh haftara and the parasha itself. The parasha does not deal with

destruction, but with building; it is Moses' summing up of the journey of the

Children of Israel on their way to the Land. He recounts all the failures

occasioned by the generation of the desert; but despite all these failures,

they reached the Land… they had already conquered the lands of Sihon and Og,

converting them into lands of Israel; it is assured that they will conquer all

the land and will replace the earlier inhabitants, and the land will be an

inheritance for them.

One gets the

impression that the people will inherit the land, and that others will make way

for them, regardless of Israel's character, its behavior, and its actions. This

would seem to be something new in history. The words are quite explicit: Behold,

Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants after them.

But let us

consider: Amidst all these words which imply a uniqueness of the Jewish people

in terms of its God-decreed historical destiny, there are references to other

nations, to neighbors of the Jewish people and their lands, including nations

which are Israel's historical enemies. This is quite surprising, for it would

seem that there is no direct connection to the matter of the giving over the

Land of Canaan to the Jewish people. With regard to Edomites: "Do not

hill-country of Se'ir." The same terms of inheritance or dispossession

appears in reference to another nation, one which is not only the Israelite

nation, but is actually its enemy…

And just like

in the case of Israel's displacing of the Canaanites, we are told that in that

in the very same land which is today the Land of Moab, there once dwelt the

Emites, and they were destroyed by the Moabites…

What is the

significance of all the accounts of other nations' histories, of conquests and

displacements at the hands of others? It is to teach us that Israel's

uniqueness lies not in historical events. All human history – that of the

Jewish people and that of all other nations of the world – is either totally

the natural course of events, or is totally divinely determined. If there is

something unique about the Jewish people, it lays not the conquest of the Land

nor in its settlement, nor in its displacement of other nations – it lies in

its obligations within this land, in the responsibilities imposed upon it and

not upon other nations. God also displaced other peoples to give the nations

their land. Therefore there lies deep significance in the fact that these

matters are read on Shabbat Hazon, before Tisha B'Av.

(Y. Leibovitz, He'arot leParshiyot HaShavua, pp.

111-112)

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