is in the simple conjugation. Now, since we understand the verse to mean:

"The Lord your God will bring back your exiles,"] Scripture should

have written, veheishiv hashem et shevut [with the verb veheishiv being in the causative conjugation,

meaning "to bring back"]. But [although the meaning of the verse is

indeed, "The Lord, your God, will bring back your exiles,"] our

Rabbis learned from [the simple conjugation of the verb] here [which alludes to

God Himself returning], that the Shekhinah resides among Israel, as it

were, in all the misery of their exile, and when the Jews are redeemed [from

their exile], God writes [in Scripture an expression of] redemption for Himself

Himself returns along with Israel’s exiles (Megillah 29a). A further [lesson] may be learned [from the unusual form of the verb

which expresses "to bring back the exiles"]: The day on which

Israel’s exiles will be gathered is so monumental and [this ingathering] will

be such a difficult [procedure, as it were], that it is as though God Himself

must literally take each individual Jew with His very hands, [taking him] out

of his place [in exile. We see] the same concept [brought up in Scripture,]

when the verse says, And you will be gathered up, one by one, O children of Israel (Isaiah 27:12). [That verse refers to the ingathering of Israel’s exiles from Babylon. However,] we find this [idea] also

regarding the [ingathering of] exiles from the other nations, as the verse

says, And I shall bring back the exiles of Egypt. (Ezek. 29:14).

Vashav – will bring back – This is an expression of quieting and relieving, as in, You shall

triumph by stillness [beshuva] and quiet and its meaning is that the exile

will then be pacified and will set all of your troubles aside.

from all the nations – This has yet to be fulfilled, because during the Second Temple

period there was no ingathering of exiles from all the nations, but rather just

a few people, 40,000 men who returned from Judah and Benjamin and those who

accompanied them from Babylonia. However, Amon

and Moab, and Egypt, and Greece and France, And Spain, and the lands of the

west where there were Jews who had been scattered since the destruction of the

First Temple, did not return to the Second Temple, but rather only those in

Babylonia. That is why there is no doubt that the ingathering from all the

nations that is mentioned here is a matter for the future, may it come soon and

in our days.

(Rabbi

Yitzhak Shmuel Reggio, Italy

19^th century)

The Revealed within the Hidden

Dalia Marx & Zofia Novak

The

Mishnah treats the question of the conditions under which one has fulfilled the

obligation of hearing the shofar on Rosh HaShanah (and hearing the reading of

the Megillah on Purim):

And

so one who passed behind the synagogue or was in his house next to the

synagogue and heard the sound of the shofar or of the Meggilah, if he intended

it.

Even

though they both heard, this one intended [to fulfill the commandment], while

the other did not intend. (Rosh HaShanah 3:8)

The

Mishnah does not ask about the kavanat halev – intention of the heart

(or kivvun halev? – "direction of the heart") of those found

within the synagogue; it is assumed that if they are there, they have proper

intention. It asks about someone who passes behind the synagogue and who

for some reason is not willing or able to enter it. Does the congregation bear

any responsibility towards him? Who is this person who passes behind the

synagogue? Why doesn't he enter its gates? And why, if he does not join the

congregation, does he choose nonetheless to pass behind the synagogue when the

shofar is blown? Who is this person whom the Mishnah is thinking of?

Where

the Mishnah is reticent, the Tosefta speaks a bit more at length: "A

shepherd who has his flock graze behind the synagogue, or an ill person who

lies behind the synagogue" (Rosh HaShanah 2:7). Here we have two completely different cases. On the one hand we have

the shepherd, who does not cease from his workday routine and who herds his

flock behind the synagogue. On the other hand, there is an ill person who lies

(!) behind the synagogue – one may assume that out of great piety he rose from

his sick-bed and managed to drag himself there. The former comports himself on

Rosh HaShanah as if it were an ordinary weekday, the latter makes a supreme

effort to fulfill the commandment. And yet it may be asked why the ill person

is thrown outside and does not join the rest of the congregation inside the

synagogue?

Here

too the heart's intention (or direction) establishes whether someone fulfils

their obligation or not, as the Tosefta says, "Nothing determines this but

the heart's intention" (ibid). But how are we to understand the

"heart's direction"? Does this refer to the intention to merely hear

the shofar in the acoustical and physiological sense, or is it the intention to

fulfill the commandment's obligation? Or perhaps the Tosefta is talking about

the heart's intention in the deeper sense of a mental effort and expression of

faith.¹ The next Mishnah completes the chapter and deals with proper

intention in the deeper and more demanding sense of the word.² Prof.

Jonah Fraenkel claims that in doing so it sets up a religious alternative to

our earlier Mishnah, which had merely presented the required halakhic minimum.³

In regard to our present concerns it is important that the Mishnah deals with a

deed that one undertakes consciously and in relation to the congregation, but

also in one's own heart, privately. The tension between the private realm and

the public-national realm, between the hidden and the revealed, is found in our

parasha as well, which begins with the passage:

You

woodcutters and your water drawers… (Devarim 29:9-10)

The

covenant is not made solely with those who are present. The verse, but with

with us, this day (verse 10) is usually

understood as referring to future generations, but it is also possible to apply

it to those who chose not to stand among the assembled community (some families

add a fifth son to the Passover Haggadah, i.e., the lost Jewish son, the one

who is not with us at the Seder table this year, whom we fervently hope will

join us next year). He who is not here with us, this day is perhaps the

one who does not want to enter the synagogue but is also unable to abandon it

completely. He passes behind it while the shofar is blown – present and absent,

able and unable, wanting and refusing.

Next

comes the threat against a man, woman, family, or tribe, whose heart strays

this day from the Lord, our God (verse 17). Here too the criterion is internal; it relates to affairs of the

heart, even if action is a necessary condition. What responsibility does the

community have towards those whose hearts have strayed? The community must react

to improper deeds – that is an expression of Israelite mutual responsibility.

But what of the sins of the heart?

Jewish

tradition recognizes that some things are beyond our control. Mountains of

interpretations, both old and new, have been piled upon the verse (28) from our parasha: The hidden[things]

belong to the Lord, our God, but the revealed [things] apply to us and to our

children forever: that we must fulfill all the words of this Torah. Among

these we find the following midrash:

Rabbi

said: [The verse comes] to praise Israel, for when they all stood by Mount

Sinai to receive the Torah their hearts were all joined as one to joyfully

receive the Kingdom of Heaven. And not only that – they also became each

others' guarantors [literally: to mortgage themselves for each other]. The Holy

One blessed be He revealed Himself to form a covenant with them not only for

the revealed things, but also for the hidden ones. They told Him: "We are

making a covenant with You regarding the revealed things, but not regarding the

concealed ones," so that if one of us would sin in secret the community

would not be his guarantor. (Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishamel, Yitro, BaHodesh 5)

The

Israelites are prepared to "mortgage themselves" and take

responsibility for all the public deeds of every individual in the community,

but they refuse to take responsibility for the "hidden things," for

the affairs of the heart which are not susceptible to public scrutiny or

control. It seems that many of the problems of Israeli society are caused by

those who think they have been placed in charge of the "hidden" realm

and take to judging matters that are between individuals and their Creator.

We

shall presently consider one dimension of the relationship between the

"hidden" and the "revealed," in particular, a private

matter bearing a wider significance.

We

have recently heard of troubling events involving the mistreatment of children

by their parents, and even of extreme cases in which parents murdered their

children. These all confront us with the most terrible horror imaginable – how

could people willfully injure their own flesh and blood, how could they harm

the child whose health and well being is their responsibility? A tide of

shocked responses rose to flood the news-sites and talk-backs. Kindergarten

teachers and neighbors insist that it was all unforeseeable; the family

appeared to be completely normal. The police project helplessness. Indeed, it

is unfortunate but true that it is not always possible to foresee and prevent

such horrors. But is there no dimension at all of social responsibility for

such odious crimes? Aren't murder and acts of extreme violence just the tip of

the iceberg of desperate and miserable families? There are many facets to such

societal responsibility; here we shall treat one of them.

In

an episode of the popular television series Serugim a darling little boy

asks Yifat, the talented young woman who moved on her own to a settlement near Jerusalem: "Whose

mother are you?" Flustered, she replies: "I am no one's mother."

The child replies with a new question: "Why?" Sometimes it seems that

the pressure brought to bear by Israeli society upon people to bring children

to the world – the advertisements, the overt but mainly hidden messages of the media

and of common discourse (which we do not take notice of until we visit a

country where they do not exist) create norms which obligate us to create

families and have babies, infants who will enter a world and a society whose

sons and daughters are no longer mutually responsible for each other in a

hoped-for way.

Yeladim

ze simha – "children

are a joy." We knew that truth very well even before Yehoshua Sobel penned

his song. That is the natural and desired choice for most – but not for all of

us. The push to raise families combined with the constant decline in mutual

responsibility in our society can drive some weak and forlorn individuals to

perpetrate terrible acts of the kind reported in the media, but also to

perpetrate "smaller" everyday horrors about which we hear nothing.

Does

every woman have to be "somebody's mother" even if she is incapable

of performing that role? Does the prophet's call, He did not create it for a

waste, He formed it to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18), as understood by the

Sages, speak in general terms or does it obligate each and every man and woman?

Does the first commandment of the Torah have to be understood categorically?

Does an approach which promotes family life have to include funding for

fertility treatments while failing to demonstrate responsibility towards the

children born to weaker families? After all, He formed it to be inhabited:

observance of the commandment requires more than the sheer ability to

reproduce; it also calls for the ability to give the child a secure and

meaningful life.

In

the confession he composed (a list teetering between seriousness and cynicism),

Haim Nahman Bialik writes: "For the sin which [my ancestors] sinned before

me, in the revealed within the hidden." The hidden things belong to the

Lord, our God, but even the hidden realm includes a dimension that demands

the attention of the individual and of society, for example, the crimes

committed by lonely and desperate people in the hidden privacy of their homes.

A healthy society is a society that allows people to live their private lives –

the hidden things – without intervention, but which also demonstrates

mutual responsibility. We, on the other hand, tend to avoid intervening in

those circumstances which demand it while oafishly butting into places which

are the sanctum of the individual (or of the family).

As

we approach the New Year, let us learn to include those who choose to pass

behind the synagogue and those who do not manage to come and join the

congregation. Let us also respect the choices of those who are unable or

unwilling to walk the well-beaten paths.

[1] See B. Rosh HaShanah 28b and Tur Orah Hayyim 589.

2 "And could Moses' hands make

war or break war? Rather [the verse's intention is] to tell you that when Israel gazed

upwards and subjugated their hearts to their Father in Heaven they would

prevail, and if not they would fall…" (3:8)

3 J. Fraenkel, Darkhei Ha'Aggada Ve'HaMidrash,

Herziliyah: 1991, pp. 484-5; and also his "Ha'aggadah ShebaMishnah"

Mehkarei Talmud 3:2, Y. Susman and D. Rosenthal (editors), Jerusalem:

5765, pg. 678.

Dr. Dalia Marx

is spending this year as a guest lecturer in Potsdam

University and in Berlin's

Geiger College.

Zofia (Zosia)

Novak is an advanced student (magister) at Potsdam University

And

the Eternal your God will circumcise your heart – It is this which the Rabbis have said,

"If someone comes to purify himself, they assist him' [from on High]. The

verse assures you that you will return to Him with all your heart and He will

help you. The following subject is very apparent from Scripture: since the time

of Creation, ma has had the power to do as he pleased, to be righteous or

wicked. This [grant of free will] applies likewise to the entire Torah-period,

so that people can gain merit upon choosing the good and punishment for

preferring evil. But in the days of the Messiah, the choice of their [genuine]

good will be natural; the heart will not desire the improper and it will have

no craving whatever for it. This is the "circumcision" mentioned

here, for lust and desire are the "foreskin" of the heart, and

circumcision of the heart means that it will not covet or desire evil. Man will

return at that time to what he was before the sin of Adam, when by his nature

he did what should properly be done, and there were no conflicting desires in

his will, as I have explained in Seder Bereishit… And so it is

declared by Ezekiel: A new heart will I also give you, and a new spirit will

I put within you (36:26); and I will

cause you to walk in My statutes (36:27). The new heart alludes to man's nature, and the [new] spirit

to the desire and will. It is this which our Rabbi have said: "And the

years draw nigh, when you shall say: 'I have no pleasure in them' (Kohelet 12:1) – these are the days of the Messiah, as

they will offer opportunity neither for merit nor for guilt" (Shabbat 151b). For in the days of the Messiah there will

be no [evil] desire in man but he will naturally perform the proper deeds and

therefore there will be neither merit nor guilt in them, for merit and guilt

are dependent upon desire.

(RaMBaN

Devarim 30:6, Chavel translation)

…RaMBaN's words imply that he

understands the meaning of Scripture as saying that man's redemption consists

in that in the future he will be freed of the obligation to choose. It is as if

it was said that man will be exempted from that great commandment of and you

shall love the Lord your God, etc., because it will be naturally implanted

in his soul… However, the problem consists in the fact that the Torah was not

given for the days of the Messiah, but rather it was given for the days of

our lives in this world, in which we do not know if man is capable of

choosing, but together with that we know very well that the Torah commands us

to choose.

Our world is saturated with

man's struggles with himself, some of which also require struggles between man

and his fellow. We all know that when it comes to the great matter of how good

and evil are conceived of and understood that different people come to

different and even contrary resolutions and decisions. However, as has been

stated, it is precisely this world which is the world of the Torah, and not the

utopian world of "the days of the Messiah." The Torah receives its

religious significance in our world as it is – with all its conflicts – and we

have no concept or understanding of the rhetorical expression, "the days

of the Messiah."

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