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 [to contend with in war] but still lived in Ashterot, it would have been 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? [The difference is approximately like the difference between "fearing something" and being afraid "of something" - translator] Rather, [Moses feared] his [Og's] merit, the merit of [which he had inherited from] our 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 [Og's] valor, but rather of that which he possessed [i.e., merit inherited from 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, I have given you the land ... come and inherit the land which God swore to Abraham, 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 stir yourselves up against them, for I will not give you of their land so much as the sole of a foot can tread on, for as a possession to Esau I gave the 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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