Our Father Who is in heaven, Rock of Israel and its Redeemer, King to Whom peace belongs,

Bless Your children, lovers of their people and land,

Some of whom say it is a time for planting

Some of whom say it is a time for uprooting,

Some of whom say it is a time to build,

Some of whom say it is a time to tear down

And they increase disagreement for the sake of Heaven.

God of the spirits of all flesh,

Please, direct their hearts to love one another and to listen to each other lovingly,

So that they might learn to understand that "God speaks one word, and we hear two"

And so that they should not harm each other, God forbid,

Nor harm those serving the people in the security forces,

Not bodily harm nor damage to property, nor harm to spirit.

Place the virtues of kindness, mercifulness and peace in the hearts of the people's officers and servants,

Let no ill result from their acts.

May it be Your will, Lord, that we all love Your Name, respect humanity, and look forward to redemption.

It is a time of crying out for us, save us from our woes,

Quickly send a messenger to bring near those who are far and to remove hatred from our hearts,

So that we can live with you securely in his land.

Place upon us peace, goodness, and blessedness, upon all of Your people Israel and upon the world which You created in Your kindness, so that the verse In that day the Lord will be one and His Name one may be fulfilled, soon and in our days.

And let us say, "Amen."

We were sent the above prayer, which was written on the 17^th of Tammuz by Mordechai Gilah, a member of Kibbutz Lavi.

Since it expresses our wish to conduct the deep disagreements taking place amongst us with mutual respect, with careful observance of the law and with rejection of any form of violence or harm, we saw fit to publish it this Shabbat.

 

 

I pleaded with the Lord

Oshrat Shoham

R. Yohanan said: Ten expressions refer to prayer, and they are: Shi'ah, tze'aka, na'aka, rinah, pegiya, bitzur, kriya, niful, and piyul. Instead of these, Moses chose to use the term tahanunim [pleading]. (Midrash Rabbah)

Only two figures in Scripture used the term tahanunim; Moses, in our parasha, and Joseph, as described by his brothers:

They said to each other, "Alas, we are being punished on account of our brother, because we looked on at his anguish, yet paid no heed as he pleaded with us. That is why this distress has come upon us... (Bereishit 42:21)

It is interesting that neither use of tahanunim - neither Joseph's nor Moses' - is expressed in "real time." They cover for Scripture's thundering silence. So it is in Moses' case. Scripture remains silent in its description of God's announcement to Moses in parashat Hukat that he will not enter the Land:

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them... Moses sent messengers... (Bamidbar 20: 12, 14)

Regarding Joseph, we read in parashat Va'yeishev:

When Joseph came up to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the ornamented tunic that he was wearing, and took him and cast him into the pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. Then they sat down to a meal...they pulled out Joseph and sold him to the Ishmaelites... (Bereishit 37:23-25, 28)

These post factum descriptions of pleading, both of Moses' pleading to God and of Joseph's pleading to his brothers, come to fill in a thundering silence, a most difficult silence, which remains unexplained. After all, it is clear that Joseph surely entered into some kind of discussion with his brothers, and it is clear that that conversation concerned their actions and Joseph's attempts to convince them to desist. It is similarly clear that Moses, who did not hold back from arguing with God about many matters, did not simply accept God's decree keeping him from entering the land.

It seems that the use of this peculiar expression, tahanunim, in connection with Moses and Joseph, is not accidental. By being sold to the Ishmaelites, Joseph in effect begins the exile to Egypt, while Moses, standing by Jordan River on the frontier of the Land of Israel, closes the door on the period of the Egyptian exile. But besides that connection, Moses and Joseph also bear many similar and interesting characteristics.

Both Moses and Joseph were born in their own homes, but spent their important years of maturation in a strange home, in the house of the king of Egypt, far from their families and people. Their personalities were formed around a feeling of being strangers, not belonging, and alienation. Both Moses and Joseph fit well into Egyptian society and into the Egyptian aristocracy. At one stage or another, each of them became alienated from their people and origin; Joseph fell out with his brothers, and did not look for his family even years after he rose to greatness, while Moses grew up in Pharaoh's house, in exploitive Egypt, which worked his brothers harshly. Although, as an adult, he did respond to injustice by killing the Egyptian, he then fled to distant Midian, far away from his brothers' troubles.

Both Joseph and Moses eventually found themselves serving in crucial positions that bore immense personal responsibility for their people's fate.

It is interesting that the only additional biblical character described as having pleaded is Esther, who pleaded with Ahasuerus. While the circumstances were different, I think that the use of this expression in connection with Esther is not accidental - she also spent her formative years in the house of a foreign king, years spent feeling like a stranger, accused of alienation from her people and homeland. At the end of the day, she too bore significant personal responsibility for the fate of her people.

It seems that the feelings of great loneliness, the alienation, perhaps the feelings of betrayal and foreignness suffered by these figures in their formative years are those that bring a person to plead, to use penetrating personal discourse as a prayer. It is an intimate dialogue between an individual and a listener, full of emotion and force, a plea for mercy, perhaps even a demand for mercy, a penetrating intimate discourse whose inner message is, "Do not alienate yourself from me" "I cannot bear any further alienation."

Perhaps this is also the reason why these pleas are not described as occurring in the narrative present. The force of pleading, the power of the emotions involved in pleading cannot be immediately described as an inherent part of the event itself - they can only be described post-factum.

Of the three instances cited above, only in Moses' case is the plea addressed to Heaven, with full force of emotion. Even if his plea was not answered, one should hope that heart-felt prayers and pleas will be answered.

Let the cry for clemency come before You, let Your ears be attentive to pleading… (From the Selihot for Sunday)

Oshrat Shoham is a member of Kehillat Pelekh in Jersualem and a criminal attorney in the Jerusalem district attorney's office.

 

 

You Are To Do What Is Right And What Is Good

The Book of Bereishit is called by the prophets "Sefer HaYashar - The Book of the Upright". R. Yohanan explains: This is the book of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov who were called upright, as is written Let my soul die the death of the upright. Jews of the Second Temple period were tzaddikim, righteous, devoted to Torah study, but they were not yesharim - upright in worldly affairs. Because of groundless hatred, they suspected whoever feared God in a fashion different from their own of being a Sadducee and a heretic, and this led to bloodshed and all the evils of the world, until the Temple was destroyed, for The Holy One, Blessed Be He, is upright and he cannot tolerate this kind of tzaddikim. [He prefers] only those who walk in the straight path also in worldly matters, and not crookedly, even though [the crooked behavior] is for the sake of Heaven, for this leads to the destruction of creation and the devastation of civilization.

 (From the NeTziV of Volozhin's commentary "Ha'Amek Davar", preface to the Book of Bereishit).

 

After mentioning that one should observe these three categories of mitzvot (Mishpatim/regulations, eidot/testimonies, hukkim/laws) and not test the Holy One, Blessed Be He, with regard to any of them, He decreed (according to the midrash) in favor of compromise on matters on which the Torah did not rule, saying - You are to do what is right and what is good. And because it [compromise] will lead to peace, He called it What is right and what is good in the eyes of God.

(Rabeinu Bahayey, Devarim 6:17)

 

It would seem that the admonition which the Torah adds to all of its laws, You are to do what is right and what is good in the eyes of the Lord, is superfluous. All of the laws are directed towards that goal, in order to show man the straight path. However, there are some things which are legally permissible but which were prohibited solely on the basis of You are to do what is right... Judaism does not stop at limiting deeds of actual evil - it also tries to root out potential evil from the human soul. That is why there are special admonitions that address that which is in our hearts.

(The "Admor He'Halutz" - R. Yeshayahu Shapira z"l, as quoted by Nehama Leibowitz)

 

The Danger of "Idolatry" is Greater for Torah Scholars

...he especially warns Torah scholars who deal with laws and statutes, only be on your guard and guard yourself well. This makes it clear that the Torah scholar is more likely than other people to fall into the corruption of idolatry. So it was in reality: As Perek Helek tells us, Yoravam, Ahav and Menashe were great Torah scholars, and they were the first to bring idolatrous offerings and made all Israel sin. The author of Lamentations says, Lord, see my destitution, for the enemy has grown great (28:59), and we later explained (28:59) in the name of the midrash that the evil inclination has increased hold over Torah scholars, since the Torah scholar can apply his intelligence to find ways to permit things, twisting the words of the living God to conform with his own view, confusing people into thinking that it is a commandment.

(The NeTziV's Ha'Amek Davar on Devarim 4:14)

 

The 15^th of Av - a Day of Equality, Reconciliation and Restoration

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: There were no better days for Israel than the 15^th of Av and Yom Kippur, for in them the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in borrowed white clothing in order to avoid embarrassing those who did not own any.

(Mishnah Ta'anit 4:8)

 

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: There were no better days for Israel than the 15^th of Av and Yom Kippur, for in them the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in borrowed white clothing in order to avoid embarrassing those who did not own any.

Yom Kippur makes sense - it grants forgiveness and pardon, it is the day when the latter tablets were given. But what is the 15^th of Av? R. Yehudah said that Shemuel said: It was the day when the tribes were allowed to intermarry...Rav Yosef said that Rav Nahman said: It was the day that the tribe of Binyamin was allowed to re-enter the community.

(Ta'anit 30b)

 

Readers Respond

 

A response to Dr. Ronen Ahituv's "On the Holiness of Zealotry" - issue 404.

In his article, Dr. Ahituv makes mention of "actual cases of zealotry, such as the dastardly acts of Barukh Goldstein and Yigal Amir." I think we should differentiate between zealousness and vengefulness. Goldstein's deed was not one of zealousness, but rather vengefulness; or despair; or personal rage and anger serving no higher purpose. As for Amir, what was his true motive? Did he think of himself as an instrument of Heaven who was required to stop the Oslo process that could have endangered the State of Israel? Even if that were true, was the murder of then Prime Minister Rabin really the necessary and proper act to achieve that goal?

In contrast to the above cases, Pinhas certainly knew that God had told Moses, Take all of the leaders of the people and impale them for God in the face of the sun. The Torah emphasizes: and Pinhas saw... and rose up. That is to say, Pinhas did not just happen to stand, and he did not wreak vengeance. Rather, he saw the situation clearly; he saw the plague, and the danger that could befall Israel, and the judges' unresponsiveness to Moses' command, Let each man kill those of his men who have attached themselves to Ba'al Pe'or (25:5). So too, Yehudah Ha'Makabee saw the situation and the great danger, and acted accordingly. The conclusion is that emotional excitement and/or partial comprehension do not in themselves support true acts of zealousness of the kind acceptable to God.

Asher Adar

 

Dr. Ronen Ahituv replies:

It seems that Dr. Adar and I agree in our evaluations of the acts of various people, creating a basis for discussion.

My article did not treat the question of how we should go about retrospectively judging some act or another as jealous or vengeful. Rather it asks how we should judge our own motivations. The delegitimatization of people who do not act in accordance with our own world view is not much of an accomplishment, and sometimes it is even repugnant. The question is whether we can honestly define objective criteria that can categorize acts of zealousness as a priori "bad" or justified. I claimed that no such criteria exist. Can someone know ahead of time whether his view of a situation is the complete picture rather than a narrow and partial one? Is it not true that, "I knew only to speak of myself!"

Let us consider how the masses reacted to the Hasmonean Revolt. No doubt, many of them accused the Hasmoneans of being narrow-minded, impatient and of taking unnecessary risks. Despite all of that, even to our days we still celebrate Hannukah and sing songs of praise to God for having performed miracles for our ancestors. The evaluation of the Hasmonean deeds as justified comes from a later historical perspective. In their own days, things were far from clear.

As I wrote in my article, I have no clear-cut conclusion. I am sorry to have disappointed all those who seek safe and well-light paths of action. We must know that every deed involves both dangers and chances for success. Usually, we have no way to know ahead of time if they shall succeed or bring calamity.

 

 

 

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