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28 JUDAISM
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Yom Yerushalayim: It All Happened “Before”
BY RABBI MOSHE TARAGIN
In 1948 we gained independence and returned home, after an excruciating absence of two thousand years. However, the victory was inconclusive: we settled into a hollowed-out country, gouged of its heartland, and wrung from its historical capital. 1967 felt entirely different. The miracles, the military triumph and most of all, walking through those stony gates – it all felt different, almost Biblical. So much of what occurred in 1967 felt familiar- as if it had occurred before. Truth is, 1967 did occur before. Jewish history is cyclical, and its patterns repeat themselves. As a landmark of Jewish history, 1967 returned us to our past.
WE STOOD ALONE
Our return to our greater homeland in 1948 was piloted by international approval and affirmed by UN resolutions. After two-thousand years of endless persecution and discrimination, capped off by the horrors of the Holocaust, it seemed “proper” that the world assist us in returning to our national roots. 1948 was an international project.
In stark contrast, in 1967 we stood entirely alone, with no allies nor with any partners. General Nasser of Egypt beating the drums of war, threatened to hurl the Jews into the sea. Twenty years after the Holocaust his threat resonated with terror. The United States refused to come to Israel’s aid. Only after 1967 did they begin to “arm” the Jewish state. We stood isolated and alone, facing both multiple armies and the real threat of extinction.
Such it is when Jews ascend the mountain of G-d. We go it alone. Avraham had traversed the entire topography of Israel, meeting with kings, shepherds, farmers, and legal negotiators. Slowly but surely, his presence in Israel became a regional consensus. Toward the end of his life, however, he finally ascended to the akeida and to the mountain of Yerushalayim– alone. He specifically instructed his entourage to remain behind with the donkeys, while he scaled the cloud-laden mountain.
Standing alone on this mountain capped his career as Avraham ha’ivri- the man who stood alone on “the other side”, defying paganism and educating a world muddled by confusion and chaos. Being the world’s conscience and its moral spirit can sometimes feel lonely. We aren’t always embraced with open arms. Yet, we continue to stand bold and undeterred. In 1967 we finally assumed this heritage of Avraham- we stood alone as we entered our city.
MESIRUT NEFESH
Finally, after all that waiting, in 1967, we stood at the door of Yerushalayim and at the doorstep of history. To settle the city of G-d, humans must be willing to surrender it all. It wasn’t any different for Avraham, who could only climb the mountain if he were willing to leave it all behind. His son and his moral conscience must be surrendered to attend the akeida on that mountain. Yerushalayim lies beyond human reach and can only be secured by humans willing to act heroically and selflessly.
The long road back to the doorstep of Yerushalayim had been paved with Jewish martyrdom. We only survived our vicious exile because of our readiness to surrender our lives for our beliefs.
And here we stood in 1967. The final mile to Yerushalayim would take extraordinary mesirut nefesh. The Jordanian army was heavily fortified in East Jerusalem, and the valleys leading to the Old city were laden with mines and exposed to constant sniper fire. The final mile could only be traversed by mesirut nefesh and by those willing to forgo it all. Our paratroopers took that fateful decision- Yerushalayim was worth it. The mesirut nefesh which had slowly emerged in cities of Spain, shtetls of Poland, and tundras of Siberia would now blaze the trail back to Yerushalayim. Without mesirut nefesh Yerushalayim lies “beyond”. The patterns of history were in full force in 1967.
THE CITY OF OUR “SUBCONSCIOUS”
In Breishit, Avraham is the first to visit Yerushalayim, but not the last. As Ya’akov flees his murderous brother, the sun sets unexpectedly, and he accidentally stumbles upon Yerushalayim. He didn’t realize the powerful draw of this city until it bursts on to his dreams. It is all unintended, but irrepressible. Yerushalayim is deeply lodged within Jewish subconscious, but sometimes it remains imperceptible. Great moments remind us of just how deeply we are knitted to this city. 1967 was a modern reminder.
In the years prior to 1967, national surveys revealed that Yerushalayim held no special attraction to the younger generation. Born after 1948, most hadn’t even visited the city, and those who did could not visit the kotel. Seemingly Yerushalayim had faded from public consciousness. Until it all changed.
Just as Ya’akov did, unexpectedly, we returned to the city of G-d and the city of gold. In preparation for the inevitable war, our military brass was preoccupied with the Egyptians in the south and the Syrians in the north. We begged the Jordanians to stay out of the conflict, and any thoughts of liberating Yerushalayim were preposterous. Suddenly, within a day of battle, we stood at the kotel and blew a shofar. Secular and even anti-religious soldiers broke down sobbing, as they softly caressed the ancient stones. Devotedly, they scribbled notes of prayer to insert in the wall’s crevices. Their hardened commanders were shocked at the unexpected outbreak of piety among secular soldiers. Something primordial moved these battle-worn soldiers. It was the echo of Yerushalayim within the Jewish soul. Thousands of years earlier, Yerushalayim exploded into Ya’akov’s dreams. That day in 1967, it sailed from our dreams into our world.
A CITY OF UNITY
We last left Yerushalayim as a fractured people. We abdicated Yerushalayim to the Romans because we could defend it as a united front. Our city was plagued by civil war, as numerous factions violently battled each another, while burning each other’s food silos. The Romans entered Yerushalayim to a city of corpses and starving skeletons. We lost Yerushalayim because of internal strife.
Yerushalayim must be acquired through unity. As the city of G-d, it cannot be contained by any individual- only by a united nation. For this reason, in the Temple era, the city wasn’t legally allocated to any tribe but remained a national commons. A city which reflects Hashem’s “Oneness” in this world, can only be inhabited by a people united as “one”. Dovid hamelech himself, could not seize the city until he had federalized his authority and established his monarchy over an entire unified nation. Yerushalayim is not of individuals and not of factions.
In 1948 we were far too fractured to return to Yerushalayim. During the British mandate, too many Israeli militias formed and too many military factions had acted independently- often times hostile to each other. Though, in 1948 they officially joined forces and formed “Tzahal” they still operated fairly autonomously. We were not yet ready for the city of the “One”.
By 1967 we had become sufficiently fused into one army and sufficiently united as one nation, that we could enter the city of the “One”. The return to Yerushalayim miraculously melted social and religious divisions. An entire nation was captivated by one city, one dream, and one song- Naiomi Shemer’s “Yerushalayim shel zahav”. United in spirit and joined by lyrics hewn from the stones and sand of our dreamland, we entered Yerushalayim.
It all happened before, and in 1967 it happened again.
The writer is a rabbi at Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, a hesder yeshiva. He has smicha and a BA in computer science from Yeshiva University as well as a masters degree in English literature from the City University of New York.
Weekly Dvar Torah
FROM ERETZ YISRAEL Trauma, Terumah and Temurah
BY RABBI STEWART WEISS
A dizzying, tumultuous time in our calendar is soon coming to an end. We are once again riding this annual emotional roller-coaster, careening through modern Jewish history and experiencing all of its many ups and downs: sharing the loss of so many of our precious people at Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron commemorations; then joyously marking Yom HaAtzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim. Our tears of sadness intermingle with tears of joy, for such is the lot and life of the Jewish people.
Our parasha this Shabbat of Bechukotai deals in its own way with the highs and lows of life, and adds a bright and brilliant postscript to it all.
After detailing the blessings and curses, the parasha relates the fascinating law of temurah: If someone designates an animal to be used as an offering, but then substitutes that animal for another, both animals become holy; both must be used as offerings. Sefer HaChinuch explains: When something is made kadosh, that holiness is permanent and can never be removed. Attempting to do so will fail, and both animals will achieve an exalted status. Says the Chinuch: “One who seeks to uproot holiness – the kedushah will spread even further.”
The late Sage Rabbi Pam zt”l sees in this law a message for Jewish history: Every time the nations of the world seek to limit or destroy the kedushah of Am Yisrael, they not only fail, but there is a noticeable expansion of that kedushah!
In Egypt, attempts first to break the spirit of Bnei Yisrael and then kill us off resulted in our growing exponentially; “as they oppressed us, so we multiplied.” Many non-Hebrews even joined our ranks.
In the days of Mordechai and Esther, Haman’s plot to wipe us out backfired on him, and we gained a yom tov as great as Yom Kippur. As a result, here too, many non-Jews joined our people, including even some descendants of Haman!
And in our own days, this pattern has repeated before our very eyes. The Nazis and their many murderous accomplices devoted all of their energy to killing us. But we survived, and we went on to flourish in the Diaspora and also to create the State of Israel.
Yes, terrorist groups and sponsors like Iran strive to defame and destroy us. But what is the result, Baruch Hashem? We have grown more than ten-fold in just six decades and built a powerful, prosperous nation. We have seen our population grow to 9.5 million; projected to be over 11 million by the year 2030. We have the highest fertility rate in the OECD and the highest number of multiple births per capita of any country; 191,000 babies were born here in the last year! We have become the single largest Jewish community in the world and fast approach constituting the majority of the world’s Jews. Israel’s vast proliferation of yeshivot is the embodiment of the blessing, ki miTzion tetzei Torah, and we are an inspiration for millions.
As we conclude Sefer Vayikra with the words chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek, we should be strengthened by appreciating that all of the vitriol launched against us is doomed to failure. Instead of harming us, it will only result in our becoming a stronger, safer, more prosperous people. Temurah has the same letters of both trauma and Terumah: The trauma threatened by our enemies ultimately contributes to our triumph. Am Yisrael Chai!
Rabbi Stewart Weiss is director of the Ra’anana Jewish Outreach Center (jocmtv@netvision.net.il), leads kosher tours around the world and is a member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau (www.mizrachi.org/speakers).
Parshat Bechukotai: What Drives History?
BY GAVRIEL COHN
Our sedra contains the tochacha, a whole litany of curses that will befall the Jewish People should they turn away from a life of faith and observance. It is a terrifying account of punishments and persecution, a troubling read. It may be a hard ask then, to write a short pleasant Dvar Torah on it. “Why,” Chief Rabbi Hertz asks, “does Scripture enter into such dreadful detail concerning the consequences of disobedience?!” Indeed, many Ashkenazi communities have the custom of reading these passages quickly and in an undertone. Rabbi Dovid Povarsky, the late Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovizh, related how in his youth in Poland, congregants refused to be called up to the Torah for this portion, being too afraid of the curses therein; large sums of money had to be given to persuade someone to take the aliyah.
Are these punishments the right note with which to end Sefer Vayikra with? What link do these passages have to the Temple anyway, one of the main topics of the book?
The tochacha may not be the lightest read yet, in the thinking of the Rambam, it is certainly empowering. It helps us understand world history and pave our way to a brighter future.
Judaism sees history as shaped not by epochs and “structures” but by human beings. The Biblical saga is driven by people, not by processes or natural cycles. Patriarchs, prophets, judges, and monarchs dominate its stories. It is our ability to choose and act, the Rambam maintains, that shapes our path in life. If we fail to focus on the morality and monotheism that Judaism teaches, keeping the mitzvot that help us to reach perfection in this world, then, quite naturally, we will suffer and civilisation will breakdown, as the tochacha describes (see, for example, Hilchot Meilah, 8:8; Guide for the Perplexed, Part 3; see also the Ralbag on our Parsha and perhaps our Sages in Pirkei Avot, 6:7). A society experiencing such malaise must realise that they are most probably failing morally and change their ways for the better.
For the Rambam, the commandments of praying, fasting, and repentance all help a person to do that, allowing them to recognise that their actions have been destructive and to turn away from their harmful behaviours, the cause of their difficulties. That is also the one of the purposes of the Temple, to have a place where each individual can cleanse themselves of the crimes they may have committed, their past sins, and be able to move on. Thus, the tochacha and the Temple are indeed linked (Hilchot Taaniyot, chapter 1; Guide for the Perplexed, 3:36; see also Bechor Shor, Shemot 30:1).
Indeed, as the Rambam describes in numerous places, despite this winding, hiccupping journey of human history, the harrowing evil perpetrated by man, eventually, mankind will open their eyes and awaken from their slumber passivity of viewing world events as fuelled simply by chance or the distant forces of nature. Instead, we will begin to fully appreciate the great power of our actions and begin to help those in need, resolving to do only good. That “through repentance and charity will Israel be redeemed,” ushering in the Messianic Age.
So, in short, that is the Rambam’s take on human history and destiny. Whilst ultimately, both suffering and world history are far beyond human comprehension (as the Rambam admits as well), undeniably, we are driven through life by our own actions and choices. Read the tochacha quickly and quietly perhaps, but let’s not forget that message. As one British poet said, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” Chazak, chazek, ve’nitchazek! [To be sure, there are other understandings of the interplay between free will, Divine providence, reward and punishment, and world history. The Ramban (Nachmanides), for example, stresses the Divine Hand as the primary force in these roles, more so than human free will].
Gav works as an Account Executive in Public Relations. The views expressed here are entirely his own. Questions? gavcohn@gmail.com
