Archive for September, 2008

A series of mini-shiurim on Neviim and Ketuvim, consisting of original insights into selected portoins of the Prophets and Biblical Writings. We will begin with insights into Sefer Yehoshua, exploring fascinating and surprising aspects of this unusual prophetic personality (how many Gedolei HaDor are also top generals, and visa versa?), and continue from there through the Tanach.

The analysis will focus on omek ha-peshat - a careful literary reading of the text in light of the entire book and parallels throughout Tanach. Additionally, many of the insights into the deeper meaning of the plain sense of the Biblical text will lead us to an understanding of seemingly strange and difficult statements of Chazal.

These shiurim will be available 3 times a week, each shiur will be approximately 20 minutes long and will be available via audio podcast.

As a kid, the logic used to explain the enigmatic placement of Tzom Gedaliah immediately after Rosh Hashanah was the dire necessity to purge the body after two straight days of too many simanim and four three-course meals. Although obviously humorous, this explanation isn’t all that less satisfying than the one I subsequently learned.

The story recorded in Melakhim II, chapter 25, relates that after the devastating destruction of Eretz Yisrael and its inhabitants by Nebuchadnezzar, Gedaliah was appointed by the Babylonians as governor over the last few Jews who were given permission to remain in the Land. We are then told that Yishmael Ben Netanyah and his men assassinated Gedaliah and his court (in the seventh month – Tishrei), and the entire nation then fled to Egypt for fear of Babylonian retribution. Although dastardly and certainly nationally significant as causing the final stage in the complete exile of the Jews, how can this brief episode (only four pesukim!) concerning these minor characters (outside of this story, we’ll never hear of them again), that occurred sometime during Tishrei, be the impetus for establishing a fast during the powerful aseret yemei teshuva, specifically between the de’orayta holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?!

For the answer we turn to the Book of Yirmiyahu (chapters 40-43), where an extended version of this story is recorded, which ultimately reveals the true significance of this sorrowful event. After Gedaliah is appointed, Yishmael and his men, suspicious of their governor’s ties with the occupying enemy nation, plot to assassinate the puppet official. Yochanan Ben Kareyach warns Gedaliah about the deadly plans but is rebuffed and accused of lying; Yishmael and his men then arrive at Gedaliah’s home and carry through their plans, killing the governor and the other Babylonian officials who are with him. Yochanan then rallies soldiers and kills Yishmael, avenging the cruel, nationally destructive murder.

Frightened of Babylonian retribution, Yochanan, his men, and the entire nation ‘from the young to the old’ approach Yirmiyahu (the prophet of the time), beseeching him to ask God if they should flee to Egypt or can they remain safely in Eretz Yisrael. They say to Yirmiyahu, ‘God will tell us the path for us to follow and the thing that we will do…may God be for us a faithful and truthful witness, [we swear] that we will do everything that God sends word to you for us to do. Whether good or bad, we will heed the voice of God that we have requested from you to receive!’ This recording of their effusive request to Yirmiyahu conveys a deep yearning for God’s truth, a steadfast faith in the rightness of His advice and the unyielding readiness to follow it, no matter what the instruction.

Pleased with their declaration, Yirmiyahu communes with God for ten days and receives the following glorious message which he immediately relates to Yochanan and the rest of the nation:

“So says God, the Lord of Israel: If you remain in this land, I will build houses for you and not destroy them, I will plant and not uproot because I have regretted the evil I have caused you. Do not fear the Babylonians…because I am with you to save you from their hands; and I will grant you mercy and return you to your land!”

Through Yirmiyahu, God relates one of the greatest messages of hope and Divine security ever recorded! As the smoke was still wafting over the charred remains of the Beit Hamikdash, and the deserted houses echoed with the emptiness of the broken Land, God tells these remaining few that the destruction is over! He has regretted the wrath He was ‘forced’ to wreak upon His children and now is ready to rebuild, protect them and invite their return. Surely Yochanan and his frightened followers could only have dreamed of such an answer; not only may they remain, but they should (and need to) because God is offering them a total reversal of their previous misfortunes, promising a Divinely brightened future!

And their response? “And it was when Yirmiyahu finished speaking…that Yochanan Ben Kareyach and all his men said: ‘you are speaking lies! God did not send you the message that we should not go to Egypt, you’re conspiring to give us into the hands of the Babylonians to kill us and exile us to Bavel.’” (The significance of the similarity between their response to Yirmiyahu and that of Gedaliah’s to their warnings (of the truth!) of his immanent murder is certainly not coincidental.) And they immediately depart to Egypt, thus ending the last remaining true presence of Jews in their land.

This is truly the reason for our fasting: there was a distinct moment in our history when our people could have returned to Eretz Yisrael and rebuilt their homes and their lives under guaranteed Divine protection, but unbearably, it was squandered. After pledging their faith to God and the upholding of His word no matter what the instruction, Yochanan and his men, not hearing the answer they were looking for, promptly rejected His message, choosing rather to follow their own path, voluntarily abandoning the final vestiges of hope for the Jewish nation which God had so mercifully offered them.

And this is why we commemorate this terrible episode immediately after Rosh Hashanah, at the beginning of the interim aseret yemei teshuva which culminate with Yom Kippur, the conclusion to this entire teshuva period. For two days, during our tefilla on Rosh Hashanah, we would have been focusing on the horrid corruption of our expected relationship with God throughout the past year and our pledge to mend it according to God’s demands. After this two-day intensive dedication, we are faced with a choice: having ‘heard’ what God requires of us, do we reject His answer in place of what we wanted to hear and follow our own, easier path, or do we accept His instruction, no matter how difficult or humbling, and begin to refurbish our relationship, achieve full repentance on Yom Kippur and then joyously celebrate our newly refurbished, deeply founded relationship with God on the holiday of Sukkot? Tzom Gedaliah is our tragic signpost, dramatically directing us onto the only path to achieving true success.

A series of mini-shiurim on Neviim and Ketuvim, consisting of original insights into selected portoins of the Prophets and Biblical Writings. We will begin with insights into Sefer Yehoshua, exploring fascinating and surprising aspects of this unusual prophetic personality (how many Gedolei HaDor are also top generals, and visa versa?), and continue from there through the Tanach.

The analysis will focus on omek ha-peshat - a careful literary reading of the text in light of the entire book and parallels throughout Tanach. Additionally, many of the insights into the deeper meaning of the plain sense of the Biblical text will lead us to an understanding of seemingly strange and difficult statements of Chazal.

These shiurim will be available 3 times a week, each shiur will be approximately 20 minutes long and will be available via audio podcast.

When customers visit by accident, you should set them right.

Question: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?

Answer: You don’t owe any duty of loyalty to your competitor, but you do owe your customers complete honesty. According to Jewish law, a merchant is not allowed to take unfair advantage of a customer’s misunderstanding, even if the merchant himself did nothing to mislead.

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A series of mini-shiurim on Neviim and Ketuvim, consisting of original insights into selected portoins of the Prophets and Biblical Writings. We will begin with insights into Sefer Yehoshua, exploring fascinating and surprising aspects of this unusual prophetic personality (how many Gedolei HaDor are also top generals, and visa versa?), and continue from there through the Tanach.

The analysis will focus on omek ha-peshat - a careful literary reading of the text in light of the entire book and parallels throughout Tanach. Additionally, many of the insights into the deeper meaning of the plain sense of the Biblical text will lead us to an understanding of seemingly strange and difficult statements of Chazal.

These shiurim will be available 3 times a week, each shiur will be approximately 20 minutes long and will be available via audio podcast.

Rava said: “If a scholar is angry, it is the Torah that makes him so as the verse says: ‘Are not my words like fire, says God’” (Yirmiyahu 23:29). R. Ashi said: “Any scholar who is not hard like iron is not a scholar as it says “like the hammer that shatters the rock’” (Yirmiyahu 23:29) …Ravina taught: “Even so, a person should train himself to be pleasant and easygoing.” (Ta’anit 4a)

I translated the word “ratah (boiling)” employed by Rava as anger. R. Yoshiyahu Pinto (Rif in Ein Yaakov) argues that Rava does not admire anger at all but rather the fiery, unyielding tenacity to stand up for Torah goals. Rava actually conveys the same point as does the subsequent quote from R. Ashi. Apparently, R. Pinto was against striking any positive notes about anger. Yet the simplest translation of “ratah” is anger and we shall work with that reading.

Rava opens the discussion with some sympathy for the anger of a scholar. Ravina closes the section by counseling against this anger. Why does Rava exhibit sympathy and why does Ravina ultimately suggest that it would be better to avoid it?

R. Menachem Meiri suggests that scholars become angry upon seeing wrongdoing. Scholars become angrier than others either because their superior knowledge enables them to recognize a greater number of transgressions or because they come to identify more intensely with the Torah’s goals. Understandably, Rava sees this as somewhat positive. Evil should bother us and even make us angry.

Nonetheless, Ravina advises against becoming irate. Meiri explains that anger fails on a pragmatic level and causes significant harm. Scholars who are always flying of the handle can not teach the community effectively. The angry voice soon loses its impact. Moreover, anger often entails a loss of control and engenders poor judgment. Angry people often do or say things that harm themselves and others. Therefore, even justified anger remains highly dangerous.

R. Kook presents an alternate reading in his Middot haRa’ayah (under “Kaas”). For R. Kook, the scholar yearns for exalted horizons and is frustrated by a world of boundaries and limitations. These limitations may be of a personal, societal, or environmental nature. They may even refer to halachic boundaries. Perhaps the religious individual pining for a dialogue with God feels frustrated by halachic rules about how to go about forging that bond. R. Kook shows some admiration for an individual angry about these difficulties.

For R. Kook, Ravina’s rejection of anger reflects not pragmatic counsel but a higher level of understanding. Ultimately, the scholar realizes that limitations and boundaries themselves promote the quest to cleave to God. Achieving this perspective enables a person to retain his equanimity in the face of restrictions. This idea fits with R. Kook’s introductory comments to Middot harRa’ayah. Work on character is not just an issue of applying what we already know but rather includes a strong analytic and intellectual component as well. Sometimes, character growth depends upon a deeper understanding of the difficulties of a human life.