The Forty-fifth Sedra
5-11 Av 5786
Link to TISHAH_BAV
Link to HAFTARAH_NACHAMU ● Link to MIDRASH_VAETCHANAN
FROM THE TORAH
Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11
While the previous Sedra Devarim dealt, in large part, with the conquest and settlement of Transjordan, this week’s Sedra Va-etchanan provides some transition to the anticipated settlement in Canaan and explains the central wilderness experience, which was revelation at Horeb, as the nucleus of lessons for permanence in that Land. Moses derives the prohibition of image worship from the image-free experience at Horeb, and he foresees the consequences of its violation in the people’s humiliating exile. Yet the people’s repentance and the Eternal’s mercy enable a return which embraces the history of their relationship as meaning and guidance. Moses fulfills the previous divine call for cities of refuge for the manslayer. He divides divine imperatives into categories of Torah and Mitzvah, reviewing for the first the foundational experience of revelation at Horeb in the Ten Commandments, and for the second presenting a simple but profound declaration in the Shema, which emphasizes the education of their children in the meaning and . He then warns against the idolatrous lure of the existing Canaanite infrastructure and commands its total destruction. Correlatively, the Eternal has chosen this people out of love and loyalty to their Fathers in accordance with the covenant that He made with them. Accordingly, he will requite without delay those who hate him.
PAST AND FUTURE
Moses Seeks to Enter the Land
3:23-29
I entreated (Va-etchanan) the Eternal at that time (cf. Deuteronomy 3:21-22): O Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your great strength, unmatched in deeds or might by any other god in the heavens or on the earth. Let me go and see the good Land which is on the other side of the Jordan, this good hill country, and the Lebanon.
But the Eternal was enraged at me because of you and so did not grant my request. Instead He warned me not to mention this matter to Him again. Go up to the summit of the Pisgah, He said, and cast your eyes to the west, to the north, to the south, and to the east; see with your eyes, as you will not go across this Jordan. Charge Joshua with strength and courage, for he will cross before this people and he will apportion for them the Land which you shall see. In the meantime, we settled in the valley opposite Beth Pe’or (cf. Numbers 21:31-22:1; 25:1-3; 33:49; 36:13).
Moses Charges Israel
4:1-4
So, now, Israel, attend to the statutes and the ordinances which I am instructing you to observe, in order that you may live to enter and possess the Land which the Eternal, the God of your Fathers, is giving to you. Observe just what I command you, neither adding to or subtracting from the word that the Eternal your God commands. With your own eyes you have seen what the Eternal did against Baal Pe’or (cf. Numbers 25:1-11), how the Eternal your God destroyed from your midst whoever followed Baal Pe’or, “while all of you, who cleave to the Eternal your God, are alive today” (Deuteronomy 4:4).
Moses Prepares Israel for the Land
4:5-8
Understand that I am preparing you to observe statutes and ordinances, commanded me by the Eternal my God, for when you enter the Land to possess it. Keep them, for that is your wisdom and discernment in the eyes of the peoples who will learn of them and infer that this great nation is wise and discerning. Show me a great nation to whom God is as close as the Eternal our God is whenever we call out to Him! Or show me a great nation with statutes and ordinances as righteous as all of this Torah which I am placing before you this day!
Remember Your Experience at Horeb
4:9-14
Take care never to forget the things that your eyes have seen, never allow them to depart from your heart, make them known to your children and to your children’s children—the day that you stood before the Eternal your God at Horeb. There the Eternal bid me: Gather the people to Me, and I shall let them hear My words, so that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they live upon the Land, and that they may teach their children. You approached and stood under the Mountain, the Mountain ablaze with fire to the heart of heaven amid the darkness of thickest clouds. The Eternal spoke to you from within the fire; you heard the sound of words but saw no image at all. He imparted to you His covenant, that you should observe the Ten Commandments, and He inscribed them on two tablets of stone. At the same time, the Eternal commanded me to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to carry out in the Land to which you are crossing to possess.
You Saw No Image
4:15-20
Be ever mindful that you saw no image on the day that the Eternal spoke to you at Horeb from amidst the fire, lest you corrupt your charge by making for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever: the form of a man or a woman, the form of any animal that walks on the land, the form of any bird of wing that flies in the heaven, the form of anything that creeps on the ground, the form of any fish that is in the waters under the earth; lest you lift your eyes to the heavens and see the sun, moon, and stars, all the host of heaven, and be led astray to bow down to them and worship that which the Eternal your God has allowed to all of the other peoples under the heavens, whereas He took you out of the iron furnace of Egypt to be His people, the divine inheritance that you are this day.
Without Moses
4:21-24
The Eternal was angry at me on your account, in that He swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good Land which the Eternal your God is giving you as an inheritance. For I will die here, and you will cross the Jordan. Be you careful not to forget your covenant with the Eternal your God and make for yourselves a sculptured image in the likeness of anything, as the Eternal has commanded you. For the Eternal your God is a consuming fire; He is a jealous God.
Exile
4:25-28
When you produce children and grandchildren and have become long established in the Land, and then make a sculptured image in the likeness of anything, and anger the Eternal your God with your evil doings, I call this day heaven and earth as witnesses against you, that you shall perish surely and quickly from upon the Land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not long endure; you will be destroyed. The Eternal will scatter you among the peoples; you will be left a countable number among the nations to which the Eternal will drive you; and there you will worship as divine what men have made, of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear, eat or smell.
Return
4:29-31
Even from there you may seek the Eternal your God and find Him, if you seek Him with all of your heart and with all of your soul. In your suffering for all of these events, in the end of days you may still turn to the Eternal your God and heed Him. For the Eternal your God is a merciful God. He will not abandon you or leave you to harm, nor will He forget the covenant He made with your Fathers.
“You Have Been Shown to Know”
4:32-40
Consider now what has come before: the first days, since the day God created man upon the earth, and from one end of heaven to the other. Has anything like this ever happened or been heard of? Has a people heard the voice of God speaking from amidst the fire, as you have heard, and lived? Or has God ever tried to come and take for Himself one nation from the midst of another with tests, signs, and wonders, or with overwhelming force, great awesome acts, as the Eternal God did for you before your eyes in Egypt? “You have been shown to know that the Eternal is God, and there is none else” (Deuteronomy 4:35).
From heaven He made you hear His voice in order to discipline you, and on earth He showed you His great fire, from which you heard His words. Because He loved your Fathers, He chose their offspring after them and brought them out personally, with His great strength, from Egypt, to dispossess from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. “So know today, and take it to heart, that the Eternal is God in the heavens above and on the earth below; there is none else” (Deuteronomy 4:39)! Observe His statutes and His ordinances, as I command you this day, so that you and your children after you may benefit and long endure on the Land which the Eternal your God is giving to you for all time!
CITIES OF REFUGE
4:41-43
Then Moses sets aside three cities east of the Jordan to which a manslayer could flee for safety, the manslayer being one who slays another unintentionally with no record of past enmity towards the victim (cf. Exodus 21:12-13; Numbers 35:1-34)). The three cities are: Betzer in the wilderness in the land of the plain belonging to the Reubenites, Ramot in the Gilead belonging to the Gadites, and Golan in the Bashan belonging to the Manassites.
THE TORAH
4:44-5:30
This is the Torah that Moses placed before the Children of Israel in their Exodus from Egypt—the testimonies, statutes and ordinances—on the other side of the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Pe’or, in the land of Sichon, king of the Amorites, who dwelled in Cheshbon, whom Moses and the Children of Israel struck down when they came out of Egypt. They took possession of the country of Sichon and the country of Og, king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings, from Aroer on the shore of the Wadi Arnon to Mount Sion, which is Hermon, and all of the plain east of the Jordan to the Sea of the Plain under the slopes of the Pisgah.
Now Moses addresses all of Israel: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I recite in your hearing this day. Learn them and keep them to do them! The Eternal our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. This covenant He made not with our Fathers but with us who are here, living, this day (cf. Exodus 19:14-15). Face to face spoke the Eternal with you in the Mountain from amid the fire (cf. ibid. 16-19). Whereupon, as you feared the fire and would not ascend the Mountain, I stood between the Eternal and you, to report to you the word of the Eternal (cf. ibid. 19:20-25; 20:15-18):
The Ten Commandments
5:6-18
(Cf. Exodus 20:2-14)
I am the Eternal your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
You shall not have other gods beside Me. You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, any likeness of that which is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. For I, the Eternal your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children to the third and the fourth generations of them that hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments.
You shall not swear falsely by the Name of the Eternal your God, for the Eternal will not hold guiltless one who swears falsely by His Name.
Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Eternal your God has commanded you. Six days shall you labor and do all of your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Eternal your God. You shall not do any work, neither you nor your son nor your daughter, nor your male servant nor your female servant, nor your ox nor your ass nor any of your cattle, nor the stranger who is within your gates—in order that your male or female servant may rest like you. Remember: You were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Eternal your God brought you out from there, with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm! For that reason, the Eternal your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
Honor your father and your mother, as the Eternal your God has commanded you, in order that you may long endure and in order that it will be good for you upon the Land which the Eternal your God is giving to you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not lust after your neighbor’s wife, and you shall not covet your neighbor’s house or his field, his male servant or his female servant, his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.
The Eternal spoke just these words in a thunderous voice to your entire assembly in the mountain from amid the fire and thick cloud, and He inscribed them upon two tablets of stone and gave them to me (cf. Exodus 20:15-18). Now when you heard the voice from within the darkness as the Mountain was burning with fire, you approached me through the chiefs of your tribes and your elders: The Eternal our God has indeed shown us His Presence and His Greatness, we have heard His voice from amid the fire this day, and we have experienced God’s speaking with man and man’s surviving. But why should we yet die from this great consuming fire if we continue to hear the voice of the Eternal our God? For who, like us, has heard the voice of the living God, speaking from amid the fire, and survived? You be our intermediary between the Eternal our God and us: All that He says to you, we will hear through you and obey.
When the Eternal heard the words that you spoke to me, He approved of them and wished that you would always so fear Him and keep His commandments all of your days, so that it would go well for you and for your children forever. He told me to order you to return to your tents: You, stand here with Me, and I shall communicate to you the entirety of the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—which you shall impart to them to observe in the Land which I am giving them to possess. So shall you follow the path that the Eternal your God has commanded you, and depart not from it, in order that you may live and thrive and long endure upon the Land that you are inheriting.
THE MITZVAH
6:1-7:11
And this is the Mitzvah—the statutes and the ordinances—which the Eternal your God has commanded to teach you to observe in the Land to which you are crossing to possess, so that you may fear the Eternal your God and observe all of His laws which I am commanding you—you, your children, and your children’s children—all the days of your lives, that your days may be many, in the Land flowing with milk and honey.
The Shema
6:4-9
Hear, O Israel, the Eternal, our God, the Eternal is One! So shall you love the Eternal, your God, with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your might, and these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you proceed on the way, when you lie down and when you rise up, and you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes, and you shall inscribe them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.
The Land
6:10-19
When the Eternal your God brings you to the Land which He promised your Fathers—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—to give to you—wonderful cities which you did not build, houses full of delights which you did not acquire, hewn cisterns which you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant—and you enjoy them all, take care not to forget the Eternal, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Fear Him, worship Him, and swear by His Name! Follow not after other gods, gods of the peoples around you. For the Eternal your God, in your midst, is a jealous God, His anger liable to destroy you from off the face of the earth! Try Him not, as you did at Massah (cf. Exodus 17:1-7). Rather, keep the commandments of the Eternal your God, do what is right in His sight, in order that you may succeed to possess the good Land which the Eternal promised to your Fathers and to drive out all of your enemies from before you, as the Eternal promised.
Tell Your Children
6:20-25
When, in the future, your children should ask you, “Why the testimonies, statutes and ordinances which the Eternal our God has commanded you?” say to your child: “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Eternal brought us out from Egypt with a strong hand” (Deuteronomy 6:20-21). He produced signs and wonders, greatly destructive to Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all of Pharaoh’s House, in our sight. He brought us out in order to bring us to and give us the Land which He promised to our Fathers. Whereupon the Eternal has commanded us to observe all of these laws, to fear the Eternal our God for our ongoing benefit and survival. As long as we take care to so observe, as He has commanded us, it will be considered by the Eternal our God, to our merit.
The Seven Nations
7:1-5
When the Eternal your God brings you to the Land which you are entering to possess, and He clears away many nations from before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hittites, and the Jebusites—seven nations larger and mightier than you, and He delivers them to you, and you strike them down, you must zealously destroy them, making no covenant with them, showing them no mercy! Do not intermarry with them: give not your daughter to his son, and take not his daughter for your son. For he will turn your son from following Me so that they serve other gods and the anger of the Eternal your God be against you and He quickly destroy you. Instead, do thusly to them: Tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, burn their sculptured images in fire.
The Chosen People
7:6-8
“For you are a holy people to the Eternal your God. He has chosen you, from among all of the peoples on the face of the earth, to be His treasured people” (Deuteronomy 7:6). Not because of your superior size, for you are the smallest of all peoples, but out of His love for you has He chosen you, and in order to keep the oath that He swore to your Fathers has the Eternal brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
The Faithful God
7:9-11
Know that the Eternal your God is the faithful God, observing the covenant with lovingkindness to the thousandth generation of them that love Him and keep His commandments, and requiting directly with rapid destruction those who hate him. So shall you keep the Mitzvah—the statutes and the ordinances—which I command you this day to observe.
FROM THE PROPHETS
First Haftarah of Consolation
Shabbat Nachamu
Isaiah 40:1-26
Take comfort, take comfort,
(Nachamu, nachamu…)
O My people—
says your God.
Speak to the heart of Jerusalem:
tell her that she has served her time,
she has repaid the Eternal
twice the debt of her iniquity.
A voice cries out:
Clear the way of the Eternal
in the wilderness!
Let every valley be lifted up,
every mountain and hill made low,
to reveal to all flesh
the Presence of the Eternal!
A voice cries out:
All flesh is grass,
the grass becomes dry,
the flower withers,
when the breath of the Eternal
blows upon it,
yet the word of our God
shall stand forever.
You with good tidings for Jerusalem,
get you up to a high mountain,
fear not,
declare to the cities of Judah:
Behold, your God!
The Lord God comes in strength,
His arm ruling for Him!
His arm—will gather his lambs
as a shepherd cares for his flock.
Who else measured out the waters
in the hollow of his hand?
Or weighed the hills in scales?
Who has measured out the spirit of the Eternal?
Or given Him advice as His counsellor?
Behold, nations are as a drop out of a bucket,
the islands as heavy as dust!
All nations are as nothing before Him,
they are accounted as things of no substance.
So, to whom would you liken God?
What likeness would you compare to Him?
If it is a sculptured image,
it will be cast by a goldsmith or silversmith!
Choose a tree for its wood
that does not rot!
Do you not understand?
God is He
who sits above the vault
over the earth!
To Him its inhabitants
seem like grasshoppers;
He stretches out the heavens
like a veil
and spreads them out
like a tent to dwell in.
Here is how He handles
the princes and the judges
of the earth:
Once they are planted,
once they are seeded,
before their stock is rooted,
He blows upon them,
they are dried out
and fall away as stubble.
To whom, then, would you compare Me?
Lift up your eyes to the sky,
and see who created these:
the One who brings out their abundant host,
who calls each of them by name,
from the greatness of His might,
not one of them will fail to appear.
FROM TALMUD AND MIDRASH
Va-etchanan
Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:1
Talmud Berachot 31a
Some Rules of Prayer
“I entreated the Eternal
at that time, saying…
You who have immediately
shown Your servant
Your great and mighty works…
and He did not listen to Me,
and the Eternal said to Me:
You have said enough,
speak to Me no more…”
(Deuteronomy 3:23-26)
Halacha: May an Israelite standing at prayer recite his prayer in a loud voice?
Thus taught our Sages: If a man is standing at prayer, one might think he should let his voice be heard. Yet the opposite is inferred from the case of Hannah: “Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved; her voice was not heard…” (I Samuel 1:13).
One might think that he may recite all three prayers of the day at one time. Yet the opposite is inferred from the case of Daniel: “Three times a day did he fall upon his knees and petition and give thanks before his God…” (Daniel 6:11).
One might think that he may recite his prayer at any time that he wants. Yet the opposite is inferred from the words of David: “Evening and morning and noon do I offer up my prayer, whereupon He hears my voice!” (Psalms 55:18)
One might think that it is sufficient for him to petition for fulfillment of needs alone. Yet the opposite is inferred from the words of Solomon: “Turn to the prayer of your servant…O Eternal my God, to listen (first) to the praise and (then) to the petition…” (I Kings 8:28).
Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:8
Entreaty and Response
“I entreated the Eternal at that time:
‘O Lord God, You began
to show Your servant Your great strength….
Let me go and see the good Land
which is on the other side of the Jordan….’
But the Eternal was enraged at me…
and so did not grant my request.”
(Deuteronomy 3:23-26a)
Moses spoke before Him: Master of the Universe, why am I barred from entering the Land? Is it because I said, “Listen now, you rebels, shall we bring forth for you water from this rock” (Numbers 20:10)?! But “You began to show Your servant Your great strength…” (Deuteronomy 3:24), i.e., You Yourself addressed the same strong words to me at first in reference to the people (in the incident of Korach), “Return the staff of Aaron before the Testimony as an enduring sign for the rebels…” (Numbers 17:25)!
Another interpretation of “You began to show Your servant Your strong hand…” (Deuteronomy 3:24)—Rabbi Reuben taught that Moses said to the Holy One, blessed be He: Why are You treating me in such a way? It was “You” who “began to show Your servant Your strong hand…” (Deuteronomy 3:24), i.e., You approached me, as was said, “The angel of the Eternal appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush” (Exodus 3:2)! Now that You have built me up, why are you tearing me down? To which the Holy One, blessed be He, responded: But this is My oath (which My arm is strong to keep)!
Moses persisted and said before Him: But “You began to show Your servant Your great strength…” (Deuteronomy 3:24) when, in the past, You chose to revoke Your own oath! Did You not swear to destroy Your children in the incident of the golden calf and then go against your oath, as was said, “The Eternal renounced the punishment which He had promised to inflict upon His people” (Exodus 32:14)!
Then, according to Rabbi Levi, Moses argued before Him: Master of the Universe, the bones of Joseph entered the Land, but I shall not enter the Land?! The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: He who in life acknowledged his Land is buried in his Land; He who in life did not acknowledge his Land will not be buried in his Land. When Joseph’s mistress, the wife of Potiphar, said in accusation, “See, they have brought us a Hebrew man…” (Genesis 39:14), Joseph did not deny that he was a Hebrew, and later he asserted as much to Pharaoh’s sommelier: “I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews…” (Genesis 40:15). Thus, he was buried in his Land, as was said, “The bones of Joseph, which the Children of Israel had brought up from Egypt, they buried in Shechem in the area which Jacob had purchased from the sons of Chamor, father of Shechem, for 100 kesitahs…” (Joshua 24:32). But you, Moses, who did not acknowledge your Land, you will not be buried in your Land. For when the daughters of Jethro said, “An Egyptian man rescued us from the hand of the shepherds…” (Exodus 2:19), Moses heard but remained silent.
Sifre Deuteronomy 26
Talmud Yoma 22b
Moses and David
“I entreated the Eternal at that time…:
‘Let me, I pray, pass over
and see the good Land
on the other side of the Jordan…,’
but the Eternal was angry with me…
and He would not listen to me,
and the Eternal said to me: ‘Enough!
Don’t mention this matter to Me again!’”
(Deuteronomy 3:23-26)
This may be understood in the context of the following verse:
“The poor speaks in entreaties,
while the rich responds in strength.”
(Proverbs 18:23)
Two competent leaders served Israel: Moses and King David.
Moses said to the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, may the (relatively minor) sin that I committed be written down after me, so that others should not think that Moses omitted the truth in the Torah or added something that was not commanded by God. This is like the king who decreed that anyone who eats unripe Sabbatical figs (cf. Mishnah Shevi’it 2:5) shall be confined for public display. There was a woman from a good family who harvested some unripe Sabbatical figs and ate them, and she was confined for public display. She entreated the king: Disclose my actual (relatively minor) offense so that others will not assume it was adultery or sorcery; if they see me wearing a necklace of unripe figs, then they will know that I have been confined for only that offense!
Similarly did Moses entreat the Omnipresent. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: So will I write it, that it was only for the water, as was said, “Because you refused My command, in the Wilderness of Zin, in the quarrel of the congregation, to sanctify Me in their sight by the water, the water of Merivath-Kadesh…” (Numbers 27:14), “you shall not lead this congregation into the Land that I have given them; they are the waters of Merivah (“Quarreling”)…” (Numbers 20:9-13).
Rabbi Simeon understood it by analogy to a king traveling in a carriage with his son. When they reached a narrow passage, the carriage turned over on his son: his eye was blinded, his hand was severed, and his foot was broken. After the accident, whenever the king passed through that narrow passage, he would rehearse his son’s injuries: “Here was his eye blinded, here was his hand severed, and here was his foot broken.” So also does the Omnipresent mention “the waters of Merivah” three times, to say: Here I killed Miriam (Numbers 20:1-13)! Here I killed Aaron (Numbers 20:24)! Here I killed Moses (Deuteronomy 32:48-52)! This is how we may interpret David’s words about “their judges [shofeteyhem] thrown down [nishmetu] by the sides of [veedey] a rock” (Psalms 141:6a): Their leaders [shofeteyhem] (not only Moses but also Miriam and Aaron!) slipped [nishmetu] by means of [veedey] a rock!
David, by contrast, said to the Omnipresent: Let the sin that I committed not be written down after me. The Omnipresent said to him: Would it not be of value to you if people should say, notwithstanding his sin, “because He loved him, He pardoned him!”
This may be compared to one who borrowed from the king a thousand measures of wheat each year. Everyone would wonder how he could be good for a thousand measures of wheat in a year, yet the king would not require security and wrote him a note of settlement. Then, one time he had a surplus but he did not pay the king anything. The king entered his home, seized his children, and offered them up for auction. At that moment everyone understood that he had accumulated no reserves from which to pay.
Similarly, when Nathan the Prophet came to rebuke David for his treatment of Uriah, husband of Bathsheba, and David confessed his sin, “I have sinned against the Eternal” (II Samuel 12:13)! what did Nathan say to him? “The Eternal has transferred your sin; you shall not die” (Ibid.). In fact, all of the punishment that might have come upon David was quadrupled, as David himself said (in response to the Prophet Nathan’s allegory on David’s treatment of Uriah), “He shall pay for the lamb four times over” (Ibid. 6)! His punishment was transferred fourfold to his children: the child Bathsheba bore to David (ibid. 14-23), Amnon (ibid. 13:1-39), Tamar (ibid.), and Absalom (ibid. 15:1-19:5). So said David when Nathan came to him about Bathsheba: “Against You alone did I sin and do what is evil in Your sight, and so You are just in Your sentence and right in Your judgment” (Psalms 51:6)!
Tanchuma Va-etchanan 6
The Ultimate Humility
“Enough!
Don’t mention this matter to Me again!”
(Deuteronomy 3:26)
“Though his achievements should rank
as the heights of heaven
and his head should reach the clouds,
he shall perish forever like his dung;
those who once saw him
will wonder: Where is he?”
(Job 20:6-7)
Job so reflected on the day of death. For even if a man ascends to heaven in his lifetime and grows wings like the eagle, upon reaching the end of his days, his wings break and he falls before the angel of death like cattle before the slaughter. As David put it, “Out goes his breath, he returns to his ground; on that day his plans come to nothing” (Psalms 146:4). “The humble and the mighty, both are together, and the slave who is free from his master” (Job 3:19). For even if the master had acquired his slave for a million dinars, once his days have closed he is unable to say, “You are my servant,” rather his servant has been made free as his master.
“Though his achievements should rank as the heights of heaven”—This is Moses, who went up to heaven and touched the clouds, as the ministering angels, and spoke with Him “face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10), receiving Torah from the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He. But when the last of his days arrived, the Holy One, blessed be He, would say to him, “Behold [heyn], your days to die have drawn near” (Deuteronomy 31:14). And Moses would respond: O Master of the Universe, was it for nothing that my feet treaded the clouds? Or was it for nothing that I galloped like a horse in service of Your children? That my end should be with worms?
Rabbi Abahu likened this to a member of the royal house who found an exceptional Indian sword, which he judged to be fit only for his king. Forthwith he presented it to him as a gift. But then the king decreed that the very same subject be beheaded with the very same sword that he gave him. Moses saw himself in the same predicament: Master of the Universe, by the very same word, “behold [heyn],” by which I praised You to Israel, “Behold [heyn], to the Eternal your God belong the heavens and the heavens’ heavens, the earth, and all that is therein!” (Deuteronomy 10:14) did You decree death upon me, “Behold [heyn], your days to die have drawn near” (Deuteronomy 31:14)!
The Eternal offered His defense to Moses: I have already decreed death beginning with Adam the First. Moses responded: But Adam the First could not observe even a relatively light commandment, “Only from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you may not eat, lest you die” (Genesis 2:17), so in his particular case he was deserving of death. The Eternal: Then consider Abraham, who sanctified My Name in My world, and he also died. Moses responded: But Abraham also was deserving of death because he produced Ishmael, whose people offend Your values (cf. Genesis 17:20-21), as was written, “At ease [yishlayu] are the dwellings of criminals and the strongholds for those who provoke God…” (Job 12:6), which we interpret, “Ishmael [Yishmael] are dwellings of criminals and strongholds for those who provoke God!” The Eternal: Then you have Isaac, who laid his neck upon the altar, but he also would eventually die. Moses responded: But from Isaac came Esau, who would later burn Your Temple (cf. Psalms 137:7). The Eternal: Then consider Jacob, from whom sprang the twelve tribes, each one perfectly free of sin. Of Jacob Moses could only respond: But he never went up to heaven, and his feet never treaded the clouds, and he was not like the ministering angels, and You did not speak with him face-to-face, and he did not receive Torah from Your hand. It was then that the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, “Enough! Don’t mention this matter to Me again” (Deuteronomy 3:26)!
Soon thereafter Moses said to Israel: When you enter the Land of Israel, I entreat you, remember me and remember my bones, and say, “Woe to the son of Amram who ran before us like a horse and whose bones fell in the wilderness!”
Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:14
Calling Out
“Who is a great nation
to whom
God [Elohim] is as close
as the Eternal our God is
whenever we call out to Him
[b’chol kor’eynu elav]!”
(Deuteronomy 4:7)
Rabbi Yochanan construes the same verse:
“Who is a great nation
to whom [elav]
divine beings [elohim] close to Him,
like the Eternal our God,
call us for everything
[bakol kera’anu]!”
When the ministering angels convene before the Holy One, blessed be He, to ask, “When is Rosh Hashanah?” “When is Yom Kippur?” the Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: Why do you ask Me? I and you, let us call out to the Beit Din below!
Rabbi Yochanan also teaches:
“Festivals of the Eternal
which [otam] you shall announce…
they are My Festivals!”
(Leviticus 23:2)
The Holy One, blessed be He, is saying: Before My nation came into being, there were simply, “Festivals of the Eternal,” but from now on, with the creation of Israel, “When you [atem] (Israel) announce (their dates)…, they are My Festivals (your dates become the dates of My Festivals)!”
Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:15
Close Relative
“To what great nation
is God so close [Elohim kerovim elav],
as is the Eternal our God
whenever we call out to Him?”
(Deuteronomy 4:7)
When we say that God is “close” [kerovim] to us,
it is as if we are “relatives” [kerovim].
We are eager to acknowledge a wealthy relative and often deny the existence of a poor one. But the Holy One, blessed be He, says of Israel, ensnared in the servitude of Egypt, “They are My relative,” as was said, “He exalts the horn of His people…the Children of Israel, the people that is His relative [am-kerovo]” (Psalms 148:14)!
If our relative is poor, then we speak of ourselves as primary and our relative as secondary, as in: “Such-and-such is related to me.” But the Holy One, blessed be He, makes Israel primary. So instead of having said, “the people that is His relative [am-kerovo],” He must have said “the people whose relative He is [am-kerovo]!” Therefore, Moses did not say, “The nation is close to God,” but “God is close to the nation [Elohim kerovim elav]!”
Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:16
Finding the Proprietor
“To what great nation is God so close,
as is the Eternal our God
whenever we call out to Him
[b’chol kor’eynu elav]!”
(Deuteronomy 4:7)
Said Rabbi Tanchuma: There was a sailing ship. Virtually all of its passengers were idolators, but there was among them one Jew. When they arrived at an island, they said to that one Jew: Here, take some money, go up to this island, and purchase some provisions for us. Said the Jew to them: How would I know where to find the proprietor? They said in response: But isn’t there a Jewish Proprietor? Wherever you go, your God is with you, for it says, “To what great nation is God so close, as is the Eternal our God wherever we call out to Him [b’chol kor’eynu elav]” (Deuteronomy 4:7)!
Talmud Sanhedrin 39a-39b
Israel’s Distinction
“Show me a great nation to whom God is as close
as the Eternal our God is whenever we call out to Him!”
(Deuteronomy 4:7)
“And who is like Your people Israel,
a nation unique on the earth…!”
(II Samuel 7:23)
A certain sectarian came before Rabbi Avina to deny such assertions as these: What, after all, is their distinction? You also are mixed together with us, as your Prophet has said:
“All of the nations are as nothing before Him;
as empty and void are they considered by Him.”
(Isaiah 40:17)
Rabbi Avina replied: One of your own has already testified. Balaam said, “Behold a people which dwells apart and is not to be counted among the nations” (Numbers 23:9)! Rashi: Wherever “the nations” are mentioned in general, Israel is not intended.
Song of Songs Rabbah 1:13
You have been shown
What did Moses mean when he said:
“You have been shown to know
that the Eternal is God,
and there is none else.”
(Deuteronomy 4:35)
“Let him kiss me
with the kisses [mineshikot] of his mouth…”
(Song of Songs 1:2)
Rabbi Yochanan explained: An angel carried each individual command of the Ten Commandments from the Holy One, blessed be He, around to every Israelite, and the angel would ask every Israelite, “Do you accept upon yourself this commandment, which implies such-and-such regulations, such-and-such penalties for violation, such-and-such protective measures, such-and-such mitzvahs, such-and-such lenient and severe applications, and such-and-such reward?” To which the Israelite would answer, “Yes!” Then the angel would ask him, “And do you accept the Divinity of the Holy One, blessed be He?” And the Israelite would answer, “Yes! Yes!” Whereupon the angel would kiss the Israelite on his mouth–and all of this was meant by the words, “You have been shown to know”: You have been “shown” by an angel in order that you might know the commandments!
“Take care never to forget the things [devarim] that your eyes have seen…”
(Deuternomy 4:9a)
The Rabbis said that each divine command itself went around to every Israelite and asked him, “Do you accept upon yourself me, and all of such-and-such regulations which are associated with me, and all of such-and-such penalties…, etc.?” To which the Israelite would answer, “Yes! Yes!” whereupon the divine command would kiss him upon his mouth and teach him Torah, thus upholding the words of Moses, “Be careful not to forget the commandments [devarim] that your eyes have seen…” (Deuteronomy 4:9), how the divine utterances themselves spoke with you!
“He imparted to you His covenant,
that you should observe the Ten Commandments,
and He inscribed them on two tablets of stone.
(Deuteronomy 4:13)
Then how did the divine utterances become inscribed upon the tablets?
“The voice [kol] of the Eternal
cleaves [chotzeyv] flames of fire (sends forked lightning)!
(Psalms 29:7)
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai says that the verses teach that each divine utterance was taken from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, by His right hand and given to the left of Israel. The utterance then circled the camp until it reached the right of Israel and was returned to the left of the Holy One, blessed be He, who took it with His right hand and engraved it therewith upon the tablet. As this occurred, His voice went from one end of the earth to the other, as was said, “The voice [kol] of the Eternal engraves [chotzeyv] (by means of) flames of fire” (Psalms 29:7)! They only heard, but “you have been shown to know…” (Deuteronomy 4:35)!
The Rabbis, however, question whether we can infer that there is any left hand above, after it is written, “Your right hand, O Eternal, is mighty; with strength is Your right hand, O Eternal” (Exodus 15:6)! They say that each divine utterance was extracted from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, by His right hand and given to the right of Israel. It then circled the camp until it reached the right of Israel and was returned to the right of the Holy One, blessed be He, who took it with His right hand and engraved it therewith upon the tablet.
Rabbi Berechia reported an interpretation that puts aside the question of God’s dominant side: Rabbi Chelbo taught me that the divine utterance engraved itself, and as it did, its sound [kol] went from one end of the earth to the other, as was said, “The sound [kol] of the Eternal engraves [chotzeyv] (by means of) flames of fire” (Psalms 29:7)!
Then I said to Rabbi Chelbo: But is it not written, “The Eternal gave Moses two tablets of stone engraved by the finger of God…” (Deuteronomy 9:10)! Rabbi Chelbo assured me that the verse was not fatal to his interpretation: It is like a student who writes as his teacher sits beside him to guide him!
“Be careful not to forget
the things [devarim] viz. commandments that your eyes have seen…”
(Deuteronomy 4:9)
Since the minimum of “commandments” [devarim, plural] is two, at least two commandments, but not necessarily more, were heard by Israel directly from the Holy One, blessed be He! — Rabbi Joshua ben Levi acknowledges that the Rabbis’ reason for arguing that all ten divine commands went around to every Israelite is that the Israelites’ objection, “Moses, you speak with us…but not God, lest we die” (Exodus 20:16)! comes after all ten of the commandments were already spoken by God (cf. Exodus 20:1-14). — What then does Rabbi Joshua ben Levi do with the Rabbis’ argument? He disagrees that the order of verses proves their argument since there is no early or late in the Torah, that is, the Torah’s verses are not necessarily in chronological order—or even without disagreeing over the principle of chronological order, the placement of Israel’s objection does not preclude its having happened before the end of all the commandments, such as after two or three.
Rabbi Azariah and Rabbi Judah son of Rabbi Simone endorse another interpretation in support of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi:
“Moses commanded us the Torah,
an inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob.”
(Deuteronomy 33:4)
But did not God “command us the Torah?”
How did Moses give Israel the Torah? The Torah contains 613 commandments. But what is the numerical value of the letters of the word, “Torah?” If you recognize it is only 611 (tav=400 + cholam=6 + resh=200 + hey=5), where are the missing two? “I am the Eternal your God” (Exodus 20:2) and “You shall not have other gods besides Me” (Exodus 20:3) were the two heard from the mouth of God Himself. Moses taught them the other 611!
Thus we have it:
“Let Him kiss me
with some of the kisses [mineshikot] of His mouth…,”
some, but not all!
(Song of Songs 1:2)
Deuteronomy Rabbah 7:10
The Heart of Israel
“’Why should we die by continuing to hear the voice of the Eternal our God?
You, Moses, speak to us all that the Eternal our God says to you,
then we shall hear and we shall do!’
The Eternal heard what you said and told me that you spoke well.
Then He said of you:
‘Would that [Mee yiteyn] they should have such a heart always
to fear Me and to keep all of My commandments
so that it would go well for them and for their children forever!’”
(Deuteronomy 5:22-26)
That Israel Failed to Understand
Rabbi Isaac interpreted the words of the Eternal about Israel more literally as a question: When Israel stood at Mount Sinai and declared, “All that the Eternal has spoken, we shall do and we shall hear” (Exodus 24:7)! The Holy One, blessed be He, asked, “Who will grant [Mee yiteyn] that they should have such a heart always” (Deuteronomy 5:26)? Israel, hearing Him ask this as a question, remained silent. Rabbi Judah ben Levi compared this to a snake charmer who spots a poisonous snake and asks, “Who can charm this snake?” They say to him: Aren’t you the charmer? It all depends upon you! Similarly, when the Holy One, blessed be He, asked, “Who will grant [Mee yiteyn] that they should have such a heart?” they should have said to him: Master of the Universe, it depends upon You to so grant! But because they did not so respond:
“Moses said to all of Israel:
‘You saw with your eyes
all that the Eternal did for you
in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh.
But the Eternal did not give you a heart to know…’”
(Deuteronomy 29:1-3)
That Israel Sought to Deceive
Rabbi Meir understood the words of the Eternal in context, as the expression of His wish for Israel, knowing that they sought to deceive Him when they said, “We shall hear and we shall do” (Deuteronomy 5:24b):
“They deceived Him with their mouth
and lied to Him with their tongue;
their heart was not true to Him,
and they were not faithful in His covenant.”
(Psalms 78:36-37)
But He had the upper hand, He knew that He was being deceived, like the victim of theft who is aware of the theft and of the thief. It would be as if He had actually said, “Would that [Mee yiteyn] they should have such a heart” today! For while Israel said, “We shall hear and we shall do” with their mouth, it was not with their heart!
Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:31
Origins of Shema I
“Hear, O Israel,
the Eternal is our God,
the Eternal is One.”
(Deuteronomy 6:4)
How did Israel earn the privilege of reciting “Hear, O Israel…?”
Said Rabbi Pinchas bar Chama: Israel earned the privilege of reciting “Hear, O Israel…” from the Giving of the Torah. How? You see, the Holy One, blessed be He, began speaking to Israel at Sinai with the words, “Hear, O Israel” (Deuteronomy 6:4a; cf. ibid. 5:6), “I am the Eternal (God’s Name) your God…” (ibid. 5:6), to which they all replied, “The Eternal (God’s Name) is our God, the Eternal (God’s Name) is One” (ibid. 6:4b)! Then Moses exclaimed, “Blessed be His majestic [malchuto], present [k’vod] Name [Shem] (viz. ‘the Eternal,’ God’s Name)* forever and ever!”
The Rabbis teach: Said the Holy One, blessed be He, to Israel: My children, all that I have created I have created in pairs: heaven and earth, sun and moon, Adam and Eve, this world and the world to come. But My Presence [Kavod] in this world is One and Unique. Whence is that known? From what we recite in that paragraph, “Hear, O Israel, the Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One!” and add, “Blessed is His majestic present Name forever and ever!”
*Baruch Shem k’vod malchuto…: “Blessed be His majestic present Name…” or “Blessed be the Name of His majestic Presence…,” wherein k’vod (construct form of kavod) signifies an overwhelmingly weighty presence, in accordance with the k-v-d root meaning of “heavy,” and within this midrash contributes to the conception of a categorical sovereign Presence borne by the recitation of His Name. The response of Moses here (and the response of Israel following the liturgical recitation of Deuteronomy 6:4 containing two iterations of the divine Name) may be associated with the identical response in Mishnah Yoma 6:2 (and elsewhere) of the Kohanim and others upon hearing the explicit pronouncing of the Name of the Eternal by the Kohen Gadol (High Priest)! See below for other midrashic accounts of the origins of Baruch Shem… as part of the liturgical recitation of the Shema.
Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:35
Origins of Shema II
“Hear, O Israel,
the Eternal is our God,
the Eternal is One.”
(Deuteronomy 6:4)
How did Israel earn the privilege of reciting “Hear, O Israel…?”
When Jacob’s time to die drew near, he called to all of the tribes and said to them: Is there a possibility that, when I depart from this world, you will worship another god?
Whence do we have this? From “Jacob called to his sons…, ‘Gather together and I will voice to you what might befall you in days to come; assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob; listen to Israel your father’” (Genesis 49:1-2), wherein “to [el] Israel your father” can also be read, “The God [El] of Israel is your Father,” or as a question, “Is the God of Israel your Father, (too)?”
In accordance with the latter reading, his sons answered, “Hear, O Israel (Jacob), the Eternal is our God, too, the Eternal is the only One” (Deuteronomy 6:4)! Relieved, Israel lay back and said in quiet gratitude, “Baruch ha-Shem (‘Blessed is the Name of God, viz. the Eternal’)” in effect, but more elaborately, “Baruch Shem k’vod…Blessed is His majestic present* Name for ever and ever!”
*See note above under Origins of Shema I.
Said Rabbi Levi: So what do the children of Israel say now? “Hear, O our Father Israel,” that watchword of the faith which you taught us in your life is still our watchword today: “The Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One!” and then we repeat our Father Israel’s quiet words of gratitude, “Baruch Shem….”
Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:36
Origins of Shema III
“Blessed is His majestic glorious Name for ever and ever!”
(Mishnah Yoma 6:2)
Our Rabbis teach: When Moses ascended to the Height, he heard the ministering angels saying to the Holy One, blessed be He, “Blessed is His majestic glorious Name for ever and ever!” and he brought it down to Israel. So why does Israel not say it aloud? Said Rabbi Yosi: To what may this be likened? To one who stole a precious gem from the palace of the king and gave it to his wife. But he cautioned her: Do not wear it in public, only in the house! Fittingly, there is the exception of Yom Kippur, when Israel is as pure as the ministering angels and can therefore “wear” the words in public, as if belonging to them: “Blessed is His majestic, glorious Name for ever and ever!”
Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:37
Genesis Rabbah 14:9
Leviticus Rabbah 4:8
Lamentations Rabbah 3:7
Soul and God
“Hear, O Israel,
the Eternal is our God,
the Eternal is One.
And you shall love the Eternal, your God,
with all of your heart
and with all of your soul
and with all of your might…”
(Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
Rabbi Simone said that there are five words for what is here called “soul” [nefesh]: spirit [ruach], soul [nefesh], breath [neshamah], life [chayah], and unique [yechidah].
The Sage asked, “Who knows the spirit [ruach] of Man, which goes upward, unlike the beast’s, which goes downward” (Ecclesiastes 3:21)?
Now what is meant by “and with all of your soul [uv’chol nafsh’cha]?” The same word “all” [chol] may be understood as “each [chol]” or “every [chol],” rendering: “So shall you love the Eternal your God…with each and every soul [nefesh] that He has created in you!” Rabbi Meir captures the word for “breath” [neshamah]: For each and every breath [neshimah] that a person breathes he is obligated to praise his Creator. Whence? As was taught by Scripture’s words, “Let every soul [neshamah] praise [tehalel] the Eternal…” (Psalms 150:6), which he interprets: For every breath [neshamah] you shall praise [tehalel] the Eternal!
Life [chayah]: It continues to live even after all other parts of the body have died.
The Rabbis call to our attention the following parallels: As the Holy One, blessed be He, fills His world, so does this “soul” [nefesh] fill the body. “Soul” [nefesh] is the blood, as was taught with respect to the eating of animals, “Do not eat the blood, for the blood is the soul [nefesh]” (Deuteronomy 12:23). As the Holy One, blessed be He, sustains His world, so does this “soul” [nefesh] support the body. As the Holy One, blessed be He, is pure in His world—“Your eyes are too pure to countenance evil…” (Habakkuk 1:13)—so this “soul” [nefesh] is pure in the body. As the Holy One, blessed be He, survives His world, as we learned, “They shall perish, but You shall endure…” (Psalms 102:27), so the “soul” [nefesh] survives the body. As the Holy One, blessed be He, is unique [yacheed] in His world, so is the “soul” [nefesh] unique [yechidah] in the body. So let the “soul” [nefesh], which is unique [yechidah] in the body, come and offer praise to the Holy One, blessed be He, who is Unique [Yacheed] in His world, as we have learned, “Hear, O Israel, the Eternal, our God, the Eternal, is Unique [Echad]” (Deuteronomy 6:4)! As the Holy One, blessed be He, has no need for sleep, so the “soul” [nefesh] does not sleep. So let the “soul” [nefesh], which does not sleep in the body, come and offer praise to the Holy One, blessed be He, who has no need for sleep, as we have learned, “Behold, He neither slumbers nor sleeps, the Guardian of Israel” (Psalms 121:4)!
“You saw no image
on the day that the Eternal spoke to you at Horeb…”
(Deuteronomy 4:12)
As the Holy One, blessed be He, sees—“The eyes of the Eternal go to and fro in all the earth” (Zechariah 4:10 )—yet is not seen—“You saw no image on the day that the Eternal spoke to you at Horeb…” (Deuteronomy 4:12)—so this “soul” [nefesh] sees yet is not seen.
Then let the “soul” [nefesh],
which sees yet is not seen,
offer praise to the Holy One, blessed be He,
who sees yet is not seen!
But in contemplating the Guardian of Israel,
who neither slumbers nor sleeps,
the One who sees
yet has not been seen,
Israel has wondered:
Master of the Universe,
this “soul” [nefesh], which offers You praise,
how long will it be left in the dust?
“Awake, why do You sleep, O Lord…
Why do You hide Your face
and forget our affliction and oppression?
For our soul [nafsheynu] is bowed down to the dust…!”
(Psalms 44:24-26)
You see but have not been seen!
The Holy One, blessed be He,
answers them:
By your life, the time will come when your souls will rejoice—and it was to this end that the Prophet comforted them with the words, “I shall surely rejoice in the Eternal, my soul [nafshee] shall exult in my God, for He shall clothe me in garments of salvation, enwrap me with the robe of justice…” (Isaiah 61:10)!
“I am the man who has known affliction
under the rod of His wrath;
me He drove on and on
in unrelieved darkness;
on none but me He brings down his hand
again and again, without cease….
But this do I call to mind,
therefore I have hope:
The kindness of the Eternal has not ended,
His mercies are not spent.
They are renewed every morning—
great is Your faithfulness!”
(Lamentations 3:1-2,21-23)
Rabbi Abba bar Kahana in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: “This” may be likened to a king who married a lady and wrote her a generous ketubah. “So many residences I provide for you, so many fine garments I set aside for you.” Then the king had to leave. He went abroad and delayed in returning. Her neighbors used to visit her and vex her: “The king has left you and gone abroad, and he is not going to return to you!” and she would weep in her misery. But then she would enter her house and open the ketubah that she found there, and upon reading it she found written in it, “So many residences I provide for you, so many fine garments I set aside for you,” whereupon she was comforted.
Sometime later the king returned and said to her, “My daughter, I am amazed over how you waited for me all of those years.” She said to him, “My master the king, were it not for the generous ketubah that you wrote for me and gave to me, my neighbors would have ruined me.” Thus do the nations minimize Israel and say to them, “Your God has hidden His Face from you, and His Presence has departed from you, never to return,” and Israel weeps in its misery. But when the Children of Israel enter their synagogues and houses of study, upon reading the Torah they find written therein, “I will look with favor upon you, and make you fertile…and I will establish My Tabernacle in your midst…and I will be ever present in your midst…” (Leviticus 26:9-12), whereupon they are comforted.
In the future, when the time of redemption shall come, the Holy One, blessed be He, will say to Israel, “My children, I am amazed over how you have waited for Me all of those years,” and they are going to say before Him, “Master of the Universe, were it not for Your Torah, that You have given to us, the nations would have ruined us.” Therefore did we learn, “This do I call to mind, therefore I have hope” (Lamentations 3:21): “This” is nothing other than “Torah,” as we learned, “This is the Torah which Moses placed before the Children of Israel” (Deuteronomy 4:44). And similarly David says, “Were it not for Your Torah, my delight, I would have been ruined in my affliction” (Psalms 119:92). Therefore I have hope in Him and declare the Unity of His Name twice each day by saying, “Hear, O Israel, the Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4).
Mechilta Bachodesh 3
Tanchuma Noach 3
Love of Torah
“And these words which I command you this day
shall be upon your heart.”
(Deuteronomy 6:6)
“Moses took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people”—but we have not learned from where in the Book he read for them to hear—“yet they responded: All that the Eternal has spoken, we shall do and we shall hear” (Exodus 24:7)!
Israel did not accept the Torah until the Holy One, blessed be He, bent the Mountain over them, as we may infer from, “Moses brought the people out from the camp to meet God, and they stood at the bottom of [b’tachteet] the Mountain” (Exodus 19:17): they stood underneath [b’tachteet] the Mountain! According to Rav Dimi bar Chama, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: Now do you accept the Torah? If you accept the Torah, good and well, but if not, here will be your grave! Whereupon they all answered, “All that the Eternal has spoken, we shall do and we shall hear” (Exodus 24:7)! Why did they accept “all that the Eternal has spoken” so readily? It seems that He bent the Mountain over them for the Written Torah, which is relatively brief and easy to comprehend and observe.
“Set me as a seal upon your heart…
for love is strong as death,
jealousy [kin’ah] hard [kasha] as She’ol [chiShe’ol];
its sparks flashes of fire,
Eternal-flame!”
(Song of Songs 1:6)
But if He had bent the Mountain over them for the Oral Torah, which contains detailed explanations of the commandments both simple and difficult, which requires love as strong as death, whose scholarly forays are difficulties [kushiot] presented as questioning [chishe’ol], jealousy for it [kin’atah] manifested in debates as sparks between scholars becoming flashes of fire for the purpose of Torah truth, which is the Eternal’s flame, only one who loves the Holy One, blessed be He, with all of his heart and with all of his soul and with all of his might would try to learn it, as was said, “You shall love the Eternal your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5)! This act of “love” refers to acts of Talmudic study, as is reflected in the very next verse, “And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart” (ibid. 6)—for words of the Oral Law, of Talmud, of scholarly debate, are upon the heart; they are ingested, remembered indelibly, memorized, learned by heart, or otherwise captured in the heart as nothing purely written can ever be!
Mishnah Berachot 2:1
Timing of Shema
“Speak these words…
when you lie down
and when you rise up.”
(Deuteronomy 6:7)
If one was reading the Shema passage from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), and coincidentally the time for reciting the Shema arrived—if he intended, in that reading, to fulfill the mitzvah of reciting the Shema at its proper time, he has fulfilled it; if he did not in that reading intend to fulfill the mitzvah, then he has not fulfilled it.
Mishnah Berachot 1:3
Posture or Timing?
“Speak these words…
as you proceed on the way,
when you lie down,
and when you rise up.”
(Deuteronomy 6:7)
The School of Shammai teach: In the evening everyone should lie down on his side when reciting Shema, and in the morning everyone should stand up when reciting it, as was said, “And when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). The School of Hillel teach: Everyone recites Shema in whatever way he prefers, as was said, “As you proceed on the way” (Ibid.). Then why was it said, “And when you lie down and when you rise up?” It means at the time when people lie down and at the time when people rise up!
Rabbi Tarfon recounted: Once when I was out on the way, I lay down on my side to recite Shema in accordance with the School of Shammai, and I endangered myself because of highwaymen! They said to him: You had yourself to blame for transgressing the teaching of the School of Hillel!
Mishnah Berachot 1:1
Keeping Far from Transgression
“Speak these words…
when you lie down
and when you rise up.”
(Deuteronomy 6:7)
From what time may one recite Shema in the evening? From the time when the Kohanim enter to eat their terumah, until the end of the first watch (the first third of the night)—the teaching of Rabbi Eliezer. But the Sages teach: Until the middle of the night. Rabban Gamaliel teaches: All night until the first light of the morning.
It happened that the sons of Rabban Gamaliel were returning past midnight from a celebration, and they disclosed to him that they had not yet recited the Shema. He said to them: If the morning’s first light has not come up, you are required to recite, and this also applies to other commandments for which the Sages teach, “Until the middle of the night!”…If so, what is the point of the Sages’ teaching, “Until the middle of the night?” In order to keep you far from transgression!
Mishnah Berachot 1:2
Mitzvah Credit and Torah Credit
“Speak these words…
when you lie down
and when you rise up.”
(Deuteronomy 6:7)
From what time may one recite Shema in the morning? From the time that he can distinguish between techeylet (purple-blue color of thread of tzitzit, cf. Numbers 15:38) and white. Rabbi Eliezer says: Between techeylet and green (color of grass), and one must complete it before the commencement of the sun’s appearance. Rabbi Joshua says: By the end of the third hour of the day, for by then royalty arises. If, however, one recites Shema later, although he has not fulfilled thereby the mitzvah of reciting Shema, he has not lost credit entirely, for he is as one who engages in Torah.
Pesikta d’Rav Kahana 16:4
Love to Defend, Hate to Condemn
“Take comfort, take comfort, My people—”
(Isaiah 40:1)
“You are the most beautiful of men,
grace is poured out upon your lips…
you love righteousness
and hate evil;
therefore has God, your God,
anointed you with oil of gladness
above all others!”
(Psalms 45:3a,8)
Rabbi Azariah in the name of Rabbi Acha associated these verses (Psalms 45:3a,8) with our Father Abraham. For you find that before the Holy One, blessed be He, brought fiery destruction upon the Sodomites (cf. Genesis 18:16ff.), our Father Abraham said to Him: Master of the Universe, as You swore “never again to bring the waters of Noah upon the earth” (Isaiah 54:9), did You mean that destruction by water You would not bring, but destruction by fire You would bring (cf. Genesis 19:23-25)? Do You thus mean to evade Your oath? “Far be it from You to do such a thing: to put the innocent to death along with the guilty! Shall the Judge of all the earth not perform justice?” (Genesis 18:25) God replied, “I will not destroy any of them even for the sake of ten righteous” (ibid. 32), as if Abraham had said, “The Judge of all the earth shall not perform justice” (cf. Genesis 18:25), but mercy! by sparing the lives of the wicked majority along with the lives of the innocent.
For Abraham had argued before God: If it is justice that You seek, You will be left without a world; but if You want to preserve Your world, then You must forego justice. You are, as it were, pulling the rope at both ends—You want Your world and You want perfect justice—if You do not relent a little, Your world will not be able to survive. At that the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Abraham, “You love righteousness and you hate evil” (Psalms 45:8), that is, You love to defend My creatures (for the sake of a few righteous) and you hate to condemn their evil. “Therefore has God, your God, anointed you with oil of gladness above all others” (Ibid.)!
“After these things [ha-devarim ha-eyleh]
was the word of the Eternal to Abraham…”
(Genesis 15:1a)
What is meant by “above all others” (ibid.)? You, Abraham, are the first one, since the time of Noah, with whom I have communicated directly, as we interpret, “After all of these preceding events [ha-devarim ha-eyleh], the word of the Eternal came to Abraham in a vision, saying…” (Genesis 15:1a).
Rabbi Azariah in the name of Rabbi Yudah son of Rabbi Simon associated the verse, “You love righteousness and hate evil…” (Psalms 45:8), with the Prophet Isaiah: I was spending time in my house of study, “when I heard the voice of my Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us’” (Isaiah 6:8)? The divine voice continued: I sent Amos, but the people derided My choice because they detected an impediment in his speech. Rabbi Pinchas: Why was he called Amos (“Impeded”)? Because he was impeded of speech! Then I sent Micah, but “they struck the judge of Israel on the cheek with a stick” (Micah 4:14)! So, “whom shall I send, and who will go for us” (Isaiah loc. cit.)? Then I (Isaiah) heard myself saying, “Here I am, send me” (ibid.)!
The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Isaiah, My children are obstinate, they are trouble; you would be exposing yourself to their beatings and their insults. He said to Him: Just so, “I shall offer my back to those who beat me…and not hide my face from their insults” (Isaiah 50:6), yet I remain unworthy to carry out Your mission among Your children. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Isaiah, “you love righteousness” (Psalms 45:8a), that is, you love to defend My children! and “you hate evil” (ibid. 8b), that is, you hate to condemn them! “Therefore has God, your God, anointed you with oil of gladness above all others” (Ibid. 8c)!
What is meant by “above all others” (ibid. 8c)? The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Be assured that all of the other Prophets prophesied based upon the word of another Prophet. “The spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha…“ (II Kings 2:15). The spirit of Moses rested upon the Seventy Elders, “and he drew some of the spirit which was upon him and put it upon the Seventy Elders…” (Numbers 11:25). But you shall prophesy directly from the mouth of the Mighty One: “The spirit of my Lord God is upon me, because the Eternal has anointed me…” (Isaiah 61:1)!
Moreover, all of the other Prophets prophesy with simple proclamations. But you shall prophesy with double exclamations: “Awake! Awake!” (Isaiah 51:9), “Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself!” (Ibid. 17), “Rejoice! I do rejoice!” (Ibid. 61:10), “I! Oh I!” (Ibid. 51:12), and “Take comfort! Take comfort!” (Ibid. 40:1).
Talmud Taanit 5a-5b
Exodus Rabbah 42:8
Why two “Comforts?”
“Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people…”
(Isaiah 40:1)
“Go as far as the Isles of the Kittites,
and inquire unto Kedar;
see if there is anything like it.
Has any other people changed its gods?—
and those are not even gods—
yet My people has exchanged its Thoroughly-Divine
for that which cannot help!
Yes, those are the two evils
that My people has committed:
They have forsaken Me,
Fountain of living waters,
and
they have dug for themselves
broken cisterns,
which cannot even hold water.”
(Jeremiah 2:10-13)
Rabbi Isaac cited to Rav Nachman the interpretation of Rabbi Yochanan: “The two evils” constitute the double evil of idolatry in that they have “forsaken Me”—traded Me for worthless idols—and that in so doing they lack even the loyalty and relative judgment of two idolatrous nations, “two evils,” like the Kittites and the Kedarites, who, according to a tanna, faithfully worship contending gods of fire and water respectively. Even though those nations can see that their gods, if real, could cancel each other, they do not abandon them. Yet Israel has abandoned Me, “the Fountain of living waters,” for “broken cisterns!”
“Your people…has veered Immediately
from the path that I commanded them
by making a molten calf!”
(Exodus 32:8)
Rabbi Jonah in the name of Rabbi Samuel bar Nachman related the two evils to Israel’s hasty idolatry at Sinai. “Your people veered immediately”: They did not wait for, maybe, the Fourth Commandment, Shabbat, or the Eighth Commandment, for example, “You shall not steal,” to depart from them, but they commenced their disobedience immediately with the first two, the very commandments that “I Myself commanded them” directly while the Third through Tenth Commandments were transmitted by Moses since the people feared hearing the voice of God (cf. Exodus 20:16; Talmud Horayot 8a and Talmud Makkot 23b-24a).
Rabbi Shimon in the name of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi likened this debacle to the case of a king who proferred his new bride ten pearls, two of which he handed to her personally and the other eight of which he had his loyal courtier deliver to her. In the process of trysting with her paramour, she lost the two pearls that her husband the king had given her personally. When the king found out, he removed her from the palace. To her defense sprang the courtier, who appealed to the king: My lord the king, when will you find one more beautiful and praiseworthy than she?! Heaven forbid, objected the king, two pearls I gave her, from my hand to hers, and the other eight I delivered to her by your hand. Why couldn’t she have lost the pearls that you delivered to her, even three of them or maybe all eight, instead of my learning that the pearls that she lost were the very ones that I gave to her with my own hand?! And that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, said through the Prophet:
“Yes, those are the two evils
that My people has committed:
(Jeremiah 2:13a)
“They veered from the path
immediately,”
that is, from the first two commandments
“that I commanded them”:
(Exodus 32:8a)
“I am the Eternal your God…”
and
“You shall not have other gods besides Me!”
(Exodus 20:2-3)
As there were two evils…
“Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people…”
(Isaiah 40:1)
Rabbi: Twice said because all of their punishments were double, as the Prophet said, “Disaster upon disaster” (Jeremiah 4:20)!
“Cry she cries in the night…”
(Lamentations 1:2)
“My eyes, my eyes, weep tears…”
(Lamentations 1:16)
Yes, “Sin has Jerusalem sinned…” (Lamentations 1:8), but why so much? Why mention her sins doubly? Because they sinned in double measure, as the Prophet’s words may be understood: “For two evils did My people commit…” (Jeremiah 2:13a), and since they sinned in double measure, they were punished in double measure! “For she has received at the hand of the Eternal double for all of [b’chol] her sins” (Isaiah 40:2), which we learn as “double in accordance with all of [b’chol] her sins!”
And, because her punishments were duly double, so shall her comforts be duly double:
“Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people…”
(Isaiah 40:1)
“Awake, awake, O Zion…”
(Isaiah 52:1)
“Arise, shine, for your light has come…”
(Isaiah 60:1)
“Rouse yourself, rouse yourself…”
(Isaiah 51:17)
“I, I, wipe away your transgressions…”
(Isaiah 43:25)
“I, I, am the One who comforts you…”
(Isaiah 51:12)
“Rejoice, I rejoice, in the Eternal…”
(Isaiah 61:10)
“Build up, build up, the highway…”
(Isaiah 62:10)
and so shall it be:
“Therefore, in their Land,
they shall acquire a double share…”
(Isaiah 61:7)
They challenged Him: For everything You punish in double measure, as we understand the double language of the Prophet, “For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy…” (Jeremiah 30:14)! He responded to them: Do not say that, for although I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy,” what did I do for Job (whom I did not punish in double measure nor comfort doubly)? “The Eternal restored Job’s fortunes…and He gave Job twice what he had before” (Job 42:10)! So then did the Holy One, blessed be He, infer for them: If I restored the fortunes of Job, giving him twice what he had before, for My own children how much the moreso, and “therefore, in their Land, they shall acquire a double share” at least!
Talmud Sanhedrin 39a
God’s Distinction
“Lift up your eyes to the sky,
and see who created these:
the One who brings out their abundant host,
who calls each of them by name…”
(Isaiah 40:26)
A denier challenged Rabban Gamaliel: It is written about your God: “He counts the number of the stars; He calls all of them by their names” (Psalms 147:4). What is remarkable about that? I too can count the stars! So Rabban Gamaliel took some fruits and, while spinning them in a sieve, bid the denier to count them. Hold them still! protested the denier. Rabban Gamaliel responded: But the stars in heaven are always spinning!
Talmud Nedarim 55a
The Torah of Elevation
“Let every valley be lifted up [yinnasey],
every mountain and hill made low…”
(Isaiah 40:4)
Rav Yosef provided an explanation from the following verses:
“And from Wilderness Mattanah,
and from Mattanah Nachliel,
and from Nachliel Bamot,
and from Bamot the Valley…
that looks [nishkafah] toward [al p’ney] Yeshimon.”
(Numbers 21:18b-20)
When one makes himself open like the Wilderness, which is available to all, Torah is granted him to teach freely to all, as the verse reads, “From Wilderness a gift [mattanah]!” And since God has granted it to him, he rises to greatness, as the verse reads, “From God’s granting [nachliEl] high places [bamot]! But if he exalts himself, then the Holy One, blessed be He, brings him down, as the verse reads, “And from high places [bamot] the Valley—and, even moreso, he is sunk into the ground, as the verse continues, “He is sunk [nishkafah] (like the casing of a door [shakuf]) with his face [al p’ney] on the waste [hayeshimon]! Yet if he repents, the Holy One, blessed be He, raises him, as the Prophet said, “Every valley will be lifted up [yinnasey]” (Isaiah 40:4)!
SHABBAT SHALOM!
—–
TISH’AH B’AV
Link to TORAH_TB_MORNING ● Link to HAFTARAH_TB_MORNING
Link to TORAH_TB_AFTERNOON ● Link to HAFTARAH_TB_AFTERNOON
Link to MIDRASH_TISHAH_BAV
–
MEGILLAH OF LAMENTATIONS
ZION ABANDONED AND BROKEN, JUDAH IN EXILE
1:1-9a,10-11a
How (Eycha) sits the city,
once full of people,
now alone, like a widow,
once great among the nations,
now a tributary!
Bitterly she weeps in the night,
unconsoled by any of her lovers,
now become her enemies.
Judah has gone into exile
in affliction and servitude,
dwelling among the nations,
finding no rest from her pursuers.
Zion’s roads are bereft of those
who walked them in celebration,
her public places deserted,
her Kohanim despondent,
her virgins in sorrow.
Her adversaries rule,
as the Eternal has punished her,
even her young children,
for her sins.
The daughter of Zion
has lost her beauty,
her princes, their strength,
like deer without pasture,
helpless before the enemy.
She recalls in her depression
the former days of her prosperity,
but now that her people
has fallen to adversity
without one to help,
the adversaries laugh
at her annihilation.
For her immense sin
she is set aside as impure;
all who once honored her,
having seen her nakedness,
belittle her,
and she belittles herself
for ignoring the inevitable
consequences of her behavior.
Astonishingly,
the alien nations
have penetrated her Sanctuary,
those whom You forbade
to enter the congregation.
Her people suffer,
seeking bread,
seeking something to eat
to sustain their life.
ZION’S TEARFUL TESTIMONY
1:9b,11b-16
“See, O Eternal, my affliction:
I am reduced as my enemy is magnified.
All who pass by—it should never happen to you!
See, is there any pain as great as mine,
by which the Eternal has afflicted me
in the day of His fierce anger.
“From on high He sent fire into my bones,
and a net did He spread for my feet,
throwing me backwards,
leaving me unwell.
“He fit my transgressions
as a yoke around my neck,
removing any strength
to resist those against me.
“He declared the time
for crushing my defenders;
the Lord did tread
the virgin daughter of Judah.
“For this my eye,
my eye, is full of tears;
the comforter (menachem)
to restore my spirit
is not to be found:
the enemy has rendered
my children desolate.”
JUSTIFICATION
1:17-22
Zion pleads for a “comforter?”
The Eternal has set Jacob’s neighbors
to be his foes,
Jerusalem forsworn among them.
“The Eternal is just,
I rebelled against His word:
witness, all you peoples,
the painful captivity
of my virgins and my young men!
“My allies have proven false,
My Kohanim and Elders have perished
seeking food;
terror of the sword
has convulsed me.
“My enemies rejoice
that there is no comforter,
that You have effected this woe;
but You will also bring
the day that You have promised,
when they shall be like me!
“May all of their evil
come for judgment before You:
do unto them
as You have done unto me;
as many as the sins
for which I have been punished
are the sighs
that my heart has suffered.”
THE LORD HAS BECOME LIKE THE ENEMY OF ZION
2:1-10
How does the Lord becloud the daughter of Zion,
casting the beauty of Israel from heaven to earth,
angrily eschewing His footstool!
He has swallowed with merciless passion
pasture and fortress of the daughter of Judah;
He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
He has cut down Israel’s defense,
removed His strong hand from before the foe,
burned through Jacob like a flaming fire.
The Lord has become like the enemy,
slaying the beautiful in the tent of the daughter of Zion,
swallowing palace and stronghold,
multiplying mourning.
He has demolished His Tabernacle
as if it were a garden;
the Eternal has dismissed in Zion
Festival and Sabbath,
He has spurned in His anger
both King and Kohen.
His Altar and His Sanctuary
He has handed over to the enemy,
whose voice is now heard
on the Festival day;
the walls that once protected them,
now enfeebled,
have been consigned to destruction.
Its gates have sunk,
its bars have been broken,
its king and its princes are among the nations,
there is no Torah,
its prophets find no vision from the Eternal;
elders and virgins alike
pour dust upon their heads
and sit upon the ground
in sackcloth.
NO CONSOLATION FOR THE HUNGER AND DEATH OF THE CHILDREN
2:11-14
My eyes are blinded with tears,
my bowels are enflamed,
devastated am I
over the catastrophe
that has befallen my people,
over the hunger and the fainting
of child and infant
in the city streets.
They ask their mothers for grain and wine
as their lives are poured out
in their mothers’ embrace.
How can I comfort you,
O daughter of Zion?
There is nothing to which
your tragedy can be compared.
Your prophets deluded you,
they failed to reveal to you your iniquity
in order to prevent your captivity!
THE BEAUTIFUL CITY HAS SUCCUMBED TO THE ENEMY
2:15-17
All who pass by
make scolding noises
to embarrass you,
O daughter of Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that was called
‘the perfection of beauty,
the joy of all the earth?’
“We have swallowed her up;
this is the day
for which we have hoped!”
The Eternal has carried out
that which He planned
and that which He warned
from days of old
(cf. Leviticus 26:14ff.; Deuteronomy 28:15ff.; 32:15ff.);
He has destroyed without mercy
and gratified your enemy over you.
LET ZION POUR OUT HER TEARS
2:18-22
Their heart cries out to the Lord:
“O wall of the daughter of Zion,
Pour down your tears like a river
day and night!
Arise and cry out in the night,
at the beginning of the watches,
pour out your heart like water
before the Presence of the Lord;
lift up your hands to Him
for the life of your children,
who are dying of hunger
at the corner of every street:
“‘See what You have done, O Eternal!
Shall women be forced to eat their fruit,
the children whom they cared for?
Shall Kohen and Prophet, O Lord,
be slain in Your Sanctuary?
Young and old,
virgins and young men,
lie on the ground of the streets,
felled by the sword
by which You killed them
in Your merciless anger!
“’You called for this terror
as You might call for the Festival assembly,
and there was none who could escape;
the ones whom I cared for and nurtured
were destroyed by my enemy!’”
HOPELESS AFFLICTION
3:1-18
I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of His anger:
He has brought me to darkness, not light;
He turns His hand against me all the day;
He consumes my flesh, He breaks my bones;
He has surrounded me with suffering and misery.
He has confined me to the gloom of the dead
and shut out my prayer;
He has made my paths impassible,
He lies in wait for me as a wild animal,
He stalks me as prey,
His arrows are deep within me.
I have become a regular laughingstock,
I am sated with bitterness,
He has broken my teeth with stones,
He has lowered me into the dust,
I have forgotten what is peaceful and good,
I have lost all hope from the Eternal.
PATIENCE AND REPENTANCE
3:19-40
Take notice of my affliction
and my soul’s humiliation.
These do give me hope:
the never-depleted lovingkindness of the Eternal
renewed every morning,
abundantly faithful,
my soul’s portion,
therefore cause for hope.
It is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Eternal,
to bear the yoke in one’s youth,
to know that He placed it upon him,
to put his mouth in the dust with expectation,
to give his cheek to his chastiser,
for the Lord will not reject him forever.
For though He has caused him to suffer,
He will show compassion
according to the abundance of His lovingkindness.
It is not in His heart to bring suffering to the children of man,
to crush the lowly,
or betray the righteous in his cause.
Only the Most High is the Source of bad or good:
why should a living man complain, then,
when he is punished for his sins?
Let us search our ways
and return to the Eternal.
PLEA TO GOD
3:41-47
Let us elevate our hearts
as we lift up our hands
to God in heaven:
We have sinned,
and You have not forgiven;
You cover us with Your wrath,
killing us without mercy,
covering Yourself with a cloud
to keep out our prayer.
We are rendered refuse
in the midst of other peoples
as our enemies malign us;
the terror of catastrophe is ours.
REDEMPTION AND RECOMPENSE
3:48-66
My eye weeps tears unceasingly
over the catastrophe
of the daughter of my people
until the Eternal
shall see from heaven;
what I have seen
affects my soul.
My enemies hunt me for no cause;
they would exterminate me
by stoning me in the dungeon;
they would cut me off by drowning.
I call out Your name,
You hear my voice,
hide not Your ear from my plea!
You have redeemed me for other causes,
judge my cause now:
consider their vengeance,
You have heard
the constant refrain
of their reproaches against me.
Recompense them
for their acts against me;
punish them for
their hardness of heart;
track them down
and destroy them
from under the heavens
of the Eternal!
PROTRACTED STARVATION IN ZION
4:1-11
How dull the lustrous gold,
sacred stones discarded at any street corner,
Zion’s fine children worth their weight in gold
recast as clay pitchers!
Even the jackals nurse their young,
but the daughter of My people
seems like the cruel ostrich in the wilderness,
failing to nurse her infant
or feed her hungry young.
Those who once luxuriated in delicacies
now have only trash.
Harder her punishing starvation
than the quick overthrowing of Sodom:
her princes once white and ruddy
are unrecognizable
in their blackened and withered state,
her once-compassionate women
now boil their children for food.
The Eternal has exhausted His fury,
setting a fire in Zion
which consumes its foundations.
EXILE MEASURED OUT
4:12-22
No one in the world believed
that the foe would enter Jerusalem.
Now her Prophets and her Kohanim
who spilled in her midst
the blood of the righteous
wander blindly
with bloody garments.
Driven out as untouchable,
they have been rejected also
among the nations,
for failing to respect
Kohen and Elder.
Also for us,
our failing has been
to depend upon a nation
that will not save.
We were hunted in our streets,
chased to the mountains,
trapped in the wilderness,
by pursuers swifter than the eagles of heaven.
Our very breath, the Anointed of the Eternal,
under whose protection we expected
to live among the nations,
was himself captured in their pits.
Rejoice, O daughter of Edom,
in Utz while you can (cf. Ezekiel 25:12-14),
for your turn will come
to become drunken and naked!
Your punishment, O daughter of Zion,
with its exile, is complete.
Now He will expose your sins,
O daughter of Edom,
for punishment!
CONSIDER OUR SUFFERING
5:1-22
Remember, O Eternal, what has befallen us,
our possession, our home, overturned to foreigners,
fatherless orphans we, as widows our mothers,
our water and our wood only for a price,
our necks bowed to Egypt and Assyria
for bread without rest.
We suffer for the sins of our fathers,
ruled by slaves from whom there is no escape;
at risk of the sword
do we extract bread from the wilderness.
Our skin burns from hunger,
our wives and our daughters defiled,
our princes hanged,
our elders dishonored,
our young burdened with hard labor.
The rule of our elders has ceased,
as has the music of our young;
the joy of our hearts and our dance
is turned into mourning.
Our crown has fallen, to our woe,
for we have sinned.
Our heart is faint,
our eyes are dim,
for the desolation of Mount Zion,
upon which the foxes walk.
Your throne, O Eternal, is forever;
why do You forsake us for so long?
Take us back, Eternal One, let us return;
renew our days as of old.
For even if You have found us
deserving of condemnation,
You have shown us Your anger
in exceeding measure.
Take us back, Eternal One, let us return;
renew our days as of old.
TORAH READING FOR TISH’AH B’AV MORNING
Deuteronomy 4:25-40
Exile
4:25-28
When you produce children and grandchildren and have become long established in the Land, and then make a sculptured image in the likeness of anything, and anger the Eternal your God with your evil doings, I call this day heaven and earth as witnesses against you, that you shall perish surely and quickly from upon the Land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not long endure; you will be destroyed. The Eternal will scatter you among the peoples; you will be left a countable number among the nations to which the Eternal will drive you; and there you will worship as divine what men have made, of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear, eat or smell.
Return
4:29-31
Even from there you may seek the Eternal your God and find Him, if you seek Him with all of your heart and with all of your soul. In your suffering for all of these events, in the end of days you may still turn to the Eternal your God and heed Him. For the Eternal your God is a merciful God. He will not abandon you or leave you to harm, nor will He forget the covenant He made with your Fathers.
“You Have Been Shown to Know”
4:32-40
Consider now what has come before: the first days, since the day God created man upon the earth, and from one end of heaven to the other. Has anything like this ever happened or been heard of? Has a people heard the voice of God speaking from amidst the fire, as you have heard, and lived? Or has God ever tried to come and take for Himself one nation from the midst of another with tests, signs, and wonders, or with overwhelming force, great awesome acts, as the Eternal God did for you before your eyes in Egypt? “You have been shown to know that the Eternal is God, and there is none else” (Deuteronomy 4:35).
From heaven He made you hear His voice in order to discipline you, and on earth He showed you His great fire, from which you heard His words. Because He loved your Fathers, He chose their offspring after them and brought them out personally, with His great strength, from Egypt, to dispossess from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to give you their land as a possession, as it is this day. So know today, and take it to heart, that the Eternal is God in the heavens above and on the earth below; there is none else! Observe His statutes and His ordinances, as I command you this day, so that you and your children after you may benefit and long endure on the Land which the Eternal your God is giving to you for all time!
HAFTARAH FOR TISH’AH B’AV MORNING
Jeremiah 8:13-9:23
Divine Condemnation
8:13
I will make an end to them!
– declares the Eternal.
Not a grape shall remain on the vine,
not a fig on the fig tree;
the leaf shall wither,
and what I gave to them
shall pass away.
The People’s Terror
8:14-16
Why are we still here?
Let us move to the fortified cities,
even though the Eternal our God
has doomed us with poisoned waters
for sinning against Him.
We hope for security and healing,
but no good comes, indeed only terror:
From Dan is heard the enemy’s horses,
shaking the land,
coming to consume it,
its city and its inhabitants!
Divine Reiteration
8:17
Yes, I am sending snakes against you
which are immune to your charms,
and they will bite you –
says the Eternal.
The Prophet’s Endless Tears
8:18-23
My happiness is overcome with sorrow,
I am sick at heart,
as I hear the cry of my people from a distant land –
Is the Eternal her King not in Zion? –
Why do they anger Me with their worthless foreign idols? –
The harvest is past,
the summer is over,
and we have not been saved!
I have been broken by the wreckage of my people,
darkened, seized by desolation.
Is there no balm in Gilead, no healer there,
that my people’s wound remains unhealed?
If my head were water
and my eye a fountain of tears,
I would weep day and night
for the fallen of my people.
Divine Exile from Deceit
9:1-13
If I had lodging in the wilderness,
I would forsake My people,
adulterers as they are,
a band of traitors!
They bend their tongue like a bow to lie!
Not for faithfulness
do they employ their might.
They solicit one evil after another,
and Me they do not know –
declares the Eternal.
Let each beware of the other,
let no one trust his brother,
as every “brother” acts crookedly,
and everyone reports upon the other –
so much so that they are worn out
forcing their tongues to lie.
Your very habitation
is in the midst of deceit,
whence they refuse to acknowledge Me –
says the Eternal.
Therefore, says the Eternal of Hosts,
I have no choice but to refine and test them,
those deadly “friends”
who deceive their fellows
with the entrapment of “peace!”
Should I not avenge Myself
against a nation such as this one!
I weep and wail
for the ruined and abandoned pastures,
for all of the animals that have fled,
for the home to jackals that I will make Jerusalem,
for the deserted wasteland
that I will make the cities of Judah!
Who is wise enough to understand why?
The Eternal explains:
Because they forsook My Torah,
which I had given them,
and instead in their stubbornness
adhered to the gods of Baal
which their fathers taught them!
Divine Will for Recompense
9:14-16
Therefore, declares the Eternal of Hosts, God of Israel:
I shall feed this people wormwood and poison
and disperse them to nations unknown to them and their fathers
and send the sword after them
until I have consumed them.
Call for the mourning women to come!
Exile from Zion
9:17-20
May their wailing for us
cause tears to pour from our eyes!
For its sound is heard from Zion:
How we are ruined and exiled from our Land,
for our homes have cast us out!
Hear, O women, the word of the Eternal;
teach your daughters the wailing,
each other the lamentation:
Death has come up through our windows,
entered our palaces,
cut off children from the street,
young people from the boulevards.
Glory in the Eternal
9:21-23
Explain it thusly, declares the Eternal:
The corpse of man shall fall
like dung on the field,
like sheaves ungathered
after the harvest.
Thus says the Eternal One:
Let not the wise glory in their wisdom,
and let not the mighty glory in their might,
let not the rich glory in their wealth,
but let them who glory
glory in this:
Be one who understands and knows Me,
that I the Eternal practice
lovingkindness, justice and righteousness
in the earth,
for in these do I delight,
declares the Eternal.
TORAH READING FOR TISH’AH B’AV AFTERNOON
Exodus 32:11-14; 34:1-10
The Children of Israel have worshipped an idol while Moses received the Tablets of Testimony on Mount Sinai. The Eternal determines to annihilate the people and make of Moses instead “a great nation.”
Moses Asks the Eternal to Reconsider
32:11-14
Moses entreats the Eternal his God to reconsider, in view of the strength and the power that He displayed in bringing His people out of Egypt: “Why should the Egyptians say that the Eternal so acted out of bad intent, only to destroy them from off the face of the earth? Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, Your servants—Moses continues—to make their offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and to give them all of this Land that You promised them for ever.” Then the Eternal repents of the harm which He had vowed to inflict upon His people.
Moses Ascends
34:1-4
The Eternal tells Moses to “carve two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I shall write upon the tablets the words which were on the first Tablets that you shattered.” Then, in the morning, you shall go up to Mount Sinai and be present to Me there upon the top of the Mountain. Let no one else come up with you, not even be seen in all the Mountain, and let no flock or herd be pastured at the foot of the Mountain. So does Moses, taking up with him the two tablets of stone in his hand.
The Eternal Descends
34:5-7
The Eternal descends in the cloud and stands with him there, proclaiming the Name of the Eternal. The Eternal passes over his face and declares, “The Eternal, the Eternal, God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth, preserving lovingkindness for the thousandth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin—but, without remission, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children and upon children’s children to the third generation and to the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:6-7; cf. Exodus 33:18-23).
Moses Requests Divine Presence
34:8-9
Moses quickly bows down to the ground and prays, “If indeed I have found favor in Your sight, O Lord, let the Lord go in our midst,” then offering the very reason of the Eternal’s previous demurral (cf. Exodus 33:3) as cause to grant his request for reconsideration: “For it is a stiff-necked people,” and therefore he asks directly, “Forgive our iniquity and our sin, and accept us as Yours” (Exodus 34:9)!
The Eternal Assents
34:10
He says: “I hereby establish a Covenant. I shall perform before the people, in whose midst you are, awesome wonders that have not been created before.”
HAFTARAH FOR TISH’AH B’AV AFTERNOON
Isaiah 55:6-56:8
Adapt to the Divine Plan
55:6-13
Seek the Eternal
when He is close to be found.
Let the wicked forego his way,
abandon his plans,
and turn to the Eternal our God,
who will show him mercy
and generously forgive.
For what you may think
is not what I think –
says the Eternal –
for as heaven is higher than earth,
so are My ways higher than yours:
Just as rain and snow descend from heaven
and, not returning, water the earth,
making it verdant and fertile,
so does My word, which comes out of My mouth,
not return to Me unfulfilled,
but accomplishes that for which I sent it to do!
For in joyful security shall you be led out,
preceded by mountains and hills in happy song,
all of the trees clapping their hands –
instead of thorns, cypresses growing,
instead of briar, myrtle coming up –
an everlasting memorial for the Eternal,
a sign forever that will not be cut down.
Divine Agenda
56:1-2
Thus says the Eternal:
Maintain justice and perform righteousness,
for My salvation is soon to come
and My righteousness to be revealed.
Happy is the one who so acts:
keeping the Sabbath
and avoiding the doing of evil.
Embracing Outsiders and Unaccepted
56:3-7
Moreover, let the foreigner joined to the Eternal
not think that the Eternal will separate him from His people
or the eunuch consider himself a withered tree.
Rather, says the Eternal:
To the eunuch who keeps My Sabbaths,
who elects My preferences,
and who embraces My covenant,
I shall provide a memorial and a name [yad vashem]
better than sons and daughters
in My House and within My walls,
an everlasting name which shall not be cut off.
And as for the foreigners who join themselves to the Eternal,
to love His Name, to be His servants:
All who observe the Sabbath by not profaning it
and embrace My covenant
I shall bring to My Holy Mountain
and make them joyful in My House of Prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
shall be accepted upon My Altar,
for My House shall be called a House of Prayer for all peoples.
Gatherer of the Dispersed
56:8
Thus promises my Lord, Eternal One,
Gatherer of the dispersed of Israel:
I shall gather more,
besides those who have been gathered in.
FROM TALMUD AND MIDRASH
Tish’ah B’Av
Lamentations Rabbah 4:3
The Legend of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza:
Who or what led to the Destruction of the Temple?
“Good is it to fear doing wrong,
and one who hardens his heart may fall into evil.”
(Proverbs 28:14)
Rabbi Yochanan interprets it with a story:
A man who lived in Jerusalem was making a seudah (a religious feast). He bid his attendant: Go and bring to the seudah my good friend Kamtza. The attendant brought instead someone else with a similar name, Bar Kamtza, but whom his master loathed! When the host saw Bar Kamtza sitting among his other, intended guests, he went up to him and said: You are my enemy, and you are sitting in my house; get up and leave! Bar Kamtza responded: Please do not embarrass me, but let me stay and I will gladly pay for my dinner. No, said the Jerusalemite, you are not welcome. Please, pleaded Bar Kamtza, let me at least remain seated, and I will not participate in the seudah by eating or drinking. No, said the man, you are not welcome. Bar Kamtza offered to pay for the entire seudah, but the man insisted: Get up and leave!
All of this exchange was witnessed by Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas, who was debating to himself whether or not he should intervene. He decided not to.
In the meantime, Bar Kamtza got up and left, saying to himself: Here all of these invited guests are undisturbed to witness my humiliation; I shall avenge myself upon them! What did he do? He went to the governor and said: Those fine sacrifices that you send to the Jews to offer up to their God on your behalf—the Jews eat the animals themselves and substitute inferior animals for your sacrifice! But the doubtful governor rebuked him.
After some time Bar Kamtza went back to the governor with the same claim: that the Jews expropriated the ruling authority’s animals that were intended to be sacrificed on their behalf and substituted inferior offerings in their place. But anticipating the same governmental rejection for the same claim, he added: And if you do not believe me, then dispatch with me one of your officers along with your offerings, and you will know immediately that I am not a liar!
The governor agreed to allow the test. But while they were on the way, as the officer was sleeping, Bar Kamtza secretly took the opportunity to wound the animals’ upper lips or cause a withered spot in their eyes, in any case causing an invalidating blemish that precluded sacrifice by us but not by them. So when the Kohen saw those blemishes, the Kohen substituted other unblemished animals for the sacrifices. The officer, who was now awake, witnessed the substitution by the Kohen and asked him: Why have you not sacrificed the animals that we brought you? The Kohen vacillated: I will sacrifice them tomorrow. But when the Kohen had not sacrificed those animals on the next day or even by the third day, the officer sent word to the king: The claim made by the Jew regarding the animals that you sent is true! At that the king was enraged and destroyed the Temple!
That is why people simply say: Because of the dispute between Kamtza and Bar Kamtza the Temple was destroyed.
But Rabbi Yosi taught: It was the hesitation of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas that burned the Temple!
Thus did Rabbi Yochanan conclude his interpretation:
“It is good to be on constant alert against possibly doing the wrong thing,
but such a one may restrain himself so much that he allows the work of evil!”
(Proverbs 28:14)
Talmud Taanit 26a-29a
Bad events resonate
MISHNAH 4:6
Five events occurred to our ancestors on the Seventeenth of Tammuz (Shiv’ah-asar B’Tammuz) and five events on the Ninth of Av (Tish’ah B’Av). On 17 Tammuz, (1) the Tablets were broken, (2) the Tamid (Daily Offering) was suspended, (3) the City was breached, (4) Apostomos burned the Torah, and (5) an Idol was erected in the Temple. On 9 Av, (1) it was decreed that our fathers would not enter the Land, (2) (3) both the First and Second Temples were destroyed, (4) Betar was captured, and (5) the City was ploughed over.
GEMARA
2448 A.M.
1313 B.C.E.
SIVAN
| 6 | ||||||
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 |
TAMMUZ
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
On 17 Tammuz, (1) the Tablets were broken…
It is taught in a baraitha: On the sixth of the month the Ten Commandments were given to Israel.
On 6 Sivan we celebrate Shavuot, the anniversary of the Giving of our Torah, which occurred on Shabbat (Talmud Shabbat 86b).
“The Eternal called to Moses on the seventh day (7 Sivan) from amidst the cloud” (Exodus 24:16).
“Thereupon Moses entered the cloud and went up to the Mountain, and Moses stayed on the Mountain for forty days and forty nights” (ibid. 18).
Days of Moses on the mountain: 7 Sivan [24 days] – 16 Tammuz [16 days] = [40 days]
After forty days and forty nights, Moses came down from the mountain, the next day, on 17 Tammuz, to find:
“As Moses approached the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing; angrily, Moses threw the Tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain” (Exodus 32:19).
(2) the Tamid (Daily Offering) was suspended…
Because of the siege of Jerusalem, the supply of lambs for the Tamid (cf. Numbers 28:3), was depleted. That the cessation occurred on 17 Tammuz is a tradition received from earlier Sages.
(3) the City was breached…
“On the ninth day of the fourth month (Tammuz) the famine was so severe in the City (of Jerusalem) that there was no food for the people to eat, and the City was breached as the defending soldiers fled…” (Jeremiah 52:6-7). Rava explained that the Prophet accounts for the breach of Jerusalem during the time of the First Destruction, on 9 Tammuz, and he cites a baraitha to support that the breach of Jerusalem during the time of the Second Destruction occurred on 17 Tammuz.
(4) Apostomos burned the Torah…
That the burning occurred on 17 Tammuz is a tradition received from earlier Sages.
and (5) an Idol was erected in the Temple.
“From the time of the cessation of the Tamid (17 Tammuz) and to the setting up of [v’latet] a desolate abomination, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days” (Daniel 12:11)—which we interpret: “From the time of the cessation of the Tamid (17 Tammuz) and corresponding to the setting up of [v’latet] an idol (also, then, on 17 Tammuz), there shall be….”
2449 A.M.
1312 B.C.E.
IYYAR
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 |
SIVAN
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
TAMMUZ
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
AV
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 |
On 9 Av, (1) it was decreed that our fathers would not enter the Land…
“In the second year (of the Exodus) on the twentieth day of the second month (20 Iyyar), the cloud was lifted from over the Tabernacle of Testimony” (Exodus 10:11).
“They journeyed from the Mountain of the Eternal a distance of three days (20, 21, 22 Iyyar)…” (ibid. 32).
“The Eternal will give you enough meat to eat…for a month of days (22 Iyyar to 22 Sivan)…” (Numbers 11:18-20).
“Miriam was isolated outside of the camp for seven days (23-29 Sivan)…” (Numbers 12:15).
“Send for you men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan…” (Numbers 13:2)—and it is taught in a baraitha: Moses dispatched the scouts on the twenty-ninth day of Sivan—“And they returned from reconnoitering the land at the end of forty days”: 29-30 Sivan [2 days] + 1-30 Tammuz [30 days] + 1-8 Av [8 days] = [40 days, ending on the eighth day of Av] (ibid. 25).
“And all of the community cried loudly that night,” the night of the Ninth of Av (Numbers 14:1)!
The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: As you have wept on this night for no good reason, I shall establish it as a night of weeping for future generations!
(2) (3) both the First and Second Temples were destroyed…
“On the seventh day of the fifth month (7 Av), in the nineteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, his military chief Nebuzaradan came to Jerusalem and set afire the House of the Eternal…” (II Kings 25:8-9).
“On the tenth day of the fifth month (10 Av), in the nineteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, his military chief Nebuzaradan came to Jerusalem and set afire the House of the Eternal…” (Jeremiah 52:12-13).
On the conflict of dates between those verses, it is taught in a baraitha: We cannot teach that it happened on the seventh of Av when the other verse says the tenth of Av, and we cannot teach that it happened on the tenth of Av when the other verse says the seventh of Av. Then what can we teach? On the seventh of Av aliens entered the Temple; they consumed what they found, defiling it that day, the next day, and then on the Ninth of Av close to nightfall they set it ablaze and it burned throughout the next day, the tenth of Av.
How do we know that the Second Temple also was destroyed on the Ninth of Av? It is taught in a baraitha: Good things come to pass on a day reserved for good things, while bad things happen on days reserved for bad things.
(4) Betar was captured…
That Betar was captured on 9 Av is a tradition received from earlier Sages.
Rambam (Mishneh Torah: Laws of Fast Days 5:3): Betar was a large city with its own king, who was considered King Messiah by his subjects. During the wars of Bar Kochba against the Romans it fell into their hands and all of its inhabitants were killed. It was a great tragedy, like the Destruction of the Temple.
and (5) the City was ploughed over.
“Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, King of Judah, speaking to all of the people of Judah, ‘Thus says the Eternal of Hosts: Zion shall be ploughed like a field, Jerusalem shall become ruins, and the Temple Mount a wooded shrine’” (Jeremiah 26:18).
Talmud Sanhedrin 96b
Pesikta Rabbati 28
Repentance and Reluctance of the Wicked
Our Rabbis taught: Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Aram, who was cured of his tzara’at through the guidance of Elisha the Prophet (cf. II Kings 5:1-19), became a ger toshav (a friend of Torah, eschewing idolatry). Nebuzaradan, chief executioner of the king of Babylonia, who burned the Temple and the other buildings of Jerusalem and exiled the people who were left in the city (cf. II Kings 25:8-11), became a ger tzedek (a complete observer of the Torah). Some of the descendants of Sisera, captain of the army of the king of Canaan, who besieged the Children of Israel with nine hundred chariots of iron for twenty years (cf. Judges 4:2-3), studied Torah in Jerusalem. Some of the descendants of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, who sought to conquer Judah during the reign of King Hezekiah (cf. II Kings 18:13-19:37), became famous teachers of Torah, namely Shemaiah and Avtalyon (the fourth pair of leading Rabbinic scholars, cf. Mishnah Avot 1:10). Some of the descendants of Haman, the Agagite who sought to destroy all of the Jews of Persia (cf. Esther 9:24), studied Torah in B’nai Berak.
Even some of the descendants of that Wicked One did the Holy One, blessed be He, seek to grant shelter under the wings of the Shechinah. But the ministering angels protested: Master of the Universe, the one who destroyed Your House and burned Your Temple, You would shelter under the wings of Your Divine Presence (Shechinah)?! This is how we interpret the words of Your Prophet, “We tried to heal Babylonia, but she could not be healed” (Jeremiah 51:9a): Shall we try to heal Babylonia? No, we shall not try to heal her! Ulla explained: “Babylonia” in this interpretation refers to the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar [“that Wicked One”] himself!
But Rabbi Samuel bar Nachmani interpreted the Prophet’s words (ibid.) not in reference to the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar but to “the rivers of Babylonia” (Psalms 137:1) where we “sat down and wept” (ibid.). As Rabbi Yochanan explained: Why did they weep specifically “over the rivers of Babylonia” (ibid.)? Because its river, the Euphrates, killed more Israelites than did wicked Nebuchadnezzar! In the Land of Israel they were accustomed to drinking rainwater, distilled water and spring water. But because they were exiled to Babylonia, they were forced to drink the polluted water of the Euphrates, which caused many deaths. (Rashi: Even the palm trees that grow alongside the Babylonian rivers bear no fruit because of their bad water.) Hence, the Prophet acknowledges that the rivers of Babylonia, polluted (Rashi: since the Six Days of Creation) “could not be healed!”
Ulla said: Ammon and Moab were wicked neighbors of Jerusalem. When they learned of the Prophets’ warnings that Jerusalem would be destroyed, they sent word to Nebuchadnezzar: Now is the time to leave your country and come here (to be the instrument of Jerusalem’s defeat).
Nebuchadnezzar replied: I am afraid, lest they do to me as they did to my predecessors (cf. Judges 4:17-22; II Kings 19:32-37; Esther 7:5-10).
Ammon and Moab persist: “The Man is not at home…” (Proverbs 7:19a)! They invert the Sage’s warning to beware of blandishment by encouraging instead the same, through the coincidence of “man” in reference to God, viz. “The Eternal is a Man of War…” (Exodus 15:3a)!
Nebuchadnezzar responds to them: But He is near and will shortly show up!
Ammon and Moab respond to him by completing their verse, “…He is gone on a long journey” (Proverbs 7:19b)!
Nebuchadnezzar counters the end of their verse: But they have righteous people whose prayers are answered to bring Him back from his long journey!
Ammon and Moab rest upon the very next verse, “A pouch of silver has He taken in His hand…” (Proverbs 7:20a): No, those righteous people are not in residence to pray, because He took them with Him (“in His hand”), i.e. the forty-five righteous people upon whom the world depends, who are likened to silver. These latter connections are made by interpretation of the Prophet’s words, “I bought her to me for 15 shekels of silver + 1½ chomers (= 15 shekels) of barley” (Hosea 3:2): I (God) redeemed her (Israel) on the 15th (of Nisan, the date of the Exodus from Egypt) in consideration of the silver, which were numbered 1½ chomers = 45 (30 seahs to a chomer, so 1½ chomers = 45 seahs), viz. the forty-five righteous people upon whom the world depends (Talmud Chullin 92a)!
Accepting that God might have taken the righteous with Him, what about those who remain, the wicked? They could repent, counters Nebuchadnezzar, and have their prayers answered to bring Him back from his long journey!
Ammon and Moab respond to him: A time has already been fixed for them (Rashi: to end their Exile after 70 years, cf. Jeremiah 25:8-14); and they complete their verse, “…He will return home on the day of the keseh” (Proverbs 7:20b), wherein “keseh” must refer to a pre-ordained time as in, “Blow the Shofar at the New Moon, at the keseh for our festival day, as it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob” (Psalms 81:4-5)!
Nebuchadnezzar then appeals to his own limitation: It is winter, so I will not be able to come because of the snow and rain!
Ammon and Moab, rejecting his excuse, demand of him: Come over the jagged mountain peaks, intepreting the Prophet’s demand, “Send lambs [kar] for the ruler of the land [eretz] (king of Judah), from the cliffs that face the wilderness (Moab), to the Mountain of the Daughter of Zion” (Isaiah 16:1): Send a messenger [kar] to the ruler of the world [eretz] (Nebuchadnezzar) that he should come (from Babylonia), by way of the cliffs and the mountains that face the wilderness, to the Mountain of the Daughter of Zion!
Nebuchadnezzar cites yet another obstacle: If I should come, I would have no place outside of Jerusalem for my army to settle and be sheltered for the inevitable siege against the city.
Ammon and Moab answered him: But their graves are better than your palaces, as the Prophet promised, “At that time, declares the Eternal, all of their graves shall be emptied of their bones—of the kings of Judah, its leaders, its Kohanim, its Prophets, all of the residents of Jerusalem—and they will be spread out and exposed to the sun and to the moon and to all of the host of heaven which they loved and worshipped and followed and sought out and bowed down to; they will not be gathered up or buried, as dung upon the face of the earth” (Jeremiah 8:1-2). Rashi: In the emptied graves of Israel outside of Jerusalem, you and your armies will be able to find shelter!
Yalkut Shimoni Jeremiah 277
Valley of Shrieking
“The Children of Judah
have done that which is evil in My sight,
defiling My House with their idols.
They have built altars of Tofeth
in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom
to burn their sons and their daughters in fire—
something that I did not command
and would never have imagined!”
(Jeremiah 7:30-31)
Our Rabbis taught: Although most of the temples of idolatry were in Jerusalem, the molech (fire god) was in a separate location outside of Jerusalem. How was it done? The molech was inside seven bars. Its face was that of a calf, and its hands were outspread as those of a man who opens his hands to receive something from another. They would heat it up from inside, as it was hollow.
Everyone would enter, one by one, with his offering. Whoever had a bird to offer would approach as far as the first bar and offer it. Whoever had a sheep would approach to the second and offer it. If a goat, then to the third. A calf to the fourth. A bull to the fifth. An ox to the sixth.
“Let those of man
who so sacrifice [zovechey adam]
kiss their idols [agalim]!”
(Hosea 13:2)
And whoever was there to offer his son would bring him to the seventh and kiss it, as we interpret, “Those who sacrifice man [zovechey adam] kiss calves [agalim]!” Then the child would be brought before the molech as it was superheated from inside until its hands glowed, and they would place the young child into those glowing, scorching hands. During this, they would take drums and bang on them to suppress the sounds of the child’s cries lest his father hear them and lose control. Such is why the valley was named “Ben-Hinnom”: Because the child would shriek [nohem] from the unspeakable torture! Alternatively, because those in attendance would shriek their insane satisfaction over the molech’s imagined gratification: “Enjoy it! Savor it! Delight in it!”
“Therefore the days are coming, declares the Eternal…
when I shall remove
from the cities of Judah
and from the streets of Jerusalem
the (1) sound of joy and the (2) sound of celebration,
the (3) sound of bridegroom and the (4) sound of bride…”
(Jeremiah 7:32,34)
Thus, in those days, the Prophet foresaw
the removal of four gladdening sounds.
Lamentations Rabbah Proem 2
Guardianship
“Why is the Land perished,
laid waste like the wilderness
with no one passing through?
Says the Eternal:
Because they have forsaken My Torah,
which I set before them,
and have not hearkened to My voice
and walked therein.”
(Jeremiah 9:11b-12)
Rabbi Abba bar Kahana opened his discourse with the preceding words:
“Who is the wise person who may understand this?
Or one to whom the Eternal has spoken?
That he may declare it!”
(Jeremiah 9:11a)
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai teaches in a baraitha: If you see cities uprooted from their place in the Land of Israel, know that they neglected to pay their teachers of Bible and Mishnah, as the Eternal has explained, “Because they have forsaken My Torah” (ibid. 12)!
Rabbi once dispatched Rabbi Asi and Rabbi Ami to ameliorate conditions of cities in the Land of Israel. When they came to a place, they would ask to meet with the city’s guardians (neturey karta). Who would be brought to them but the chief of the town guard and the bailiff! Rabbi Asi and Rabbi Ami said to them, “These are the city’s guardians? These are the city’s destroyers!” So they were asked, “Who then are the guardians of the city?” Their answer: The guardians of the city are the instructors of Bible and Mishnah, who study them and teach them and guard [mesham’reen] the Torah by day and by night, as the Eternal said to Joshua, “Let not the Book of this Torah depart from your mouth, but study it day and night, in order that you may guard [tishmor] it and observe what is written in it—for then you will succeed in your way and act wisely (Joshua 1:8)! Moreover, “Unless the Eternal builds the house, those who build it labor in vain; unless it is the Eternal One who guards [yishmor] the city, your guardian [shomer] stays awake in vain” (Psalms 127:1)!
Rabbi Huna and Rabbi Jeremiah in the name of Rabbi Samuel son of Rabbi Isaac observed that it would even appear that the Holy One, blessed be He, overlooked the cardinal sins of idolatry, adultery and murder, as lesser than rejection of Torah study, because the Prophet could not answer the question of “Why is the Land laid waste and destroyed?” by quoting the Eternal, “Because they have worshipped idols, because they have committed adultery, or because they have shed blood,” but “because they have forsaken My Torah!”
“Because your fathers have forsaken Me–
says the Eternal—
and have walked after other gods
and served them and worshipped them—
and have forsaken Me
and have not guarded My Torah.”
(Jeremiah 16:11)
Why does the Prophet repeat, “have forsaken Me,”
adding, “and have not guarded My Torah?”
Rabbi Huna and Rabbi Jeremiah in the name of Rabbi Chiya bar Abba interpret: Would that they “have forsaken Me” but have “guarded My Torah!” For by engaging themselves in it, the light that is in it would have returned them to goodness!
“I have given you a good doctrine [lekach tov],
My Torah—
forsake it not!”
(Proverbs 4:2)
Rabbi Judah ben Pazzi inferred “Torah” to be a “doctrine of goodness [lekach tov]!”
Perhaps that is why Rav Huna taught: Study Torah at least, even if not for its own sake, for out of studying Torah even not for its own sake will come your embracing it for its own sake!
Lamentations Rabbah Proem 24
Ancestral Objections
Rabbi Samuel bar Nachman taught:
When the Temple was destroyed, Abraham was deeply dismayed. He came before the Holy One, blessed be He, weeping and pulling out his hair, rending his garments, with ashes upon his head. At the site of the destroyed Temple he mournfully appealed to the Holy One, blessed be He: Why am I treated differently from every other nation and brought to such shame and contempt?
The ministering angels, upon seeing him, arranged themselves in many rows to comfort the mourner, saying: “Highways lie desolate, travelers are no more, a covenant has been broken, cities rejected, people diminished” (Isaiah 33:8)!
What did they mean by “Highways lie desolate?” The ministering angels were saying to the Holy One, blessed be He: The highways to Jerusalem which You maintained so that the pilgrims would not cease using them—how they have become desolate!
“Travelers are no more”: The roads that Israel used to travel for the Festivals—how the travelers have ceased traveling on them!
“A covenant has been broken”: Master of the Universe, the covenant of Abraham, their Father, has been renounced, the covenant by which the world is populated and by which the world recognizes You as God Most High, Maker of heaven and earth!
“Cities rejected,” literally, “He has rejected cities”: The ministering angels said to the Holy One, blessed be He, “You have rejected Jerusalem and Zion after You chose them,” as is written, “Have You indeed rejected Judah? Does Your soul loathe Zion? Why have you stricken us so that there is no cure” (Jeremiah 14:19)?
“People (Enosh) diminished,” literally, “He has not held Enosh important”: You have not held people (enosh) of Israel to be even as important as the generation of Enosh, “who began [huchal] to call upon the Name of the Eternal” (Genesis 4:26b) but which we interpret, “for whom it was profane [huchal] to call upon the Name of the Eternal” because they preferred idolatry (Genesis Rabbah 23:7)!
At that moment the Holy One, blessed be He, engaged with the ministering angels and asked them why they arranged themselves in many rows to comfort the mourner. They explained: Because of Abraham, Your loyal one, who has come to Your House lamenting and weeping! Why have You paid him no attention? He answered them: Since the day that my loyal one departed from Me to his eternal home, he has not come to My House. But now, “What is My beloved doing in My House” (Jeremiah 11:15)?
Said Abraham before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, why have You exiled my children and delivered them into the hands of the nations, who torture them and kill them? Why have You destroyed the Temple, the place where I offered Isaac my son as a burnt offering before You (cf. Genesis 22:1-19)? The Holy One, blessed be He, replied: Your children have sinned, have violated the entire Torah, every one of its words and letters! Thus is it written: “All of Israel have transgressed Your Torah, gone astray, disobeyed You, wherefore You have imposed upon us the promised curse which is written in the Torah of Moses, servant of God (cf. Deuteronomy 28:15-68), as we have sinned against Him” (Daniel 9:11)!
Then Abraham demanded: Master of the Universe, say who testifies against Israel that they have violated Your Torah? Let the Torah come forth, says the Holy One, and offer its testimony against Israel! Whereupon the Torah came forth to testify against them. Abraham said to her: My daughter, you are coming forth to testify against Israel that they have transgressed your commandments, but do you not feel ashamed? Recall how the Holy One, blessed be He, passed you around to every nation and tongue and not one of them wanted you, until my children arrived at Mount Sinai and received you with honor. So now you would testify against them on the day of their calamity?! When the Torah heard this, it stepped aside and did not testify against them.
Then the Holy One, blessed be He, announced: Let each of the twenty-two different letters that are found in the Torah come forth and testify against Israel! Immediately they came forth, and the Aleph presented itself first to testify against Israel that they have violated the Torah. When it was Abraham’s turn to cross-examine the Aleph, he said to her: Aleph, you are the first of all the letters, and you have come to testify against Israel on the day of their calamity. Recall the day when the Holy One, blessed be He, was revealed on Mount Sinai, and He began His revelation with you: “I (Anochi, which starts with the letter Aleph) am the Eternal your God…” (Exodus 20:2). No nation or tongue would receive you except for my children, and today you are coming to testify against my children?! Whereupon the Aleph stepped aside and did not testify against them.
Then the next letter, Beyt, came forth to testify against Israel, and Abraham said to the Beyt: My daughter, you are coming to testify against my children, who are diligent in studying (if not fully observing) the words and letters of Torah, of which you are the first letter: “In the beginning (B’reysheet, which starts with the letter Beyt) God created…” (Genesis 1:1). Whereupon the Beyt stepped aside and offered no testimony.
Gimmel then stepped forward to testify against Israel. Said Abraham: Gimmel, you have come to testify against my children that they have transgressed the Torah. Is there any nation that upholds the commandment of tzitzit, of which you are the first letter, except for my children? I refer to the verse, “Tassels (Gedileem, which starts with the letter Gimmel) shall you make for yourself on the four corners of your garment…” (Deuteronomy 22:12). Whereupon the Gimmel stepped aside and offered no testimony.
When the other letters observed that Abraham had silenced the first three, they too were ashamed and stepped aside and did not testify against Israel.
Abraham then addressed the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, when I was one hundred years old, You gave me a son, and when he was mature of mind, as a young man of thirty-seven years, You said to me: Offer him up to Me as a burnt offering. I complied with your command, suppressing my paternal love, treating him as if I were cruel, not offering him any mercy, binding him myself—and You do not remember this to my credit and therewith show mercy to my children?
At this point Isaac entered the conversation and said: Master of the Universe, when Abba said to me, “God will provide a lamb for the burnt offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8), I did not delay the fulfillment of Your words but willingly I allowed myself to be bound upon the altar and stretched out my neck under the knife—and You do not remember this to my credit and therewith show mercy to my children?
At this point Jacob entered the conversation and said: Master of the Universe, did I not spend twenty years in the house of Laban, and when I left his house, wicked Esau accosted me and sought to kill my children so that I risked my own life for their sake (cf. Genesis 33:1-3)? Now they have been delivered into the hand of their enemies like sheep to the slaughter after You raised them like tender young chicks and I suffered for their sake the pain of raising children, having suffered that pain for their sake most of my days—and You do not remember this to my credit and therewith show mercy to my children?
Then Moses entered the conversation and said: Master of the Universe, was I not a faithful shepherd of Israel for forty years, running before them like a horse in the desert, and when the time came for them to enter the Land, You decreed that my bones would fall short in the wilderness? Now that they have been exiled, You have sent me to lament and weep for them, suggesting the well-known proverb: From my master’s good fortune I derive no benefit, but I suffer from his bad fortune!
Whereupon Moses said to Jeremiah: Go ahead, and I shall follow and bring home the exiles and prevent anyone from harming them! Jeremiah objected: It is impossible to walk along that road because of the dead that lie upon it. But Moses insisted, and thus they walked, until they arrived at the rivers of Babylon. When the exiles saw Moses, they said to each other: The son of Amram has come out from his grave to redeem us from the hand of our oppressors!
But the divine voice was heard: No, for that was My edict! Moses had to explain to them: It is impossible to reverse your fortune, for the edict has already been imposed, but may the Omnipresent bring you back speedily! And he left them there. Thereupon they raised their voices with loud weeping until their weeping reached on high, as is written: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, and we wept, in remembering Zion” (Psalms 137:1).
When Moses returned to the Patriarchs, they asked him: What has the enemy done to our children. He described to them all of the various murderous cruelties that were committed against men, women and children. Master of the Universe, he said, You have written in Your Torah, “Of oxen or sheep, you may not slaughter it and its child on the same day” (Leviticus 22:28), yet our enemies have already killed many many children together with their mothers, and You remain silent!
At that moment Rachel our Mother came before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said: Master of the Universe, it is well known to You that Jacob Your servant loved me with a great love and worked for me under Abba for seven years, and when those seven years were complete, and the time had come for me to marry my intended, my father determined to replace me for my husband with my sister (cf. Genesis 29:9 ff.). His decision hurt me so very much that when I learned of it, I told my intended and gave him a secret sign between us, so he would know if my father attempted to substitute my sister for me on the wedding night.
Well, my compassion for my sister, who would have been set aside and humiliated if we had to carry out our plan, overpowered my passion for my beloved. So that night, when my father did substitute my sister for me in the wedding bed, I gave her the secret sign so that my beloved Jacob would think that my sister was me, Rachel. In addition, I hid under their bed so that when Jacob spoke with her, she would remain silent and I would answer for her, making him think that she was me by the sound of my voice. Thus I showed her my lovingkindness and suppressed my envy.
So, if I, mere flesh and blood, of dust and ashes, did not treat my actual rival with envy but protected her from shame and reproach, then You, ever-living and compassionate King, why are You envious of idolatry, which has no validity to begin with and cannot be considered Your rival, why do You, because of it, exile my children into the murderous hands of their enemies? Immediately the mercies of the Holy One, blessed be He, welled up, and He said: Because of you, Rachel, I shall bring Israel back to their home!
As the Prophet said:
“Thus declares the Eternal:
A voice is heard in Ramah:
Mourning, bitter weeping;
Rachel is weeping for her children,
she refuses to be comforted
for her children who are lost.
Thus says the Eternal:
Restrain your voice from crying
and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for what you have done—
declares the Eternal—
they shall return from the land of the enemy!
And there is hope for your future—
declares the Eternal—
Your children shall return to their home!”
(Jeremiah 31:15-17)
Song of Songs Rabbah 1:13
You have been shown
What did Moses mean when he said:
“You have been shown to know
that the Eternal is God,
and there is none else.”
(Deuteronomy 4:35)
“Let him kiss me
with the kisses [mineshikot] of his mouth…”
(Song of Songs 1:2)
Rabbi Yochanan explained: An angel carried each individual command of the Ten Commandments from the Holy One, blessed be He, around to every Israelite, and the angel would ask every Israelite, “Do you accept upon yourself this commandment, which implies such-and-such regulations, such-and-such penalties for violation, such-and-such protective measures, such-and-such mitzvahs, such-and-such lenient and severe applications, and such-and-such reward?” To which the Israelite would answer, “Yes!” Then the angel would ask him, “And do you accept the Divinity of the Holy One, blessed be He?” And the Israelite would answer, “Yes! Yes!” Whereupon the angel would kiss the Israelite on his mouth–and all of this was meant by the words, “You have been shown to know”: You have been “shown” by an angel in order that you might know the commandments!
The Rabbis said that each divine command itself went around to every Israelite and asked him, “Do you accept upon yourself me, and all of such-and-such regulations which are associated with me, and all of such-and-such penalties…, etc.?” To which the Israelite would answer, “Yes! Yes!” whereupon the divine command would kiss him upon his mouth and teach him Torah, thus upholding the words of Moses, “Be careful not to forget the commandments [devarim] that your eyes have seen…” (Deuteronomy 4:9), how the divine utterances themselves spoke with you!
“He imparted to you His covenant,
that you should observe the Ten Commandments,
and He inscribed them on two tablets of stone.”
(Deuteronomy 4:13)
Then how did the divine utterances become inscribed upon the tablets?
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai says that the verses teach that each divine utterance was taken from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, by His right hand and given to the left of Israel. The utterance then circled the camp until it reached the right of Israel and was returned to the left of the Holy One, blessed be He, who took it with His right hand and engraved it therewith upon the tablet. As this occurred, His voice went from one end of the earth to the other, as was said, “The voice of the Eternal engraves with flames of fire” (Psalms 29:7)! They only heard, but “you have been shown to know…” (Deuteronomy 4:35)!
The Rabbis, however, question whether we can imply that there is any left hand above, after it is written, “Your right hand, O Eternal, is mighty; with strength is Your right hand, O Eternal” (Exodus 15:6)! They say that each divine utterance was extracted from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, by His right hand and given to the right of Israel. It then circled the camp until it reached the right of Israel and was returned to the right of the Holy One, blessed be He, who took it with His right hand and engraved it therewith upon the tablet.
Rabbi Berechia reported an interpretation that puts aside the question of God’s dominant side: Rabbi Chelbo taught me that the divine utterance engraved itself, and as it did, its sound went from one end of the earth to the other, as was said, “The sound of the Eternal engraves with flames of fire” (Psalms 29:7)! Then I said to Rabbi Chelbo: But is it not written, “The Eternal gave Moses two tablets of stone engraved by the finger of God…” (Deuteronomy 9:10)! Rabbi Chelbo assured me that the verse was not fatal to his interpretation: It is like a student who writes as his teacher sits beside him to guide him!̶̶̶̶̶
“Be careful not to forget
the things [devarim] that your eyes have seen…”
(Deuteronomy 4:9)
Since the minimum of “commandments” [devarim, plural] is two, only two commandments directly from the Holy One, blessed be He, were heard by Israel! — Rabbi Joshua ben Levi acknowledges that the Rabbis’ reason for arguing that all ten divine commands went around to every Israelite is that the Israelites’ objection, “Moses, you speak with us…but not God, lest we die” (Exodus 20:16)! comes after all ten of the commandments were already spoken by God (cf. Exodus 20:1-14). — What then does Rabbi Joshua ben Levi do with the Rabbis’ argument? He disagrees that the order of verses proves their argument since there is no early or late in the Torah, that is, the Torah’s verses are not necessarily in chronological order—or even without disagreeing over the principle of chronological order, the placement of Israel’s objection does not preclude its having happened before the end of all the commandments, such as after two or three.
Rabbi Azariah and Rabbi Judah son of Rabbi Simone endorse another interpretation in support of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi:
“Moses commanded us the Torah,
an inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob.”
(Deuteronomy 33:4)
But did not God “command us the Torah?”
How did Moses give Israel the Torah? The Torah contains 613 commandments. But what is the numerical value of the letters of the word, “Torah?” If you recognize it is only 611 (tav=400 + cholam=6 + resh=200 + hey=5), where are the missing two? “I am the Eternal your God” (Exodus 20:2) and “You shall not have other gods besides Me” (Exodus 20:3) were the two heard from the mouth of God Himself. Moses taught them the other 611!
Thus we have it:
“Let Him kiss me
with some of the kisses [mineshikot] of His mouth…,”
some, but not all!
(Song of Songs 1:2)
—–
Copyright © 2026 Eric H. Hoffman
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