This week we begin the book of Deuteronomy, which is sometimes called the Mishneh Torah, or repetition of the Torah, as described by Moses. Instead of Cliff's notes, Deuteronomy is Moses' Notes of the Torah. We are at the
26. However you would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God; 27. And you murmured in your tents, and said, Because the Lord hated us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. 28. Where shall we go? our brothers have discouraged our heart, saying, The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.
The people’s murmuring is the same as Numbers'. The second part that is the same is God’s final reaction, though adding an interesting detail:
34. And the Lord heard the voice of your words, and was angry, and swore, saying, 35. Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land, which I swore to give to your fathers, 36. Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him will I give the land that he has trodden upon, and to his children, because he has wholly followed the Lord. 37. Also the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, saying, You also shall not go in there.
According to his text it is the incident of the spies which causes Moses not to enter the Promised Land, not the striking of the rock. But according to Numbers Rabbah, Moses and the people not entering the Land was only the first round of punishment.
This alludes to the punishment which you received as a heritage for future generations. For Israel had wept on the night of the ninth of Ab, and the Holy One, blessed be He, had said to them: ‘You have wept a causeless weeping before Me. I shall therefore fix for you a permanent weeping for future generations.’ At that hour it was decreed that the Temple should be destroyed and that Israel should be exiled among the nations.[Numbers R. XVI:20]
The Midrash gives as its proof text Psalm 106:24-27
24. And they despised the pleasant land, they did not believe his word;
25. And they murmured in their tents, and did not listen to the voice of the Lord.
26. And he lifted up his hand against them, to make them fall in the wilderness;
27. And to make their seed fall among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands.
While our texts in Deuteronomy and Numbers explain verse 26 as a punishment, it does not explain verse 27, which does not happen until the time of the destruction of the Temple. Therefore, according to the Sages this must refer to the Ninth of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the First and Second temples, and a whole slew of bad events for the Jews.
With precision set by the Sages’ calculations for the calendar, of The Ninth of Av always occurs after this week’s Portion is read for Shabbat. This year it occurs immediately on the heels of Shabbat. Sitting in the dark, reading Lamentations Saturday Night I’ll think a lot about the story that supposedly caused the destruction of the second temple, the story about a man named Bar Kamza [Gittin 55b]. A simple mistake in party invitations brought an enemy instead of a friend to a party. Because the host threw this man bar Kamza out of the party after seemingly inviting him, Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed. The host of the party feared Bar Kamza would talk about their why they were enemies. But Bar Kamza was hurt by the words of the host’s refusal. As the Talmud continues It has been taught: Note from this incident how serious a thing it is to put a man to shame, for God espoused the cause of Bar Kamza and destroyed His House and burnt His Temple. [Gittin 57b] An exchange of words destroyed the Temple.
Our portion this week is the word for words in Hebrew, Devarim. Words can be building blocks or forces for destruction. We can use constructive words to be constructive. We could do the opposite and say something destructive bringing a destructive outcome. But one does not follow the other. There are cases where we may say something constructive but its outcome is destructive because of miscommunication or conflicting agendas. Finally there are cases where we say something destructive to bring about a constructive result. This last case we know as rebukes. Much of Deuteronomy is a verbal rebuke by Moses to the Israelites, and this portion is particularly stinging as Moses enumerates the many failures of the Israelites in the wilderness, in the hope that when Moses is gone, they will not make the same mistakes again. Yet rebukes are not something one can do casually. They need to carry a sense of authority and creditability with them. The rabbis in the first chapter of Deuteronomy Rabbah give multiple explanations of the beginning to Deuteronomy. All of them are about the rebuke, and how to do it right. In several places Moses is compared to Balaam. If, according to this comparison, someone’s reputation and behavior is usually the opposite of their communication it helps the veracity of the statement. Balaam blessing instead of cursing the people lends credence to the blessing. Moses’ rebuke to the people is from a man who saved that people from God’s anger on multiple occasions. Secondly, a rebuke from an honest man carries more credence than a hypocrite. Moses was the most honest of men, one who did not take even a donkey from the people. This lends creditability compared to someone who broke the rules himself. It isn’t easy for everyone to rebuke. Do it wrong and you hurt someone. The party’s host and Bar Kamza show that to the extreme.
What the rabbis don’t talk about rebuking is one other way of showing authority and changing people’s behaviors. There are people who used to do a certain thing, say robbery, and then learned it was a bad thing to do. So they repent, stop doing it and start doing good. They know this sin or transgression well, but can show from the insider’s perspective how wrong it is to do from the knowledge of their own experience. Some can go to other robbers, talk in the language and experience of robbers and convince robbers to stop robbing. Such people are in a very literal sense masters of repentance. They are not only ones who can repent, but one who can get others to repent not by rebuke but by sharing their story.
But what gets the robber to make such a realization to change into such a master? There are two parallel stories which I tend to think of in this respect, the source of a venerated Jewish tradition:
Mar the son of Rabina made a marriage feast for his son. He saw that the Rabbis were growing very merry , so he brought a precious cup worth four hundred zuz and broke it before them, and they became serious. R. Ashi made a marriage feast for his son. He saw that the Rabbis were growing very merry, so he brought a cup of white crystal and broke it before them and they became serious. [Brachot 30b-31a]
The shattering event of something valuable gets people’s attention and they look at the world differently instantly. Such acts could be of destruction, as in these cases. Yet such acts, verbal and non-verbal can backfire. R. Ashi’s attempt to make his students serious at a wedding is now the sign to start the party at any Jewish wedding: the breaking of the glass by the groom.
One of the saddest kinds of backfiring of all is the one that is not even paid attention to. Outside of Orthodoxy, the 9th of Av is not observed by most Jews, let alone known. Tisha B’Av’s function may be very well set on the calendar not for the wimpy murmurs of the Israelites in desert, but as a precious shattered glass. It is the start of the season of repentance. We have only a few weeks to prepare ourselves for the High holidays. Like the robber who might have gotten caught or shot as his defining moment to give up his illicit profession, the completely depressing day known as the 9th of Av is that crystal-breaking moment when we realize we need to take stock and begin the cycle of repentance that will lead to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is not a punishment at all, but a chance for redemption.
Moses rebukes in the weekly portion. The Jewish world is shattered on the 9th of Av. In the broken pieces, we begin the process of re-building through our repentance and the ability to help others by sharing our story of what we did wrong and how to do it right. That rebuild is not easy and is often a seemingly lonely process. Next week, in response, we are given a little help in six little words.
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