Our 4th Anniversary

Last week on the 24th of Tammuz we marked the fourth anniversary of our Aliyah to this small country on the sunny shores of the Eastern Mediterranean.

We are currently in the 9-day period leading to Tisha B’Av, a day of national mourning, the day on which Hashem’s house was destroyed and our nation was exiled, not once but twice. Every calamity that has occurred to us since then is a direct consequence of those events.

When it happened to Hashem’s first house, the exile lasted only 70 years. A group of exiles then returned and rebuilt his house a second time, but the degree of holiness within it was diminished greatly compared to the first.

When Hashem’s second house was destroyed, the great sages who witnessed it wrote it all down in a book, and that book (the Gemara) is widely available today for all of us to read in plain, simple English.

Those eyewitnesses tell us that in the case of his second house, Hashem was far more disappointed with his children. They had done deeds to one another even more evil than the generation of the first destruction; therefore the sages probably guessed that the second exile would be longer than the first.

Seeing these events through the eyes of these eye-witnesses. I don't think they ever expected that this exile would last so long. Heck, the first one was only 70 years, so they probably figured the second one would be like 200 years, not 2000 !!!

Consider this: G-d sent Jeremiah to the people to tell them that he was not happy with their behavior and he would give them plenty of time to mend their ways. After a long time, seeing that not many were flocking to take him up on the offer, G-d warned that trouble would come from the North in the form of the armies of Babylon. So what did the people do? Did they take the warning to heart and repent? Nope, instead, they ran to their arch-enemies the Assyrians and the Egyptians to sign mutual defense pacts in the hope of being able to defeat a Babylonian invasion. What were these people thinking? Did they really think that that would help?

When you read about these events in history books, it’s frequently something like “The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the Second was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.” They make it sound like, well, just history.

You visualize the evil, nasty Babylonians on the march, on their way to conquer the holy city and to declare war against G-d. Ditto for the Romans. Those naughty, naughty generals, Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, naughty boys they were. For them it was all about wealth, power and glory.

Actually, it turns out that Nebuchadnezzar and Titus didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter. G-d was really, really disappointed with his children. He gave them so much, and they rebelled against him. They worshipped idols, they behaved badly towards one another, and they broke almost every rule in the book. Time and time again he was willing to give second chances, over and over and over. But finally, his children fell so, so low that he needed to send them out of the palace for a while so they would, hopefully, take stock of their deeds and would finally come to understand the purpose for which they were created.

So, G-d looked around at all the nations on Earth to find leaders with the biggest egos, guys like Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, and all he had to do was whisper a suggestion ever so gently into their ears. Although these guys thought they were really great stuff, they were nothing more than G-d’s agents, carrying out his will, and nothing more. Shortly thereafter, they and their empires crumbled and faded away. There is a lesson in that, and it should give us hope.

Berachot 3a: (written around 1800 years ago):

It was taught in a Baraisa: Rabbi Yosi said: I was once traveling on the road and I entered one of the ruins of Jerusalem to pray. Elijah (the prophet) who is remembered for good, came for me at the entrance (to the ruin) until I finished my prayer. After I finished my prayer, Elijah said to me: “Peace unto you my teacher”, and I responded to him: “Peace unto you, my teacher and master.” And he said to me: My son, for what reason did you enter this ruin (and place yourself in a state of danger)? I said to him: To pray. And he said to me: You should have prayed on the road (and not have entered the ruin). And I said to him: (I did not pray on the road for) I was afraid that passerby might interrupt me. And he said to me: (In that case) you should have prayed the short prayer. At that time I learned from Elijah (the following) three things: I learned that one should not enter a ruin, and I learned that one may pray on the road, and I learned that one who prays while on the road should pray the short prayer.

The Artscroll Gemara provides the following comment in the name of R’ Yaakov ibn Chaviv, the original compiler of the Ein Yaakov:

Rabbi Yosi entered the ruin to pray for the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash, and prayed so intensely that it caused Elijah the prophet to appear and ask him: My son, for what reason did you enter this ruin? What he was asking is: Why have you delved into this matter with such intensity? Are you perhaps questioning the justice of G-d’s ways? Rabbi Yosi answered: No, I entered only to pray for the quick restoration of the temple. Elijah answered him: You should have prayed on the road, meaning the time has not yet come for the restoration and the return of the exiles. You should therefore have devoted the main part of your prayer to the safe passage of Israel on the long and bitter road of its exile. Rabbi Yosi responded: I was afraid that passerby might interrupt me, meaning I was afraid that the nations of the world, who constantly persecute the people of G-d, would make it impossible for Israel to complete its journey through the exile as faithful servants to him. Elijah responded that even so: You should have prayed the short prayer, meaning our prayers on the matter should be full of intensity, yet short, for if we were to cry in full over all the tragedies of the exile, our lives would be completely consumed to this task and no time and energy would be left to build, support and make Israel flourish despite her many woes.

Returning to the Gemara:

And Elijah said to me: What sound did you hear (when you were) in this ruin? And I said to him: I heard a heavenly voice that was cooing like a dove and saying: Woe to the sons because of whose sins I destroyed my house and burned my temple and exiled them among the nations (of the world). And Elijah said to me: By your life and the life of your head! It is not only at this moment that (the heavenly voice) says this, but on each and every day it says this three times, and not only this, but at the time that (the people of) Israel enter the synagogues and houses of study and respond (in the Kaddish): “May His (G-d’s) great name be blessed", the Holy One, blessed is he, shakes his head and says: Fortunate is the king who is praised this way in his house. What is there for the father who has exiled his sons? And woe to the sons who have been exiled from their father’s table.

So tell me, do you know what exile is?