What we don’t know could fill volumes

[This week’s Haveil Havalim is here]

In preparing the Daf for last Friday, I saw an interesting discussion regarding the construction of the mizbeiach [altar] in the Beit haMikdash [Temple in Jerusalem].

Without going into great detail: We learn that the Temple Mount was constructed atop a set of hollow areas, for technical reasons. However, the altar would be disqualified if the space beneath it was hollow.

The Mishneh l’Melech (Hilchot Beit haBechirah 1:13) sought to prove that the altar stood on solid ground (based on an incident involving a skull unearthed from beneath it). As part of his discussion, he said that this altar was located beneath a roof.

I related this comment of the Mishneh l'Melech in my Daf shiur – and was challenged based on the fact that traditional pictures of the Beit haMikdash describe this altar as standing in the open air. Here's a sample photo of one model, from www.neveh.org:



And this from the Holy Land Hotel’s model:



And that’s what people assume. But the Rambam writes (Hilchot Beit haBechirah 5:1), as the Mishneh l'Melech understood, that the courtyard in which this altar stood was covered.

Then again, the Babylonian Talmud (such as Avos 5:7 and Yoma 21a) describes miracles regarding the smoke from the altar – that the winds never made the smoke sway, and that the rain never extinguished the fire on the altar. This leads the Rambam to write (commentary to that mishnah in Avos) that the altar stood in the open air. So which is it?

Rav Meshulam Roth (Kol Mevaser 2:39) compromises by saying that the entire yard was covered, other than the place of the altar, where the smoke rose.

But my point is not to resolve competing sources. My point is that there is so much we don’t know, so much information of which we are simply unaware.

For nearly two thousand years we’ve longed for the return of this Beit haMikdash; we have written and studied thousands of texts devoted to discussing its construction, describing its beauty, investigating its philosophical and mystical significance and so on; we’ve taught lectures and authored poetry and painted paintings and taught our children about it; we’ve fasted so many fasts, cried so many tears, sung so many songs about it-

-And we don’t even know whether the yard had a roof, or not.

It's like, רחמנא ליצלן, a child who has lost a parent, and after some years has difficulty remembering the parent's face.

What we have lost is staggering.

It happened this Monday... or not? (Derashah: Chukat 5770)

[I wrote the following article for this week's Toronto Torah, and I liked it enough to post it here. Although it's not written as a derashah, I have labelled it that way because it could certainly serve as a foundation for a derashah.]

Some twenty-five hundred years ago this Monday, on the ninth of Tammuz, the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Babylonians.

Or not.

Yirmiyahu placed the Babylonian invasion on the ninth of Tammuz, declaring (52:6-7), “In the fourth month, the ninth of the month, the famine strengthened in the city and there was no bread for the population. And the city was breached…” The sages (Taanit 28b) were perplexed, since we fast on the 17th of Tammuz, but Rava replied in the Talmud Bavli, “There is no problem; Yirmiyahu spoke regarding the first Beit haMikdash, whereas in the time of the second Beit haMikdash the city was breached on the 17th of Tammuz.” The Tur and Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 549) cited Rava’s view as law, explaining that we fast for the second breach of Jerusalem because the destruction of the second Beit haMikdash is more severe for us.

Notwithstanding Rava’s explanation, the Talmud Yerushalmi (Taanit 4:5) offers a different version of events. This version addresses the conflict between Yirmiyahu and the tradition of fasting on the 17th of Tammuz, as well as the conflict between an indication by Yechezkel (26:1-2) that the first Beit haMikdash was destroyed on the first of Av and our tradition of commemorating the destruction on the ninth of Av. Clarifying this pair of prophetic passages, Rabbi Tanchum bar Chanilai contends that the calendar had become corrupted.

In brief: Rabbi Tanchum bar Chanilai argues that the Beit haMikdash was destroyed on the ninth of Av, and Yechezkel listed it as the first of the month because of “calendar confusion.” He continues to state that the Jews of Bavel knew that twenty-one days had passed between the invasion of Jerusalem and the fall of the Beit haMikdash. Therefore, with the destruction of the Beit haMikdash set as the first of Av, they considered the invasion as having occurred 21 days earlier, on the ninth of Tammuz.

All of the above leads to a simple question: Granted that the beleaguered population might have been confused, why did Yirmiyahu and Yechezkel record inaccurate dates? Can it be that these texts, canonized as prophecy, are simply inaccurate?

Tosafot [Rosh haShanah 18b] averred that yes, the prophets were handcuffed by popular perception. Chatam Sofer, though, writing on the Yerushalmi, contended that the confusion was actually the product of a proactive decision by those prophets to date the churban as the first of Av.

As Chatam Sofer explained, the destruction of the Beit haMikdash fulfilled Eichah 4:22, “The punishment of your sin is concluded.” Once the building was demolished, we entered a new world of consolation and re-birth, and so Yirmiyahu and Yechezkel dated the destruction as the first day of a new month [thereby necessitating the re-dating of the 21-day invasion as the ninth of Tammuz instead of the 17th of Tammuz], and indeed a new era.

Chatam Sofer’s suggestion is stunning in its presumption. Judaism views the calendar as sacrosanct, the very purpose of the creation of the celestial spheres; “He created the moon for the sake of the appointed times,” King David sang, building on Bereishit 1:14. We set our halachic lives by our days and months. Our first national mitzvah was the system of calculating the lunar month. And yet, Yirmiyahu and Yechezkel felt comfortable re-setting the clock, in clear defiance of the physical moon and the halachically infallible justices of the beit din, for the sake of making a philosophical statement about the new era we had entered!

This bold explanation should highlight for us the importance of new beginnings, a point also underscored by the arrangement of our own Tishah b’Av –centered mourning. Whereas normal mourning following a personal loss consists of consecutive, easing levels of grief, our mourning for the Beit haMikdash consists of intensifying levels, building up to Tishah b'Av. Then, immediately after the 10th of Av’s special commemorations end, the mourning ceases entirely and we being building anew. As the Chatam Sofer put it, “A new month, Menachem, begins.” This is a day deserving of the title, “Day One.”

Should Mashiach fail to arrive, we will soon enter the initial stage of mourning, on the talmudically corrected date of the 17th of Tammuz. May the value of our mourning up through Tishah b'Av, and our efforts at consolation in the new era thereafter, merit the rebuilding of our Beit haMikdash.

[For more on the Yerushalmi, see Yalkut Shimoni Melachim 249 and the explanation of Maharal to Rosh haShanah 18b. See also Tosafot Rosh haShanah 18b on the apparent Bavli/Yerushalmi contradiction and the approach of Gevurot Ari to Taanit 28b. And see Maharsha to Taanit 28b for a unique explanation of the calendar confusion.]

Derashah: Tetzaveh: In the desert, a return to Eden

Derashah - Tetzaveh 5768

A few weeks ago I was watching my favorite news outlet, YouTube, and I saw Senator Obama's now-famous “Yes we can” speech. The Senator delivered an inspiring observation about America’s history, in the process reminding me very much of the history of the Jewish people, and of our parshah in particular. He said, “In the unlikely story that is America, there’s never been anything false about hope.”

I’m not really sure what is unlikely about America’s story, but I know what is unlikely about our Jewish national story - surviving, and not just surviving but thriving, maintaining a culture, and not only maintaining a culture but building a vital society with its own intellectuals and institutions and integration of ethnicities from all over the world, both in Israel and in global Jewry. And in that story, there has never been anything false about hatikvah, about hope.

Which brings me to the parshah of this week and last, and the most unlikely, the most unrealistic, the most arrogant hope in the history of a chutzpah-filled nation: To re-create Gan Eden.

ויטע ה' אלקים גן בעדן מקדם, וישם שם את האדם אשר יצר - HaShem planted a garden in Eden in the east, and He placed there the man He had created. Human beings were meant to live with HaShem there in the Garden, to live lives of spirituality and meaning and a synthesis of physical bodies and heavenly souls.

Human beings were given an עבודה there, a set of tasks. We were told לשמרה, to guard the Garden against corruption. And human beings, according to the midrash, brought korbanos to Gd there in the Garden.

But Adam and Chavah ate from the fruit of the עץ הדעת, the Tree of Knowledge, and then they cowered and listened as HaShem left the garden, and then they were forced to leave the Garden as well. The bond of human and Gd came to an abrupt halt.

Still, through the ensuing generations, that dream of Gan Eden never perished. Chanoch walked with Gd. Noach found favor in the eyes of Gd. Avraham arrived in Canaan and built a mizbeiach, Sarah offered up her position as matriarch, and their son Yitzchak offered himself as a korban. Rivkah, Rachel and Leah abandoned their families to come live in a tent dedicated to Gd. Yaakov slept in Beit El and dreamed of a place where angels would descend to this plane and ascend from this plane.

But they were not ready - for they were past the time when individuals could truly walk with Gd, and they were waiting for the time which HaShem had foretold in Parshat Lech Lecha, a time when the descendants of Avraham and Sarah would return to Eden as a nation, ושמרו דרך ה', when they would walk the path of HaShem and return to the Gan.

To return to the Gan means to live a life of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, of placing HaShem before our eyes, visible in our minds and evident in our actions.

To return to the Gan means to live a life of avodah and shemirah, focusing not on the purchase that will bring self-satisfaction and the overtime that will bring economic growth, but on the gift that will strengthen society and the Torah that will bring Jewish growth.

To return to the Gan means to live as though we were already there, with an intense religiosity that leaves little room for hesitation, that demands total fealty and bestows total blessing.

A most unlikely hope.

But, finally, after twenty-six generations from Adam and Chavah, we were blessed with the opportunity to return to the Gan. Again, we had a place with an avodah, a way to serve Gd. A place to protect from corruption, לשמרה, as we read this morning in the responsibility of the Kohanim to protect the mishkan. Again, we had a place with korbanos. The new Eden was the Mishkan.

Many of the Mishkan’s icons echo the themes of our original exile from the garden, highlighting the fact that we weren’t really yet back in Eden:
· When we left Eden, Gd gave us special garments - and now Gd gave the Kohanim special garments.
· When we left Eden, the Eitz haChaim and Eitz haDaas, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, were marked off-limits - and now, the Kodesh Kodashim, the Holy of Holies, containing the life and knowledge of the Luchos, was marked off-limits.
· And when we left Eden HaShem placed Kruvim at the entrance, to guard the path - and HaShem told Moshe to place Kruvim upon the Aron in the Kodesh Kodashim, the place from which HaShem’s voice emanated to communicate to the nation.
We were not entirely back in the garden, no - but we were on our way.

This was a most unlikely hope, a most daring mission, to recreate Eden among ourselves. Surely those Jews who heard Moshe’s instructions wondered: Is he serious? Can we really return? Can we again live together with HaShem?
To which HaShem replied forcefully, last week and again this week:
· ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם, Make a Mikdash for Me, and I will live among them.
· ושכנתי בתוך בני ישראל, I will dwell among the Jewish people.
· וידעו כי אני ה' אלקיכם, They will know that I am HaShem, your Gd.
Rav Soloveitchik taught that the Kruvim with their shining swords who stood at the entrance to Gan Eden were not there to keep people out; rather, they were there, as the Targum Yerushalmi says, לשמור את דרך עץ החיים, to guard the path to the Tree of Life, to keep that path open for our return. HaShem waits for our return - and in the mishkan, we returned.

Fast-forward a few millenia, and here we are, without Mishkan and without Beis haMikdash. And yet, the Torah’s answer is still, “Yes, we can.” Not in that national forum, not yet, but on a personal level, in our מקדש מעט, in our shuls and in our batei medrash and our homes.
We can still live that life with Gd which emphasizes spiritual in tandem with material, which is filled with עבודה and שמירה and offerings to Gd:
· By assuring our children a powerful Jewish education which will bring them to avodah and shemirah.
· By emphasizing our walk with Gd in our marriages and our family bonds, through the halachos of taharas hamishpachah/family purity and through the shared activity of Shabbos and Kashrus and Talmud Torah.
· By giving of ourselves, bringing our own version of korbanos, through chesed and tzedakah.

This is the dream with which we inaugurate every Jewish home, under the chuppah, when we recite berachot recalling Gan Eden and the joy of that experience. Every new Jewish home is a chance to return to Eden, to rebuild that Divine connection, to live with HaShem.
We remember the Jewish version of Senator Obama’s message: In the unlikely story that is Jewish history, there has never been anything false about hope - and particularly the hope of ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם, They will make for Me a mikdash, and I will live among them.

Derashah: Vayyetze 5768: The Selfless Mikdash

The Derashah:

The story of the site of the Beit haMikdash
Thousands of years ago, they say, two brothers lived on either side of a hill. One brother had a wife and many children, the other brother lived alone. Each brother brought home an excellent harvest. The brother with the large family said to himself, “My brother lives alone, he should at least have wealth,” and so he decided to secretly bring his brother grain, in the middle of the night. The brother who lived alone said to himself, “My brother has to support an entire family,” and decided to secretly bring him grain, in the middle of the night. The two were surprised to meet each other in the middle. They embraced, and Gd declared that on the spot of their selflessness, the Beis haMikdash would be built.
Of course, there’s also a second version of that story, in which the brother with the large family said to himself, “My brother has no one to support, he doesn’t need all that grain.” The brother who lived alone said to himself, “My brother has a huge family, his kids can work for him; I need the grain more.” And so each set out for the other side, to steal the other’s grain for himself. The two met in the middle and fought, and Gd declared that on that spot, the Kenesset would be built.

The flaws of the story
But all kidding aside, the story of the brothers is obviously not consistent with Torah.
The Torah tells us how the spot of the Beis haMikdash was selected - it was the spot at which Avraham offered his son, Yitzchak, as a gift to Gd! According to the midrash, this was also the spot at which Yaakov declared, in this morning’s parshah, that he would give Gd 1/10 of everything Gd would provide him! Apparently, this spot was selected for the relationship between Man and Gd, not for the relationship between people!
And, of course, from a historical perspective, the story seems to have started as an Arab legend about Al-Aqsa, not a Jewish story about the Beis haMikdash.

The point that resonates: Selflessness
We know this - and yet the story resonates with us. We like it, we tell it to our children. Not because we are suckers for a good story, but because the story captures the central element of both the Akeidah of Yitzchak, and Yaakov’s offer to Gd. The Akeidah, and Yaakov’s vow, sound like they are about Man and Gd, but they are really about selflessness.
Avraham is so driven to give that he will tear down his life’s work and offer it up on the altar.
Yitzchak is so driven to give that he will give up his life on that altar.
Yaakov is so driven to give that in a moment of bleak poverty and hopelessness he is willing to pledge away the wealth that will come to him in the future.
On that site of selflessness, we can have a Beis haMikdash - a place where we will selflessly bring our Korbanot, and a place where Gd will selflessly overlook our sins and forgive us.

A track record of selfishness
The problem, though, is that as much as the message of selflessness resonates with us, our historical reality has been one of selfishness.
Yosef’s brothers worried about what they would get for themselves, and so they sold Yosef into slavery.
The Jews in the desert worried about what they would get for themselves, and rebelled against Moshe.
וישמן ישורון ויבעט, even when we have been wealthy we have kicked at Gd and demanded whatever we could get.
The gemara (Bava Metzia 30b) says לא נחרבה ירושלים אלא...מפני שהעמידו דיניהם על דין תורה, ולא עבדו לפנים משורת הדין, Yerushalayim was destroyed as a punishment for the fact that people demanded their due under the law, and refused to forgive their rights.
When we want to know who lost Yerushalayim, when we look at the Annapolis negotiations and see a government prepared to split this city, we should realize that we lost Yerushalayim, whenever we were selfish.

What we can do - the Religious Zionist imperative
There is much we can do for the sake of Yerushalayim.
There are letters to write. Gd-willing I’ll be sending out an email this week listing addresses of powerful people who should hear from us that Yerushalayim should not be on the table.
We should discuss Yerushalayim, learn about Yerushalayim, and - most important - we should make sure that our children understand its importance, because even after this round is over, Yerushalayim will come up again. Four years ago Yossi Beilin tried to put Yerushalayim on the table with the Geneva Accords, and within four years from now someone else will try again, and we need to be ready, our children need to be ready.
But more than that, Religious Zionism teaches that we must eliminate the selfishness. If Religious Zionism simply means “I want Israel because I believe in the religious teachings about its past,” if Religious Zionism means I have a birthright in Israel because the Bible says so, then Religious Zionism is empty and should be discarded. Religious Zionism must also mean a commitment to the basic narrative of merit and sin, of believing that a birthright is only a start, and our righteousness is what earns us the city and the land. And so we must commit ourselves to following the model of Avraham and Yitzchak at the Akeidah, and Yaakov in this morning’s parshah, and giving of ourselves.
Opportunities abound. Whether it means:
coming into the house and first asking how your spouse is, making sure your spouse is all right before launching into your own tale of woe-
or it means joining in some community volunteering effort-
or it means giving of your time to your children-
or it means giving tzedakah-
we must commit to selflessness.
Five weeks ago, on Parshas Noach, I spoke about the need for צדקה ומשפט, righteousness and justice. Both of those begin with our commitment to overlook our own rights, and instead work on behalf of the rights of others.

Tefillas haDerech
At the start of our parshah, Yaakov was promised Divine protection; he saw angels descending a ladder, coming to watch over him during his trip to Charan.
In the middle of our parshah, those angels came to Yaakov and made sure he would not be cheated by his father-in-law, Lavan.
At the end of our parshah, as Yaakov returned to Israel, he again encountered angels; he watched the departure of those who had protected him outside Israel, and the arrival of his Israeli protectors.
We invoke those angels whenever we go on a trip; we say Tfilas haDerech, the Traveler’s Prayer, and we recite the psukim of Yaakov’s arrival at Machanaim and his encounter with those angels. We ask for that protection for ourselves.

Closer
Religious Zionism teaches us not only that the past of Yerushalayim is in our hands, but that the future of Yerushalayim is in our hands. We will write our letters. We will learn about Yerushalayim. We will speak to our children about Yerushalayim. And we will give of ourselves. Yaakov was willing to give of himself, and therefore he was protected. We are promised that if we are willing to give, we will receive the same.


Further thoughts:
1. Should we be bothered by the fact that the opening story is taught to our children in day school as though it were Torah miSinai?
2. At what point are we selflessly foregoing our rights, and at what point are we simply being patsies?
3. When we say Tefilas haDerech we talk about the angels from Yaakov's return to Israel, rather than his return to Israel?