Parashat Va-etchanan Shabbat Nahamu July 28, 2007 / 13 Av 5767
This week's commentary was written by Rabbi Marc Wolf,
Senior Director, Community Development, JTS.
As a people we sat in mourning this week commemorating the destruction of the Temple on the Ninth Day of Av. But in a world where our spiritual life revolves not around the Temple in Jerusalem, but our synagogue down the street, experiencing a meaningful fast is difficult if not impossible. This is so much the case that even rabbis question their connection to the tragedy. Rabbinic legal authorities have grappled over the relevance of the ninth of Av and have discussed whether we should even continue to fast. With the existence of the Jewish State and the unification of Jerusalem as her capital, what relevance does this day hold?
Over the many generations between the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and today, we have engaged in a continuous search for a thread of relevance that would connect us to this moment in history almost 2,000 years ago. There seems to be no end to the litany of rationales Judaism gives for maintaining our observance. Even in the times of the Mishnah, codified just over 100 years after the destruction of the Temple we read:
Five misfortunes befell our ancestors . . . on the ninth of Av . . . On the ninth of Av it was decreed that our ancestors should not enter the promised land, the Temple was destroyed the first and second time, Bethar was captured and Jerusalem was ploughed up (M Ta'anit 4:6).
The Mishnah offers a laundry list of tragedies that happened on the ninth of Av including the destruction of both the first and second Temples. However, bookending the destruction of the Temples with the fateful date twelve spies returned from scouting the Promised Land, the end of the Bar Kokha revolt, and the final decimation of Jerusalem in 71 CE is somewhat intriguing.
We see with the Mishnah—so close to the momentous loss—that the destruction of the Temple was not a trump card; even then it was not compelling enough to categorically declare the ninth of Av a day of mourning and fasting, so the rabbis expanded the relevance of the date on our calendar.
Throughout history, this list has expanded to include the expulsion of Jews from England (1290) and Spain (1492); the beginning of the extermination of Jews in Treblinka and the Warsaw Ghetto (1942); the bombing of the Asociación Mutua Israelita in Argentina (1994); and just last year the war between Israel and Lebanon eerily coincided with this period of mourning.
For the skeptics out there who doubt the possibility of all these calamities occurring on one specific date, I offer as evidence the journey of a book.
Of the volumes of priceless works in the rare book collection of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, what I can safely share is a personal favorite, is a manuscript Bible written in Spain at the tail end of the fifteenth century. This beautifully crafted work contains not only the Hebrew text in Abraham Kalif, the famous scribe’s able hand, but the Masoretic notes for vocalization and pronunciation. Generally the scribe had the privilege and duty of crafting the colophon on the last page of the work, recognizing his patron and sharing a few key comments on the work itself. However, with this particular Bible, it is not the voice of the scribe that issues forth from the pages, but the sage who added the Masoretic notes, Hayyim ibn Hayyim. In this departure from the norm, Hayyim ibn Hayyim is writing for Kalif’s voice; writing not in Spain, but in Constantinople. The date is 1492.
What makes this work incredible is that Hayyim ibn Hayyim personally witnessed the Alhambra decree of Ferdinand II and Isabelle of Castile that expelled all the Jews from Spain. While the edict was signed at the end of March, it insisted that the Jews leave Spain by the end of July. Hayyim ibn Hayyim concurs not only with the fateful year, but the actual date he packed this Bible on his back and left Spain was recorded as the seventh of Av. While many Jews did not make it out of Spain, this Bible did. Hayyim ibn Hayyim carried with him much more than the precious work of Abraham Kalif; he carried with him a witness to history. As history continued to unfold, we follow the Bible as each owner jots his name around the colophon of Hayyim ibn Hayyim.
This is the force of the litany of “misfortunes” the rabbis began in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple. When the Mishnah was codified in the year 200, the wounds were still fresh and the pain still present—but the sages began to teach the lesson that would continue through to our generation. Their lesson through the pages of the Mishah was that the sorrow may fade, but relevance must never cease. We must continue to commemorate. The genuine tragedy of the ninth of Av is that we need not look to the Temple for our sorrow. Unfortunately, in every generation, destruction returns. Relevance is renewed.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Marc Wolf
Senior Director, Community Development, JTS.
As a people we sat in mourning this week commemorating the destruction of the Temple on the Ninth Day of Av. But in a world where our spiritual life revolves not around the Temple in Jerusalem, but our synagogue down the street, experiencing a meaningful fast is difficult if not impossible. This is so much the case that even rabbis question their connection to the tragedy. Rabbinic legal authorities have grappled over the relevance of the ninth of Av and have discussed whether we should even continue to fast. With the existence of the Jewish State and the unification of Jerusalem as her capital, what relevance does this day hold?
Over the many generations between the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and today, we have engaged in a continuous search for a thread of relevance that would connect us to this moment in history almost 2,000 years ago. There seems to be no end to the litany of rationales Judaism gives for maintaining our observance. Even in the times of the Mishnah, codified just over 100 years after the destruction of the Temple we read:
Five misfortunes befell our ancestors . . . on the ninth of Av . . . On the ninth of Av it was decreed that our ancestors should not enter the promised land, the Temple was destroyed the first and second time, Bethar was captured and Jerusalem was ploughed up (M Ta'anit 4:6).
The Mishnah offers a laundry list of tragedies that happened on the ninth of Av including the destruction of both the first and second Temples. However, bookending the destruction of the Temples with the fateful date twelve spies returned from scouting the Promised Land, the end of the Bar Kokha revolt, and the final decimation of Jerusalem in 71 CE is somewhat intriguing.
We see with the Mishnah—so close to the momentous loss—that the destruction of the Temple was not a trump card; even then it was not compelling enough to categorically declare the ninth of Av a day of mourning and fasting, so the rabbis expanded the relevance of the date on our calendar.
Throughout history, this list has expanded to include the expulsion of Jews from England (1290) and Spain (1492); the beginning of the extermination of Jews in Treblinka and the Warsaw Ghetto (1942); the bombing of the Asociación Mutua Israelita in Argentina (1994); and just last year the war between Israel and Lebanon eerily coincided with this period of mourning.
For the skeptics out there who doubt the possibility of all these calamities occurring on one specific date, I offer as evidence the journey of a book.
Of the volumes of priceless works in the rare book collection of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, what I can safely share is a personal favorite, is a manuscript Bible written in Spain at the tail end of the fifteenth century. This beautifully crafted work contains not only the Hebrew text in Abraham Kalif, the famous scribe’s able hand, but the Masoretic notes for vocalization and pronunciation. Generally the scribe had the privilege and duty of crafting the colophon on the last page of the work, recognizing his patron and sharing a few key comments on the work itself. However, with this particular Bible, it is not the voice of the scribe that issues forth from the pages, but the sage who added the Masoretic notes, Hayyim ibn Hayyim. In this departure from the norm, Hayyim ibn Hayyim is writing for Kalif’s voice; writing not in Spain, but in Constantinople. The date is 1492.
What makes this work incredible is that Hayyim ibn Hayyim personally witnessed the Alhambra decree of Ferdinand II and Isabelle of Castile that expelled all the Jews from Spain. While the edict was signed at the end of March, it insisted that the Jews leave Spain by the end of July. Hayyim ibn Hayyim concurs not only with the fateful year, but the actual date he packed this Bible on his back and left Spain was recorded as the seventh of Av. While many Jews did not make it out of Spain, this Bible did. Hayyim ibn Hayyim carried with him much more than the precious work of Abraham Kalif; he carried with him a witness to history. As history continued to unfold, we follow the Bible as each owner jots his name around the colophon of Hayyim ibn Hayyim.
This is the force of the litany of “misfortunes” the rabbis began in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple. When the Mishnah was codified in the year 200, the wounds were still fresh and the pain still present—but the sages began to teach the lesson that would continue through to our generation. Their lesson through the pages of the Mishah was that the sorrow may fade, but relevance must never cease. We must continue to commemorate. The genuine tragedy of the ninth of Av is that we need not look to the Temple for our sorrow. Unfortunately, in every generation, destruction returns. Relevance is renewed.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Marc Wolf
Labels: fast of Av, jts weekly torah commentary, Parashat Va-etchanan, Rabbi Marc Wolf, Shabbat Nahamu
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