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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:TAMMUZ 17:TALMUD YERUSHALMI:CAUSING OUR OWN SUFFERING(BER 5A)
Shalom:
On July 20, 2008 is the Holy Day known as the Fast of Tammuz 17. Tammuz is our 4th month, with Nissan being our first.
In reading this essay, please keep the following Talmud quote before you: "If a person sees that afflictions are befalling him, he should investigate his deeds to determine which of his sins he may have committed that would cause such suffering.'' ( Talmud Bavli Tractate Beracoth 5a). The same applies for a people.
According to the Mishna (Talmud Yerushalmi Tractate Taanit 4:5) five terrible things happened on this date:
1. the tablets of the law were broken.
2. The daily whole offering was canceled
3. The city wall was breached
4. Apostemos burned the Torah
5. And he set up an idol in the Temple.
The Talmud Yerushalmi discusses how Moses broke the tablets:
Rabbi Yishmael taught: The Holy One, blessed be He, told him to break them and afterward said, "You did the right thing in breaking them."
Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: The tablets were six handbreadths long and three broad. Moses was holding on to two handbreadths and the Holy One, blessed be He, was holding on to two of them
and there was a space of two handbreadths in the middle. When the Israelites did their deed (worshiped the golden calf), the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to grab them out of the hand of Moses. But Moses¹ hand was stronger and he seized them from him.
Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Yose bar Abayye: The tablets wanted to fly, but Moses was holding on to them.
It was taught in the name of Rabbi Nehemiah: The writing itself flew off the tablets. (Talmud Yerushalmi Tracate Taanit 4:5)
It is interesting to note that from a modern historical perspective that Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor, from which he planned to create a bomb to drop on Israel, was called "Tammuz 17." This was the reactor that the Israeli Air Force destroyed. I wonder if Iran's reactor is named "Tisha B'av?"
The Fast of Tammuz 17 is the beginning of the three weeks of mourning ending with Tisha B'Av. Tisha B'Av is the 9th of Av. It is August 10, 2008. Tisha B'Av is when both Temples were destroyed.
Tammuz 17 is when the walls of Jerusalem were forced open by the Romans. During this period traditional Jews do not shave or get their hair cut. No marriages are performed. No court cases are held. There is no rejoicing with music or dance. The wearing of new clothes or eating a new fruit, which would require a "shehechiyanu" blessing, can not be done.
This fast is not a 24-hour fast like Yom Kippur. It starts at sunrise and ends at sundown. This year it is from 4:28 AM to 9:01 PM.
We are taught traditionally that many tragedies befell the Jewish people on the 17th of Tammuz. Moses returned from Mt. Sinai and witnessed the Golden Calf and smashed the Tablets. During the fall of the first Temple there was starvation. The animal sacrifices stopped as there were no animals left. The Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem (the Babylonians
breached the walls on the 9th of Tammuz). The Talmud in Tractate Ta'anit recounts that just before the story of Hanukkah a Syrian governor, Apostemus, publicly burned a Torah as well as placed a idol in the Second Temple. Historians think it was really a Roman officer, but the rabbis censored themselves to avoid the wrath of the Romans and called him a
"Syrian." The Hebrew King Menashe placed an idol in the First Temple on this day.
Let us explore this Holy Day and the Talmud a bit.
Three of the 5 'terrible things' that happened on the 17 of Tammuz happened during the Roman siege.
Talmud Yerushalmi uses the name of a Syrian -Greek general, Apostemos. History teaches that this was a Roman general who burned a Torah and also placed an idol in the Temple. As mentioned above, the Rabbis were afraid of Roman sword and censorship and made the story take place during the Hanukah time, with the Syrian-Greeks.
''The city wall was breached'' by Romans.
"Apostemos burned the Torah" but it was a Roman general.
"The daily whole offering was canceled" because the Jews were starving. The Jews were under siege in Jerusalem. There were no animals left to eat and certainly none to sacrifice.
We are taught the Second Temple was destroyed because Jews had hatred to one another, sinat chinam .They treated each other horridly. They had cliques and excluded people and were exceeding jealous.
(Talmud Bavli Tractate Yoma 9b) .
The story is told of how one Jew got a party invitation. He showed up for the party. He was told the invitation was meant for another Jew with a similar name and was told to leave. He was publicly embarrassed. He begged to stay. He said he would pay for his meal and was still refused. He said he would pay for the entire party but he was still told to leave. He was very angry and humiliated. He went and told the Romans that the Jews were plotting against Rome.(Talmud Bavli Tractate Gittin 55b-56a). The Romans now had a reason to breach the walls.
Being kicked out of a party, or being denied a seat in a Torah class, or being marginalized in a synagogue, is very hurtful especially when done by fellow Jews who are all supposed to be responsible for one another. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Shavuot 39a). When we are hateful to each other, we are also hateful to God, who is Parent of us all.
"And he set up an idol in the Temple" but this was really done by Hebrew King Menashe in the First Temple. King Menashe was one of our three worst Hebrew kings. He was the son of King Chizkiahu. He killed his grandfather, the prophet Isaiah!! (Talmud Bavli Tractate Yevamot 49b). He extinguished Solomon's Ner Tamid, the always burning lamp, in the Temple. He became an avowed pagan. He brought a giant idol on Tammuz 17 into the Temple (2 Kings 21).
So 4 of 5 'terrible things' derive from Jews being hateful to other Jews, and by Jews also not loving God.
Now we come to the fifth terrible event: the ''tablets of the law were broken.''
We learn that whole of Torah from Rabbi Akiva is to love our fellows and to love God.
God, Moses, and the living Torah itself, saw from the way the Hebrews were behaving that they had no love for God. A few months before before, God did series of miracles with signs and wonders that they witnessed. They were the generation that saw it all. They were the generation that had it happen for them. God took the Hebrews out from slavery with His outstretched arm. Yet the Hebrews had no belief, faith, trust, experience, with God, and no hope.
God, Moses and the living Torah saw in the past the of the leaders of what was to become the tribes of Israel, casting Joseph into a well to kill him. They saw their compassion limited to compromising and selling Joseph into slavery. God, Moses and the living Torah, could see into the future,and understand that the Hebrews were not yet ready to love their fellows or God, on the 17th of Tammuz 3300 years ago.
So whether it God's, Moses's, or Torah's idea to deny the Hebrews the lessons of the Torah when the worshipped Golden Calf, the Hebrews were not ready to learn and need to do teshuvah.
A bit further in Talmud Yerushalmi. we find Menashe being so evil that when he is old and sick, he want to again pray and accept God...but just to get well. The angels close the windows to heaven so that God would not hear his prayers. God pleaded with the angels, but they would not listen to God! So God took a saw. God cut a hole under His Heavenly throne. Menashe's prayers could now enter Heaven.
Now this is a wonderful passage and has juxtaposition with the Talmudic quote we with which we started. God allows all of us to do Teshuvah, even King Menashe. The Talmud tells us that rabbi Ashei disrespected King Menashe when speaking about him to his students. In a dream, Menashe asks Ashei Talmudic questions which Ashei could not answer. Ashei angrily call Menashe an '' idol worshipper.'' Menashe said: "If you had been in our times, you would have lifted up your garments and run after me to serve the idols." (Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 102b).
Menashe, in this dream, was referring to a Talmudic point, (circa 700 years after his death!), that at the time of the Second Temple, the rabbis prayed to God to remove from the Jew's yetzer ha ra, (evil inclination) the urge to worship idols. So Ashei could not truly understand Menashe's worshipping idols. We truly do not understand the Hebrews worshipping the Golden Calf. (Sanhedrin 64b). This is why the Mishna tells us in Pirkei Avot (2:5) "Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place." We can never be in another's place.
As an aside, the rabbis also asked God to take away the urge from Jews to commit adultery. And God did. But then Jewish men also lost the urge to have sex with their wives and the children we not being born. So the sages pleaded with God to restore that urge.
Talmud tells us that all Jews have place in Olam Ha Ba.(Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 105a) If God is willing to let all of us into Heaven, how can we be cruel to each other here on earth, especially in building which we call House of God?
The Talmudic point is that we Jews make our own Tammuz 17s and make our own suffering. We frankly smash Torah's tablets. We treat the stranger among us without love. We treat our fellows among us without love. We treat fellow Jews without love. In business, we cheat. We treat animals that we say we are slaughtering via kosher means inhumanely. We worship more Golden Calves and idols than King Menashe could have ever imagined schlepping into the Temple. We deny God yet curse Him when things do not go our way.
Many of our Temples today are no better than Jewish eating clubs with the Rabbi playing the role of a Maitre d' and/or the tumler from the Borsht Belt. Our Oneg Shabbats are Loshan ha Ra festivals. Surveys show that many Temples are closed on the Sabbath Day. We have breached our own walls for Pagans to enter. Reform needs reforming.
When things are going bad in our lives, personally or as a people, the Talmud tells us not to look outside and have resentments, or snub someone, but to look inside, at ourselves and our own defects of character.
And thank God for we rabbis in Jewish Spiritual Renewal who are transdenominational and trying hard to bring back God into peoples lives and repair those broken Tablets.
Shalom and have and easy fast:
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
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