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Tashlich: Casting away your Defects - Finding These Defects Abhorrent To You And Asking God To Take Them From You
We have come to a pivotal point in your Jewish Spiritual Renewal. You now understand that living a life without God is a selfish life, putting you at odds with others and with God's universe. You have, through the process of completing your Chesbon Ha Nefesh, an inventory of your soul, taken a hard look at your character defects including your resentments and grudges. You have learned to do vidui, confessing your sins to God and to a fellow human being.
Now it is time to ask God to help you remove these defects. We use the word remove as opposed to the word destroy because temptation will always be around you. The Talmud tells us that as we grow closer to God, our yetzer ha ra, evil inclination, grows even stronger, that it actually chases us. God never chases us. He doesn't nag us to do good. He sent us prophets millennia ago to do this, but He doesn't, unless we ask Him for His Guidance. Our Yetzer ha ra, though, is always speaking loudly to us and we need God, through prayer and meditation, to keep us on track. We will discuss this in subsequent chapters.
In the Talmud Bavli Tractate Sukkah 52b, Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says, "The evil inclination (Yetzer Ha Ra) overpowers a person every single day, trying to kill him. Were it not for God coming to his aid, no person would be able to win against his evil inclination." The yetzer ha ra is "the collective name for the drives and attitudes which interfere with (hinder) man's search for spirituality and closeness to God." (Rabbi Aharon Feldman, The Juggler and the King, p. 21).
So how do you remove your character defects? In Judaism, the word for sin is the Hebrew "chet." It is actually an archery term meaning to miss the mark. In life nobody is a perfect marksman who hits the bulls eye every time. We will often miss the mark and produce chet. Our goal is to grow spiritually so that we miss the mark less and less, and our chets become smaller and smaller.
Here is one way, though not recommended, to reduce sinning:
Rabbi Bloom caught two of his rabbinical students gambling and drinking on Sabbath. The next day, Rabbi Bloom called them into his office and asked them what was going on. They immediately confessed to having given in to weakness and agreed that they deserved some form of punishment for their sin.
Rabbi Bloom thought a lot about this and then came up with the answer. He bought two bags of dried peas from the delicatessen and told them, "Put these in your shoes and walk on them for a week to remind yourselves how hard life can be when you turn away from God."
A few days later, the two students met each other in the street. One had a pronounced limp and had dark circles under his eyes. He looked very tired and weary. On the other hand, the other was the same as he had been before.
"Hey," said the first. "How is it that you are walking so easily? Why didn't you do as the Rabbi asked and put the peas in your shoes?"
"I did," said the other. "But I boiled them first."
The first step in the process of Tashlich, asking God to help cast away and remove your defects, is to find your defects abhorrent and objectionable. It is not enough for your spouse or your friends to tell you that you are defective, or to read in the Torah or Talmud that you are breaking some rule, you have to recognize that what you are doing is bad for your own sake.
You must truly want to change. You have to believe yourself when you say that you no longer want to be resentful, and you have to recognize that you have also done wrong by the people you resent. You may resent somebody due to jealousy, for example, but you must realize that the jealousy began with you. You need to truly understand that living your life based on self and ego, full of selfishness, self-seeking, self-centeredness, dishonesty to others and to yourself, with fears that lead you to jealousy, coveting, gossip, theft and withholding kindness and love, is not the way you want to live and it is not the way God wants you to live.
Without this vital step, you will follow in the footsteps of generations of Jews who have done Tashlich at the river's edge, only to carry the same grudges and character defects back up the riverbank. If you have taken a good, hard, honest look at your chesbon ha nefesh, made vidui, and do not like what you see, you are ready for the actual tashlich. This can be done anytime, not just at Rosh ha Shana.
Let's get started. You will need crackers or matzah and a Sharpie marker. You will also need to go to a body of water that has fish living in it. This will be explained shortly. Starting to sound like fun, isn't it?
First, write each defect that you have recorded in your Chesbon, dishonesty, resentfulness, gossiping, etc., on a piece of the matzah. Rabbi Moses Isserles, co-author of the Shulchan Aruch ("Code of Jewish law"), explains, "The deeps of the sea saw the genesis of Creation; therefore to throw bread into the sea is an appropriate tribute to the Creator" to rid ourselves of sin (Torat ha-'Olah 3:56).
The Tashlich Crumb List:[1]
For ordinary sins, use - White Bread
For exotic sins - French Bread
For particularly dark sins - Pumpernickel
For complex sins - Multi-grain
For twisted sins – Pretzels
The word "Tashlich" means "You will cast away." In this context, it refers to a custom dating from at least as early as the fourteenth century, but probably much earlier, based on the last verses of the Book of Micah 7:18-20:
"Who is a God like You? You forgive sins and overlook transgressions.
For the survivors of Your People; He does not retain His anger forever, for He loves Kindness; He will return and show us mercy, and overcome our sins.
And You will cast into the depths of the sea all their sins; You will show kindness to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, As You did promise to our fathers of old."
Consequently, Jews have for many generations gone to bodies of water and recited Tashlich Prayers, which consist of Psalm 130 and the verses of Micah, to symbolize our wish to get rid of our sins and to be forgiven by God.
Tashlich is preferably recited alongside a body of water containing fish, to remind us that just as the water in which they live protects the fish, we pray to God for his protection. Also, just as fish swim freely through the water, but can suddenly be caught in a net, we "swim" freely through life, but can become entangled in a net of sin, "as the fishes that are taken in an evil net" (Ecclesiastes 9:12). And as the fishes' eyes are always open, we pray that God will help us keep a vigilant watch over ourselves.
For sins of indecision - Waffles
For sins committed in haste - Matzah
For sins committed in less than eighteen minutes - Shmurah Matzah
For sins of chutzpah - Fresh Bread
For substance abuse/marijuana - Stoned Wheat
For substance abuse/heavy drugs - Poppy Seed
The Talmud tells us that God has forgiven us for our sins when He places us in a position to commit the same sin and we resist the temptation. The purpose of the tashlich ceremony is to facilitate our desire for renewal, our desire to change, to return to God and to do the teshuvah, the amends, to people we have hurt with our defects.
For arson - Toast
For timidity - Milk Toast
For high-handedness - Napoleons
For being sulky - Sourdough
For silliness - Nut Bread
For not giving full value - Short bread
For jingoism - Yankee Doodles
For telling bad jokes - Corn Bread
Rabbi David Orlofsky posits that when a boy becomes thirteen and a girl twelve, they become bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, respectively. Literally that means becoming a "son or a daughter of the commandments." But when a person commits a transgression, they become a ba'al chet, literally an "owner of sin." You are viewed as a child of a mitzvah, but a possessor of transgression.
The difference is profound. When a child does something wrong, or when a child does something bad, or for that matter when a child does something that is the epitome of evil, there are two things you can say. You can tell him "You're a bad boy," or you can say "You are a good boy who did something bad." What's the difference?
Well, if you tell him he's bad, then the next time he does something bad, it becomes impossible to rebuke him. What are you going to say to him? "Why did you do that bad thing?" He has a perfect defense: "I'm bad. I did it because I'm bad." The implication is that bad people can't be held responsible for their actions, can they? They're just bad. On the other hand, if you told the child that he is good, but did a bad thing, it's a whole different ball game. You're telling him that he is essentially a good person, but he has an external problem that must be dealt with. He can change if he wants to.
For being money-hungry - Enriched Bread or Raw Dough
For telling small lies - Fudge
For war-mongering - Kaiser Rolls
For promiscuity - Hot Buns
For racism - Crackers
For sophisticated racism - Ritz Crackers
For being holier-than-thou - Bagels
For unfairly up-braiding others - Challah
For provocative dressing - Wonton Wrappers
For snobbery - Upper Crusts
It is common for a person undertaking Jewish Spiritual Renewal to experience a strong sense of despair. The odds are that you are not going to change into the perfect person over the next ten days. Some will even express it in Miltonian terms: "I'm going to burn anyway, I might as well have a good time before I go." As long as you believe that you are inherently bad, you will have no hope that you can change. But if you are able to recognize your sins as something external, something that is not part of you, but rather a terrible burden that you carry through life, you will believe that you can rid yourself of them. You will believe that you can undo the wrong that you've done, that you can break unhealthy habits and focus on how to become the good person that you really are.
This is the understanding of tashlich and Judaism's forgiving God. You must understand that your sins are not you. They are a burden and you are tired of them. Just as you can cast off your sins symbolically, you can cast them off in reality…if you want to.
For indecent photography - Cheese Cake
For trashing the environment - Dumplings
For the sin of laziness - Any Very Long Loaf
For being hypercritical - Pan Cakes
For political skullduggery -
For over-eating - Stuffing Bread or Bulkie Rolls
For gambling - Fortune Cookies
For pride - Puff Pastry
For cheating - Bread made with Nutrasweet and Olestra
For being snappish - Ginger Bread
We cast the bread, matzah or crackers with our sins and defects on them into the waters for the fish. Water is always moving. The water that is here now, is not the same water that is here in a few seconds. This is a symbolic way of declaring that your life is no longer in the place it occupied before you did tashlich, before you asked God to take your defects and sins from you. You are saying to God: "With your aid, I will not repeat my sins and will work toward ridding myself of defects of character. My behavior will change. My sins, like this water, will move on."
While you are by the river is your time to talk to God. Spirituality is all about developing a personal experience and relationship with God, so now is as good a time as any. Tell Him the truth. Say, "God, You know me better than I know myself. I mean, after all, You created me. And You know that I fail more often than I succeed. But I can tell You this much, God. I'm a better person this year than I was last year. And if You give me the chance, I'll be a better person next year than I was this year." I have found this prayer invaluable and so has Rabbi Orlofsky. Ask God to please remove every defect and sin that keeps you from being the best person you can be, from doing His will, from being just, loving, kind and humble.
For dropping in without calling beforehand - Popovers
For trying to improve everyone within sight -Angel Food Cake
For being up-tight and irritable - High Fiber or Bran Muffins
For sycophancy - Brownies
For rearing children incompetently - Raisin Bread
For immodest behavior - Tarts
For causing injury or damage to others - Tortes
For hardening our hearts - Jelly doughnuts
For abrasiveness - Grits
Read Psalm 130, with meaning (kavenah):
Psalm 130, A Song of Ascents
1. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;
2. O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
3. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
4. But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.
5. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6. My soul waits for the Lord,
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem
Turn us back to you, O God, and we shall return: Ha-shiveynu Adonai aylecha v'na-shuva, chadeysh yameynu k'kedem.
Adonai Adonai, Compassion and Tenderness, Patience and Forbearance, Kindness and Awareness, Bearing love from age to age, Lifting guilt and mistakes and making us Free. Adonai Adonai, Eyl rahum v'hanun, ereh apa-yim, v'rav chesed ve-emt. No-tzeyr chesed la-alafim, nosey avon va-fe-sha v'hata-a v'nakey.
Meditate for a few minutes as you watch your bread with its sins sail far from your view. Promise yourself to be mindful not to repeat those sins. Your Tashlich step has been performed well. For a while, you will not be whole or integrated. Like I wrote in the preceding class there will be two dogs inside of you. Feed the good one and starve the bad one.
I do not want you walking around on eggshells worrying about when you will make an error. Nor do I want you beating yourselves up for past errors. To do so is a sin. You will never reach a level where the yetzer ha ra disappears. The story is told of the students of a pious rabbi who were discussing that their ''yetzer ha ra would pursue them.'' This is a quote from the Talmud. The rabbi laughed and said, "Don't worry. You aren't on such a high level. You're still pursuing it!"
We will teach you how to obtain God's omnipotent help in this task of conquering your yetzer ha ra one situation at a time.
For recurring slip ups - Banana Bread
For davening off tune - Flat Bread
For impetuosity - Quick Bread
For silliness - Nut Bread
For risking one's life unnecessarily - Hero Bread
For auto theft - Caraway
For excessive use of irony - Rye Bread
Our next chapter will be about making amends, teshuvah, to those we have harmed with our defects of character and sins.
[1] Rabbi Richard Israel was the author of the "Tashlich Crumb List," which has been circulating around synagogues since 1999, without giving him credit. Tragically, Rabbi
Below is a d'var Torah on the first parashat of the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Five Books of Moses. See what spiritual lessons you can learn to make your lives better.
Many Blessings,
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Hebrew College
Newton Centre
MA, USA
Hilton Head Island, SC
Bluffton, SC
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: CHUMASH CANDESCENCE: PARASHA DEVARIM :DEUTERONOMY 1:01-3:22
PARASHA DEVARIM
DEUTERONOMY 1:01-3:22
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
"Jive Talkin' "
SYNOPTIC ABSTRACT:
Who wrote the Book of Deuteronomy? What can we learn from its
inconsistencies with the first Four of the Five books of Moses? Was King
Og really a giant who survived the great Flood? Did the Second Temple
really get destroyed over a party invitation? Were Moses and the
Israelite soldiers really allowed to eat pork? Are we causing blindness
if we do not share Jerusalem? To learn these answers, and even more, we
invite you to read further.
As we move into the final months of our summer we begin the last of the
five books of Moses. The Hebrew title "Devarim" means "words." An older
Hebrew name for this book was "Mishna Torah" which means "the repetition
of the Torah." The English language title of this book is Deuteronomy
which is derived from Greek and Latin and means "second law."
As the Jews are camped on the east bank of the Jordan River ready to
cross over into the promised land under Joshua's command, Moses begins
his final discourses. In this parasha, Moses reviews the journey from
Sinai to Kadesh and gives a veiled rebuke with an "exhortation to
obedience" to God's laws, as Rabbi J. Hertz writes. The laws of the court
system of judges are reviewed. Moses retells of the spies' mission but
blames Israel for sending them. In the original story Moses makes the
decision to send the spies. The encounters with the
tribes of Esau, Seir, Moab and Og are reviewed. The inheritance of the
tribes of Reuben, Gad and half of Manesseh, who will live in what is now
known as Jordan, are recounted.
Any honest reading of this last book will lead to difficulties, as there
are so many inconsistencies with wordings and historic details as told in
the first four books of Moses. Not only are laws reviewed with new
wordings but more than 70 new laws are introduced. Modern critical
biblical theorists conclude that this text was written at a different
time, perhaps even in Ezra's era, after the return from exile in Babylon.
Traditionally these problems are handled differently.
Traditionally these inconsistencies are answered by saying that Moses
held back laws dealing with farming until we were ready to conquer the
land of Israel. Even the Talmudic sage Abaye , when trying to explain
God's different rebukes in Leviticus chapter 26 and Deuteronomy chapter
28, says that Leviticus' rebuke is God's words and that Deuteronomy's
rebuke is Moses's words (Tractate Megillah 31B). The Vilna Gaon (genius Rabbi Eliyahu Zalman of the
eighteenth century) says that the first four books were heard directly
from God on Sinai by Moses and that Moses quoted God's words to Israel.
This fifth book was heard by Moses on Sinai and told to Israel 40 years
later in Moses's own words. This is why, according to the Vilna Gaon,
there is inconsistency. Onkelos in his 90 C.E. Aramaic translation of the
Torah (the Targum) calls this book a "copy" of the Torah, but not an
exact copy. He explains that where in the first four books we read the
phrase repeated so many times "God spoke to Moses saying...," we read in
this fifth book the phrase "God spoke to me saying...." The Talmudic
rabbis go further. They say that these 70 new laws were really part of
the Oral Law and that Moses decided to select these 70 and write them
down as it was a good time to do this. This is how the rabbis allowed
themselves permission 1,700 years later to redact and write the rest of
the Oral Law in what is called the Mishna and its Gemorra (discussions).
Those two combined eventually formed the Talmud. The rabbis never write
that if in just 39 years laws could get reworded by even Moshe Rabbanu
(Moses our Teacher) perhaps the Oral Law--which they claim is also the
word of God--may also be reworded 1,700 years later as well.
The sages teach that the Book of Deuteronomy was taught by Moses during
the last five weeks of his life. They say he died on Adar 7 (Tractate
Kiddushin 38A). Moses started teaching this book, the rabbis say, on the
first of Shevat. This leads to a voracious debate about who wrote the
last eight verses of Deuteronomy. They agree that Joshua did but that
Moses, who could foresee the future, told him what to write.
In verses 1-5 Moses mentions places but not the events that took place
there. The sages teach that Moses, not wanting
to embarrass the Israelites, did not mention their sins directly but only
the locations of the sins. This is why these first five verses are
labeled the "veiled rebuke." Yet the Talmudic rabbi Yochanan says he
"has reviewed all of the scriptures but has not found any place named
Tophel or Laban" (Deut 1:01). His colleagues answer that Tophel can be
rendered "tephel" (complaint) and that Laban means "white." Therefore,
Moses was secretly rebuking the Israelites for complaining about the
manna. Yet another rabbis posits that Tofel refers to the sin of the
golden calf (ha Egel). The rabbis cannot decide where Arabah is. They
decide it means the plain where the Midianite women seduced the Israelite
men. And the unknown place of Di-zahab refers to the gold (Hebrew zehav)
that God let the Jews take with them from Egypt. The rabbis agree that
Paran is mentioned to remind us of the sin of the spies as they began
their journey from Paran.
The rabbis learn from this rebuke that "any leader who does not chastise
his community is held responsible for their sins" (Tractate Shabbat 54B).
They go on to say that properly criticizing a person is a lost art and
that "in the days preceding the arrival of Moshiach...there will not be
any criticism" (Tractate Sotah 49B). Rashi says that this means that no
one could criticize another now, as we all sin to one degree or another,
so no one has the right to point fingers. On the other hand, we are to
"love criticism, for as long as there is criticism in the world,
pleasantness comes to the world, good and blessing come to the world, and
evil is removed from the world" (Tractate Tamid 28A).
In Deut. 01:6-8 we are told of Israel's boundaries, which are in
conflict with the boundaries given only days before in the last parasha
of Numbers. Our land now extends to the Euphrates River in modern Turkey
or Iraq. Rashi tries to explain that this means that Israel will have
this land when the Messiah comes. No one dared to ask Rashi why we would
need any land borders during the messianic age if we were all to be at
peace. Perhaps some lions will miss the message and want to eat lambs
instead of sleeping with them.
In Deut. 01:9-18 the laws of judges are reviewed. I invite you to turn to
Exodus 18:13-26 and compare the two sections. When the Torah repeats
these laws it adds and subtracts details. Jethro is not mentioned. Jethro
was a Midianite. Forty years before, the Midianites were our allies. Even
Moses's wife was a Midianite . Now they are painted as idol worshippers
and seductresses. In Exodus Jethro gives Moses the idea for the use of
judges. The parasha in Exodus is named for him. In Deuteronomy it is God
who gives this law. Did Moses forget about his father-in-law Jethro? Or
was Deuteronomy composed 800 years later?
When you study Devarim this summer please keep a lookout for
inconsistencies. Note how the story of the spies in Deut. 01:19-46 is
retold with subtle twists. Moses blamed the Israelites for sending the
spies when it is clear in Numbers that God left the choice to Moses. And
what is even more amazing is that Moses in 01:37 blames Israel for his
own punishment of not being allowed to go in to the Promised Land.
But we were just told that Mt. Nebo is within the borders of the Promised
land and that Gad and Reuben are living there.
Note also that in verse 01:44, the story of the battle with the Amorites
is retold. This battle took place after the Jews' moxie returned after
they first lost faith while listening to the spies . The text says that
the Amorites pursued the Israelites "as the bees would do." What is the
Hebrew word for these flying stinging insects? "Devarim!" Is the author
trying to say (as we learned about the "grasshopper eyes" [Num. 13:33])
that our own words defeated us?
The defeated King Og, given only a few words in Numbers, is now described
at a giant with an "iron bed" nine cubits in length and four cubits in
width measured by "the cubit of that man" (Deut. 3:11). Targum Yonatan
(another Aramaic translation of the Torah by a student of Rabbi Hillel)
writes that Og was one of the race of giants that survived the flood. The
Rashbam (Rabbi Shlomo ben Meir, Rashi's grandson, of twelfth-century
France) says that when Og was a baby he was so big he broke his wooden
cradle. Does Deuteronomy differ with the Noah story as well?
The rabbis had a tough time with reconciling the different wording of
the histories in Deuteronomy and the rest of the Chumash (Five Books of
Moses). The battles and the spoils of war are described differently. In
Talmud Tractate Chulin 17A, when comparing Numbers 31:3-14 and 31:31-41
to Deuteronomy 3:01-11, the rabbis go so far as to say that God gave
permission during the war with King Sichon and his Amorites for the Jews to eat "katlei de
chaziri--dried pork rinds."
They are forced to this conclusion because in
Deut. 6:10-11 God says that the Jews can use the houses that they did
not build and the food and supplies found within them when they conquer
the land. Since King Og's and King Sichon's land is listed as part of the
inheritance of the Jewish people, everything we took from them, including
their nonkosher foods and utensils was able to be eaten or used "as is."
It was only after these wars that Elazar gave the rules about koshering
pots and pans.
For millennia no rabbi was able to state publicly a critical theory of
this book's authorship. Tractate Sanhedrin 90A warns that "one who
says Torah is not from heaven is a heretic and will have no share in the
world to come." The fact that this was written shows that some
rabbis must have thought about what we have the luxury today to call "the
critical theory of biblical authorship." The Ramban (the thirteen-century
Spanish Nachmanides) was forced to conclude that non kosher food captured
while conquering Israel was permissible based on his reading of
Deuteronomy. The Rambam (the twelfth-century Spanish and Egyptian
Maimonides) says that non kosher food is only allowed if the Israelites
are hungry. Conquering a land can certainly build-up one's appetite for
pork rinds.
The authors of Deuteronomy--and perhaps the books of Joshua, Judges,
Samuel, and Kings as well--emphasized centralization of worship and
governance. In 622 BCE the High Priest Hilkian found the book of
Deuteronomy while the Temple was undergoing restoration. This prompted
King Josiah to undertake a major religious reformation. He purged Israel
of paganism and centralized all sacrifices in Jerusalem. He also
re-instituted Passover, which had been neglected since the days of the
Judges (2 Kings 22:23).
Rabbi Jeffrey Tigay writes that some scholars thought that Deuteronomy
was written during King Josiah's reign. He suggests that it was written
in King Hezekiah's term a century or two before. Hezekiah also was
antipagan. There is a vigorous monotheistic antipagan theme in
Deuteronomy. However, much of this book dates back to the ancient times
of farmers and herders. There are no city-type laws for merchants,
artisans, commerce or even real estate. Tigay believes that some sections
of this book go back to the united monarchy in David's time of 1000
B.C.E.
Because Deuteronomy places emphasis on rituals taking place on Mt.
Gezirim and Ebal, near Shechem, Rabbi Tigay believes that it was written
in the north, and not written in Jerusalem. He believes that refugees
from the northern kingdom of
Israel fleeing to the south during the Assyrian invasion brought this
book with them. The fall of the northern kingdom lead to some serious
soul-searching in Jerusalem and Tigay believes that King Hegelian used
the text with its rebukes of paganism in order to reform and centralize
worship in his southern kingdom of Judah.
Regardless of its authorship, we can agree that this book of Deuteronomy
was inspired divinely and we can learn much from it. This parasha is
always read in coordination with the fast day of Tisha B'Av. This is the
ninth day of Av. The fast is in
commemoration of the destruction of both Temples. It is recorded that
other sad events also took place on this same date in history, such as
the date the Jews were ordered to leave Spain during the 1492 Inquisition.
(Columbus in his diary complains of the unusual amount of traffic in the
harbor on the day of his departure due to the expulsion.)
The Talmud teaches that the Second Temple was destroyed because Jews
hated each other over petty things. The rabbis tie this teaching into
this week's Torah portion with the veiled, non-embarrassing way that Moses
rebuked B'nai Israel.
They tell the story in Tractate Gittin 57A of Bar
Kamtza. Just before the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem a certain man
made a large wedding feast. He hated Bar Kamtza because of some petty
matter. Somehow the "postal service" got the mail mixed up and Bar Kamtza
got an invitation. He thought it was a peace offering of friendship and
attended. The host, however, had no wishes to restore their friendship
and tried to eject Bar Kamtza from the party. Bar Kamtza offered to pay
for his meal to avoid the embarrassment of ejection. The host refused.
Bar Kamtza offered to pay for half of the cost of the party. The host
also refused. Bar Kamtza offered to pay the entire feast's expenses and
the host still said "no!"
Bar Kamtza, publicly humiliated, went to the Roman authorities and
claimed that the Jews were rebelling. The Romans began an investigation
and found that indeed Jews had not subordinated themselves to Rome. The
Talmud says this marked the beginning of the end of Jerusalem, the Temple
and the Second Jewish Commonwealth. The Talmud goes on to say that not
one person, not even a rabbi, jumped to Bar Kamtza's aid to shield him
from embarrassment. The Talmud demands that "one ought to jump into a
fire rather than cause someone else embarrassment." The name Kamtza means
"small thing." Bar Kamtza means "son of a small thing" , which is even
smaller. We can learn that the smallest "devar" (word) can sting like a
"davar" (bee) and cause someone emotional embarrassment and harm. I think
we also were supposed to learn this lesson as children when we
were read the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty."
The Midrash teaches "Great is peace, such that even if Israel is
worshipping foreign Gods, but all are at peace with each other, God
declares 'I will not defeat them.' As it says in Hosea 4:17 'Ephriam is
joined to idols--let him alone!' However if Israel's hearts are divided
against each other, 'they shall bear their guilt.'" The Talmud records in
Tractate Peah 1A that Rabbi Aba says, "the generations of King David were
all righteous but since they were guilty of infighting, they would go out
to war and be defeated. However the generations of King Ahab were
idolaters, but since they were not guilty of infighting, they would go
out to war and prevail."
We are all Jews regardless of whether we think that the Torah was given
on Mt. Sinai or it was written in bits and pieces over the centuries. We
are all Jews regardless of whether we are shomar Shabbat (observant of
the Sabbath) or not. We are all Jews regardless of
whether we follow kashrut (the dietary laws) or eat "pork
rinds." As long as we have our petty quarrels over what
even traditionalists say that God calls "Bar Kamtza", it does not matter
what part of Jerusalem is given or not given to the Palestinians. God
would rather us be idol worshippers and forgot about Him if man could
live in peace.
God wants us "to live by the law, not die from it." Let me relate the true story of the composer Charles
Valentin Morhange Alkan. Alkan was a nineteenth-century contemporary and
friend of Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, Ms. George Sand and Victor Hugo.
They entertained each other in and around Paris. Alkan was the Monty
Python of his time. His "Marcia Funebre sulla Morte d'un Pappagallo" for
four singers and chamber ensemble is hilarious. The translation of course
is "Funeral March on the Death of a Parrot." Alkan parodies the religious
and operatic music of his time. The singers enter with "As-tu dejeune,
Jacot?" the French equivalent to "Polly want a cracker?"
Anyway, Alkan disappeared from sight for years when he, a Jew, reclused himself to
study Torah and Talmud. According to David Dubal's The Art of the Piano,
Alkan died in 1888 when he "reached for his beloved Talmud, which was
resting on top of a massive bookcase, and the structure toppled over,
crushing the emaciated musician to death at the age of 75." The laws and
Halacha in the Talmud and Torah are fine for some. But let's not die
fighting with each other over them.
It would be nice if we could remember that our Temple and the city of
Jerusalem was not dedicated only to the Jewish people. I know this runs
contrary to popular perception. In I Kings 8:41-43 King Solomon
specifically asked God to heed the prayers of non-Jews who came to the
Temple. Non-Jews were permitted to bring animal offerings and pray in the
Temple. During Sukkot, 70 bulls were offered as sacrifices. The Talmud
explains that this corresponds to the 70 nations of the world at that
time. Isaiah called the Temple "a house of all nations." The Talmud
further states that the Romans never would have destroyed the Temple if
they knew the benefit they received from it. In Derech Eretz Zuta it is
written that "the world is like a human eyeball...and the pupil is
Jerusalem." We are taught that the world is for all people. Without the
pupil, the eye is blind. We are taught "not to put a stumbling block
before the blind." We are also taught not to blind anyone and what the
penalties are for poking out another's eye. Therefore, can we deny the
"pupil of this world's eye" to any people?
If we cannot make peace among ourselves, how can we ever agree to live in
peace with our Arab cousins? Let us keep the thought of "shalom" in our
hearts and minds when we remember the destruction and suffering of our
people--and all people--this Tisha B'Av.
Shabbat Shalom,
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SC
BLUFFTON, SC
ORIGINAL VERSION DONE WHILE SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE AT CONGREGATION TEMPLE MICKVAH ISRAEL, SAVANNAH, GA
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