Rabbi Yohanan said: the Holy One Blessed Be He said, “I shall not dwell in the Celestial Jerusalem (Yerushalayim shel ma’alah) until I dwell in the Earthly Jerusalem (Yerushalyim shel matah)”

There is a well-known dispute between Maimonides and Rabbi Avraham Ben David (the Raavad) regarding whether the Temple Mount has sanctity today.  The Rambam (Hilchot Bet HaBehira 6:14) states that “Shlomo sanctified the courtyard [of the Temple] and Jerusalem for that time and for the time to come.”  According to the Rambam the Temple Mount today has sanctity.  To this R. Avraham Ben David famously responded, “This is based on his own reasoning and I don’t know upon what what he is basing himself.  The Mishnah states that if there is no Temple there then [the fruits of the second tithe, ma’aser sheni] should be left to rot.  From this we see that the first act of sanctification [of the Temple by King Solomon] was not for all time…therefore one who enters there today does not incur premature death (karet).”  According to the Raavad the Temple mount is devoid of sanctity today.

I wish to focus upon the Raavad’s position.  Rav Soloveitchik said that according to the Raavad destruction and sanctity are mutually exclusive.

I wish to propose an intermediate position which perhaps the Raavad (and R. Soloveitchik) would endorse.

The Rambam states in the following chapter (7:7)

Even though the Temple is now in ruin because of our sins a person must hold its [site] in awe, as one would regard it when it was standing.… as [implied by Leviticus 19:30]: “You shall observe My Sabbaths and you shall revere My Sanctuary.” Just as the observance of the Sabbath [applies] for eternity, so too, the reverence for the Temple must be eternal. Even though it is in ruin, it remains holy.”

The Rambam in this chapter discusses the obligation to relate to the location of the Temple with reverence. I believe that the Raavad would not fundamentally disagree with this Halacha.  That is to say that even though one may hold that there is no (ritual) sanctity to the location of Temple (practically means that  one who enters Temple Mount  today would not be punishable by premature death) nevertheless the laws of holding the location in awe (Morah Mikdash) would still apply.

How can this be so? On the one hand no ritual sanctity and on the other an obligation to hold the location in awe?  The answer is as follows: ritual sanctity depends upon the actual ability to perform the Temple rites.   The obligation to revere the Temple Mount, however, is generated by the fact that it is the location where the Temple once stood (and will one day again stand.)  Ritual sanctity is a function of the present – and at present there is no Temple – while awe is inspired by the weight of the past and the hope for the future.

There is a certain realism in this approach. Jerusalem with the Temple at its heart calls forth an intense relation with God on the national level. This scorching kedushah (sanctity) does not, and one could claim that under the present circumstances, should not characterize our collective relationship with God today.  We, along with The Holy One  Blessed Be He, do not yet dwell in the Celestial Jerusalem.

Does this mean that there is no significance to Jerusalem as long as the Holy Temple does not stand?

My suggested reading of the Raavad tells us that there is great significance to the Jerusalem of the present, the Earthly Jerusalem. Presently we dwell in the Earthly Jerusalem, Yerushalayim shel matah, where the holy and secular are intertwined. We have the Kotel and we have pubs. We are blessed with beautiful boulevards and walking paths alongside poor neighborhoods.  We are inspired by the past and the future but must be firmly grounded in the present.  Our purpose must be to perfect the Earthly Jerusalem, transform it into a city in which God would desire to dwell.  Then with the proper humility we will be blessed to experience the Celestial Jerusalem.

Shabbat Shalom and Yom Yerushalayim sameach,

Herzl Hefter

Rabbi Herzl Hefter

Rosh Yeshiva and Dean

Har’el Yeshiva, an affiliate of Isralight

www.har-el.org

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.   Those who think themselves masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.”  Rousseau

Freedom for all people begins with an attitude of freedom.  For the Jews freedom required a paradigm shift in the consciousness of the people.

Clearly (as much as Religious Zionists would like to deny it), the traditional popular view of redemption is that of Satmar and Neturei karta.  We were exiled due to our sins and await the ‘geula’ passively.  The move to Zionism involved a radical departure from the Satmar model.  Historical circumstances precipitated a ‘coming of age’ so to speak of the Jewish people which involved actively pursuing national liberation.

The first commandment in Parshat Mishpatim following the liberation from the slavery of Egypt relates paradoxically to the laws of the Hebrew slave.

Institutionalized freedom in the form of sovereign statehood requires a continued shift in taking responsibility for others in our society (those weaker than ourselves) internally as well as our relations with other nations on the international arena.

In this context, I believe that the Religious Zionist community must set aside a widely held opinion that the State of Israel is the beginning of the redemption, atchalta d’geula.  Not because it is or is not true – I am an agnostic when it comes to this question – but because it is detrimental to state building and the Zionist dream.

The Mei Hashiloach says that at the time of the Exodus when Moshe saw the Egyptians in hot pursuit of the people and that God ‘was not leading the people via the Land of the Pelishtim, lest the people see war and return to Egypt”, he became uncertain as to whether this was indeed the much hoped for redemption. The “Lord of the prophets” Moshe Rebbenu was uncertain of the redemption.  Can we claim greater clarity and certainty than Moshe?

Adherence to the opinion that the modern state of Israel is the embodiment of the messianic yearning of two millennia is at odds with the concept of the modern nation-state. A messianic state is a state of the Jews. A modern nation state is a state of citizens enjoying equal rights. (This short piece is not the context to work out the nature of a Jewish state). The messianic age stirs associations of Gog and Magog and the battle between light and darkness. The modern state exercises realpolitik.  The elevation of the opinion that the State of Israel is atchalta de geula  to the status of religious dogma can lead to problematic attitudes domestically and irresponsible positions in foreign policy.

I believe that if we concentrate on building the best possible state that we can and leave the ‘geula business’ to God, we will be more successful in the former and in so doing may actually precipitate the latter.

For God’s sake let us return to Zionism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocYKue1bcTk&context=C439f578ADvjVQa1PpcFMndmqgyS6BXcQvzTU855ZNTFwskU0vxyQ=

Emotionally, the end of the month of Nissan is always a bit like a rollercoaster.  We have just left Pesach behind and Yom HaShoah is upon us.  In this audio file I share my very personal thoughts about the Shoah from the perspective of a child of survivors.

My childhood is replete with memories of my father ע”ה sitting at the Shabbat table his memory stirred by some unknown association, saying, “איך געדענק נוך פאר דער קריג…”

“I remember yet before the war…” and a tale would begin.  Later on, I imagined the biblical survivor, Noah, sitting with his children at the Shabbat table reminiscing of the destroyed world of his youth saying, “I remember yet before the great flood…”

Noah does not fare so well after the great flood.  He falls into drunkenness and disgrace.  My father fared better.  After losing his entire family, he managed to gather himself up and, with my mother ע”ה , raise a family of his own.

The Midrash says, ‘God does the righteous test’ (Tehillim 11) this refers to Noah as it says, ‘Depart from the ark…’

The “test”, the challenge, facing Noah and survivors like him is to continue living after the terrible suffering and loss.

Asking “why?” is futile and religiously sterile.  The significant question is how we respond.  Do we fall into despair or reaffirm Gods creation?

Rabbi Herzl Hefter

Rosh Yeshiva and Dean

Har’el Yeshiva, an affiliate of Isralight

www.har-el.org

Read the original article here as posted ar Haaretz.com

The Book of Esther reads more like a court drama than a book of the Bible; it is full of political intrigue, sexual tension and naked ambition; but, it seems to be rather lacking in theology. It never mentions God. The Talmud finds an early Biblical allusion to Purim in the following verse: “I will surely hide [hastir astir, which is supposed to sound like the name, Esther] My face from you… (Deut 31:18).”

God had promised times where His role in history would be hidden from us. Purim is one of those times. Every detail of the story turns out, by the end of the story, to have been essential for the eventual salvation of the Jews. Everything had to be just so. This is the hidden hand of God. Even when God cannot be detected, Jewish faith posits that His hand is still, in some sense or other, on the wheel. In the Book of Esther, God gives us the space to deny His involvement. He hides Himself.

Furthermore, the ways in which God hides from us, are, in fact, a revelation. We learn something about God from the ways in which He hides.

An agnostic friend of mine once told me of an experience in which she was standing in the Negev desert. The heat was unbearable, but a subtle breeze was offering her a degree of comfort. Suddenly, the breeze fell to a standstill. She reported a sense of having been abandoned. Abandoned by the wind? No, it sounded to me like the experience was more existentially significant.

You can only feel abandoned if you think that there is someone who abandoned you. Just as anger at God is a religious experience (for how can you be angry at God if you don’t believe in Him?), so too when we feel that God has abandoned us; when we feel that He is hiding His face, we are in the midst of a profound, albeit uncomfortable, religious experience. The Book of Esther, with its conspicuous lack of God-talk, is a book that tackles this theme.

The Mishna warns us that when we read the Book of Esther, we have to it from the beginning to the end. If we read the middle, and then the beginning, and then the end – or read it in any other non-consecutive order – we will not have fulfilled our obligation.

Rav Zvi Elimelech Spira (1783–1841), put forward the following explanation: When the rabbis demand we read the book consecutively, they are telling us how we should experience the reading. We should experience the beginning as if we don’t know the end. We have to experience the world as if the story is happening right now. We have to place ourselves inside the story; knowing that the powerful Haman seeks to annihilate the entire Jewish people, but not knowing that everything’s going to turn out for the best. The relief and joy of the end of the book must wait until the end; they gain their real power from the feeling of despair that they alleviate. We have to dispel the certainty that Queen Esther will save the day, and live with the uncertainty that pervades the book until near the end.

Religious people often walk around with a sense of certainty. We know what’s right and wrong. We know who’s saved and damned. We know it all.

We know that God exists because the person of faith is blessed with overwhelming experiences of Divinity. We feel God’s love in our lives. But there’s simply no way that we could know, with any certainty, exactly what God wants from us. Rav Mordechai Yosef Leiner (1801-1854) was the great prophet of this message; what my teacher, Rabbi Herzl Hefter, calls the Theological Uncertainty Principle.

Rav Lerner went to great lengths to demonstrate that the great prophets of the Bible were rarely certain that they had correctly understood God’s command. They submitted to the authority of the halakha as the best approximation of God’s will, but they were rarely, if ever, bold enough to say that they understood exactly what it was that God wanted of them in any given moment in time. To think that you know exactly what God is thinking is heresy. You are finite. He is infinite.

In the Book of Esther, Mordechai knew that our salvation would come. He had faith. But he didn’t presume to know when our salvation would come, whether Esther would bring it about, and how many people might suffer along the way (Esther 4:13-14).

The theological certainty that pervades so much of the religious world, giving people confidence to condemn one another and to dispense with dialogue and authentic encounters with people of different opinions, is, in fact, sacrilegious; it is to presume knowledge of God’s infinite will.

There’s too much certainty in the air. We’re certain that there’s going to be a war with Iran; a new battle with the rulers of Persia; a new Purim. We’re certain about the evils of secularism or the evils of religiosity; about the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We walk around with a great deal of certainty. I pray that Purim teaches us the humility that we need in order to live with, and to negotiate a life in the midst of, uncertainty.

Dr. Samuel Lebens teaches Jewish philosophy at Yeshivat Har’el in the Old City of Jerusalem. He studies at Yeshivat Har Etzion, holds a PhD in metaphysics and logic from the University of London, and is the chair of the Association for the Philosophy of Judaism.

When Ahashverosh commanded Vashti to appear before him naked, she refused to come. [lo ba’ah]. Regarding this the Ba’al Shem Tov commented that “the time for nakedness is not yet come.”

What did the Ba’al Shem Tov mean by this cryptic comment? R. Mordechai Yosef of Ishbitz explains that the erotic desire of Ahashverosh for the nakedness of Vashti is symbolic of the human desire for closeness to God without any “garments” (i.e. intermediaries) and that the time for this is not yet come. If that is the case, then the Ba’al Shem Tov is equating the erotic desire with the religious impulse expressed by the psalmist when he says, for example, “My soul thirsts for the Living God”.  After overcoming our initial shock we should not be too surprised.  The entire book of Shir Hashirim (if we ignore Artscroll) is predicated upon the equation between the religious and the erotic.

The language we employ colloquially is instructive as well.  How often we have heard in popular songs and in general usage statements such as “my love is divine”, “goddess”, worship the ground he or she walks upon” etc.?

What is the meaning of all this?

As a matter of faith, I believe that human beings are hardwired by God to feel existential loneliness and seek out each other and the Other.  We cannot fulfill ourselves, by ourselves.

God, by making us vulnerable and in need of the Other, has opened the way to fulfillment and salvation.

For Nachmanides, the tabernacle was an ideal. It was always supposed to be the case that, after our Sinai experience, we would build a portable Mount Sinai to accompany us on our journeys through the wilderness. The tabernacle would ensure that we would never have to leave the presence of God.

For Rashi, the tabernacle is not an ideal at all. Had it not been for our sin, there would have been no need. His source text, Midrash Tanchuma Teruma 8, envisages the word of God as follows: ‘Let gold be placed within the sanctuary to atone for the gold with which the golden calf was fashioned.’ Ideally, we wouldn’t need the razzmatazz of a temple and a sacrificial order. We should suffice with the temple in our hearts. We shouldn’t need gold ornaments or stain glass windows in order to feel moved by the presence of God. But, with the golden calf, the Jews demonstrated their weaknesses for razzmatazz, and God found a way to channel that need positively. In the imagery of the Midrash, God uses our own illness to heal us (it reads Jeremiah 30:17 to say, ‘I will heal you via your wounds.’); our gold lust is an illness, but God finds a positive outlet for it.

Indeed, the Midrash said that we needed a tabernacle to prove to the world that God still resided among us. The aftermath of the sin of the golden calf was so severe that without the presence of the tabernacle the world would have doubted our continued relationship with God. According to the Midrash, it is called the Tent of Testimony because it testifies to a doubting world that God still has a relationship with us. A perfect world, for Rashi and the Midrash, would have contained no tabernacle. A perfect world, for Nachmanides, requires a tabernacle.

But, what interests me most about this debate, and the Midrash that Rashi relies upon, is the license that Rashi takes in reading the sequence of events out of order. The Midrash in question tells us not to take too seriously the fact that the incident of the golden calf isn’t reported until later on. ‘Rabbi Judah son of Rabbi Shalom said: There is no chronology in the Torah, as it is said, ‘her courses wander astray; you cannot know’ (Proverbs 5:6). This verse refers to the arrangement of the Torah and its sections.’

A cursory reading of this excerpt merely reveals a general principle: the narrative of the Torah isn’t supposed to be an accurate chronological sequencing of events. But, if you look a little deeper, the words of Rabbi Judah are really quite shocking. Look at his source text. He is quoting from Chapter 5 of the book of Proverbs, which I quote at length:

‘My child, be attentive to my wisdom, give ear to my understanding, to heed designs and let your lips guard wisdom. For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her palate is smoother than oil, but her end is as bitter as wormwood, as sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet lead to death; her footsteps support her to the grave. Lest you liken the path of life [to hers] – her courses wander astray; you cannot know.’

A man is chiding his son. Listen to me. Listen to my teachings. Learn the art of wisdom. Don’t be seduced by the lips of a forbidden woman. And yet, Rabbi Judah, in our Midrash, directly compares the Torah itself to this forbidden woman, whose courses wander astray. This fascinates me more than the debate between Rashi and Nachmanides! Can Proverbs be telling us to run away from the Bible? What’s going on?

In short, I think Rabbi Judah is suggesting a new reading of this chapter of proverbs. The voice of the father is the voice of the Oral Torah. The woman with the forbidden lips is the Written Torah in isolation. The Old Testament is not a Jewish book. The Hebrew Bible, shorn of all rabbinic interpretation still isn’t the central Jewish book. The book that we’re supposed to read is the Torah through the interpretive eyes of the sages. The written Torah in isolation tells us to gouge out an eye for an eye. The Rabbis tell us that things aren’t as they seem. We have to read the Torah through their eyes, the eyes of the Oral tradition, otherwise we’re following after a forbidden woman; she may seem to be attractive, as the Karaites found her; but ‘Her feet lead to death.’