Devarim
Parsha Devarim - Delivered on Shabbat Chazon: 4 Av 5783/July 22, 2023 at Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, California
I’d like to dedicate this drash in honor of my husband Justin. Thank you for making my Torah study a family priority, and for helping me identify and refine my thesis out of my wild fractal ideas for every drashot.
Today is Shabbat Chazon. Shabbat Chazon is called Shabbat of Vision, which comes from the first words of the haftarah: The vision of Yeshayahu (Isaiah). Shabbat Chazon is the last of three “shabbatot of rebuke” leading up to Tisha b’Av when we read haftarot adminonishing Israel to reform their ways in order to avert disaster. Oh Shabbat Chazon, we always read Parshat Devarim, and we read the first chapter of the book of Yeshayahu.
Shabbat Chazon is always the shabbat before Tisha b’Av, which this year starts on Wednesday night. Over the years, I’ve had a rocky relationship with Tisha b’Av. The destruction of the temple feels like a long time ago and it made way for our modern Rabbinic Judaism which I love. I certainly am not longing for a third temple and return to sacrificial worship, especially not at the cost of destroying a Muslim holy place on the temple mount. Plus, the observance day is always weird and awkward. Reading eicha and kinot is often powerful and moving, but then a whole long hot summer day of fasting, without daylong services to be in, is hard. We hold services without singing, which feels uncomfortable. We perhaps go to work, or to study. If we don’t have a weekday study practice, then gathering to study the few permitted topics is a funny way to observe the prohibition of Torah study. Then in the afternoon, we what, watch a holocaust movie and watch the clock tick down until we can break our fast? It’s a long, hard fast day, but also somewhat low in observances if, like me, you cannot fast.
Some years, it feels approachable. Other years, I’ve skipped observing it, because fasting felt too hard, or I just didn’t know what to do with mourning the destruction of the temple. Perhaps some of you can relate. But this year, I’m thinking about Tisha b’Av in a new way, and I want to invite you to do so as well. I’m going to start by talking a little about linear history, and then, we’re going to throw that out, and talk about the spiral nature of time, and why Tisha b’Av is not just about something that happened long ago, but is relevant today.
As I’ve fallen in love with Talmud, it’s a little easier to relate deeply to the destruction of the temple. In the horrors of Eicha, and the mourning keen of Eli Tzion, I feel the story of my friends, the Rabbis of the Talmud. For the Tannaim (the rabbis of the Mishna), this was THEIR world. While a few Tannaim lived before the destruction of the second temple, the vast majority of them either lived through it, or their teachers or their teacher’s teacher did. Even if they didn’t live in Jerusalem, their friends or correspondents did.
The Rabbis were impacted by the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in temporally similar ways that our generations are shaped by the Shoah. We are survivors, children and grandchildren of survivors, or the children and grandchildren of Jews who lived through the Shoah from abroad, losing loved ones or experiencing survivors guilt, or we are Jews by Choice who live amongst the first generations after the Shoah. It shapes us, and the destruction of the temple shaped the Tannaim.
When we chant Eicha, I feel like I can understand my friends a little better, these Rabbis who shaped, created, or documented modern Rabbinic Judaism, depending on your theology.
Except, as I looked into it more, I learned that Eicha doesn’t describe the destruction of the second temple. It turns out, Eicha describes the destruction of the FIRST temple. And actually, it might not describe the destruction of the first temple at all. It might prophecy the ruin of Jerusalem/Tzion.
In case, like me, you have spots of Jewish history you know well, and other spots that are rather foggy, I’m going to start with a little tour of Jewish history, in the context of Tisha b’Av. As we look at this timeline, and at linear history, we’re going to hold the dates lightly. For some of these events, the historicity of the event is debated. For others, there are multiple years provided by traditional sources. That’s ok. Sometimes we’re going to round by 70 or 100 years to wrap our heads around it. We have 5783 years of Jewish history. We can round a little bit to find the big picture.
show timeline (NOTE, I will try to upload my timeline of Tisha b’Av history later)
Looking at a timeline helps me conceptualize the scale of time we’re talking about. If we look at the most recent period, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain feels like it happened a long time ago, but I can wrap my head around how long ago. I can feel how long 500 years is. It’s about 15-20 generations. A lot, but a countable number. I can’t wrap my head around 1500 or 3000 years at all. So, we’re going to reckon with this timeline in 500 year chunks. Let’s take those 500 years. Can you feel them right here? holds up hands as if holding an object 6 inches wide, about the distance representing 500 years on the timeline
So let’s dive in and find a few other Tisha b’Av points in time, and then, we’re going to throw it all out.
Here, at the beginning of our counting by 500s chart, at the end of the 40 years of wandering in the desert, we have the first event we remember on Tisha b’Av. On erev Tisha b’Av, the meraglim, the 12 spies came back from scouting the land of Israel. The way Moshe tells it, in this week’s Parsha, the spies came back and said “This is a good land HaShem is giving us”, and the people were too scared of the people already in the land, and did not believe Moshe when Moshe said that HaShem would help them conquer the land. Because the people believed the bad report, HaShem punishes them to wander another 40 years in the desert, until an entire generation has died out. That is the first tragedy of Tisha b’Av.
Then 40 years later, we have our parsha, Devarim. At the end of his life, just before handing over the people to Joshua, Moshe stands on the edge of Israel, and begins his last speech to the people Israel, recounting their journey and reminding them to follow the laws. One of the stories he recounts on the journey is the episode with the spies, although he tells it a little differently this time. When we first encountered the story, only 2 of the spies gave a good report, and the rest gave a bad report.
500 years later, give or take, King David established Jerusalem as his capital, and his son, King Solomon built the temple. Here is the 500 year chunk of time 500 that the first temple stood, between when King Solomon built it, and the destruction of the 1st temple. And smack in the middle, we have the prophet Isaiah, he of this week’s haftarah portion, prophesying the downfall of the Jewish people, if they don’t change their idolotrous ways.
At the end of this 500 year block of time that the temple stood, along comes Jeramiah, Yirmiyahu, the (likely) author of Eicha, and the destruction of the first temple. The destruction of the first temple is the second tragedy commemorated on Tisha b’Av.
Now, it turns out, there’s a debate about whether Eicha (the Book of Lamentations) describes the destruction of Jerusalem after it happens, or whether Eicha is a prophecy written by Jeremiah 17 years before the destruction of the temple. Is Eicha a warning of what is to come if the people don’t change their ways, or is it a documentation of the destruction? We don’t know. I argue that it doesn’t matter which.
500 years later, the second temple was destroyed.
And here, shortly after the destruction of the 2nd temple, we have the other two events the Mishna recounts as happening on Tisha b’Av. The first is the destruction of Beitar, where the Bar Kochba revolt was crushed. The Talmud describes the destruction of Beitar, and the amount of Jewish blood shed, in shocking, horrific terms that would, frankly, require a content warning at the beginning of this drash, and I wouldn’t share with my preschooler in the room. In addition to the loss of life, the destruction of Beitar crushed the last of the Jewish rebellion against the Romans.
The next year, on Tisha b’Av, Emperor Hadrian plowed much of Jerusalem, and established a pagan city with pagan temples called Aelia Capatolina. Jews were prohibited from entering the city, except on Tisha b’Av. Important Jewish practices such as circumcision, Torah study, Shabbat observance, Jewish courts and gathering in synagogues were prohibited. The Jewish and religious character of Jerusalem was intentionally eradicated.
These are the tragedies of the time of the Rabbis of the Mishna. A variety of other tragedies befell the Jewish people on tisha b’av, throughout history, and have been added to its remembrance. I’m just going to mention a few key ones.
Now we get to skip ahead a thousand years. Hooray! No major events marked on Tisha b’Av in the year 500 CE. I’m sure that there was still a lot of anti-semitism. About 1000 years after the destruction of the second temple, Pope Urban II announced the First Crusade on Tisha b’Av. Within a month, 10,000 Jews were murdered, and countless more in the years to come. Many vibrant Jewish communities in France and Germany were wiped out.
About 400 years later, but let’s round to 500, the Jews are expelled from Spain on Tisha b’Av. And that was about 500 years ago from today, give or take.
Let’s take one more look at the timeline. Take it in.
Ok, now, we’re going to throw it out. When it comes to Tisha b’Av, the time LINE doesn’t tell us what’s really going on. For that, we have to look at the circular, or perhaps, spiraling nature of Jewish time and Torah time.
For the Rabbis, Torah time was non-linear. There are countless midrashim of time travel and anachronism, and texts from wildly different times are joined together.
There is a curious echo, across three texts of Shabbat Chazon. Two from today, and the last we read on Tisha b’Av. We find the word Eicha in both our Parsha, and our haftarah, as well as, of course, being the first word of Megillat Eicha. Sometimes translated as “Alas”, Rabbi Ruth Adar describes eicha as “both a word and a howl of pain: ‘HOW?’”[^1].
Our sages, in Eicha Rabba, draw a line through these three “eichas”:
How (eikhah) lonely sits the city, [once great with people]!” (Lam. 1:1). Three uttered prophecies using the word eikhah: Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Moses said, “How can I bear unaided [the trouble of you, and the burden, and the bickering]!” (Deut. 1:12). Isaiah said, “How she has become a harlot, [the faithful city that was filled with justice, where righteousness dwelt—but now murderers]!” (Isa. 1:21). Jeremiah said, “How lonely sits the city . . .!”[^2]
To R. Levi in this midrash, these are not unrelated texts with unrelated words. They belong together, three expressions of relationship to this existential howl of lament. Speaking of lament, and the correlation of events across time, let’s take Eli Tzion. I tried to look up whether this haunting kinah we sing erev Tisha b’Av refers to the first or second temple. I’m sure some scholar somewhere has thoughts, but it sure isn’t common knowledge. At the end of the day, it isn’t about either specific building, but about the experience of destruction and loss, about the loss of The Temple.
It’s easy to write off Tisha b’Av, the “day that commemorates the destruction of the temple” because I really don’t miss the temple. Rabbinic Judaism is pretty amazing, and I’m not looking to go back to animal sacrifices. I far prefer prayer. Except, Tisha b’Av is not really about the temple.
Rabbi Moshe Davis says Maimonides points out that there is evidence in the Talmud that Tisha b’Av was observed during the time when the second temple stood.[^3] If this day was about the destruction of the temple, then why would the Jews mourn the loss of sacrifices and temple while the second temple stood? We’re not really just mourning either temple, but mourning “the myriad of Jewish persecution and troubles over the millenia”, as Rabbi Moshe Davis puts it.[^3]
Lament, and grief, are uncomfortable emotions, ones often hidden in modern society. While in ages past, many societies had public markers for grief, whether special clothes, or public laments, expressions of grief are something many Americans are uncomfortable with, although I think in general, thanks to our traditions around mourning, Jews are a little less uncomfortable.
I learned from Alyx Bernestein, who described the public laments of her female ancestors, the Jews of Rhodes, that R. Yehuda in the Mishna teaches that even the poor must provide two flutes and a wailing woman for funerals. Though we no longer hire wailing women, Jews do have robust mourning rituals compared to many Americans. [^4]However, we’re still pretty uncomfortable with grief and lament too.
Rabbi Elliot Kukla says:
So often, well-meaning people abandon each other, by gaslighting grief. Loss that is denied leads to isolation and depression. Grief that is named is still incredibly painful, but it allows us to comfort each other and treasure lost loves.[^5]
This, perhaps, is the power AND the discomfort of Tisha b’Av. It’s not that we are uncomfortable with the day because we are unsure whether we really mourn the temple. We are uncomfortable because it is scary to be vulnerable, and to allow ourselves to participate in a ritual of collective lament, to actively open ourselves to expressing the denied losses of our lives and our people. It’s much easier to feel disconnected from Tisha b’Av, than to seek to feel connected to it.
And yet, we need space to feel the loss of our tragedies that lead to generational trauma. We need to be forced to stop the everyday busy-ness and sit in the emotions we’d really rather not feel. I can’t live my life, working, packing lunches, doing bathtime and playing with my kid, stuck in grief and fear, even for just the “smaller” incidents of anti-semetic violence from the last few years, much less the great tragedies commemorated on Tisha b’Av. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need rituals to experience the grief, so our numbness does not turn us cold and hard. Maybe we need rituals to force us past our reluctance, so our denied losses don’t lead to “isolation and depression”.
Maybe that’s the power of Tisha b’Av. By collapsing the spiral of time, putting a pin through these many events, it gives us a doorway to try to open ourselves to experiencing generational grief, as a path towards healing generational trauma.
Of course, we can’t stay stuck in grief. We do need to work and pack lunches and play with our kids and do bathtime. We need to experience grief and move through it. Which is why we don’t end readings of Eicha on its last line: “For truly, you have rejected us, bitterly raged against us.”[^6] Instead, we repeat the line before, a line of hope which points us onward to the high holidays, when we will sing it again and again, onward in life, even as we carry our generational traumas with us:
Help us to return to you, O God, then truly shall we return. Renew our days as in the past.
Hashiveinu Adonai Eilecha V’Nashuva. Kadeish Yameinu K’Kedem.
There’s a chassidic teaching that this shabbat is called a shabbat of vision because every Jew is granted a small vision of the third beit hamikdash (temple). I’m not sitting around waiting for a third temple, but I think that we can understand this teaching as a vision of what it might look and feel like to return to HaShem, and truly return.
This Wednesday, let’s try, together, to truly open ourselves and our hearts to the mourning of Tisha b’Av, even if it feels uncomfortable. And may taking a moment to pause, and feel our grief for our collective and ancestral traumas and current fears, allow us to make space to contemplate what returning to G!d might look like.
Hashiveinu Adonai Eilecha V’Nashuva. Kadeish Yameinu K’Kedem.
Shabbat shalom.
[^1] Rabbi Ruth Adar. https://coffeeshoprabbi.com/2015/07/13/the-scroll-of-pain-and-sorrow/
[^2] Lamentations Rabba 1:1
[^3] Rabbi Moshe Davis. https://www.ou.org/life/holidays/tisha-bav-is-not-about-the-beit-hamikdash/
[^4] Alyx Bernestein. https://svara.org/lamenting-across-time
[^5] Rabbi Elliot Kukla. https://svara.org/the-very-jewish-holiness-of-crying-in-public/
[^6] Cantor Lauren Phillips Fogelman. https://www.tinw.org/cantors-blog.html?post_id=1228712