Iyar - Made in Heaven

Psalms 30:12 (12) You transformed my lament into dancing, you undid my sackcloth and girded me with gladness

תהילים ל׳:י״ב (יב) הָפַ֣כְתָּ מִסְפְּדִי֮ לְמָח֪וֹל לִ֥י פִּתַּ֥חְתָּ שַׂקִּ֑י וַֽתְּאַזְּרֵ֥נִי שִׂמְחָֽה׃

It is awfully confusing being Jewish!

One minute we're spending our time in fasting remembering the impending fate of the Jews in Shushan over the Fast of Esther and the next, we are trying to inebriate ourselves to the extent that we can't tell the difference between Haman and Mordechai!

Another case in point:

 We are currently marking the deaths of 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva's students during the Omer, yet, in less than three weeks, we will be (in non-lock-down years) dancing around bonfires marking Lag Ba'omer.

And even after the sombre period of the Three Weeks which culminates in the saddest day of our calendar - Tisha B'Av, we recover enough gusto and spirit to mark the wonderous mini-festival of Tu B'Av less than a week later.

It appears that the marriage of sadness and joy is built in the Jewish DNA. 

The logical route to take would surely mean that there are times when we are sad and others that bring us joy. Why does it seem as though the two are inexorably linked?

Why can't I be joyful without needing to experience grief first?

I ask this question, as Shabbat is the second day Rosh Chodesh Iyar, otherwise known as the first day of the new month - A month that seems to be replete with some unique historical events, many of which have occurred within living memory.

In short, a month where sadness and joy are inexorably linked but why is Iyar different?

At this juncture, let's look at some key dates in the month and try to tease out why I believe these are no coincidental.

The notable dates are:

○     4th - Yom Hazikaron - the Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism

○     5th - Yom Ha'atzmaut - Israel Independence Day (since 1948)

○     18th - Lag Ba'Omer 

○     28th - Yom Yerushalayim - Jerusalem Day when our holy city was recaptured in 1967.

Rebbetzin Tzipporah Heller at aish.com (https://www.aish.com/jl/hol/hm/48971256.html) points out some remarkable facts about the month, one of which is the fact that the month is referred to in the Bible as 'Ziv', an auspicious time in our history, as noted in the first book of Kings.

I Kings 6:1

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites left the land of Egypt, in the month of Ziv—that is, the second month—in the fourth year of his reign over Israel, Solomon began to build the House of the LORD.

The etymology of the word 'Ziv' means "the blossoming of flowers, or the 'readiness to reproduce', which, granted the previous passage, seems to be very appropriate.

So, we might deduce that this month has a special status in our history.

One that seems to imply simcha, but, at the same time, there is a troubling undercurrent lying just beneath the surface. A bitterness that has the capacity to dilute our joy.

The Torah tells us the following:

Exodus 15:22-23 (22) Then Moses caused Israel to set out from the Sea of Reeds. They went on into the wilderness of Shur; they travelled three days in the wilderness and found no water. (23) They came to Marah, but they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; that is why it was named Marah.

שמות ט״ו:כ״ב-כ״ג (כב) וַיַּסַּ֨ע מֹשֶׁ֤ה אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ מִיַּם־ס֔וּף וַיֵּצְא֖וּ אֶל־מִדְבַּר־שׁ֑וּר וַיֵּלְכ֧וּ שְׁלֹֽשֶׁת־יָמִ֛ים בַּמִּדְבָּ֖ר וְלֹא־מָ֥צְאוּ מָֽיִם׃ (כג) וַיָּבֹ֣אוּ מָרָ֔תָה וְלֹ֣א יָֽכְל֗וּ לִשְׁתֹּ֥ת מַ֙יִם֙ מִמָּרָ֔ה כִּ֥י מָרִ֖ים הֵ֑ם עַל־כֵּ֥ן קָרָֽא־שְׁמָ֖הּ מָרָֽה׃

In what would become a well-rehearsed fashion, the nation complained to Moses. Gd shows him a tree which he casts into the waters and which turns the waters sweet. Moses tells the people that if they listen to Gd's commandments and keep his statutes and ordinances, Gd will protect them because:

Exodus 15:26 (26)....for I the LORD am your healer.”

שמות ט״ו:כ״ו (כ כִּ֛י אֲנִ֥י יי רֹפְאֶֽךָ׃ (ס)

The Rabbis noted that there a hint in the Torah as to the date when the miracle took place, by looking at the words אֲנִ֥י יי רֹפְאֶֽךָ (Ani Hashem Refa'echa) 

If you take the letters of the three words  אני יי רפאך  , you see that they spell out  אייר (Iyar) , a hint that the miracle where Gd the healer changed the waters from being bitter to sweet, took place on Rosh Chodesh Iyar. The first occasion when the two opposing states found themselves side-by-side.

In a similar vein, the bitterness of the month of Iyar, which saw the deaths of Rabbi Akiva's students was interrupted with the miracle that occurred just after the middle of the month. The deaths ceased and mourning was turned to joy.

If we consider that the two greatest events (and myself, along with many others consider these to be miraculous), namely, the creation of our incredible state of Israel and the recapture of Jerusalem took place within Iyar - it seems that this seemingly bitter month is anything but. 

For total joy to exist, we need to experience the bitterness that comes before. It was only through the sweetening of the bitter waters that the Israelites could really appreciate how they had been transformed.

It therefore makes sense that Israel to have set aside the day before Yom Ha'atzmaut to remember those who lost their lives in the fight to make the day possible.

You need Yom Hazikaron to make you really understand how special Yom Ha'atzmaut is. Otherwise, one might fall into the trap of taking the day for granted.

This being in keeping with our ancient custom, bringing us full circle to King David's words.

Psalms 30:12 (12) You turned my lament into dancing, you undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy,

תהילים ל׳:י״ב (יב) הָפַ֣כְתָּ מִסְפְּדִי֮ לְמָח֪וֹל לִ֥י פִּתַּ֥חְתָּ שַׂקִּ֑י וַֽתְּאַזְּרֵ֥נִי שִׂמְחָֽה׃

The month of Iyar is the supreme example of how we Jews can bring light from the darkness and sweetness from the waters of bitterness. A mere three years after the decimation of one third of our nation, our people proudly proclaimed our return to Zion.

From the ashes of Auschwitz Birkenau to the Declaration of Independence. The end of the war came on 8th May. Israel came into being on the 14th.

Iyar is the month that was made in heaven.

The month that gives us hope.

Hope that, even if our lives may seem bitter and challenging as they do now, they will not always remain so, because, behind every cloud, the sun will eventually shine through. 

May this new month of Iyar/Ziv bring us healing and light and may our bitterness be wiped out in the simcha that is ready to bloom and burst forth into our lives.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov.

7th Day Pesach:The Splitting of the Yam Suf, A New Bereishit?

Harold Wilson famously said, “A week is a long time in politics” and although he was referring to the hustle and bustle of daily life in Westminster during the 1960s, he could not have known that his words would come to be so meaningful half a century later.

It’s also true that the idea of summing up a week as being an agent for change is historically accurate. We don’t need to look further than our Torah to inform us of what can be achieved in this period.

Indeed, the very first chapter in Bereshit demonstrates how much the Almighty managed to do in a mere six days before He put his feet up for the first Shabbat Shluf!

If we set read the Torah without pondering on how long each of the ‘days’ of creation lasted and for the sake of this discussion assume that it was a week as we know it, I don’t think even the great Harold Wilson could have imagined how effectively he could transform a ‘political week’, when compared to what Gd decided to do one Sunday ‘morning’ a long, long time ago.

A mere six days ago, on Wednesday evening, 14^th Nissan, 3332 years ago, Gd passed over the Egyptian homes and enacted the final plague. Five days ago, our ancestors trundled out of the country, 600,000 men over twenty years of age (which probably equates with three million people), carrying their unleavened dough on their backs.

They walked into the desert, not really knowing where they were going, although aware that the Promised Land was their destination.

On Sunday morning, three full days after they’d left, Pharaoh was informed that they weren’t coming back. Rashi in Exodus 14.5 informs us that Pharaoh sent his captains alongside the Israelites to make sure that his stipulating for leaving was that they (the Israelites) returned after their three-day trip into the desert. The men returned to the palace to report that this wasn’t going to take place and so on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (i.e. today), they chased them.

Which means that as we enter into the night of the seventh day of Pesach, we find our ancestors encamped at the Sea of Reeds (which might be the modern day location of the Great Bitter Lakes), terrified at the sound of six hundred chariots rapidly approaching, sending vibrations through the sand.

And our people are trapped, with nowhere to escape to.

The people complained to Moses, saying:

“Since there were no graves in Egypt, did you take us out to die in the wilderness instead….why didn’t you leave us alone in Egypt to serve the Egyptians - it would have better) than dying in the wilderness?!”

Moses calmed them and assured the people that Gd would save them and they would never see the Egyptians again and soon enough, He sent an easterly wind which lasted all night whilst the sea that they were backed up again, split in half (or into twelve separate channels, according to some Sages).

Rabbi David Fohrman, a contemporary commentator wrote wrote an eye-popping book called “The Exodus You Almost Passed Over” (2016), posits a fascinating idea.

Quoting the midrash in Shemot Rabbah 21:10

We learn that as the Israelites were crossing through the sea, “Rabbi Nahorai explained that a mother was carrying her baby boy who was crying (as they were crossing on dry land, between the walls of water). She then stretched out her hand and picked off an apple or pomegranate from the "midst of the sea" and gave it to him!”

Rabbi Fohrman likes playing an intellectual game when reading the Tanach. He often compares the text used in one passage with another in a different location and then infers parallels between the two. This idea of a mother picking fruit off the walls intrigues him and when he looks at the Hebrew text describing the splitting of the sea, he finds uncanny parallels with the narrative used by the Torah in describing the six days of creation.

Let’s see if we play this game too!

This obviously makes more sense in Hebrew but we can still use the form of the sentences to give us an idea.

1.      In Exodus 14:21, we read the following:

“Then Moses held out his arm over the sea and the LORD drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split”

Compare this with the relationship between wind and water described in Genesis 1:2:

 “the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water”

2.   Before the splitting of the sea, Gd performed a miracle to delay the Egyptian advances:

Exodus 14:20:

“And it (the pillar of cloud) came between the army of the Egyptians and the army of Israel. Thus, there was the cloud with the darkness, and it lit up the night, so that the one could not come near the other all through the night.”

If we look at Genesis 1:3-4, we read:

“God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and Gd separated the light from the darkness.”

Rashi explains:

“and there was cloud and darkness to the Egyptians and the pillar of fire illuminated the night for the Israelites and went before them as was its way to go every night, whilst the darkness of the cloud was turned towards the Egyptians.”

Both previous examples relate to Gd’s creation on the first day.

3.      When the Israelites entered the sea, the Torah states in verse 22:

“….and the Israelites went into the sea on dry land, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.”

Compare this description with the narrative for the second day:

Genesis 1:9

God said, “Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area, that the dry land may appear.” And it was so.

4.      On the third day, we are told in Genesis verse 11:

“And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation: seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so.”

If we restate our original midrash:

“Rabbi Nahorai explained that a mother was carrying her baby boy who was crying (as they were crossing on dry land, between the walls of water). She then stretched out her hand and picked off an apple or pomegranate from the "midst of the sea" and gave it to him!”

It appears that the text is revealing something startling – the sequence of events in the crossing of the sea closely matches an almost identical logarithm for the first three days of the creation.

It is a well-established principle amongst our Sages that every single letter in the Torah, having been dictated directly from Gd to Moses, is there for a reason. It would therefore not be coincidental that there is such a striking correlation between the two mind-blowing events.

The Exodus from Egypt was a seminal event in both Jewish history and the chronology of society as a whole.

In creating the world, Gd exhibited his mastery over nature, from His spirit “hovering over the face of the waters” to using that same spirit to separate the sea, revealing once again dry land from the midst of the waters.

In His battle with Pharaoh to demonstrate His power over the Egyptians and destroy both their corrupt and idolatrous mindset, He enacted a mini “re-creation” of the world, saving the people who recognised Him as Master of the Universe and just as in Noah’s days, drowning those who had refused to do so. How much more of a lesson could Gd give to both parties about whom was really in control.

In these dark, frightening days, when we have been reminded of how vulnerable we all are, we might gain some solace from considering who is really making the decisions that impact our lives. After all, when the Israelites feared that they walked out of the Egyptian frying pan into the Desert fire, He manipulated nature to deliver them from their foes. In Hillel, we have been reading the words: “In my distress, I called on the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is with me, I will not be afraid” (Psalm 118).

I believe that we can draw a great deal of comfort from the historical event that we will read about in our homes tomorrow morning, as we recite the “Shira” both in our Shacharit and at the core of our Torah reading (Leining).

Let us remember how, exactly on this day, our ancestors were delivered from darkness to light and pray that we too may soon see His hand in rescuing not only the Jewish people but the rest of the world from our current situation.

If He provided salvation then, He could surely do the same now.

Wishing you a Chag Sameach to you and your loved ones.