Don’t Let Things Get Old
R. Yaakov
Bieler
Parashat
Masei, 5768
In Parashat
Masai, a verse appears that is understood by RaMBaN[1]
as the basis for declaring that there is a positive Tora Commandment for
each Jew to reside in the
BaMidbar 33:53
And you will cause the land to be inherited, and you will
dwell in it because to you I have Given the land to inherit it.
Which begs the question on a day like today, the first of
the nine days leading up to Tisha B’Av: What led us, the Jews, to lose
this precious inheritance, first for the 70 years of the Babylonian exile, and
then indefinitely with the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans?
The
beginning of the Tora reading for Tisha B'Av
suggests one reason[2]
for our current situation vis-à-vis our relationship to the
Devarim 4:25
When you will give birth to children and grandchildren, VeNoshantem
Ba’Aretz (and you will become old in the land), and you will cause
corruption and you will make idols, the representations of all things, and you
will perpetrate evil in the Eyes of the Lord, your God to cause Him to be
Angered.
The first portion of the verse seems to describe an
idyllic situation. To be able to live continually in the land that was Divinely
Promised to our ancestors, to be the progenitors of generation after
generation, would appear to be the fulfillment of anyone’s fondest dreams. Yet
the very same verse suggests that these very conditions are the inevitable
cause of alienation from God and His Ways. Does this mean that the cycles of
redemption and exile that we have already experienced in our history, will
continue indefinitely since our very success and contentment inevitably sow the
seeds of our discontent and malfeasance?
In an essay
devoted to the month of Av,[3]
R. S.R. Hirsch presents an evocative thesis keyed on the word, “VeNoshantem”,
and a Rabbinic interpretation appearing in Sanhedrin 38a,
and quoted by RaShI in his commentary on the Tora:
Sanhedrin 38a
Ulla said: He (God) Advanced the exile by two years as
compared with the period indicated by “VeNoshantem”.
Footnote in Soncino edition of Babylonian Talmud, #6[4]
…The numerical value of “VeNoshantem”
(6+50+6+300+50+400+40) is 852. Subtracting two years according to this Aggada,
there are 850 years left, which is the length of time between
R. S.R. Hirsch
The longer that man lives complacently in satisfying
circumstances, the more his origins recede into the past, the more readily he
forgets his very beginnings and their conditions…
As soon as
Why did we become estranged from Him once we were ourselves
the rulers of the Land, once we reached our political independence? We grew
old, and the image of our closeness to Him became but a vague memory…
“VeNoshantem”—From Yashan. Not Zaken.
Zaken identifies the human being who has ripened, who has gained the maturity
that will increase with the number of years. Yashan in contrast related
closely to the somewhat differently vocalized term that signifies “asleep”, is
indeed the expression of aging, weakening, progressively losing the strength of
body and mind…
R. Hirsch’s contention that spiritual danger arises when
things appear “old”, boring, unengaging, uninspiring, unchanging and
irrelevant, certainly should give us as much pause as concerns regarding other
alleged causes for the destruction of the
A
particular interpretation of a verse in the Haftora for Shabbat Rosh
Chodesh that was read this weekend[5]
emphasizes how the perception of “oldness” is emphatically human rather than
Divine:
Yeshayahu 65:17
Behold I have Created new heavens and a new earth, and
the former things will not be remembered and will not come to mind.
RaDaK
Due to the great goodness that will be, it will be as if
the world will be new and the heavens will be new...
“and the former things will not be remembered”—the
earlier troubles.
The heavens and earth will remain objectively the same,
in effect always “new” from God’s Perspective. Whether or not they are perceived
by man as new or old, is a function of the quality of life that people
enjoy or remember at any given time, rather than some factual aspect of the
natural universe. Such an understanding supports the theological supposition
that whereas God, Who is constant and unchanging, can relate to his Creation
from a similar perspective, man, due to his intrinsic mortality, is
hyperconscious of change; just as he is highly aware of his own birth, growth
and eventual death, so too he projects such a frame of reference upon his
environment and all that he encounters.
An
additional manifestation of the “newness-oldness” theme lies at the heart of a
well-known verse in Yirmiyahu, just prior to the beginning of the Haftora
for Parashat Masei:[6]
Yirmiyahu 2:2
Go and call in the ears of
The
implication of the prophet’s words are that whereas God “Remembers” the earlier
days of the devotion, faith and commitment of the Jewish people when they first
left Egypt and entered the unknown desert, the same cannot be said of the
people themselves who have seemed to have forgotten “the old days”. They have
become detached from their history and therefore must be treated in a different
manner from those who assumed a different attitude during the early days of
Jewish history.[7]
Thinking
about the importance of maintaining a sense of novelty and freshness in one’s
religious pursuits, has shed light in my mind upon a Rabbinic statement that I
had always understood in a particular manner. The Talmud records a
metaphor employed by an Amora to describe a particular phenomenon:
Kiddushin 30a
Said R. Yehoshua ben Levi:
Whomever teaches his grandchild Tora, it is considered as if he received
it from
I had always assumed that this insight had to
do with the perception of the young student when he has the great merit to
study with someone from an earlier generation. It would seem that he is linking
up with the past, to a Masoret (tradition) that stems back all the way
to Sinai. However, there is an additional dimension to R. Yehoshua ben
Levi’s comment in light of our current
ruminations, i.e., the grandparent will also gain the opportunity to perceive
the Tora that he may think he knows so well, from a new perspective, as if it
is being given again at Sinai, through the eyes of someone who is unfamiliar
with the traditions and ideas that the older individual may have come to take
for granted.
How
one teaches the young brings to mind a haunting passage from a novella that is
set in a Jewish day school. The author is describing a type of time warp
experienced by an educator who has worked with the same age group of children
for an extended period of time:
Cynthia Ozick, The Cannibal Galaxy [8]
His condition was immortality…
Year after year it was the same, the first graders so tender mouthed and
little, the eighth grade girls exploded into puberty…in the long procession
down the glowing hill spring after spring after spring. Nothing moved. Nothing
altered. The first grade was always the first grade, the eighth grade always
the eighth. This knowledge turned him cold; it was the coldness of the cosmos
itself. The same, the same, the same…
Nature replaces, replaces identically, replaces chillingly.
It would seem to be fair to say that this is
a description of someone who sees everything as Yashan, and has never
become a Zakein, in the best sense of the word. Rather than seizing on
the opportunity to constantly see newness through the eyes of his young
students, he has concluded that it is drearily always the same. Instead of
something hot and vital, the experience leaves him cold and enervated. The
image summons up pity and missed opportunity.
An
experience similar to studying with one’s grandchild often occurs when one learns
with a Ba’al Teshuva or a Geir. Particularly when one is
interacting with an adult who has a mature understanding of life and its
challenges, the teacher has to often reevaluate what he himself has always
assumed, ideas that he himself has acquired during his youth and which he may
not have revisited despite his own growth and development. For this reason R.
Avi Weiss has insisted that instead of referring to such interactions as “Kiruv”
(trying to bring the initiate “closer” to where the teacher is situated), a
more appropriate term would be “encounter”, i.e., the two sides encounter one
another’s points of view to the mutual benefit of each.
While
it is easier to insert a sense of newness into religious ideas and practice
when having to explain them to a novice, that should not dissuade us from attempting
to assume a similar stance even when we are only relating to ourselves while
practicing our Judaism day after day, month after month, year after year. Perhaps
the paradigm for such an approach is found in the laws of the Pesach Seder:
Shulchan Aruch, Orech Chayim 473:7
The second cup is diluted immediately
in order that the children should ask, “Why is a second cup (of wine) being
drunk before the meal?”[9] And if the child does not
possess wisdom, his father should teach him. And if he does not have a child,
his wife should ask him. And if not, he should ask himself. Even scholars
should ask one another.
While one could view asking questions at the Seder
as part of a ritual, to the extent that the questions are genuine attempts at
understanding something that seems curious, the process guarantees that fresh
looks at that which has been familiar will be taken.
The
assumption that it is important that a sense of newness accompany our religious
practices has significantly informed how we have structured services at KMS.
The populist approach that assumes that there should be multiple Minyanim,
that different individuals should deliver Divrei Tora and be Shluchei
Tzibbur is premised on the idea that each person will bring his own
perspective, approach and interpretation to the task at hand. Such a variety in
turn will hopefully suggest to our congregants new ways to approach their
religious observances. However, each of us has to also apply our own
considerable efforts to retain a sense of freshness and engagement, rather than
exclusively relying upon others to inspire and engage us. No one can really say
Sh’ma on our behalves; we have to be self-reliant when it comes to
reciting the Amida. Even if the Tora is read well, the degree to
which we listen and understand is very much our own responsibility.
Finally, whether it is a matter of how to
view living in the
Ah, but I
was so much older then,
I’m younger
than that now.[10]
[1]Mitzot
Aseh LeDa’at HaRaMBaN #4 (addendum to RaMBaM, Sefer HaMitzot,
Mitzvot Aseh.
“That we are commanded to
inherit the land that Exalted God Gave to our fathers to Avraham, Yitzchak and
Yaakov , and to not allow it to remain in the hands of those aside from
ourselves, and He Said to them, ‘And you will cause the land to be inherited, and you will
dwell in it because to you I have Given the land to inherit it’…”
[2] Various
hypotheses are advanced in Rabbinic literature for the destructions of the
[3] “Av
IV” in The Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Vol. 1,
The Jewish Year, Part One, Nissan-Av, Philipp Feldheim,
[4] The
Babylonian Talmud: Seder Nezikin in four volumes, III, trans.
under editorship of R. I Epstein, The Soncino Press,
[5] There are actually two customs regarding which Haftora to read on Shabbat Rosh Chodesh that occurs during the three week lead up to Tisha B’Av. While some congregations read from Yeshayahu 65, the Haftora that is typically read on Shabbat Rosh Chodesh, others read the regular Haftora for Parashat Masei from Yirmiyahu 2.
[6] The Haftora begins with Yirmiyahu 2:4.
[7] In light of the numerous sins of the Jewish people beginning immediately after the Exodus and culminating with the decree following the sin of the Spies that the entire generation that left Egypt would die out during 40 years of wandering in the desert, is God overly “Romanticizing” about the past in this verse, so to speak?
[8]
[9] Typically, even on days when Kiddush is recited, only one cup would be consumed prior to the meal.
[10] Bob Dylan, “My Back Pages” in The Yale Book of Quotations,
ed. Fred R. Shapiro, Yale U. Press, New Haven, 2006, p. 223.