29/06/2022
New Moon 🌑 Fourth Month 5782
[This Year: June/July 2022]
~ A CHANCE FOR TRUE TRANSFORMATION ~ As Hope Springs Anew, Ushering In An End To Tragedy ~
This month, the 4th Month, begins the season of the summer in our Hebrew (Biblical) calendar.
The three months of this season are The Fourth (4th) Month, Av and Elul.
The preceding months of Nisan, Ziv, and Sivan are months replete with events of astronomical proportions, from the Exodus, through the parting of the Red Sea, to the Sinai Revelation and the Giving of the Torah, the preceding months are literally powerful months, filled with awe inspiring circumstances. Yet, even in all their pomp and circumstance, they can not diminish the relevance of the Fourth (4th) Month.
This month is highly symbolic for very many reasons, many of them uncomplimentary in the journey of our fathers with God. From record rebellions to devastating and crushing destructions. Yet it is a month for real and true Transformation. A month when even in the midst of total dejection and abject hopelessness, hope springs anew as God appoints this month as a season of an end to tragedy.
In our history as a people - the Children of Abraham the Hebrew, Jews of the contemporary age, we faced many challenges that impacted our lives and nationhood. Perhaps the tragedies have been more impactful in this current era, from simple losses to huge ones of national significance, these tragedies have more than anything else shaped our national and spiritual lives. This month seemingly is teeming with tragedies. A total of five tragedies and one miracle took place in this month. Each one of the tragedies gives us a glimpse into the abyss, of what can happen to us when we see everything as being fully within our grasp and under our control. This sadly is the bane of humanity, that he somehow, even in face of his pitiable frailty, manages to lose sight of the fact that he is nothing, in the words of the Sages, a mere worm.
The first and most well known of the tragedies that took place in the 4th Month, is the destruction of what is arguably the most precious object that any human being could ever possess – the Tablets of the Law, written in God's own Hand. Moses broke the tablets at Mount Sinai – in response to the sin of the Golden Calf. This is inarguably the most catastrophic event in our nationhood.
Later in our history, four other tragedies occurred:
1. The daily offerings in the First Temple were suspended during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, after the Kohanim - Priests could no longer obtain animals.
2. Jerusalem's walls were breached, prior to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. According to our Sages, a breach in the wall was the beginning of the end.
3. Prior to the Great Revolt, the Roman general Apostamos burned a Torah scroll – setting a precedent for the horrifying burning of Jewish books throughout the centuries.
4. An idolatrous image was placed in the Sanctuary of the Holy Temple – a brazen act of blasphemy and desecration. No sacrilege could be more vulgar.
Reviewing this particular atrocious event of an idol placed in the Holy Temple, a monument built for God, one question is pertinent, Why did God allow it? Why? The reason is simple! God allowed this to happen because He wanted us to see where our "chosen path" would take us (the choices we make when we put our faith in nature, vanities and 'other gods').
Another event or act that is remarked and associated with this month is a fast. Our Biblical Jewish calendar is dotted with very many fast days, and days of national mourning commemorating various and different events in our national and spiritual life as a people and nation.
The fast day marked in this month is called The Fast of the Fourth (4th) Month which is one of the major fast days recorded in the Scriptures. It is observed on the 17 of Tammuz. It is a fast day from 1 hour before sunrise to sundown in remembrance of Jerusalem's walls being breached. 17 Tammuz is the beginning of The Three Weeks, in which Jews follow similar customs as the ones followed during the Omer from the day following Pesach - Passover until the culmination of the mourning for the death of the students of Rabbi Akiva (the thirty-third day of the Omer – such as refraining from marriage and haircuts. The mourning continues until noon on the 10th of Av, the date on which the Second Temple's destruction was complete.
The Three Weeks culminate with Tisha B’-Av (9th of Av) another fast day - the Fast of the 5th Month. These fasts days together with the fast of the Tenth Month are recorded in the book of prophet Zachariah as days of gladness and joy unto the Jewish people.
Though 17th day of the 4th Month marks the beginning of a period of three weeks of mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, it would be incorrect to associate our national state of mourning with a feeling of tragedy at a national level, and therefore unfortunate that some Jews have cultivated a culture of national tragedy, not over the destruction of the Temple per se, but mostly over what they perceive as the tragic history of the Jewish people. It is even more unfortunate that this sense of Jews as tragic figures provided (and for many, continues to provide) the bedrock for the legitimacy claimed by Zionist leaders for the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. Truly, the sole and eternal legitimacy for our claim to our land is stated in the Bible very clearly: God’s oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God gave the Land of Israel to His chosen people for all eternity. To choose to perceive ourselves as the heroes of tragedy leads in the end to self-loathing and a loss of self-confidence—two of the most negative forces at work today in Israel, creating a culture that identifies with our enemies and their goals. In addition, as noted earlier, perceiving one’s existence as tragic creates an expectation of pity and compassion from others. It goes without saying that this causes other nations to shy away from us.
Without a doubt, we the Jewish people have experienced tremendous hardship and pain throughout our history—more so perhaps than other nations. But Jewish history is anything but tragic. It is the history of hope and faith and of moral uprightness in the face of primitively immoral despots and religions, most of which have disappeared from the world. Jewish history is the ultimate anti-tragedy. It is the story of mankind’s search for the possibility of sanctifying our corporeal existence here on earth.
Put another way, pure monotheistic faith, which means a steadfast belief that nothing but the Almighty is the Master of all that is and all that happens, is the sign of a healthy, and positively charged character. The more a person tends to attribute events or situations to anything but One God, the more that person is suffering from some psychological imbalance or even malady.
Walking through the ruins of the second Temple, and faced with the pain of the oncoming exile, most of the sages wept; but not Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva, the Moses of his generation, met the disaster with a restrained joy. When asked the reason for his unexpected response, he explained that the prophets had foretold of many difficult periods in the history of our nation, and of good periods, leading in the end to the ultimate good of the true and complete redemption. He continued, “Now that I have seen that the negative has come to pass, I am certain that so will the good!” Rabbi Akiva epitomizes the Jewish faith and confidence in the immanence of goodness and holiness, even in the face of tremendous adversity. He passed this quality on to his student Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who founded the mystical Judaic tradition in his book the Zohar (literally, “Radiance”). Throughout the ages, the ability to see with rectified sight has been passed down through the Jewish people and specifically in the writings of Kabbalah and then Chassidut.
Therefore, our Sages enjoin that we focus more on the one miracle that occurred in this month, and not on the five tragedies. Recall that it was in this month that Joshua prayed in the valley of Aijalon, and God answered his prayer and granted that the sun, and the moon stand still until victory was granted His people in battle, as it is written: “Then spoke Joshua to HaShem in the day when HaShem delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel: 'Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.' And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that HaShem hearkened unto the voice of a man; for HaShem fought for Israel.” (Joshua 10:12-14). Thus, this is the month God designated as the month of intervention for justice for the people of God., a month that affords us an opportunity for transformation and triumph.
May this month, the Fourth Month be the month in which we undertake to see the world as did all our holy teachers. By transforming our sight, we will merit to see God usher in the era of the true and complete redemption.
This new month of the Fourth (4th) Month, despite the glaring political suicides facing us as a people, let us like Rabbi Akiva epitomize the Jewish faith and confidence in the immanence of goodness and holiness, even in the face of tremendous adversity.
May our trust in the one true God see us through many trials and tribulations, as we embrace transformations through the many challenges and trials encompassing us.
May our light shine resiliently like the moon! May God’s mercy and grace be upon us always.
Shalom! And Happy New Moon!
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