The First Flowering of Our Redemption?

In memory of my dear friend

Gerald Cromer

A founder of Netivot Shalom

And the initiator of Shabbat Shalom

Who passed away on the 23^rd of Adar Bet 5768

The Hebrew calendar invites us to contemplate several significant dates found in the month of Iyyar. Two weeks ago we celebrated the 60^th anniversary of Israel's independence. Yesterday, thousands celebrated the anniversary of R. Shimon bar Yohai's death in Meron, and bonfires were lit across the country in honor of LaG ba'Omer. Yom Yerushalayim is just a few days away. It marks one of the central milestones in the history of the state: the Six Day War.

It is indisputable that the fact of the existence of the State of Israel and the accessibility of historically important places created feelings of pride and security in every Jew. When, forty-one years ago, it was announced that "The Temple Mount is in our hands" euphoria swept through Israel and the Diaspora.

It seems to me that it is still too early, historically speaking, to evaluate the importance of these events for future generations. It seems to me that it is not within our power to decipher God's plans concerning the Redemption of Israel and the Messianic Era. This is in contrast both to those theological approaches that try to read certain signs as predictive of the End of Days as well as to extreme Ultra-Orthodox doctrine that considers the establishment of the State of Israel to be a rebellion against the Holy One, Blessed Be He.

R. Shimon bar Yohai's "Story of the Cave" (Shabbat 33b-34a) can be read as describing the essential struggle of a believing person who is devoted to Torah with the reality surrounding him.

In the wake of a discussion amongst Israel's Sages regarding the contributions of Roman Culture and the leaking of the radically anti-Roman views expressed therein by R. Shimon bar Yohai, he found it necessary to flee in order to escape the death penalty to which he had been sentenced by the Roman authorities. After hiding for a short time in the beit midrash he decided to take refuge with his son in a cave where they remained for twelve years, sustained by a carob tree and drinking the water of a miraculous spring.

The Gemara relates that during their stay in the cave they engaged in Torah study all day long, occasionally breaking in order to pray. They had no contact with the outside world until the day when "Elijah came and stood by the cave's entrance and said, 'Who will inform Bar Yohai that the Emperor has died and that his sentenced has been voided?'" The Gemara tells us that when Elijah's voice was heard, "They emerged from the cave and saw people engaged in plowing and sowing. He [R. Shimon bar Yohai] said: 'They push eternal life aside and engage in temporal life!' Everywhere they set their gaze was immediately burned up. A heavenly voice [bat kol] came out and told them: 'You have come out to destroy my world!? Return to your cave!'

By announcing the annulment of the Emperor's decree and the passing of the external threat to R. Shimon's life, Elijah's voice allowed R. Shimon and his son to leave the cave. It could be, however, that they interpreted Elijah's voice as being more than a mere event in present reality. They may have thought that it constituted an essential change in the world, that the world had undergone a process of redemption paralleling the spiritual development they had experienced in the cave. R. Shimon bar Yohai – like his mentor, R. Akiva – was imbued with the messianic spirit. As a result, he could not understand how, in such times, people could "push eternal life aside and engage in temporal life." How is it possible, when the Messiah is "really" arriving, to engage in profane activities?

He needed another years stay in the cave in order to learn how to relate in a different way to happenings in the real world. The Gemara tells us: "They returned [to the cave] for a period of twelve months, saying: 'The wicked are sentenced to spend twelve months in Gehinom.' A heavenly voice came out and said: 'Leave your cave!' They left…" As the story continues, R. Shimon has further encounters, most of which express a different attitude towards the world. The most representative story tells us that R. Shimon said, "'Since a miracle occurred for my sake, I shall go and institute a reform.' He asked: 'What needs to be reformed?' They told him: 'There is a place here that might be impure and the Kohanim don't like having to walk around it.' He asked: 'Is there anyone here who knows that the place was held to be pure?' One old man told him: 'Ben Zakkai used to cut lupine for teruma here.' So he did likewise; everywhere that [the soil] was hard he proclaimed it pure, and everywhere that was soft, he marked off [as impure]."

The story has further details and continues on, but my present intention is to contrast R. Shimon bar Yohai's attitude upon leaving the cage the frist time with his attitude when he left the second time; this points to a different basic insight.

When R. Shimon emerged the first time he interpreted Elijah's voice as proclaiming a Messianic age in which all of life's order of priorities must be changed, in which there is no room for patience or tolerance towards people who are insensitive to the greatness of the hour, towards those who might be delaying redemption.

In contrast, after spending twelve months in the cave, where he felt maybe as being punished in "Gehinom" – perhaps in atonement for his presumptuous attitude when earlier leaving the cave – he understood that places of holiness can be found even within an unchanged world, and that there are reforms to be made.

Perhaps we can learn from this that long term isolation in "the cave" can disrupt one's ability and readiness to accept the world as it is and people as they are, with all of their weaknesses; to know that reality goes on according to its own custom; and to understand that even in such a world there is a place for holiness and improvement.

Isolation is likely to bring one to hear "Elijah's voice" with great fervor and to find in it the signs of a messianic age in which principles and orders of priority must be changed. Perhaps it is worthwhile to learn from R. Shimon bar Yohai that when a lengthy stay in the cave and emergence from it is not conjoined with empathetic attention to outside reality it can – God forbid – invite destruction.

Anyone who wants to reform the world should learn to ask R. Shimon's question: "What needs to be reformed?" Might I find partners in my endeavors and relate to the most basic needs of human beings?

I think that in its early days Religious Zionism did not engage in burning the places where people "push eternal life aside and engage in temporal life" rather, they were full partners in building a society based on morality and justice. The three milestones of Iyyar represent the three stages of development which we must internalize: recognition of the importance of political independence as an historical opportunity, internalization of the destructive danger associated with dehikat haketz [pressing for the realization of Redemption] and the messianic interpretation of historical events, and appreciation of the Sages' dictum:

And Rabbi Yohanan said: God said: I shall no enter the heavenly Jerusalem until I enter the earthly Jerusalem. But is there a heavenly Jerusalem? There is, for it is written, Jerusalem is built as a city joined together [i.e., of two parts]

(Ta'anit 5a)

The link between the heavenly and spiritual Jerusalem goes by way of the "earthly Jerusalem." This link is not a matter of political action; rather it depends upon the realization of the words of the prophet Isaiah (1:26-7):

And I will restore your judges as at first and your counselors as in the beginning; afterwards you shall be called City of Righteousness, Faithful City.

Zion shall be redeemed through justice and her penitent through righteousness.