The Jewish Thought Series: The Meaning of the Month of Iyar

       This article by Avraham Reiss of Jerusalem is crossposted from http://jcwatch.wordpress.com/

The purpose of this article is to search for meaning in the occurrence of three important events in Jewish History in the month of Iyar: the War against Amalek, Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence and the Six Day War . The article was originally written in Iyar 5733, a few months before the Yom Kippur War.  Avraham Reiss, Jerusalem, Nisan 5754.

I
The Shulchan Aruch cites a list of days upon which it is fitting to observe rites of mourning because of disasters that befell our ancestors on those days. The Shulchan Aruch finishes by saying that “in the future, G-d will transform these days into days of rejoicing”.

This "prophecy" has begun to be fulfilled, for amongst the days recommended for mourning, is the 28th day of Iyar, the day upon which the Prophet Samuel died; a day which in our lifetime suddenly became a day of great rejoicing. On this day in 1967, the Old City of Jerusalem, with the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, were returned to the Jewish Nation at the climax of an amazing war.

Closer study of the circumstances preceding the death of Samuel, reveal to us that it was not by mere chance that these two events (Samuel’s death and the return of Old Jerusalem to Israeli ownership) occurred on the same date.

II
The Gemara (Masechet Ta’anit) tells us that Samuel requested from G-d that King Saul (who was anointed by Samuel) would not die during Samuel’s lifetime, in the same way that Moshe and Aharon did not live to see the death of their successor, Joshua.

G-d then asked: "What shall I do? Samuel does not want King Saul to die first, and if Samuel dies now people will say he died young because of sins [Samuel was 52 when he died, the Gemara tells us], and if neither of them die now the time for the Monarchy of David to begin will have arrived, and no two Monarchies are allowed to encroach upon each other’s decreed time span by even so much as the breadth of a hair."

G-d therefore said: "I will make him look old".  (Samuel will die now, but he will become aged-looking before he dies, so people will not say he died young because of sins).

We see from this that Samuel’s death was brought about with the express purpose of expediting the Monarchy of David. The 28th Day of Iyar, the day upon which the city of Jerusalem, David’s capital, was returned to the Jewish Nation, to the State of Israel, is obviously a great milestone in the final stages of our final Redemption.

III
The aforementioned Gemara explains that the whole purpose of removing the Monarchy from Saul and transferring it to David, was because of King Saul’s failure to destroy the descendants of Amalek.

In order to increase the depth of our understanding, we ask here two questions:

(1) Why was Saul chosen as king in the first place, when he was not of the House of David, or of the Tribe of Judah, from where a king must be chosen?

(2) If already chosen, why was only a partial failure in the war against the descendants of Amalek considered sufficient reason to remove the Monarchy from Saul, and to transfer it to David?

IV

The Shlah (Shnei Luchot HaBrit) explains that Saul was originally chosen as king in order that he would fight against the nation of Amalek, this because Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin. (It is interesting to note, since we are discussing the 28th of Iyar, that Saul was the 28th generation after Benjamin!). Benjamin was the only tribe which did not bow down to Esau, for the simple reason that at the time of Yaakov’s meeting with Esau Benjamin had not yet been born. This, the fact that Benjamin had not bowed down to Esau, gave him (Benjamin) a unique spiritual advantage over Esau compared with all the other tribes, empowering him with the strength to vanquish Esau in battle; thus it was a descendant of Benjamin, Saul, who was chosen to defeat the Amalekites, descendants of Esau, in the time of Samuel and Saul.

All this is even hinted at in Saul’s very name, says the Shlah; Saul, in Hebrew, Sha-ul, means "borrowed", and hints that although the Monarchy of Israel belongs to a descendant of the tribe of Judah, it was "borrowed" by Saul in order that he should vanquish Amalek’s seed. When Saul failed to kill all of the Amalekites as commanded, by leaving their king alive, he had failed in his mission, and there was thus no longer a reason for allowing the Monarchy to be personified by one who was not of the tribe of Judah.

V
However, we must still ask why the mitzvah of destroying all remnants of the seed of Amalek is regarded as so important that for this purpose the monarchy was at first awarded to one who was not of the tribe of Judah?

As a simplistic answer, we could say that the matter had already been decided by our Sages when they said in the Gemara:

"Israel were commanded to perform three mitzvot when they entered the Land of Israel:

1. To appoint a king

2. To destroy the seed of Amalek

3. To build the Temple in Jerusalem"

There, the Gemara states that these three mitzvot must be performed in the above order, and the Rambam brings this as a decisive halachah.

According to this, we could simplistically state that King Saul, by not completing the mitzvah of destroying the seed of Amalek, was hindering the process of performing the third mitzvah, the building of the Temple. The second mitzvah had not been performed in its entirety, since Saul had left some Amalekites alive, and so the Temple could not yet be built.

This could be regarded as sufficient reason, at a simplistic level, for removing Saul from the monarchy.

(Incidentally, since Saul was not of the tribe of Judah, one might say that the first mitzvah, to appoint a king, had not been performed in it’s entirety either, for the mitzvah of appointing a king requires that he be of the tribe of Judah).

Judaism, Islam, Eretz Yisrael and Stones

I've just came across an interesting and intriguing article under the above heading by Israeli blogger Avraham Reiss, which, having obtained his permission, I'd like to share with you.

This is what he writes:

In a Jewish Chronicle blog post named “Palestine Campaign head visits anti-Israel protesters outside Ahava” RichMillet brings a quote from the Koran as follows: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).” [ Sahih Muslim, 41:6985, see also Sahih Muslim, 41:6981, Sahih Muslim, 41:6982, Sahih Muslim, 41:6983, Sahih Muslim, 41:6984, Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:56:791,(Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:52:177) ]

 
I wish to juxtaposition this with the attitude of Judaism towards those same stones and trees, for the sake of comparison.
 
Throughout history, different nations have received different levels of public relations. To give just two examples from Jewish (biblical) history, let’s look at  Amalek (Exodus Ch. 17) and the Amorite (Numbers Ch. 21).
 
Most people can talk fairly knowledgeably, at least for a minute or two about Amalek; we read about him in the Torah every year on the Shabat before Purim, and again later on during the year. We are commanded to remember what he did to us, and to wipe out his name.
 
As for the Amorite, few can say much about him. As some American Jews summarize most Jewish Holidays and festivals: “they tried to kill us, we beat them, let’s go eat …”.
 
In actual fact the opposite is true. We know practically nothing at all about the Amalekite beyond what he did to us on a one-time basis at the time of our exodus from Egypt. I once spent an entire evening combing several Toranic databases looking for all available rabbinical material on Amalek, and all I came up with was the opinion that Amalek originated in the Arad area (in the Negev desert). [I once managed to dehydrate there while on military maneuvers. Amalek’s revenge?]
 
On the other hand, we know so much about the Amorites that I could write a book about them if I had to. I don’t have to, because it’s been done. One of the external additions to the Babylonian Talmud is named Tosefta  (lit. ‘addition’). It tells us many of the small things in the Amorites’ life; how the Amorite woman cooked in her kitchen, what she cooked (one example: a concoction of bread, milk and salt), and of their customs and superstitions.  I first heard of Tosefta when I was 11 or 12 years old, while reading Ripley’s famous “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”. He stated there that while the American Benjamin Franklyn was generally considered the inventor of the lightning conductor (discovered while playing with a kite in a storm), this wasn’t so, said Ripley: the principle of the lightning conductor is mentioned in the Talmudic Tosefta, written some 2,000 years ago, where it is written “he who throws pieces of iron amongst chickens, these are the ways of the Amorite. But if this is done because of thunder or lightning, it is permitted”.   The preceding sentence refers to the principle of the lightning conductor!
 
To read the rest of Avraham Reiss's piece, go here:
http://jcwatch.wordpress.com/judaism-islam-eretz-yisrael-and-stones