After the Death of Those Slain in the Land of Israel (In Place of a Lament)

Remarks I delivered in the synagogue on the Sabbath of Parashat Pekudei, 5768. Written on Saturday night.

This is what Agnon called the opening to the Kaddish for the fallen soldiers of the IDF on Memorial Day. And I, insignificant as I am, am not one fit to write laments. And yet the heart wishes to lament these young men, for they are among the slain of the Land of Israel. True, the Sabbath is not a time for eulogy, but the Holy One, blessed be He, will have to forgive me for deviating from the rules, for, with all due respect, He too did not act here according to the rules.

I would like to say that these young men died sanctifying His Name, but that is not correct. Their death is a terrible and horrifying desecration of God's Name. Torah students fall into the hands of murderers, innocent of any wrongdoing.

How much I would also like to say that whoever is murdered because he is a Jew thereby sanctifies God's Name, but I do not believe that either. There is no real source for this, and conceptually too it cannot be right. This is a fool's consolation. A person who dies for the sanctification of God's Name is a person who gave up his life consciously for the sanctification of His Name, but these were simply murdered, with no such intention on their part.

So why? What was the point of their fall? Did it serve any purpose? For them, for the Jewish people, for the Land of Israel, or for the Holy One, blessed be He? None. They simply fell like that, with no reason and no purpose. This is the most terrible desecration of God's Name imaginable. "Where are His awesome deeds?".[1]

What does one do in the face of a terrible event that has no meaning at all, no value, and no reason or benefit? What does one say, think, and explain?

Aaron the Priest too stood before the death of his two sons. The Torah describes that they offered alien fire, but the Sages and the commentators elaborate at length with dozens of explanations for their death, none of which offers any healing (and it has already been said that there are dozens of explanations for why we read the Book of Ruth on Shavuot, but there is only one explanation for why we read the Book of Esther on Purim). To Aaron it seemed that they too died without any real reason.

Death without a reason is a far greater tragedy than a death that has some benefit or some value. Aaron stands before this tragedy and wonders—without words. He does not ask, and yet his brother answers him:

And fire came forth from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron: This is what the Lord spoke, saying: Through those who are near to Me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron was silent.

Aaron is silent. There are those who describe this silence as accepting the judgment with love. And I, insignificant as I am, am not sure of that. Does the death of the righteous bring about some sanctification of God's Name? If so, then perhaps that is only in the world of emanation (Atzilut). What I hear in Aaron is an assertion (again, without words) that if the Holy One, blessed be He, has no better justification than that, then there really is nothing more to say. "Where are His awesome deeds?"

At the beginning of the Sifra there appears the baraita of Rabbi Ishmael's thirteen hermeneutical rules, and at its end the rule of 'two verses that contradict one another'. After that, the following example is brought:

"Two verses that contradict one another remain so until a third comes and reconciles them"—how so? One verse says, "The Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain," while another verse says, "From heaven He made you hear His voice to discipline you." The third reconciles them: "For from heaven I spoke with you." This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, bent down the highest heavens over Mount Sinai and spoke with them. And so David said in the book of Psalms: "He bent the heavens and came down, with thick cloud beneath His feet."

This rule tells us that when we stand before a paradox, two contradictory verses, the third verse can help us find a resolution to the contradiction.

After that, another example is brought there, taken from our portion (Pekudei). I will cite here a parallel midrash from the Sifrei Zuta, Parashat Beha'alotekha:

89. "When Moses would come into the Tent of Meeting"—one verse says, "When Moses would come into the Tent of Meeting," and another verse says, "Moses was not able to come into the Tent of Meeting." How are these two verses to be upheld? Rather, when the Divine Presence descends to the earth, what does it say? "Moses was not able," because permission has been given to the destroyers to destroy. But when the Divine Presence withdraws from the earth, what does it say? "When Moses would come into the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him"—once he entered, He would speak with him.

In our passage it says that Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting. In Parashat Beha'alotekha it says that he entered to speak with the Holy One, blessed be He. Here too there are two verses that contradict one another. Here they are reconciled even without a third verse: this is when the Divine Presence is below (and then Moses cannot enter), and that is when the Divine Presence is above (and then he can enter). When the cloud rests upon the Tent, our teacher Moses has no permission to enter inside.

Where is the third verse in this midrash? Here the resolution comes without a third verse, for we can look for explanations even without help. Here there is no need for Sinaitic hermeneutical rules. This is how we would proceed even without the tradition of the rules.

And indeed this is what the Raavad writes in his commentary to the Sifra, and his words are also cited in Rabbi Jacob Hagiz's Tehillat Hokhmah:

And from this reconciliation, by which the third verse decided the matter and resolved two verses that contradict one another, the Sages learned elsewhere regarding two contradictory verses when no third verse comes to decide between them, as we learned in Sotah, in the chapter "On that day": "One verse says two thousand cubits, and one verse says one thousand cubits. How can this be? One thousand cubits is the Sabbath boundary." Thus they reconciled them on their own understanding, according to their proofs, just as they learned by an a fortiori inference, etc. And that which it teaches, "until the third verse comes and decides between them," means this as well: when two verses contradict one another, you are not permitted to reject them and treat them as erroneous without returning to resolve them as much as you can, until the third verse comes and decides between them; then you should proceed according to the reconciliation that becomes evident.

The Raavad explains that this rule teaches us to reconcile the two contradictory verses in ways that seem plausible to us even without finding a third verse to decide between them. That is, the rule of two verses that contradict one another means finding a logical solution that removes the contradiction, even in the absence of a third verse. This is a reasonable and almost inevitable conclusion from understanding this rule in the school of Rabbi Ishmael.

By contrast, with Rabbi Akiva we find a completely different manifestation of the rule of 'two verses that contradict one another'. And thus it is stated in the Mekhilta, Bo, parashah 4:

Rabbi Akiva says: One verse says, "You shall sacrifice the Passover offering to the Lord your God, from the flock and the herd," and another verse says, "From the sheep and from the goats shall you take it." How are these two verses to be upheld? You must say: this is a rule in the Torah—two verses that stand opposed to one another and contradict one another remain valid in their place until a third verse comes and decides between them. Scripture therefore says, "Draw out and take for yourselves sheep according to your families, and slaughter the Passover offering." Sheep for the Passover offering, but not cattle for the Passover offering. Rabbi Ishmael says: The verse is speaking of the festival-offering that accompanies Passover.

Rabbi Akiva brings two contradictory verses and remains with the contradiction. One verse says flock and cattle, while the other implies only flock. Here one must rely on a third verse, for there is no resolution to the contradiction. The third verse simply instructs us to take flock. And what about the verse that says flock and cattle? Rabbi Ishmael, true to his approach, explains it as referring to the festival-offering, but Rabbi Akiva prefers to be silent, in the manner of "And Aaron was silent". If you have no plausible explanation, it is better to be silent.

With Rabbi Akiva, the rule of 'two verses that contradict one another' is a rule that instructs practical conduct, whereas with Rabbi Ishmael it is an interpretive rule. Rabbi Ishmael uses it to explain and resolve the contradiction, whereas Rabbi Akiva leaves it in place. The only question is how one is to act in practice. For that he brings a third verse.

The very formulation of this rule in Rabbi Akiva (and so it is in all its appearances in Akivan midrashim) is different from Rabbi Ishmael's. Rabbi Ishmael writes:

And likewise, two verses that contradict one another remain so until the third verse comes and decides between them.

Whereas Rabbi Akiva writes:

This is a rule in the Torah: two verses stand opposed to one another and contradict one another, yet they remain valid in their place until a third verse comes and decides between them.

From Rabbi Akiva's wording it emerges clearly that without a third verse, each of the two contradictory verses stands in its place. He also sharpens the fact that they contradict. Moreover, he is careful (and this too always appears in his midrashim) to stress that this is a 'rule in the Torah'. Rabbi Ishmael resolves contradictions. That is not really a rule in the Torah but an accepted form of human thinking. Rabbi Akiva stands before the contradiction and is silent. That is a rule in the Torah: that sometimes there are in it matters that are not understood, and even contradictory.

Rabbi Akiva also relates to reality as a 'verse' in such a contradiction. And so we find at the end of Makkot:

Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Akiva were once traveling on the road, and they heard the noise of Rome's multitudes from Puteoli [from a distance] of one hundred and twenty mil. They began to weep, and Rabbi Akiva laughed. They said to him: Why are you laughing? He said to them: And why are you weeping? They said to him: These idolaters, who bow to images and burn incense to foreign worship, dwell securely and tranquilly, while the house that was the footstool of our God is burned by fire—and should we not weep? He said to them: That is why I laugh. If such is the lot of those who transgress His will, how much more so for those who do His will.

Once again they were going up to Jerusalem. When they reached Mount Scopus, they tore their garments. When they reached the Temple Mount, they saw a fox emerging from the place of the Holy of Holies. They began to weep, while Rabbi Akiva laughed. They said to him: Why are you laughing? He said to them: Why are you weeping? They said to him: About the place of which it is written, "And the stranger who comes near shall be put to death," and now foxes have walked through it—should we not weep? He said to them: That is why I laugh, for it is written, "And I will take for Myself faithful witnesses to attest: Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberechiah." But what connection is there between Uriah and Zechariah? Uriah was in the First Temple, and Zechariah in the Second Temple! Rather, Scripture linked Zechariah's prophecy to Uriah's prophecy. Regarding Uriah it is written, "Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field [etc.]," and regarding Zechariah it is written, "Old men and old women shall yet again sit in the streets of Jerusalem." Until Uriah's prophecy was fulfilled, I feared that Zechariah's prophecy might not be fulfilled; now that Uriah's prophecy has been fulfilled, it is certain that Zechariah's prophecy will be fulfilled. In this language they said to him: Akiva, you have comforted us! Akiva, you have comforted us.

Rabbi Akiva stands before the sharpest and hardest contradictions, and laughs out loud. He contents himself with what he knows, and is unwilling to become entangled in contradictions in order to resolve them. If there is no resolution, that is the Holy One's problem, not his. He seeks only an answer to what he ought to do now.

Rabbi Akiva stands before a similar situation when they comb his flesh with iron combs, and there too his students say to him, 'Our master, even to this point?!', and he answers them (Midrash of the Ten Martyrs, Eisenstein edition):

And when they took him out to be executed, it was the time for the recitation of the Shema, and they were combing his flesh with iron combs, while he accepted upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven. His students said to him: Our master, even to this point? He said to them: My sons, all my days I was troubled by this verse, "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul"—even if He takes your soul. And I would say: When will it come to my hand that I may fulfill it? And now that it has come to my hand, shall I not fulfill it? He prolonged the word "One," and his soul departed on "One." A heavenly voice went forth and said: Fortunate are you, Rabbi Akiva, that your body was pure and your soul departed on "One," in purity; and you are destined for the life of the World to Come. They said of him: What a difference there is between the early generations and the later generations. The early generations, even when they lived in suffering, loved Him and affirmed the unity of the name of the Holy One, blessed be He—such as Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues, who were completely righteous and accepted upon themselves the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven with love. It was said of him that when he was imprisoned, Yehoshua HaGarsi attended him. Once, on the eve of Yom Kippur, he stood up, took leave of Rabbi Akiva, and went home. Elijah of blessed memory met him and knocked at the door of his house. He said to him: Who are you? He said to him: I am Elijah. He said to him: What do you want? He said to him: I have come to inform you that Rabbi Akiva, your master, has died. Immediately the two of them went all night until they reached the prison, and found it open, with the chief jailer asleep and all the people asleep. At that moment Elijah strengthened himself, attended to him, and carried him on his shoulder. Yehoshua said to him: Rabbi, are you not a priest? He said to him: There is no impurity among the righteous, nor among sages and their disciples. And when they left the prison, groups upon groups of ministering angels were eulogizing him and saying, "He performed the righteousness of the Lord and His judgments with Israel" (Deuteronomy 33), and the road shone before them like the radiance of the firmament. When they reached the pavilion of Caesarea, they went down three descents and up six steps and found a cave, and in it were a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. When he came out, Yehoshua did not want to leave. He said to him: I will not leave here until you tell me for whom this bed is. He said to him: For the wife of the wicked Turnus Rufus. As soon as they left the cave, its mouth was sealed. They praised and thanked Him who spoke and the world came into being, and they said: Fortunate are you, righteous ones; fortunate are you, pious ones; fortunate are you, laborers in Torah. How much is hidden away for you, how much is stored up for you, as it is written, "How abundant is Your goodness which You have stored up for those who fear You," etc. (Psalms 31:20).

(See also the parallel in Yoma 19b, on "For in a cloud I will appear over the cover", and consider it carefully.)

To be sure, in Rabbi Akiva's case there was still an explanation. He truly died for the sanctification of God's Name, and gave himself over for that. But what can we say after him?!

The Sages describe a dialogue between Moses and the Holy One, blessed be He, about Rabbi Akiva's death (Menahot 29b and parallels):

Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: At the hour when Moses ascended on high, he found the Holy One, blessed be He, sitting and tying crowns onto the letters. He said before Him: Master of the Universe, who is holding You back? He said to him: There is one man who is destined to arise at the end of many generations, and Akiva ben Yosef is his name; he is destined to derive heaps upon heaps of Jewish laws from every tiny stroke. He said before Him: Master of the Universe, show him to me. He said to him: Turn around. He went and sat at the end of eight rows, and he did not know what they were saying, and his strength failed him. But when they came to one matter, his students said to him: Rabbi, from where do you know this? He said to them: It is a law given to Moses at Sinai. His mind was put at ease.

He returned and came before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said before Him: Master of the Universe, You have such a man, and yet You give the Torah through me? He said to him: Be silent; thus it arose in My thought.

He said before Him: Master of the Universe, You have shown me his Torah; show me his reward. He said to him: Turn around. He turned around and saw his flesh being weighed in the marketplace. He said before Him: Master of the Universe, this is Torah and this is its reward? He said to him: Be silent; thus it arose in My thought.

When one asks the Holy One, blessed be He, 'This is Torah and this is its reward?', He answers: 'Be silent! Thus has it arisen in My thought.'

After the death of the great silent one, silence is lacking in the world. There is no longer a voice issuing from the silence (see Rashi on I Kings 19:12), for Rabbi Akiva's great voice has already ceased (see the Targumim on Deuteronomy 5:18, where 'yasaf' means 'ceased'). Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, tries to prolong Rabbi Akiva's silence ('yasaf' in its second meaning), and He commands us too to be silent even after Rabbi Akiva's silence has ended.

And we have nothing left but to fulfill His commandment and be silent. We shall be silent aloud, and continue to be silent until His lips wear out from telling us, 'Enough!', in the manner of "A great voice (emerging from the silence), and it did not cease". And would that it be fulfilled in us: "The master's words and the student's silence—which are we to heed?!"

When the cloud covers the Tent of Meeting, apparently one cannot enter there. This is a state in which "Permission has been given to the destroyers to destroy". True, there are those who try to force their way inside, to explain and disperse the cloud, but this verse tells us that in such cases one must remain outside, in the manner of "And Aaron was silent", and not seek explanations and rationalizations. Not even the 'explanations' of the Holy One, blessed be He Himself.

And on this Wittgenstein already wrote at the end of his Tractatus:

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent…

Usually, the Jewish ethos is to seek meaning and significance in everything that happens to us, like Rabbi Ishmael and not like Rabbi Akiva. That is probably the reason for all the explanations and justifications we hear for every such case. But Rabbi Akiva teaches us that sometimes, when we have no good explanation, it is better to remain silent. Those explanations are presumably what the Holy One, blessed be He, is supposed to provide us. And a strained explanation, or a detached and unconvincing meaning, is better not said at all.

One verse says: "It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it". And reality cries out and says the opposite: "Where are His awesome deeds?". We have here no third verse, neither to interpret nor to guide. We have already had more than our fill of strained and learned explanations. "This is a rule in the Torah"…

Appendix (added now, 5771)

We are accustomed to attributing everything that happens to us in this world to the Holy One, blessed be He. By nature, a believing Jew lays out his claims and complaints before his Creator. Sometimes he is also silent before his Creator, sounding toward Him a voice that emerges from silence, in the manner of "And Aaron was silent". Thus far the thesis, and now the antithesis.

It is important to understand that when human beings choose to do evil, to murder or to injure, that is their decision and not the Holy One's, and the responsibility is theirs and not His (except for the fact that He does not intervene and prevent it). The Holy One decided to place in our hands responsibility for our deeds, and the ability to conduct the world through our actions and our choices. Had He intervened and prevented us from doing evil, then de facto our free choice would have been taken from us (for we would have been able to do only good).

The Sages in tractate Makkot (10b) explain why the punishment of exile is imposed on an unintentional killer:

Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish opened this passage with the following: "And he who did not lie in wait, but God caused it to come to his hand," etc. "As the ancient proverb says: From the wicked comes forth wickedness," etc. What is the verse speaking about? Two men who had killed a person: one killed unintentionally and one killed intentionally. There were no witnesses for either of them. The Holy One, blessed be He, brings them together to one inn. The one who killed intentionally sits beneath the ladder, and the one who killed unintentionally descends the ladder, falls on him, and kills him. Thus, the one who killed intentionally is killed, and the one who killed unintentionally goes into exile.

The Sages explain that the punishment of exile imposed on the killer is the result of a prior deed. The Holy One caused him to kill unintentionally in order to impose on him the punishment of exile. On the other hand, it is unreasonable that in order to impose exile on one person, the Holy One would put another person to death when that other did not deserve to die.

If so, apparently the picture that emerges from here is that everything that happens to a person is in the hands of the Holy One. This is contrary to the claim above. Yet it is a little puzzling why the Sages do not explain the same thing about intentional murder as well: that both the murderer and the murdered probably deserved death, and therefore the Holy One brought it about for them in just this way.

From here it seems that this is indeed not the right way to understand intentional murder. If Reuben intentionally murders Simeon, there is no necessity that Simeon deserved to die. And indeed we find this stated explicitly in the sugya in Hagigah 5a, which discusses the question whether 'there are some who perish without judgment'. And Rabbenu Hananel writes there a short sentence, as follows:

And the explanation of "there is one swept away without justice" is, for example, a man who killed his fellow.

This sentence is somewhat obscure. Why does Rabbenu Hananel connect the situation of a death a person did not deserve (= without judgment) specifically with murder? Why not a car accident, or death from illness?

Apparently his intention is to say that only in murder can there be a situation in which a person dies without judgment. Any other death that comes to a person is a death that he deserved. But if Reuben decides to murder Simeon, Simeon may die even if he did not deserve to die. That is exactly what I said above.

And indeed the question arises here: what is the difference between intentional murder and any other death (unintentional killing or death from illness and the like)?

The answer lies in understanding the essence of choice. Every event in the world takes place through the action and direction of the Holy One, blessed be He. The sole exception is an action of a person performed out of free choice. Here it is not the Holy One who determines what will happen; rather, He allows the person to determine it. If a person dies a natural death, that is an act of the Holy One, and then apparently there is a reason why he deserved to die. But if a person is murdered by his fellow, that can occur even without his having deserved to die. If his fellow chose to murder him, the Holy One gave him a free hand, even to choose evil.

And what about unintentional killing? Here too it is an action of a person, but it is an action without intent. Precisely because of this, it is clear that the killer is not the true agent; rather, the true agent is the One who directs the course of events, namely the Holy One, blessed be He. Therefore it is clear that in unintentional killing, the person who died needed to die, and the Holy One brought it about through the killer's inadvertence. Apparently that is why the Sages explain the matter of the inn specifically with respect to an unintentional killer.

The conclusion is that an action of a person done through free choice and free decision is his action. Any other action (such as an unintentional one) is not considered his action, but that of the Holy One, blessed be He, who leads and directs him. Therefore one is generally not punished for an unintentional act (unless there is negligence). And even where we do find punishment for an unintentional transgression, that punishment is for the negligence and not for the results (the other person's death).

If so, indeed cases of murder such as this are without meaning. We have no explanation for them, for what or why the Holy One, blessed be He, did this to us. But in fact it was not the Holy One who did it, but those savage murderers.

[1] Of course, the desecration of God's Name is not their fault. The situation itself is a desecration of God's Name.