There’s been a lot of buzz lately about prayer
space at the Kotel, which raises several questions: What’s the buzz about? Why
is the Kotel so important to Jews? Should the Kotel be of importance to
progressive Jews?
First question: What’s the Kotel buzz about? Last
week, the Israeli government approved a plan to establish an egalitarian prayer
space at the southern end of the Kotel, the Western Wall
(so-named because it is the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount) thanks
largely to Women of the Wall and the Israel Religious
Action Center, under the
leadership of the indomitable Anat Hoffman. Celebration among progressive Jews,
and the predictable and appalling comments of ultra-Orthodox reactionaries
swirl together in the media haze surrounding the announcement of the compromise
agreement.
The Temple of Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians
in 586 B.C.E., rebuilt by those who returned from Exile, and then underwent a
massive expansion by King Herod in the first century B.C.E. Herod began the
project by shoring up the hilltop on which the Temple will be built,
reinforcing it with a retaining wall. He then rebuilt and refurbished the
Temple. When the Romans tore it down in 70 C.E., they were unable to dismantle
the entirety of the Western retaining wall because the stones were so massive.
Today those that remain constitute the bottom layers of the Kotel, with smaller
stones from the Umayyad period filling in the gaps.
The Destruction of the Temple was a cataclysm for
the Jewish people. In the wars with Rome thousands upon thousands of Jews were
killed and the country was decimated. The loss of the Temple spelled the loss
of the religious space that united the people in worship of God. A nascent
rabbinic movement gradually filled the void with a growing library of
forward-looking rituals and laws that breathed life into the nation again. But
at the same time, the Rabbis looked back at the Destruction with an array of
intense emotions. We have a wealth of their writings that reflect a spectrum of
reactions. On one end of the spectrum, there were those who felt the
Destruction was God’s just judgment against Israel for sins she committed. On
the opposite end of the spectrum we find enormous anger expressed at God for
overreacting, abandoning Israel to her enemies, and participating in the
torture of her people.
This week, I want to share with you just one
parable of the many, many stories, commentaries, and parables that address and reflect the pain and sadness,
confusion and disillusionment, anger and resentment that the Destruction
engendered, sentiments that lasted for several centuries. (I’ll interweave an explanation, but I recommend
that you first read the parable intact; it is reproduced at the bottom of this
drash for that purpose. We are accustomed to reading stories once through and
moving on, but to fully understand and appreciate rabbinic stories—even
seemingly simple ones—we need to read them many times. Please keep in mind as
you read that in rabbinic parables, the king is always God, and the king’s
wife, son, or servant is Israel.)
This I recall to my mind, therefore
I have hope
(Lamentations 3:21). R. Abba bar Kahana said: [This situation] is like a king
who took a certain woman to be his wife. He wrote her a very large marriage
contract. “So
many bridal chambers will I make for you,” he wrote her. “So many jewels will I bestow upon
you, so much silver and gold will I give you.” Then he left her for many years
while he journeyed to a distant province.
The parable opens with a verse from Lamentations,
the biblical book of dirges composed in response to the destruction of the First
Temple. Tradition attributes them to the prophet Jeremiah. Lamentations 3:21,
significantly, tells us where the parable is going to go: hope.
R. Abba bar Kahana tells the story of a king who
wrote his wife a generous ketubah (marriage contract). He then went away
without explanation and without communicating with her for a long time. In a
similar way, the Rabbis mean us to understand, God wrote Israel a generous
marriage contract. Can you guess what the rabbis have in mind? And then, from
the perspective of the Rabbis, God essentially abandoned Israel, failing to
protect her from her enemies and allowing the Romans to enter the Land and
destroy the Temple. Abandonment is a strong emotion and, indeed, an accusation,
yet the Rabbis did not hesitate to express it.
All this time her neighbors taunted
her. “Has
your husband not abandoned you?” they said. “Go! Take another man for yourself.”
The woman wept and sighed, but then she would go inside her bridal chamber,
read her marriage contract, and console herself.
Alone and bereft of her husband, the woman’s
neighbors take advantage of her fragility and tempt her to find another man,
but she resists the temptation. What makes it possible for her to wait for his
return? Her marriage contract, which she reads again and again in their bridal
chamber, reinforces her love for, and loyalty to, the king even though his
presence is neither seen nor felt. Similarly, after the Temple was destroyed,
other nations taunted Israel, suggesting they follow other gods since theirs
had abandoned them. What is it that Jews do that is equivalent to entering the
bridal chamber and re-reading their ketubah?
Many days and years later, the king
returned. “You
amaze me!” he said to her. “How have you been able to wait for me all these years?” She
replied, “My
lord, O king! If not for the generous marriage contract you wrote me, my
neighbors would indeed have led me astray!”
When the king finally returns, he is amazed that
his wife has waited for him and remained loyal to him. She is quite honest and
admits that the only thing that kept her loyal was the sense of love ignited by
reading the ketubah—she certainly hadn’t heard from him nor did she feel his
actual presence. And now the Rabbis will decode the parable for us:
So the nations of the world vex the
children of Israel. “Your God no longer wants you,” they say. “He has abandoned you, and removed
His Presence from among you. Come! Join us, and we will appoint you rulers and
commanders and generals.” But the children of Israel enter their synagogues and
study houses where they read in the Torah, I will look with favor upon you,
and make you fruitful, and multiply you; and I will maintain my covenant with
you…and I will establish My abode in your midst, and I will not spurn you (Leviticus
26:9, 11)—and so they console themselves. And in the future, when the
redemption arrives, the Holy One, blessed be God, will say to Israel, “My children, you amaze me! How have
you waited for me all these years?” They will reply, “Master of the universe! If not for
the Torah you gave us, and the verse, I will look with favor upon you… and I
will not spurn you, which we read when we entered our synagogues and study
houses, the nations of the world would indeed have led us astray.” This is what
is written: If Your law had not been my delight, I should then have perished
in my affliction (Psalm 119:92). And therefore it says, This I recall to
my mind, therefore I have hope (Lamentations 3:21).
Torah is the ketubah God has given us. We read and re-read
it in our bridal chambers: our synagogues and study houses. When we pray and
when we study Torah, we are reading the ketubah, the marriage contract, that
God gave us. The Rabbis often likened the Giving of Torah at Mount Sinai to a
wedding in which God is the groom and Israel is the bride. While we often
cannot feel God’s presence directly, Torah—and especially God’s promises as
expressed in Leviticus 26:8-11—keeps us connected to God until we can feel God’s
presence again. That is why there is reason to hope. The parable therefore ends
on a hopeful note: We always have Torah to keep us connected to God. Today, the
Kotel serves as a connection with what once was, and perhaps, for some, a
promise of what may yet be.
Third question: Should the Kotel be important to
progressive Jews? For many progressive Jews, the Torah is the ketubah that
matters. The Kotel is an ancient artifact of a by-gone era, not even part of
the ancient Temple but merely of the retaining wall around the Temple Mount. I
have heard people express the concern that the worship at the Wall
borders on idolatrous worship of the Wall. I can appreciate the concern
that perhaps there has been too much focus from all sides on the Wall, and not
enough on the real ketubah: Torah. Yet I can also see that the Wall has become
a manifestation of the ketubah in the parable: it is a tangible sign of our
deep and abiding historical and religious connection to the Land of Israel. Tzur
Yisrael; the Rock of Israel.
For the Kotel agreement to become a living,
breathing reality, Israel must allocate the funds to
© Rabbi Amy
Scheinerman
Eichah (Lamentations) Rabbah 3:21
This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope (Lamentations 3:21). R. Abba bar Kahana said: [This situation] is like a king who took a certain woman to be his wife. He wrote her a very large marriage contract. “So many bridal chambers will I make for you,” he wrote her. “So many jewels will I bestow upon you, so much silver and gold will I give you.” Then he left her for many years while he journeyed to a distant province. All this time her neighbors taunted her. “Has your husband not abandoned you?” they said. “Go! Take another man for yourself.” The woman wept and sighed, but then she would go inside her bridal chamber, read her marriage contract, and console herself. Many days and years later, the king returned. “You amaze me!” he said to her. “How have you been able to wait for me all these years?” She replied, “My lord, O king! If not for the generous marriage contract you wrote me, my neighbors would indeed have led me astray!” So the nations of the world vex the children of Israel. “Your God no longer wants you,” they say. “He has abandoned you, and removed His Presence from among you. Come! Join us, and we will appoint you rulers and commanders and generals.” But the children of Israel enter their synagogues and study houses where they read in the Torah, I will look with favor upon you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you; and I will maintain my covenant with you…and I will establish My abode in your midst, and I will not spurn you (Leviticus 26:9, 11)—and so they console themselves. And in the future, when the redemption arrives, the Holy One, blessed be God, will say to Israel, “My children, you amaze me! How have you waited for me all these years?” They will reply, “Master of the universe! If not for the Torah you gave us, and the verse, I will look with favor upon you… and I will not spurn you, which we read when we entered our synagogues and study houses, the nations of the world would indeed have led us astray.” This is what is written: If Your law had not been my delight, I should then have perished in my affliction (Psalm 119:92). And therefore it says, This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope (Lamentations 3:21).
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