When faced with difficulty and with pain, the Jewish response is to trust in HaShem and to believe that "it will be all right." Yet we know that in Jewish history there have been times when the end of the story has been tragic. What is the operative morality of facing one's end, not as an individual but as part of a doomed community?
תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: מִשֶּׁחָרַב הַבַּיִת בָּרִאשׁוֹנָה, נִתְקַבְּצוּ כִּיתּוֹת כִּיתּוֹת שֶׁל פִּרְחֵי כְּהוּנָּה וּמַפְתְּחוֹת הַהֵיכָל בְּיָדָן, וְעָלוּ לְגַג הַהֵיכָל, וְאָמְרוּ לְפָנָיו: רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם! הוֹאִיל וְלָא זָכִינוּ לִהְיוֹת גִּזְבָּרִין נֶאֱמָנִים — יִהְיוּ מַפְתְּחוֹת מְסוּרוֹת לָךְ. וּזְרָקוּם כְּלַפֵּי מַעְלָה. וְיָצְתָה כְּעֵין פִּיסַּת יָד וְקִיבְּלָתַן מֵהֶם. וְהֵם קָפְצוּ וְנָפְלוּ לְתוֹךְ הָאוּר.
The Sages taught: When the Temple was destroyed for the first time, many groups of young priests gathered together with the Temple keys in their hands. And they ascended to the roof of the Sanctuary and said before God: Master of the Universe, since we did not merit to be faithful treasurers, and the Temple is being destroyed, let the Temple keys be handed to You. And they threw them upward, and a kind of palm of a hand emerged and received the keys from them. And the young priests jumped from the roof and fell into the fire of the burning Temple.
1. In this tragic story from the Babylonian Talmud, the young priests sought not to save their lives but to apologize to their employer, as it were. What is significant about the passage?
Points to consider:
1. young priests are specified
2. a "kind of a hand" is seen responding
3. the priests then seek death - why?
אַנְטִיגְנוֹס אִישׁ סוֹכוֹ קִבֵּל מִשִּׁמְעוֹן הַצַּדִּיק. הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אַל תִּהְיוּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, אֶלָּא הֱווּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב שֶׁלֹּא עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, וִיהִי מוֹרָא שָׁמַיִם עֲלֵיכֶם:
Antigonus a man of Socho received [the oral tradition] from Shimon the Righteous. He used to say: do not be like servants who serve the master in the expectation of receiving a reward, but be like servants who serve the master without the expectation of receiving a reward, and let the fear of Heaven be upon you.
2. In the development of Jewish ethics there is an awareness of a "lower" level of morality which requires reward, yet we are urged to try for the "higher" level of "serving the master" purely out of "fear", or mora, related to the term yir'ah, awe. When is the former necessary? When is the latter possible?
וּכְשֵׁם שֶׁמּוֹדִיעִין אוֹתוֹ עׇנְשָׁן שֶׁל מִצְוֹת, כָּךְ מוֹדִיעִין אוֹתוֹ מַתַּן שְׂכָרָן. אוֹמְרִים לוֹ: הֱוֵי יוֹדֵעַ שֶׁהָעוֹלָם הַבָּא אֵינוֹ עָשׂוּי אֶלָּא לְצַדִּיקִים, וְיִשְׂרָאֵל בִּזְמַן הַזֶּה אֵינָם יְכוֹלִים לְקַבֵּל
And just as they inform him about the punishment for transgressing the mitzvot, so too, they inform him about the reward granted for fulfilling them. They say to him: Be aware that the World-to-Come is made only for the righteous, and if you observe the mitzvot you will merit it, and be aware that the Jewish people, at the present time, are unable to receive their full reward in this world;
לֹא רוֹב טוֹבָה וְלֹא רוֹב פּוּרְעָנוּת. וְאֵין מַרְבִּין עָלָיו, וְאֵין מְדַקְדְּקִין עָלָיו.
they are not able to receive either an abundance of good nor an abundance of calamities, since the primary place for reward and punishment is in the World-to-Come. And they do not overwhelm him with threats, and they are not exacting with him about the details of the mitzvot.
3. The above two-part text from the Babylonian Talmud tractate Yevamot is taken from the instructions a rabbi is required to give an aspiring convert. Note the phrasing: "the Jewish people at the present time are unable to receive reward." Is this a way of acknowledging that times were difficult, and that therefore the link between behavior and reward or punishment was not easy to discern? Note that the World To Come is an important element here in relieving the discomfort of the questions of theodicy* that would otherwise have to be faced. (*theodicy grapples with: if God is good, why is there evil?")
כי אתא רב דימי א"ר יוחנן לא שנו אלא שלא בשעת גזרת המלכות) אבל בשעת גזרת המלכות אפי' מצוה קלה יהרג ואל יעבור
§ When Rav Dimi came from Eretz Yisrael to Babylonia, he said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: The Sages taught that one is permitted to transgress prohibitions in the face of mortal danger only when it is not a time of religious persecution. But in a time of religious persecution, when the gentile authorities are trying to force Jews to violate their religion, even if they issued a decree about a minor mitzva, one must be killed and not transgress.
4. Mortal danger may come about in any number of ways: war, the climate emergency, a pandemic. The ethical content of the Jewish response to mortal danger depends upon whether there is an attack not only upon the body but upon the soul. Can you work out a reason why even a minor mitzvah must be defended in such a case?
5. a final thought on being doomed, from the poet M Wyrebek (d. 2003)
Night Owl
You are nearing the land that is life.
You will recognize it by its seriousness.-- Rilke
Driving my bad news the back way home
I know I'm in the land that is life
when I reach my favorite stretch of road -- fields
flat and wide where corn appears soon after
planting, the soil tilled, night-soaked
and crumbled into fists.
Ferguson's barn is somewhere
at the end of this long arm of tar
and as I near it, something grazes the back
passenger-side door, luffs parallel to my car --
a huge owl on headlight spray floating,
holding night over the hood to see
if this moving thing is real, alive,
something to kill -- then gliding in
close as if to taste glass.
The road levitates, buffeted on a surf
of light, the fog-eaten farm disappearing
as I ride into starlessness, cells conspiring
so I am bright-flecked and uplifted -- is this
what it feels like to be chosen -- to be taken
under the wing of something vast
that knows its way blindly.
Michele Wyrebek published one transformative book of poems, Be Properly Scared (1996). The book characteristically took its title from a tough-minded statement by Flannery O'Connor, with whom Michele felt a great affinity. "Cowards can be just as vicious as those who declare themselves -- more so," O'Connor asserted. "Don't take any romantic attitude. . . . Be properly scared and go on doing what you have to do." (by Edward Hirsch)