Patterns in History

“Time is not an immovable tunnel, equally wide for its entire length, an apathetic instrument allowing events to flow through. Time lives and spins, widens and narrows, an active participant in all that flows through her. She resembles a knife, a dagger. An individual can permit his fingers to toy with it, knowing that only one edge is sharp and dangerous, but as he approaches the end the blade grows ever thinner and soon only the tip remains, nothing to take hold of, no place to stand, no room to play. He runs or he is impaled. Now, if the individual were the sole owner of this knife he would know how to treat it and control it. But, alas, many are the masters of dagger-like time, and in their hands it is transformed into a living, unpredictable creature. Before you can recoil you are trapped on its edge, its tip, between heaven and earth…"
- Professor Israel Eldad

Part I

There was a custom two thousand years ago in the village of Betar. When a boy was born the parents would plant a cedar tree and when a girl was born a pine tree would be planted. When a couple would be married, branches were cut from his cedar tree and from her pine tree in order to be used together in constructing the marriage canopy. This custom was to symbolize that the couple had firm roots connecting them to their Torah and homeland.

One day, the daughter of the Emperor Hadrian passed through. When a wheel of her carriage broke, her servants chopped down a nearby cedar tree for wood. The Betar Judeans were enraged by this insult and fell upon the Romans in a furious storm, successfully driving them from the village. The foreigners returned with a mighty force and a terrible slaughter ensued, killing over one hundred thousand. In the nearby valley of Yadayim, two rivers flowed in opposite directions. On the day Betar was massacred by Rome, each of these rivers possessed two thirds water and one third blood. It is said that the gentiles fertilized their fields for seven years exclusively from the blood of the Judeans slaughtered at Betar.

After the massacre, the Romans took the surviving Judeans to Alone Mamre in Hevron, where Avraham had first established the Hebrew nation. Here the Romans erected a slave market and sold each of Avraham’s descendents for the price it would cost to feed a donkey for one day.

In Netzach Yisrael, the Maharal of Prague writes of three stages in the destruction of Judea. The first stage was Jerusalem, symbol of G-D’s Oneness and Israeli unity. But in Jerusalem there existed baseless hatred between Judeans. Even during the valiant revolt against Rome, Israeli fighters could not come together under one united front of national liberation. Instead, they were splintered into warring factions. The Romans succeeded in taking advantage of the disunity, capturing Jerusalem and destroying its holy Temple.

The second stage of destruction was Tur Malka, a town known for its great fertility. There was a custom in Tur Malka that on the day of a wedding, a rooster and chicken were led in front of the bride and groom, symbolizing a blessing that they should increase like birds. During one wedding, a group of hungry Romans snatched the birds from the procession. Under the leadership of Bar Daroma, the angry Judeans revolted against the gentiles. The Romans returned with superior numbers and defeated the insurgents of Tur Malka.

The third stage was Betar, representing the firm roots and physical power of Israel. The Romans, according to the Maharal, sought to destroy Israeli unity, subdue the Hebrew birthrate and uproot the Judeans from their faith and soil in order to vanquish the spirit of Israel.

Driven by a hunger for national freedom, the Hebrews had been rebelling against imperial Rome for generations. There were large and small uprisings and, after losing entire regiments of the legion to Judean rebels, the Emperor Hadrian became determined to crush Israel’s spirit. The study of Torah was outlawed and rabbis were hunted down for public execution. In order to scorn the eternality of Israel, Hadrian built the slave markets in Alone Mamre (where the Hebrew nation began) to sell the Judeans into exile from their land. Exhausted from fighting countless Judean revolts, the emperor decided to erase the Israeli connection to their ancestral homeland. The name of Judea was altered to Palestine and the name of Jerusalem was changed to Aelia Capitolina. Judeans were forbidden from living in a place where they could see the ruins of Jerusalem for Hadrian knew that any Judean who could remember Jerusalem would automatically remember his right hand and revolt.

When one remembers Jerusalem, he instinctively remembers his own strength and must act. It is noteworthy to mention that of all the Jews victimized by the terrible Holocaust, it was the Zionist groups that revolted against the Nazis. Whether rightwing or left, religious or secular, the Zionists could revolt because they remembered Zion – Jerusalem – not as some abstract spiritual ideal for the future or some glorious chapter of Israel’s past. The Zionists viewed Jerusalem as a concrete, practical reality to be achieved in the present. They therefore remembered their courage after nearly two thousand years and revolted against the Nazis when no one else would.

Part II

It has been asked why the Hebrews were made to suffer Egyptian bondage before finally emerging as the nation of Israel. While it is true that G-D revealed this to Avraham in an early prophecy, it is known that negative prophecies do not have to come about. Therefore, one might ask again why the Hebrews were in exile from their native soil and enslaved by the Egyptians before emerging free as a nation.

Israel was cast into exile because the sons of Yaakov dreamt of an exile. At the very source of its national formation, Israel had a selfish dream. Yosef dreamt of overshadowing his brothers and in turn his brothers were jealous of him. They were disturbed by his dreams of grandeur and resented the favoritism their father had shown him. They conspired against him and sold him into slavery.

But the seed of Yaakov is one, despite what some might think, say or do. The objective reality remains that Israel is eternally united at the soul and cannot be separated by any mortal means. By selling their brother Yosef into slavery, the brothers were in fact selling themselves into bondage, blazing a trail for generations of Hebrews to be born into cruel subjugation and hard labor.

Like in the life of an individual child, the life of the Israeli nation has four distinct stages. These are the womb, the birth, the nurturing and the test of maturity. These stages have repeated themselves throughout history, continuously climbing towards the ultimate goal of Creation. In order to ensure that there is benefit from each stage and that we continue forward not in a cycle but in an upward spiral, it is necessary that we learn the proper lessons from each stage so as not to repeat the same mistakes or invite similar tragedies as experienced in the past.

As a nation, Israel first encountered the pregnancy stage in the womb of Egyptian slavery. There we hibernated, our national framework not yet existent, awaiting the great day of birth. This birth dawned when Moshe killed an Egyptian, earning himself the role of G-D’s prophet and Israel’s shepherd. Through devastating plagues, the Egyptian Empire was cowed by the might of HaShem, G-D of Israel. And when we embarked on our Exodus from Egyptian bondage to liberty, the nation of Israel was in effect being born from the womb. It is noteworthy that only twenty percent of the nation experienced this miraculous delivery. We learn that four fifths of Israel did not wish to be born, preferring Egyptian servitude to the unknown G-D and freedom in the wilderness. But like an individual, a nation cannot remain forever in the womb. There is either a birth or an abortion and eighty percent of the Hebrews died in Egypt during the plague of darkness.

The twenty percent of Israel that was born, now constituting the nation, journeyed to Mount Sinai to be nurtured by the Torah. The Torah, it must be understood, is not merely a book or religion. It is the Divine ideal from before the world lowered into our reality in order to uplift this world beyond its limitations. Along with giving this Divine blueprint of Creation to the Hebrews, HaShem commanded that they be a kingdom of priests and holy nation that will rule sovereign over the Land of Israel and spread the light of Torah unto humanity. Thus the nation was born out from Egypt and nurtured on the Torah, preparing for its mission as a sovereign nation, the test of maturity.

Following the conquest of our homeland under Yehoshua bin Nun and the initial period of autonomous tribes under the Judges, the Hebrews underwent the examination of maturity. As a sovereign kingdom, Israel dealt with all facets of nationhood from farming and commerce to warfare and international relations. The young nation reached a high point under David and Shlomo, becoming a powerful world empire with the ability to influence other peoples far and wide. But the masses of Israel were also easily influenced. And perhaps not yet ready for the greatness that Shlomo achieved. The pull towards spiritual fulfillment was very powerful. People of strength would refine themselves and toil, reaching levels of prophetic wisdom and connection to HaShem. But weaker men would attempt to fulfill their spiritual cravings through easier means. Idolatry became rampant in Israeli society, leading to murder and sexual immorality. The kingdom was split but each remained for generations. The northern kingdom, Israel, was eventually overpowered by foreign imperialists and uprooted from their land. The southern kingdom, Judah, lasted longer but in time also failed the great test. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia came and subjugated Jerusalem, destroyed the holy Temple and exiled the nation.

Once again, the Hebrews experienced the pregnancy stage. This time the womb was Babylonia, where unlike Egypt, they enjoyed comfortable lives and personal success. But when seventy years had passed (the appropriate rectification needed for the sickness of idolatry, murder and sexual transgressions), it was once again time for the nation to be born.

Because of the comfortable lives enjoyed in the exile, only a small trickle of Hebrews followed Ezra back home. These were mostly the sinners and illiterate. The wealthy and learned preferred to stay in Babylonia rather than be born. Israeli history, of course, continued with the rabble who returned. Being uneducated and sinful, the Hebrew masses were reeducated by Ezra and Nechemiah in the ways of Torah. A spiritual revolution took place that nurtured the reborn nation, eventually leading to a struggle for self-determination. Under the priestly Hasmonean family, Israel revolted against the ruling Syrian-Greeks and won independence for the first time since its defeat at the hands of Babylonia. And the test of maturity began once again.

For the sins of idol worship, murder and sexual transgressions, Israel experienced a seventy year exile. But for the crime of senseless hatred among the nation that raged during the two centuries after the Hasmonean victory, Israel has suffered for nearly two thousand years. The Hebrews again failed the examination of maturity and were forced back into the womb of bitter exile.

This history is important to understand because of where the Hebrew nation finds itself today. Alongside a terrible abortion in Europe where an entire third of the nation was lost, Israel experienced a great rebirth from the womb. And the tremendous movement returning Israelis to the Torah is the nourishment that is setting the nation up once again for the examination of maturity. Israel is now again embarking on erecting a sovereign kingdom.

Part III

To effectively teach history, one must unify it and appreciate the common thread that binds concepts, figures and events down through the ages. For history to be a collection of dry facts and figures is to deprive it of its significance and ability to penetrate the heart. In order to fully understand past events and their impact on the present and future, one must examine history through its emotional reaction.

The saga of the Hebrew nation does not belong exclusively to the past, for as long as something does it cannot be completely understood. For example, one cannot hope to know how victims of the Holocaust felt as they rode the trains to Auschwitz unless he can imagine himself in that very situation.

There are conceptual threads that bind personalities in the unified story of Am Yisael. There is a thread that binds Mordechai the Jew to Abba Achimeir, Adam HaRishon to Moses Mendelssohn, Elazar ben Yair to Yair Stern. There is a theme that connects Rabbi Akiva to Naomi Shemer and there is a thread that links Bar Kochba to Yigal Yadin.

Upon the modern national renaissance of the Hebrew nation in its land, the Israeli Army came as a startling revelation. After centuries of persecution at the hands of other nations, Israel stunned the world – and even itself – through expressions of great valor and miraculous victories in battle. The greatness of this event is perhaps best illustrated by a highly symbolic twist of fate.

Five years after Israel’s declaration of independence, a remarkable series of ancient letters was discovered in the Judean desert. They were the letters of Bar Kochba, the last commander of the ancient Israeli Army and king of Judea during the last great uprising against Rome. The letters, addressed to various officers under his command, carried on them Bar Kochba’s personal signature.

While this alone is an outstanding archeological discovery, it is not the most astonishing part of the story. The true miracle lies in the fact that the person who found the letters of the last Israeli commander was the well-known archeologist, General Yigal Yadin, effectively the first commander of the new Israeli Army.

For one thousand eight hundred and twenty years, Bar Kochba’s letters lay hidden in the Judean desert, in clay pots where they were preserved for some unknown future date when the nation would return to itself and its borders. No one had even touched them until they were discovered. The letters were awaiting their final destination. As if by personal delivery, the letters of Israel’s last commander reached Israel’s first commander nearly two thousand years later. This is no poet’s fantasy but reality. It happened. The letters may have arrived a little late, but they fell into the right hands, delivered from army to army, from commander to commander.

When one comes to the Jerusalem museum and sees these letters, he can comprehend their meaning even without being able to read them. He can see that what took place in this country is an extraordinary feat verging on the sublime. The Israeli Army is not an army like any other. Although it has the ability to make terrible mistakes, it is precious and holy and any who speak against it are blaspheming against the army of G-D Himself. After nearly two thousand years of bitter exile that culminated with a massive genocide in Europe, Israel is the only people in the world that still has to struggle for the prerogative to live as a sovereign nation in its ancestral homeland. Israel is the only nation currently confronted by not only an Arab war of attrition, but also constant challenges to its legitimacy as a nation with a right to self-determination over its full borders.