The Land I Will Show You, sec. 4, chapter 6

Remembrance and Exile; Establishing the Era of Second Temple

Nov 12, 2023

6: Remembrance and Exile; Establishing the Era of Second Temple

(For the previous chapter of “The Land I Will Show You, click here. For the ToC, click here.)

Said Rav Yehudah: “Anyone who ascends from Babylonia to Eretz Yisrael transgresses a positive commandment, as it says, ‘They shall be taken to Babylonia and there they shall remain until the day that I recall them, said Hashem’ (Jeremiah 27:22).”[1] As has been explained above (sec. 2, chapter 3), Babylonia was a special place for the Nation of Israel. In that place the vessels of Hashem’s house were deposited, and it was appropriate that the Nation of Israel remain there together with the utensils of the Temple, in a state of anticipation for the redemption that would commence from Babylonia at the time that Hashem would recall His vessels, and along with them, His children. It is appropriate to clarify from when did this prohibition begin. It is certain that Rav Yehudah didn’t consider it forbidden for the community to ascend with Ezra. These returnees were invited from Heaven to return to Eretz Yisrael, as is written: “So said Hashem: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will recall you’” (ibid, 29:10). Despite the captivity, annihilation and plunder awaiting them in Eretz Yisrael under the subjugation of Persia, Greece and Rome, the Nation of Israel (or at least a part of it) was commanded in a divine command to ascend and build, whatever the cost may be. But when, exactly, was the period of the invitation replaced with a period in which it was appropriate for the Nation of Israel to specifically remain in Babylonia? At first glance, one might think that the invitation came to an end with the destruction of the Temple. But I will present here the notion that the invitation remained open until the days of Rav Yehudah, the one who said this statement. Through this study, we will understand in greater depth the connection between the Second Temple era and Torah, and the great debate about the partial aliyah from Babylonia.

It is clear that the invitation for the Children of Israel to return to their land is connected to the Holy Temple, which the returnees built. But this doesn’t mean that the invitation was annulled with the destruction of the Temple, such that immediately a prohibition to return took effect against the Babylonian Jews. The invitation to return is connected to the era of the Temple and sacrificial worship, not to the physical existence of the Temple. And as we shall see, it wasn’t immediately determined with the destruction of the Temple at the hands of the Romans that the era of the Temple was over and that it wouldn’t be rebuilt in the near future.[2] Based on a close study of the sources, it seems that the end of the Temple era is fixed at the end of the Torah era – meaning the end of what is established by Chazal as the “2 thousand years of Torah,” as we shall see.

In the days of Rabbi Yehoshua son of Chananiah, they commenced rebuilding the Holy Temple anew. As is recounted:

In the days of Rabbi Yehoshua son of Chananiah, the evil empire decreed that the Temple should be constructed. Papus and Lulyanus set tables from Akko to Antioch, and they provided those ascending from the exile with silver and gold, and all their needs. The Samaritans went and said: “Let it be known to the king…that if this rebellious city is built, and its walls finished, they will not pay minda, belo, or halakh”… He said to them: “What can I do? I issued a decree.” They said to him: “Send and say to them: Either move it from its place, or add five cubits to it, or subtract five cubits from it, and they will relent on their own” … When those missives arrived, they began weeping. They wanted to rebel against the empire. They said: “Let one Sage enter and calm the assembly.” They said: “Let Rabbi Yehoshua son of Chananiah, who is the greatest Torah scholar, enter.” He entered and expounded: “A lion mauled prey and a bone was stuck in its throat. He said: ‘Anyone who extracts it, I will give him a reward.’ An Egyptian heron with a long beak inserted its beak and extracted it. It said to it: ‘Give me my reward.’ It [the lion] said to it: ‘Go, boast, and say that you entered the mouth of a lion in peace and emerged in peace.’ So, it is sufficient that we entered into dealings with this nation in peace, and emerged in peace.”[3]

One could ask: How does this fact comport with the warning not to build the Holy Temple until a voice is heard from heaven?[4] Where is the required heavenly voice?[5]

In fact, the problem applies not only to the failed attempt in the days of Rabbi Yehoshua, but even to the building of the Second Temple itself. Where is the expected voice as per to the severe oaths that preceded the Second Temple?[6]

A deep and rich clarification of the matter can be derived from what is alluded to in the wondrous description of the commencement of rebuilding the Temple in the Heichalos Chapters,[7] that recounts of a voice from heaven that was heard at the time of the foundation of the Second Temple. Based on what is said there, it seems that the voice from heaven is not meant merely as a revelation that the time has come to build, a sign that permission was granted from heaven; rather, the voice is an essential reason to build the Holy Temple, a dwelling for the Shechinah that is revealed in a speaking voice. This phenomenon justifies building a house for Hashem. At the foundation of the Temple there was that voice, and that same voice was in effect in the days of Rabbi Yehoshua.

Let us delve into the description in the Heichalos Chapters. It is made clear there that there was a special connection between the Torah and the Second Temple; the unique indwelling of the Shechinah that took place there brought to a tremendous revelation of Torah:

From the day the Torah was given until the last Temple was built, the Torah was given, but its splendor wasn’t given, and its glory, greatness and beauty, its awe, fear, fright, crown of pride and might, sheen and shine, strength and power, rule and force weren’t given – until the last Temple was built and the Shechinah dwelt in it.[8]

At the beginning of the building, until the Shechinah dwelt in it in that way, the Children if Israel complained before Hashem about the double burden of building the Temple and toiling in Torah that was incumbent upon them, along with the great troubles:

Yisrael stood to complain before their Father in heaven, saying, “You have brought upon us many troubles, which shall we take hold of and which shall we abandon? You have thrown upon us a great hardship and heavy burden. You told us, ‘Build a Temple, and even though you are building it, toil in Torah’.”[9]

As a response, they received a secret, through which they would be able to access a tremendous increase of Torah, without toil and exertion. This is how they were answered from heaven:

Your words were graceful in My ears and your statements are acceptable to Me… say your requests and they shall be granted to you, and the desire of your souls will be immediately done, for there is no moment as this moment, and there is no time like this time in which your love is cleaving to my heart… I know what you are requesting and my heart recognizes what you desire: much Torah are you seeking and masses of Talmud and many teachings, to ask the halacha you seek, and the masses of My secrets you covet, to increase halachas like the sand of the sea and My secrets like the dust of the earth, and to establish yeshivas in the gates of tents to explain what is forbidden and permitted, to render impure that which is impure and to render pure that which is pure, to render valid that which is valid and to render invalid that which is invalid, and to recognize bloods in them and to rule for menstruants what they should do… If you merit this seal to use the crown through it, no ignoramus will be found in the world, and there will be no fool or stupid one among you… for this secret is one of the secrets that comes out of my treasure houses the voice of your yeshiva [sic], for like calves released from the stall, not with toil and not with exertion, but rather with the name of this seal… establishing months will come out from you and intercalation of years from your heaps of wisdom. Through you, Nasis will be anointed and by your word heads of rabbinical courts will arise. You will appoint Heads of the Exile, and judges of cities by your authority…[10]

The ministering angels objected to the idea of revealing the secret that would enable such an increase of Torah that would be easily accessible to all:

A great war did my ministers wage with Me… “Let this secret not leave your treasure-house, this hidden wisdom from your vaults, don’t make flesh and blood like us… if this secret goes out to Your children, small will be like big and fool like wise man!”[11]

But the Holy, blessed be He maintained His position that the time had come to reveal the secret and spread Torah knowledge to the masses:

“No, My ministers, no, My servants, don’t trouble Me with this matter. This secret will go out of My treasure-house, this hidden wisdom from My vaults… hidden from ancient times… I never considered recounting it to all these generations from the days of Moshe until now… it is appropriate to utilize it to bring Torah into himself like water, and like oil into his bones… what is the world lacking? This secret and this hidden thing which isn’t in the world: a measure of pride that My children will take pride in.”[12]

The secret was revealed with a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the Temple. The revelation of the secret – how to utilize it in order to merit an increase in Torah – is what justified the building of the Temple:

Our forefathers didn’t accept upon themselves to put a stone in the sanctuary until they compelled the King of the world and all His servants… He revealed to them the secret of the Torah, how they should do it and how to use it. Immediately, the Holy Spirit appeared from the great street in the House of Hashem – as the Shechinah didn’t descend or dwell in the Holy of Holies due to the decree. When our forefathers saw the Throne of Glory… and the King of the world upon it, they immediately fell on their faces; about that moment it says, “The glory of this house will be great” (Hagai 2:9).[13]

Not only was there a revelation of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the building of the Temple, but this revelation is identified with that indwelling of the Shechinah that took place in the First Temple. It is the very voice with which the Holy, blessed be He, connected to His children in the First Temple:

For in the First Temple, I connected to My children only through this voice… My children, why are you fallen on your faces? Stand and sit before My throne in the way that you sit in yeshiva, grab hold of the throne and accept it and study the method of this minister of Torah, how to do it and how to expound it and how to use it, for how to raise the pathways of their hearts, let your hearts look into the Torah.[14]

In summary: Our forefathers didn’t want to build the Temple until Hashem connected with them through a manifestation of His Holy Spirit and revealed to them the secret of the Torah, meaning the method through which one can attain much Torah and masses of Talmud and many teachings, small like great and fool like wise man. This revelation characterizes the greatness of the Second Temple and its glory, a period of expansion of study and knowledge of Torah, and the voice of the revelation is essentially the same voice from the days of the First Temple.

Let us explain the inner meaning. It seems correct to surmise that this voice is the very voice from heaven that we were seeking, the voice which is needed in order to build a Temple.

There is no mitzvah to build a Temple without the Shechinah dwelling in it, as this is the simple meaning of a house of Hashem, and this seems obvious based on what is written: “They shall make for Me a Holy Temple, and I will dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:8). The mitzvah is to build a house for the Shechinah that will dwell in it. If the Shechinah will not dwell in it, there is no reason to build the Temple: “For the whole Tabernacle wasn’t made but for the Ark in which was the Shechinah.”[15] Therefore, without the Ark returning and the Shechinah returning to dwell in the Second Temple – the returnees from Babylonia weren’t prepared to build the Temple. The voice that was heard by Moses from between the two cherubs and after him by the rest of the prophets who attained to the flow of prophecy by virtue of the Ark[16] – was silenced and disappeared, and the era of prophecy attendant to the Temple ended. But a new voice manifested in its place, a voice that doesn’t include prophetic power but rather a tremendous revelation of Torah, and despite this it is identified with the voice of prophecy from the First Temple, and therefore serves as an appropriate replacement. This is the “dwelling of the Shechinah” in a different way, which nonetheless justifies the need for a Temple, and therefore continues the original dwelling of the Shechinah. Just as there a need for a Temple for the sake of the voice of prophecy, there is a need for a Temple on behalf of the voice of Torah.

This is the “voice from heaven” necessary for building a Holy Temple – the very voice for which the Temple serves as a dwelling.

With this we can understand how they built the Second Temple. They did indeed hear a voice from heaven, as expected. And now we can also understand why they began to rebuild anew in the days of Rabbi Yehoshua. It would seem that this voice remained in the world – meaning the power of the great revelation that the voice represents – even after the destruction of the Temple, and it was present until the end of the Tannaic era, the era of those great men who flourished at the end of the Second Temple Era. The end of the Tannaic era also marks the end of the “two thousand years of Torah.”[17] The Era of Torah ended in the days of Rav, Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish, the generation of the students of Rabbenu the Holy, the first generation of Amoraim; one could presume that the secret of Torah connected to the Second Temple was in force until that time and was lost with the end of the Mishnaic period; the conclusion, then, is that until the end of the Tannaic era it was proper to build a Temple by virtue of the voice from heaven.

Proof to all this: the opposition of Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish to the Babylonians. Resh Lakish didn’t want to speak with a person who ascended from Babylonia nor accept his outstretched hand, and Rabbi Yochana would harass them. But there were great Babylonian sages who preceded Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish to whom they certainly wouldn’t have related with such disrespect, such as Hillel the Babylonian and Rabbi Chiya and his sons. It is inconceivable that they would have related to these great men with such antagonism. But in fact, Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish were opposed only to those Babylonians that didn’t succeed in joining the community in Eretz Yisrael during the Temple era, when the invitation was still open. This implies, then, that the invitation wasn’t closed until the end of the Tannaic era, after the ascent of Rabbi Chiya and his sons; and only after the invitation was closed did Rav Yehuda prohibit to return and ascend again.

After it was clarified that the Temple era is identical with the era of Torah, and that the building of the Temple was dependent on a new revelation of Torah, we can get back to a deeper understanding of the debate about the partial aliyah of the Babylonian exiles. As we have seen, the opinion of the Babylonian sages was that the Torah would be preserved well specifically in Babylonia, while Rabbi Yochanan held that the Torah would be preserved in Eretz Yisrael. The question about the future of the Torah is at the root of the question about the return of the Babylonians who were invited to return and build the Second Temple, a dwelling place for the voice of Torah. If the great revelation of Torah that is connected with the building of the Temple will be limited to Eretz Yisrael, the place of the Temple – that implies that all the children of Israel are invited to return to Eretz Yisrael, despite the expected captivity and annihilation and plunder, since only there will the Torah be found in its perfection. But if the great revelation will spread to the diaspora as well, it follows that there is no need for all of Israel to return, and that on the contrary, it’s better that a significant portion remain in Babylonia, who will receive the benefit of Eretz Yisrael without being endangered in its danger: The Torah will spread to there, and the sages of Babylonia will live in peace and tranquility, preserving the Torah in its perfection. The question is, in short: Does the secret of the Torah hold outside of Eretz Yisrael?

That was the dispute, and a question about this matter is found in the Heichalos Chapters as well, in the context of a discussion about the secret of the Torah and how to use it:

One who connects to the minister of Torah should wash his clothing and garments… and establish the study of this minister of Torah in prayer thrice daily… he should stand on his feet and make oaths in the servants and their king 12 times on each minister … and these are their names… and he should again make an oath on those last four ministers… and when he finishes after 12 days, he should go out to any amount of Torah that he seeks, whether the written Torah or Mishnah or seeing the Chariot, as he goes out with a pure measure and from great suffering and pain, for it is a teaching in our hands a rule of the early ones and a tradition of ancient ones who wrote and left it for generations that the younger should use it, and whoever is worthy is answered through them. Said Rabbi Yishmael, this was done by Rabbi Eliezer and he was answered and they didn’t believe it, and it was done by Rabbi Akiva and they didn’t believe it, and then it was again done by me and I didn’t believe it… and they took Rabbi Akive out of Eretz Yisrael with authority of the rabbinical court and he was delayed, until it was done by many who hadn’t read or studied and they became the same after them and became students of the sages… this was done only for the diaspora and succeeded, and so said Rabbi Eliezer the Great, and the Sages say – maybe it was in the merit of Eretz Yisrael.[18]

It isn’t fully clear what exactly the dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and the sages is about, but it is clear that the nature of the relationship between the secret of the Torah and Eretz Yisrael is a matter of debate; like that debate whether all the Babylonians were supposed to rejoin and participate in the revelation of Torah that was going to happen in Eretz Yisrael, or whether they were permitted and even obligated for some of them to remain behind, not to get up and ascend to Zion, but rather to study Torah in tranquility in Babylonia.

It has been clarified that until the end of the Tannaic era it was permitted for the Babylonians to return (according to one opinion), or that were obligated to do so (according to the other opinion). At the end of that era, Rav Yehudah forbade them to ascend again, and in a similar way, Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish distanced those Babylonians who didn’t arrive in time. As we shall see, they held that after the Babylonians missed the opportunity, they must remain in exile. To this important question we turn in the next section of this book: How and when can it be determined that it is appropriate for certain people to remain in exile, and what is the practical ramification of this for ourselves?

Unapologetics

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