Mori Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron

This is the week of TeSawweh (that’s Tetzaveh for the un-initiated in ancient Hebrew pronunciation) – the Torah portion about sacred clothing, the clothing that would distinguish the Kohen-priests, particularly the High Priest, in their sacred duties. It is also the week I was interviewed by Tamar Yonah (a true honor) about the dubious origins and halakhic problems (according to Torah law) with the relatively late, European custom of dressing up in costume for Purim. How fitting it is for me, then, to teach about one of the more poorly-known aspects of Torah: the importance of a distinct, Jewish dress.

Consider one of the fundamental 613 Commandments of the Torah, in Wayyiqra (Lev.) 18:3:

After the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelled, you shall not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan, to where I am bringing you, you shall not do; neither shall you walk in their statutes.

The following is a summary of the Oral Torah (the actual halakhah) on this Divine Commandment from the Mishneh Torah, the Code of Jewish Law (Laws of Idolatry chapter 11:1)

One is not to walk in the statutes of the gentiles, and not to resemble them—not in their dress, and not in their hairstyle, nor in anything else of this sort, as it is written: “neither shall you walk in their statutes.” And it is written, “be careful of yourself, lest you be ensnared after them.” [Deut. 12:30] All this is warning about one thing: That one not resemble them; but rather, that the Israelite be distinguished from them and known in his dress and in his other ways, just as he is distinguished from them in his wisdom and his character. And thus it is written, “and I shall make you distinct from the nations.”

In the miSwath lo-tha`aseh (Torah Prohibition) #30 in Sepher ha-miSwoth, we learn that the prohibition against copying the statutes of the gentiles not only pertains to their present customs, but those of their ancestors as well. Now it is possible that RaMBaM changed his opinion since his youth, when he wrote sefer ha-miSwoth, deliberately leaving this detail out of Mishneh Torah. This way the Hamburg-hatted, frock-coated Hassidim and Lithuanian-style Jews could claim that today they have a distinct Jewish look — certainly now that the Christian clergy have moved on to new modes of dress.

To me, it’s a stretch. I could be mistaken, but I see no reason to fight what seems clear: Jews are not to dress in uniquely gentile dress — neither that of the present, nor that of the past. (Note: Whatever I say about Haredi dress is said with the deepest respect for the Haredim and their [our] fierce dedication to Torah. I am one who personally identifies as a Haredi Jew, living in a Haredi neighborhood with children learning in a fine Haredi institution.)

One friend of mine shared with me an additional insight: The black garbed Polish look and black hats/streimels (and I add to that the modern, tight-fitting Western styles of non-Haredim) make us look foreign to this land. It is hostile clothing to the climate, and we look like aliens, foreign oppressors who don’t belong here, imported from Europe.  The Arabs pick up on it, as does as the rest of the world. Noting our non-native styles, they say, “See?  These Jews came and stole our land. They don’t belong here – go back to Europe!”

What I believe the nations understand subconsciously, somewhere deep in their souls, is something that pains them greatly: This is not the look (and in many cases not the behavior) of the “kingdom of priests” Israel is supposed to be for us. Barukh HaShem (thank God), I see numerous signs of positive change underway.

How, then, are Jews to ideally dress? Believe it or not, the traditions of our unique dress have not all disappeared. We can still learn them from the Jews of the Orient, very few of whom maintain them to this day. From my own great-great-great grandfather HaRav Yehudah Ha-Levi from Dubrovnik, Serbia, to the senior Hakhamim of Baghdad (below [1]) to the Torah teachers of Yemen: formal-wear for Jewish men varied little.

Among our warriors, the style differed. Below is a photograph of YaHia Habbani of blessed memory, close family to Ya`aqov Mosha (Awad bin Brihim), father of the esteemed Aluf Abir, Mori Yehoshua Sofer shlit”a. The late uncle is dressed in classical Habbani style, which goes back millennia.

The Aluf Abir himself, an expert on ancient clothing of the Near East, once taught me in the name of his father (who is presently well over 100 years old, may HaShem preserve him in good health) that a picture of Arabs 100 years ago would be nearly identical to the way Yishmaelites looked one thousand years ago, and so on back to the times of the Tanakh (Bible). It was no different among his own clan, whose distinguished lineage hails back to the times of Dawidh ha-mmelekh (King David). The style varied per activity, including casual styles such as a very long over-shirt over loose, short white pants — much like the breeches of modern Hassidim. Sometimes the large `tallith was worn as a main garment; among the Habbani warriors it could be wrapped to gird up the entire torso like a rope-belt, criss-crossing the body. [2]

Whatever the style, from the Beth Midrash to the battlefield, across the Middle East, we maintained our distinct dress. If we are to receive the lesson from our ancient Oral legends (midrash), this is a matter of no small importance: It was partly in the merit of our steadfast loyalty to our traditional Hebrew dress, that HaShem redeemed us from Egypt. The sages even ordained a special blessing for us to make each morning specifically when we wrap our heads turban-style:  “Blessed are You, HASHEM our God, King of the Universe, who crowns Israel with splendor.”  The Babylonian Talmud (tractate Berakhoth 60b) is clear, and so is Mishneh Torah (Book of Love, Laws of Prayer 7:4) the blessing is made when on “puts his sheet [or cloth] on his head”.  (Note that both Talmud and Mishneh Torah do mention hats in other places.  This blessing appears to be specifically for authentic Israelite headgear.)

Now before you run for your nearest tailor and wager how quickly you are likely to lose your job, your friends, or worse; what is the practical halakhah (Jewish law)? Today, modern dress is standardized all over the world into a basic, universal “human dress”. In our day, most modes of dress that are uniquely gentile, are also outlandish enough to be a Purim costume. Besides that, although we maintained a distinct style, the truth is that Jews though the ages wore what was comfortable to them in their surroundings. My understanding is, according to my training, that for men – on a basic level – so long as one’s clothes are sufficiently modest, the kippah on our head and fringes at our sides give us a clearly unique and distinct look, and satisfy the basic halakhah (practical Jewish law).

However, to my humble understanding (with no disrespect intended towards those who disagree), there may be two common exceptions to this for men: the 3-piece suit and tight pants — particularly tight jeans. Unlike casual suits, the 3-piece suit is a traditional garment also known as the “Sunday’s best.”  Reaching its present form in the last century, it appears to have been — in its original cultural ambient — a special garment set aside by the common gentile for weekly, Sunday idol worship. As for tight pants or jeans, unless they are way oversized so that they sag like the ‘gangbanger’ look (which itself may constitute a distinctly gentile style), this is specifically mentioned in Talmud as prohibited to Jewish men. To my reading, RaMBaM had no need to mention this – would it not be included in the general prohibition of imitating gentile customs?!

As for myself, I am personally unsatisfied with the universal “human dress” code; my soul yearns for more. It doesn’t sit well with me that for over 3,000 years our fathers, our great rabbis, prophets and warriors had distinct Jewish dress styles and haircuts that we can comfortably toss aside in favor of the styles of yuppie-ville and the American mall. In a modern Israel where Buddhist monks, nuns, and Ethiopic Christian priests roam freely in their traditional garbs, must I, a Jew, feel confined to styles out of GQ magazine, that are technically permitted?

Now I rarely delve into mysticism in my articles, but I cannot hold back this time. Tefillin [3], by Aryeh Kaplan, is one of the most inspiring books I ever read as a Jew growing into Torah observance, years ago. In it, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan of blessed memory writes:

Physical space exists only in the physical world. In the spiritual domain, there is no concept of space as we know it.

But still we speak of things being close or far apart in the spiritual world.   What does this mean?  We cannot be speaking of physical distance, for there is no physical space in the spiritual realm. But in a spiritual sense, closeness involves resemblance.  Two things that resemble each other are spiritually close.  On the other hand, two things that differ are far apart in a spiritual sense.

It follows that if we desire to be spiritually close and similar to the greatest men of all time, Avraham our forefather, Mosha Rabbenu, Dawidh ha-mmelekh, Rabi `Aqivah and so on, we should resemble them as much as possible. That is, of course, first and foremost in our deeds: how we relate to others, how we pray, how we learn and practice Torah, how we fight. But it is so difficult in a mundane world where we are so categorized, labeled and limited by those around us. Yet, as I explained above, we create our image – the way we are perceived – and invite those labels, to a degree, by the way we dress and cut our hair.

The foremost reason why, in the Haredi world, Jews wear black hats and suits, is the foremost reason I try to dress more Hebrew: They know how much clothes make the man of God. When passing by a thumping disco alone, a young teen wearing a black hat and suit will feel and react differently than a young man in jeans with a half-dollar sized kippah on his head. Dressing more Israelite can have the same effect. The difference is that the black galuth (diaspora) garb subliminally gives him the feeling of a European arrival from 60 years ago, an exiled man in his own land. Carefully ironed, restricting clothes meant for air-conditioned rooms and paved sidewalks give us a different sense of what is natural and what is foreign.

Moreover, as I discussed above, any dress besides our ancestral one fits a certain negative stereotype in the eyes of the nations, to whom we are to be “a kingdom of priests.” Whether it is as small a step as wearing a large `talith while relaxing and working at home, wrapping one’s head for prayer for Morning Prayers when one is alone, or making a bigger change such as growing one’s beard and side-locks, I highly recommend it. Should you choose to put on tephillin (phylacteries) even for a short while outside of prayer to learn some Torah, you are actually fulfilling the Torah commandment to strive to be in tephillin throughout the day. If you are living outside of Israel, just wearing a large kippah to distinguish yourself as a Jew can be an awesome step.

May the day come soon when kohen-priests will daily don their priestly garments in a rebuilt Beth ha-miqdash (Holy Temple) and Yisra’el (the rest of the nation) will don ours for all the wonderful activities there are for us to do in our ancestral heritage. In the meantime, let’s increase our awareness of the Godly type of people our traditional clothing can help us aspire to become.

[1] Photograph from ”The Sassoon’s Return Visit to Baghdad: A Diary by Mozelle Sassoon” published in The Scribe: Journal of Babylonian Jewry ISSN 14 74 – 0230, Issue 74 – Autumn 2001, www.thescribe.uk.com.  Posted at  http://www.dangoor.com/TheScribe_74a.pdf.

[2] Special thanks to the Aluf Abir Mori Yehoshua` Sofer shlit”a for the ethnographic data and photograph.

[3] Kaplan, Aryeh, Tefillin, published by NCSY, distributed by Mesorah Publications, 1975. pp. 42-43

Imagine if a law was discovered in the writings of the Talmudic sages, hailing back to a bygone era – dealing with the property rights of a particular tribe that had been exiled by Assyria in 556 BCE (3205 from Creation)?  That is nearly 750 years before the Mishnah –the oldest of rabbinical writings— was put down in writing in 189 CE (3949 from Creation).

That fateful year saw the tribe of Naftali, along with its brother Northern Israelite tribes, uprooted by the wicked Assyrian forces of Sanhheriv (Sennacherib).  While many tribesmen of Asher, Menashe, and Zevulun returned in body and spirit to rejoin the Jewish People (see Divre HaYamim (Chronicles) II 30:11), we have no written evidence or oral tradition about the Naftalites ever returning home – not before the ultimate ingathering of the exiles at the prophesied ‘End of Days’.  In fact, the pre-eminent legal force in the Mishnah is Rabbi Aqivah – who was of the opinion that the ten Northern tribes would never return – not ever. (Mishnah, tractate Sanhedrin 10:3).     

Yet, incredibly, the rabbis maintained the ancient law that upheld the exclusive fishing rights of the tribe of Naftali at the Sea of Galilee (known in Hebrew as ‘Yam Kinnereth’, ‘Yam `Tiveriah’, and ‘Yam Ginosar’) – even along the southern shore of the small sea.  

See of Galilee: Eternal heritage of the tribe of Naftali (photo from Wikipedia article "Sea of Galilee")

From the original written sources of the Oral Law down to its final compilation in the Mishneh Torah, the law remains in full force:

אין השבטים צדין דגים מימה של טבריה מפני שהוא של נפתלי ולא עוד אלא שנותנין לו מלא חבל של חרם לדרומו של ים שנאמר (דברים לג) ים ודרום ירשה דברי ר’ יוסי הגלילי …

The [other] tribes may not harvest fish from the sea of Tiberius because it belongs to Naftali.  Furthermore, they are given the strip [of land] on the southern shore of the sea, as it is written [Deut. 33:23] “possess thou the sea and the south” – the words of Rabbi Yose HaGelili.

— Tosefta, tractate Bava Qama 8:6 (Compiled in the Land of Israel by Rabi Hiyyah bar Abba circa 300 CE)

ונותנין לנפתלי מלא חבל לדרומו של ים…

And Naftali is to be given to possess the strip [of land] on the south of the sea…

— Talmud Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud), Bava Bathra 16b   (Compiled in the Land of Israel in 350 CE by Rabbi Yohhanan, circa

350 CE)

וְכֵן הִתְנָה שֶׁיִּהְיֶה כָּל אָדָם מֻתָּר לָצוּד דָּגִים מִיָּם טְבֶרְיָה:  וְהוּא, שֶׁיָּצוּד בְּחַכָּה בִּלְבָד; אֲבָל לֹא יִפְרֹשׂ קֶלַע וְיַעְמִיד סְפִינָה שָׁם, אֵלָא בְּנֵי הַשֵּׁבֶט שֶׁהִגִּיעַ אוֹתוֹ הַיָּם בְּחֶלְקָם.

Likewise he legislated that any man may harvest fish in the Sea of Tiberius.  But that is on condition that one fish with a pole only; however, one may neither cast a net, nor station a boat there – except for members of the tribe in whose inheritance the Sea came.

— Mishneh Torah, Hilkhoth Neziqe Mamon (Laws of Monetary Damages) 5:8[6]: (Compiled between 1170-1180 CE by Rav Moshe ben Maimon – RaMBaM.  Here is the law as it was ultimately codified). 

It is written, “He legislated…”  Who does this refer to – who made this legislation?  What is the source of this ancient legal remnant from well before the Assyrian conquest of the Northern tribes?  When we study the fuller context of the above chapter in Mishneh Torah, we discover that it is but one of ten legal enactments from Joshua – student of Moses — and his Supreme Court of 70 Elders.  (Ibid. 5:3[1])

We find this law in Mishneh Torah as practical law on the issue to this day.  Although there is no one to enforce it, it remains ‘halakhah’ (Jewish law) even in our times, for all those who desire to fish the waters of the small inland sea…  It is no less binding than later rabbinical prohibitions which were decreed by the great Sanhedrin throughout the ages, such as the laws of `eruv (from the times of King Solomon and his Court — see Mishneh Torah, Laws of `Eruvin 1:2) and the well-known rabbinical additions to Israel’s kashruth-dietary laws – many of which are also of great antiquity.

Who would zealously preserve the property laws of a long-exiled Israelite tribe – a tribe believed by the greatest of the rabbis of the Mishnah would never return?!  Is this the mark of “Johnny-come-latelies”, of inventors, of revolutionaries?!  Heaven-forbid.  This and many other proofs reveal that the rabbis of the Talmud received from their forebears, preserved, and passed forward legal traditions as old as the Torah itself – an Oral tradition that accompanied the Written Word from the time it was given to the nation by HaShem at Sinai.

Mori Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron, Beth Midrash Ohel Moshe    

 

The Mishnah, written much, much later by Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi, was completed in roughly the year 189 C.E. – 3949 from Creation.  Between 1261 BCE to 189 CE, is 1,450 years – one and a half millennia. 

 

Even when the Mishkan (Tabernacle) stood at Shilo, it was not as active a center of national worship as it should have been.  According to Oral tradition on the story at the opening of sefer Shemuel (Book of Samuel), the pilgrimage of Israelites three times a year had all but ceased before Elqanah – the righteous father of the prophet Samuel – inspired his brethren to resume the ascent to Shilo for the festivals.   Considering how inactive it was at times even when the Mishkan stood, and how it was then re-established elsewhere, there can be little doubt:  When Shilo was destroyed, it was abandoned.  

 

Looking closely at what is understood to be one of the holes for the original stakes by which the roof of Mishkan Shilo was tethered down. *

2,899 years after the destruction of the Mishkan, the holes still remain in tact in broken lines along the rectangular stone perimeter, which once surrounded the sanctuary. *

During the next 1,500 years until the Mishnah was written down, the nation would suffer the collapse of three Israelite kingdoms, and two exiles of nearly all its population.  By that time, Shilo was a long-distant memory.  Moreover, so was the way qodashim qalim –offerings of light sanctity— were eaten at Shilo, since the rules changed after the Tabernacle re-established at Nov.  Yet, incredibly, the Sages maintained a fresh memory of minute details of the way the Hebrew pilgrims once ate of the holy offerings at Shilo – even though they had had already been defunct for so long.  All that time, the details how the offerings were eaten at Shilo were taught orally from teacher to student so that over 1,450 years later, the Sages remembered them as if Shilo were still standing just the day before. 

In Seder Qodashim, tractate Zevahhim, 14,6, we learn how, in Shilo – as opposed to later on – the “qodashim qalim” (offerings of light sanctity) were eaten “bakhol ha-ro’eh” – within view of the Tabernacle.  After the sacred offerings were consumed, the Israelite pilgrim was not permitted to take the use the clay containers for the offerings beyond that point; they needed to be smashed.  Later in Nov, private altars were permitted, and such offerings were not even limited to the Mishkan, but could be eaten “ba-khol `are-Yisrael” – in all the cities of Israel.  Finally, when the Divine Service reached its ultimate form with the building of the First Temple, those offerings could be eaten “lifnim min ha-hhomah” – anywhere within the walls of the city of Jerusalem – not necessarily within view of the Temple.

Indeed, the site of Tel Shilo today remains a natural amphitheater: The remaining base of the Tabernacle – overgrown with brush — still stands aligned on a perfect East-West axis on its small, central plateau, surrounded by high hills.  The holy structure with walls of stone and a roof of animal skins was clearly visible from every direction.  And from the site of the sanctuary and outwards up to the perimeter of the surrounding peaks, are countless ancient shards of smashed pottery.  There can be no doubt: they hail back to the time when the Israelite pilgrims would smash their pottery after eating their offerings within view of the holy Mishkan.

Examining countless potsherds from the time of the Judges at Tel Shilo *

Seeing how trustworthy the Sages were in preserving such minute details about rituals which had been totally irrelevant and impractical for many centuries by their time, consider how much more can they be trusted to have preserved the teachings that were relevant to them, and would remain relevant to Jews throughout the ages – namely the details of the Oral Law of Moses:  What really constitutes idolatry?  Who is a Jew, who is not, and how can one convert?  What are the actual laws of Noah?  What is the true interpretation of God’s Commandments in the Torah regarding everything from the kashruth dietary laws to proper observance of Shabboth – the Sabbath day?  And so on and so forth.

Mori Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron

*  Courtesy of James D. Long 2009, posted with permission

7 Marhheshwan 5770 (October 25, 2009)

In ancient Israel, warriorship — particularly with staves (reed sticks) — was a part of everyday Jewish life.  See the Mishnah, Rosh haShanah 1,9:

“He who saw the new moon [and must give testimony in Jerusalem] but cannot go [on his own] — he is to be brought on an ass, even on a stretcher.  And in case an ambush is set up against them, they are to take staves ["maqloth" = staves/sticks/cudgels] in hand.  And if the journey is long, they are to take food…

We learn from this that the average Jew in Israel (for whom this law is intended) was skilled enough in combat with simples staves, to rout attackers bearing swords, spears, etc.  According to Habbani-Jewish tradition, the reed-stave (“qan suf”) is the primary weapon the Israelites trained in from the days of our sojourn in Egypt, since we were forbidden to train with other weapons.  That is why it is called “yaara” in Yemenite, from the Hebrew word “ye’or” — the Nile.

See a brief demonstration of this combat by the Aluf Abir Yehoshua Sofer:

Abir Qesheth Hebrew Warrior Arts- Double Nabuta On The Rocks

May HaShem bless the Aluf Abir’s efforts to restore the Jewish people to our warrior roots.

        With Torah blessings,

        Mori Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron

2 Heshwan 5770 (20 October 2009)

In the spirit of parashath NoaH 5770, Jeremy Gimpel and Ari Abramowitz interviewed me on their radio show, “A Light Unto the Nations” regarding the launch of my new book, “Guide For the Noahide” and surprised me with a question regarding my work to restore the Abir/Qesheth Hebrew Warrior Arts. 

Although I am not a professional speaker with no radio experience to speak of, I agreed to appear on the show to promote this important work.  The interview can be found on the segment “The Unwavering Faith of Noahides” on Arutz 7 Radio’s show, “A Light Unto the Nations”, at:  http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/1508

IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION

It should be noted that although they called me a “halakhic decisor according to the RaMBaM”, I am not comfortable with that title.  I regard myself as a student and teacher, not a halakhic decisor. 

According to the tradition I received from my mori, the RaMBaM himself remains our halakhic decisor par exellence.   The awesome work he composed leaves us with the purest halakhic guidance possible for all generations until the Sanhedrin will be restored.  It literally puts the entire breadth of practical Torah law even into the hands of laymen, women, and children – besides Torah scholars.  (Laws of Foundations of Torah 4:21)  

This is not a simplistic, anachronistic approach:  it is the very stated purpose for which the Mishneh Torah was written.   (See Mishneh Torah, Introduction 42, and RaMBaM’s Epistle to his student, Rav Yoseph Ben Yehudah, QapaH edition, points 24-25).     The best way to learn, practice and teach halakhah in our times is straight from the Mishneh Torah with no “halakhic decisor” in between.

In practice, however, some measure of Torah guidance is necessary.  If this is true for Hebrew-speaking Jewish scholars, how much more so for Jewish laymen, and even more so for non-Hebrew speaking Noahides!  However, following even a rabbinical figure of the highest repute does not exempt the follower from his rabbi’s mistakes.  Every human being is personally responsible for practicing HaShem’s Law correctly, and is punishable for his mistakes–even those he learned from his rabbi.  For the serious student, even the greatest rabbi is a poor alternative to taking responsibility for his own learning.   It is to aid the non-Jew in this goal, that “Guide For the Noahide” was written.  

That being said, I reiterate what I wrote in the book (Author’s Preface page xi):

“Lastly, as comprehensive as we tried to make this guide, it was not meant to take the place of a competent rabbi or Torah scholar in the field of Noahide Law.  In a case of doubt, a competent Torah teacher should be consulted.” 

When I can be of service to anyone in that regard, I undertake it as a sacred privilege and responsibility.  

With Torah blessings,

Mori Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron

מנהג הנחת תפילין עתיק יומין שנשתמרה ע”י בית האב ה-’בני אביר’ של ק”ק יהודי חבאן יוצאי תימן, כשם שנלמד מן ה-אלוף אביר מארי יחיא יהושע אבנר סופר מעטוף-דוח אל-חבאני שליט”א. הארה: המוסיקה היא בבלית, לא תימנית.

קהילה צומחת של תלמידי רמב”ם שנוהגים ע”פ תורה מקורית ע”פ המשנה תורה לרמב”ם ז”ל

A CRISIS OF PRIORITIES

We approach a Passover holiday that should stand out in our memories from all other Passovers in our lifetimes:  The eve of this Passover happens to coincide with a unique astrological event that occurs every 28 years:  According to ancient tradition, it is the beginning of a new sun cycle, in which the sun assumes the position in which it appeared at Creation.  Millions of Jews worldwide will go out in the morning to witness this spectacle and make bless HaShem, who made all Creation. (hil. berakhoth 10:20[18])   

In fact, a great many of religious Jews will wake up before dawn n order to view the sun and make the blessing in a minyan at sunrise—even though there is no legal obligation to do so—, unaware of the great importance the Sages gave to ending the Shema` and beginning the `amidah prayer at that precise time. (hil. Q”Sh 1:12[11], tefillah 7:17)  In fact, the failure to recite the Shema` prayer at its precise time (about 6 minutes before sunrise, leading immediately into the `amidah) is counted in Talmud as one of the reasons for the destruction of the Temple.  But consider the attention being given to the “overriding” sun blessing… There is a whole class being offered locally, and whole books and booklets being published about the significance of this very regular blessing (the beginning of a new sun cycle)… a subject to which RaMBaM devotes half of one halakhah (about 2-3 lines of text). 

It is a sign of the times: what the early sages taught as minor details are blown up into issues of overriding importance, while outright halakhic obligations such as Shema` and prayer—to which RaMBaM devotes whole chapters—are pushed aside as being of minor importance. 

The prophet Yisha`yahu (Isaiah) foresaw a time when the light of the Jewish people itself will “break forth as the morning, and thy healing shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee, the glory of the LORD shall be thy rear guard.” (Isaiah 58:8)  We will break out of our stubborn paradigms—such as the belief in fasting from food and drink as an end in and of itself—to pursue what truly matters to HaShem on a fast day:  soul-searching, pursuing justice and deeds of loving-kindness.  In short, it will be a time when we finally get our priorities in order. 

In my neighborhood, I see another priority anomaly among small children… Two weeks before Passover, and with their parents’ full sanction, children are preparing for another holiday altogether… They are ‘beating the rush’ to collect wood for Lag ba’Omer—holiday of the Kabbalah—in another six weeks.  That day and the days from pior, hundreds of thousands of Torah observant Jews will gather to the grave of one of the greatest of the Tannaim, reaffirming their dedication to a book that he is widely believed to have authored–the Zohar. 

Lag Ba’Omer fires burn so high and hot, there is scarcely a year without burn victims, often children.  It is a phenomenon that did not exist in the childhood-days of their no-less pious or kabbalistic-minded parents and grandparents:  Not long ago, Lag ba’Omer was a joyous time for families and friends to enjoy a homely campfire, and sing about the awesome wisdom of Shim’on ben YoHai.  Over the years, it has reached the point where a few years back, the television newscast showed a few misguided pseudo-kabbalists throwing silken sheets on to fires as an offering to demons.  Who would imagine that the Torah’s scathing rebuke (Devarim 32:17) was aimed at our late 58^th century, as much as any other time?

Consider those who weren’t satisfied in praying there to HaShem in the merit of Shim’on ben YoHai, but directed their prayers to the Sadiq himself, which is pure idolatry.  And even that pails in comparison to the creation of a new ‘Jesus’ out of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Schneerson (if you think I am exaggerating, visit http://www.rebbegod.blogspot.com/.)  Sheer, unabashed idolatry.  HaShem-forbid that we should ascribe such beliefs to all or even most of Chabad, but the silence over this from the Chabad world is deafening.  How can anyone be so blind, reading and hearing the eternal curses for such behavior, year by year, in parashath, BuHuqothai:

DEMONIZING THE ZOHAR:  NOT A SIMPLE EQUATION

News of these things can drive some to the opposite extreme: a camp of those satisfied with only a half-story… those who brand the Zohar itself as a medieval book of idolatry. 

Belief in the authenticity of the Zohar is considered a fundamental tenet of faith in nearly all sectors of the Orthodox Jewish world.  Respected as holy writ by such a geniuses such as the Vilna Gaon and Ben Ish Hai, it has been so in nearly all Jewish communities for centuries.  In my perspective, not only do those who vilify Zohar show imprudence by isolating themselves from the Jewish world, they cultivate a hate for something they don’t truly understand.  Moreover, they do not understand the root of the very real problem they see—which is actually a fundamental mistake that Jews have been making for thousands of years: a crisis of priorities.  That is, an emphasis on the mystical and esoteric studies, as a way out from the harsh reality of the literal Word of HaShem, according to the revealed Oral tradition.   

RaMBaM poignantly describes how this crisis in priorities led to our downfall towards the end of the Second Temple era: 

וזו היא שאבדה מלכותנו והחריבה בית מקדשנו והאריכה גלותינו והגיעתנו עד הלום. שאבותינו חטאו ואינם, לפי שמצאו ספרים רבים באלה הדברים של דברי החוזים בכוכבים, שדברים אלו הם עיקר עבודה זרה, כמו שביארנו בהלכות עבודה זרה, טעו ונהו אחריהן, ודימו שהם חכמות מפוארות ויש בהן תועלת גדולה, ולא נתעסקו בלמידת מלחמה ולא בכיבוש ארצות, אלא דמו שאותן הדברים יועילו להם ולפיכך קראו אותם הנביאים סכלים ואווילים .  ודאי סכלים ואווילים היו, ואחרי התוהו אשר לא יועילו הלכו.  (רמב”ם, איגרת לחכמי קהל עיר מארשילייא, צרפת)

(מנוסח האיגרת המופיע ב-http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/mahshevt/mekorot/igeret-2.htm(

This is why our kingdom was lost and our Temple was destroyed and why we were brought to this; for our fathers sinned and are no more because they found many books dealing with these themes of the star gazers, these things being the root of idolatry, as we have made clear in Laws Concerning Idolatry. They erred and were drawn after them, imagining them to be glorious science and to be of great utility. They did not busy themselves with the art of war or with the conquest of lands, but imagined that those studies would help them. Therefore the prophets called them “fools and dolts” (Jer. 4:22). And truly fools they were, “for they walked after confused things that do not profit” (I Sam. 12:21 and Jer. 2:8).   

(RaMBaM, Epistle to the Sages of Marseilles, France)

Demonizing Zohar-mysticism as medieval and pagan not only misses the point, it is also not as simple an equation as some scholars would have you believe. 

Anti-Zoharists often mention Sepher HaYuHasin, which claims the widow of Rav Moshe de Leon admitted that her late husband had personally authored it, falsely claiming the authorship of Shim’on Ben YoHai in order to sell the work.  However, it is difficult to believe a widow would incriminate her own husband in those times.  It is even harder to believe that an author who sought to forge a work in the name of a Tanna in order to increase its buyership would write it in a difficult dialect of Aramaic that only the most advanced Torah scholars could understand.  Wouldn’t he author in the authentic Hebrew of the Tannaim in the Land of Israel at the time?  That would truly increase its readership by making it understandable to the lay scholar.  Furthermore, the “lie” would be accepted more easily—it being easier to fool lower-level scholars than those who are more advanced.   Even advanced scholars would be impressed:  The Mishnah and Pirqei d’Rabi Eli`ezer demonstrate that Hebrew was the language of the Tannaim in the Land of Israel at the time.  Why would Rav De Leon have chosen to use a language that it was known Ribi Shim’on would not have used? 

Now consider that, by Moshe De Leon’s time, Aramaic had been the language of Torah scholarship for centuries.  If Zohar were an Oral tradition that had been passed down through the golden age in the schools of Bavel, it would likely have been preserved in Aramaic.

The greatest anti-Zoharist work is MithpaHath Sefarim, by Rav Ya`aqov Moshe Emden (1697-1776), the Ya`avetz.  This Torah giant exposes literary inconsistencies in the Zohar: misquoted sections from Talmud and even Scripture.  He cites ritual observances in the Zohar that were ordained by later rabbinical authorities, and a mention of the crusades against the Muslims.  http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=142&letter=Z#409   

But wouldn’t a forger who went to the efforts of inventing such an enormous work as the Zohar be at least careful enough not to misquote, and certainly not to mention later historical events?  On the other hand, an organic Oral tradition written down could have misquotes:  Not an oral tradition of halakhah or midrash in the mouths of thousands of scholars, but an organic, esoteric tradition on the subject of Ma’aseh Merkava (the mysteries of the Divine Chariot) and Ma`aseh B:reshith, passed down orally through a very thin chain of students: it is not unlikely that such a tradition would contain a few misquotes, and include applied references to later events. 

What is considered the most convincing, damning evidence against the Zohar is the use of a 13^th century-Spanish word “esnoga” for synagogue.  How would Shim’on ben YoHai use such a word?  To me, this very point might be evidence for the integrity of the work:  Why on earth would Rav De Leon, writing a work intended to fool the Torah giants of the world, put a contemporary Spanish word and misquotes in Shim’on ben YoHai’s mouth?  In short, this is the same faulty assumption that Bible critics use to attack the authenticity of the Humash—lehavdil.  They assume such a stupidity on the part of the author; as if the author himself was unaware of the ‘problems’ and contradictions.   It doesn’t take great a great linguist to know that “esnoga” is closely derived from “synagoga”, the Greek term from which the English word is derived.  Ever since the Hellenist era, nearly all non-Hebrew Torah literature is peppered with Greek and Roman words that crept into the lexicon.  Is it so hard to believe that a Spanish-Jewish copyist would prefer to write “esnoga” in place of “synagoga”?  

Besides this, people are generally unaware of how words from much later periods can appear in the writings of the Sages from centuries ago.  Our tradition contains many secrets about future times.  HaRav Yonatan Dawid sent me an incredible source from HaRav Abarbanel (500 years ago), quoted by haRav Elbaz:

According to the words of R’ Don Yitzchak Abarbanel, in the future there will be something that will want to harm the world, which the Abarbanel refers to as “אטומתא” (atomta), and this is the flame of black fire which will hang in the sky.

The Abarbanel apparently learns this from the Zohar:

In the year sixty-six the Messiah will appear in the land of Galilee. A star in the east will swallow seven stars in the north, and a flame of black fire will hang in the heaven for sixty days, and there shall be wars towards the north in which two kings shall perish. Then all the nations shall combine together against the daughter of Yaakov in order to drive her from the world. It is of that time that it is written: “And it is a time of trouble unto Yaakov, but out of it he shall be saved” (Jeremiah 30:7).  (Zohar, Wayyera 119a)

Should scholars 700 years from now assume the Abarbanel’s writings were written in our 58^th century, the era of the atom bomb?  Now I haven’t personally seen this in the Abarbanel, and it should be investigated before believed, but if it’s there (and I assume it is), that puts the “esnoga” issue (which is perilously close to the Greek “synagoga”, which goes back 2,000 years) in a different light.

Loyal students of RaMBaM who champion the Ya`avetz’s perspective on forgeries of old books don’t realize how they shoot themselves in the foot:  Rav Emden “maintained that The Guide to the Perplexed could not have been written by Maimonides, as he could not imagine that a pious Jew would write a work accepting and promoting what Emden saw as a non-Jewish theology.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Emden  The chief work that de-legitimizes the Zohar de-legitimizes the Guide for the Perplexed as well.

A key, bottom-line question is, what drove the brilliant Ya`avetz to attack the Zohar?  A very similar and noble drive that has pushed the Yemenite “Dor Da`im” in the direction they took:  A century ago, in the time of Mori YiHia QafiH (grandfather of Mori Yusuph QafiH), there were those who worshipped a stellar constellation as HaShem Himself.  They based their idiocy on a verse in the Zohar.  Similarly, Rav Emden was an ardent and vocal opponent of the followers of Shabbethai Tzvi.  Fittingly, he wanted to prove that the work on which the fake-Messiah based his doctrines, was false. 

We can find the same problem with Talmud:  It is no less than an esoteric teaching in tractate Sanhedrin on which Chabad messianics “prove” that the Messiah can be a resurrected soul from the dead.  The existence of such colorful, strange, and sealed lines in the Talmud, does not bring erudite Torah scholars to dismiss the authenticity and importance of Talmud.  However, it did drive RaMBaM to author a simpler work that he hoped would replace it.  (RaMBaM, Epistle to his student, Rav Yoseph Ben Yehudah)     

In fact, how many false doctrines are based on the Tanakh, using and abusing the words of prophets, lehavdil, which were truly composed for the masses to study? 

It is written in Talmud that Menashe, king of Y:hudah had Yisha`yahu the prophet tried by the Sanhedrin as a false prophet, because he wrote, (Yisha`yahu 6:1):

Likewise, Daniel describes HaShem (7:9) as follows:

How many simpletons have stumbled over such verses and fell through the ages.  Yet we do not turn around and claim these prophets were false, or that the prophecies in their books are not really theirs, HaShem forbid.  Rather, we understand that these verses are allegorical, and not to be understood according to the simple meaning.  Now if this is true regarding the Prophets, whose writings were meant for every Jew to study, and destined to be translated into the 70 languages of the world, how much more so the ‘Torah she-be-Sod’, which was forbidden to be written down in the first place, but taught only to one’s choice student through hints and chapter headings?! 

The Talmud Bavli in Hagigah 15a might itself be teaching the folly of attempting to view the most sublime inner secrets of the Torah according to principles of logic.  It is the well-known story of the the four Tannaim who entered “PaRDeS” (the root of the word “paradise”).  They did so through the highest and most powerful and dangerous meditation.  “PaRDeS” is an acronym for the four levels of Torah understanding: “P`sha`t” (simple meaning), “Remez” (hints) and “D‘rash” (derived meaning), and “Sod”.  It is understood (I cannot recall the source) that each of the four represents a different gate that each entered—four different levels of understanding.  Of the four, Ben Azzai died, Ben Zoma went insane (“nifga`”) and Elisha ben Avuyah (“AHer”) became an apostate.  The only Tanna who entered and left in peace was rabi `Aqivah, who entered through the path of ”Sod.”  Considering what we know about the mystical genius of Rabi `Aqivah (who derived halakhah from the crowns of the letters), this interpretation is solid. 

Now here’s the point:  If the high and pristine Torah knowledge the first three had mastered could not have prepared them for what they would perceive through the eyes of the naked soul in the supernal realms, who is anyone today to assume the ability to judge the authenticity of highly esoteric verses that are only intended for the most mature scholars, who had already mastered the entire Written and Oral Torah–on the basis of halakhic codes that were written for everyone,  including women and children?  For this reason, it is written in the introduction of “`ES haHayyim”, the teachings of the Ar”i z”l, that the Zohar can only be studied after mastering Shas (Talmud) and Posqim (halakhah).  Ashkenazi schools put up further fences: only a married man with children, and after the age of forty.

I am not claiming to know for a fact whether or not the Zohar is an authentic tradition directly from Rabi Shim’on ben YoHai.  There is a middle position taken by Moshe Idel.  I hear that he recognizes the multi-layered nature of the text before us today, but demonstrates that it is based around a core from the era of the Tannaim.  After all, the tradition is that Zohar is an oral tradition that was written down much later, based on an oral tradition—and oral traditions are organic.  I continue to learn and question honestly, to the degree I am able. 

One thing has become clear to me: mocking the Zohar based on shallow arguments is an ignorant thing to do.  Consider another example of illogic used to “prove” the forgery of the Zohar:  The Jewish encyclopedia (see the web source above) claims:

“To determine the country in which the work originated and the time at which its teachings began to develop, it is necessary to ascertain where and when the Jews became intimately acquainted with the Hindu philosophy, which more than any other exercised an influence on the Zohar. As an instance of Hindu teachings in the Zohar may be quoted the following passage:  (Zohar, iii. 9b).

“In the book of Hamnuna the Elder we learn through some extended explanations that the earth turns upon itself in the form of a circle; that some are on top, the others below; that all creatures change in aspect, following the manner of each place, but keeping in the same position. But there are some countries on the earth which are lighted while others are in darkness; and there are countries in which there is constantly day or in which at least the night continues only some instants. . . . These secrets were made known to the men of the secret science, but not to the geographers”

In other words, if Jews had knowledge that only Hindus are known to have had at the time, then the Jews—who never really knew much anyway—must have got it from the Hindus…!  Clearly the “expert” here who wrote this did not consider that the earth as a sphere on which its tiny inhabitants dwell is mentioned in Yisha`yahu 40:

The first recognized references to a spherical earth are the works of Pythagoras (who was familiar with Jewish wisdom) and Aryabhata (India), both of whom lived two centuries after Isaiah.  Does that make the Book of Isaiah a forgery from later times because the Greeks and Indians are supposed to have known this fact first?  In fact the scientific wisdom of the peoples of the East likely originated in none other than our own ancestor, Avraham (see Rashi on Genesis 25:4-5). 

I wonder where the above-mentioned “expert” from the Jewish Encyclopedia would assume the author of the Zohar learned the date the Jewish People would be returning to EreS Yisra’el—(5)708  (1948).  In parashath Behar (Wayiqra 25:10), the word “tashuvu” appears “Haser wow” (lacking a letter “vav”).  The Zohar derives from this, that “tashuvu” (tow–400, shin–300, veth–2, wow–6… = 708) will be the year that the Jewish People would be returned to their ancestral heritage.  Perhaps scholars 700 years from now might suggest the book was written in the last century!

ZOHAR IN THE PROPER PERSPECTIVE

What cannot be emphasized enough is that belief in the Zohar’s authenticity has no practical halakhic implications whatsoever.  The legal traditions that hail from the last Great Courts of the Sanhedrin in Tiberius and the Amoraim in Babylon, codified succinctly in the Mishneh Torah of Maimonidies are the law, regardless of whatever divergent opinions the historical Ribbi Shim`on ben YoHai may have had.     Consider the humility of the great Tanna in an incredible source, found in the Talmud Yerushalmi (Berakhoth 6b):  (1)

ר’ שמעון בן יוחי עבד עובדא בשמיטתא חמא חד מלקט ספיחי שביעית אמר ליה ולית אסור ולאו ספיחין אינון אמרו ליה ולא את הוא שאת מתיר אמר ליה ואין חבירי חולקין עלי וקרי עלוי (קוהלת י) ופורץ גדר ישכנו נחש וכן הות ליה. 

Rabbi Shimon ben YoHai proved a point about Shemittah. One came to pick sephiHin [produce that grows of its own during the Shemittah year--not planted. He had previously ruled it to be permitted to pick these during Shemittah, but the Sanhedrin overruled his opinion].

He [the sage] said, “isn’t it forbidden [what you are doing]?  And aren’t those sephiHin?”

“Yes, but aren’t you [the one] who permits it?!”

“Yes, [the rabbi answered] but didn’t my colleagues disagree with me [and overrule my opinion]?!“  And he recited over him [the verse from Qoheleth/Ecclesiastes 10], ‘he who breaks a fence [of the rabbis], a snake will bite him.’ And so it happened. [HaShem fulfilled the word of the Sadiq, and a snake bit the man.]”

This source is so precious because it proves that Ribbi Shim’on ben YoHai, no matter what he taught and wrote, subjugated himself to the majority opinion of the Sanhedrin.  He may have privately held opinions that veered far from the view his colleagues. But he NEVER would have agreed to future generations relying on his words against the accepted halakhah as it was codified.   Were he alive today, I have little doubt he would have us following the Mishneh Torah of RaMBaM as practical halakhah.  And that requires that we master “the small thing”—the entire halakhah in order to fulfill it—before moving on to “the great thing”—the mysteries of the Creation and the Divine Chariot.

That being the case, I sincerely doubt he would have written those mysteries down, contrary to Sanhedrin legislation.  The Sages instituted great limitations on who could be taught the mysteries of the Creation and the Divine Chariot and how much.  These teachings were and remain utterly forbidden to be written down until today.  Fittingly, what is written in Zohar bothers some Godfearing scholars much less that the fact it was written down in a book for the masses to study and understand however they will… 

This issue is hinted at in one particular teaching from the Torah of Moshe Rabbenu that has been a guiding light in my own relationship with HaShem: 

In the book of Devarim (29), Moshe teaches prophetically of what will be the reaction of non-Jews when they visit the Land—which have will long been left desolate after the people would be exiled from the Land due to their sins.  The non-Jews will be astonished at its desolation, and will be moved to ask:

It will be understood by the straight horse-sense of a non-Jew that the Israelites had abandoned the covenant (the actual laws and statutes of HaShem) for foreign gods, which we know to mean a foreign style of worship, and foreign values and teachings.  Now what is the final, bottom-line moral lesson that Moshe drives home at the end of this—which must be learned from the future failure of the nation (which, from our vantage point today is our past)?

HaShem demands that, after all is said and done, that his laws be fulfilled with goodness of heart.  That is the eternal, authentic Torah message of the prophets which repeats itself continually in Tana”kh (Bible).  Over-emphasis on serving the Divine through the study of holy, esoteric secrets – while minimizing the role of law, legislated ethics and pure goodness of heart – is the very opposite of that approach.  Today it is kabbalistic secrets, while in yesteryear it was beliefs such as in fasting as a magical ritual that automatically catalyzes HaShem’s forgiveness and blessing.  Or the belief in the Temple Service as a magical-ritual that guaranteed HaShem’s protection and blessing.  No matter how great their sins, they were—after all—tending the one and only Temple to HaShem: surely HaShem would not destroy His own Temple!  Both prophets railed against such thinking.   To those who fasted as an end in and of itself, Isaiah railed:

Now we can understand how concentrating on the revealed Will of HaShem—the Commandments of the Written Law according to their authentic codification in Oral Law—is the rectification of our serving our foreign worship.

In other words, it is not an issue of how authentic the Zohar is, versus another ancient aggadic work; but an issue of priority.  Is encouraging the masses of Jewish People to delve into these secrets the answer to our nation’s woes… masses who have no solid grounding in the law? 

Today mystically-minded Jews search for the ultimate “tiqun” (reparation) for their souls.  What they too often fail to discover is that, in the broadest sense, the “tiqun” of our nation after our being exiled from our land, is to leave the secret things to HaShem, and concentrate on the revealed matters—the Written and Oral Torah teachings that have belonged to us forever—that we may actually fulfill all the words of HaShem’s Law.

When this will finally be understood by the masses who yearn for spiritual, mystical teachings, I believe the Name of HaShem will cease to be profaned, and—as Isaiah promised–our light as a nation of priests will shine (“Zoher”) brilliantly.  Moreover, the Temple will be rebuilt, the Shekhinah (the palpable, awesome Presence of HaShem) will return to the Land, and the world will enjoy a spiritual ecstasy it has never known.

Shabboth Shalom and a Hagh PesaH kasher wa-sameyaH,

Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron, Beith Midrash Ohel Moshe

________________________

(Based on O’M 23: “Searching for the Truth about Zohar” from the original Ohel Moshe series, 5767)

(1)  Quotes from Bible and the quote from Talmud Yerushalmi were copied from the manuscript editions found at the ‘Mechon Mamre’ website, www.mechon-mamre.org.  The English translation is original, but close to the electronic text (c) by Larry Nelson.

The only way to become purified from ‘`tum’ath meth’ (death defilement—coming in contact with a dead body or grave, or with someone who has), is by getting sprinkled with water mixed with the ashes of a ‘parah adumah’–a red cow–that never bore a yoke  (see Numbers 19:1-13).   While the sprinkled individual becomes ‘`tahor’ (ritually pure), the kohen-priest who actually did the sprinkling becomes ‘`tame’ (ritually unclean) in the process!  In fact, the kohen-priests involved in the preparation of the mixture become’`tame’ in the process, too—from the one who slaughtered and burned the cow, to the kohen-priest who merely carries the vessel of ash-water.  

Why did HaShem create this system of purification?  What is the meaning?  And if I’m correct as to the meaning, why has this only been revealed now? 

The unblemished cow that never bore a yoke is a representation of the “`eghel ha-zahav”, the Golden Calf the Bene Yisra’el made in the desert.  This time, it is not an `eghel (calf), but an older, full-grown parah (cow).  This represents the same treacherous, idolatrous impulses that existed in the nation at its youth, standing at Sinai, persisting in later generations, when the nation should have reached maturity.  And that is why, I believe, Shelomo ha-melekh was not granted this understanding, since he built temples to idolatry in Jerusalem to please his wives.

Moshe smashed and pulverized the idol, poured its dust into the nearby stream, and made the Israelites drink from the water–like the punishment of an adulteress (since the Jewish People had committed harlotry with a false god.  See Numbers 5:17-27).  When the kohen-priest, a descendent of Aharon (who actually made the Golden Calf in the first place) reduces the cow to ash and the mixes the ash in water, he imitates the bold actions of Moshe Rabbenu, memorializing them.  This is why the cow is adumah—earth-red: It reminds us of the waters mixed with earth from the altar, for the adulteress to drink.  

When he reduces the cow to ash, the descendant of Aharon symbolically reduces our own evil impulses to ash.  He then mixes the ash with water, and sprinkles it, purifying those who are impure.  The act that recalls the disgrace of Aharon, which brought death to so many Israelites at the time (Exodus 32:26-29), brings purity from death-defilement for all of Israel.  This is why the kohen-priest  who does the sprinkling, even one who merely carries the vessel of ash-water, becomes impure in the process: they are ‘carrying’ [bearing] the guilt of Aharon, their ancestor.  By taking responsibility for their ancestor’s sin, the priests become the vessel of purification for the entire people.  Notably, the Golden Calf episode was the tribe of Levi’s first act to purify the nation.  The fierce vengeance of G-d that the tribe of Levi enacted on the sinners—in which even they did not even spare their own family members—brought about their initiation as Israel’s new priesthood, to replace the firstborn. 

It is generally understood by the Sages that the `eghel ha-zahav was to be a replacement for Moshe, not for G-d.  The people did not realize that by giving up and turning their back on Moshe, they were doing the same to HaShem (Exodus 16:7-8).  Similarly, the nation in Samuel’s generation ‘merely’ wanted a king like the gentile nations: they didn’t understand how such a request was a rebellion against HaShem himself. 

Consider the parallel in our own times–the authority Israel lives under instead of the Divine system set in place by Moshe:  In a position not far off from that of the Rebbe of Satmar, Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook, the rabbi remembered as the founder of the national religious camp, warned in his writings:  If the nation’s government will not eventually be based on Torah, the very same men who conquered the Land from the Arabs will eventually return it to them.  (Orot?)

I believe that this simple insight into ‘parah adumah’ being revealed at this time is meaningful:  Jerusalem recently celebrated 40 years of “reunification” since the Six Day War.  Yet now, with the new aggressive American administration, Jerusalem’s future as a united city seems more uncertain than ever.   In the book of Judges, there is a recurring them of the land resting from war for 40 years.  How much longer will it be before we are held accountable, G-d forbid, for remaining complacent under a G-dless leadership–a modern Golden calf–instead of uniting under the Torah of Moshe?   In a way resembling the purification from actual `tum’ath meth, let our ‘priests’—our Torah community—lead the way in accepting responsibility for their role in the ‘Golden Calf’ they keep rebuilding, and be willing to reduce the old, corrupt ways, the ’galuth’ (exile) mentality to ashes.  Eloquent words and easy to say.  But practically speaking, what does that mean?  For a start, it means returning to authentic Torah, and restoring the Sanhedrin.

There is a Torah for us all to accept as one, like never before.  It is the only path in Torah in which every holy `edah (ethnic community) and every valid Torah school of thought can find a firm foundation without sacrificing its integrity: the Mishneh Torah of RaMBaM.  It is the only Code of Law ever written to be a complete constitution for our People.  Moreover, it is the only such code written specifically to be the Guide to the restoration of the nation and its Divine laws in the latter days.  Unlike the `Arukh haShulHan (the only work comparable in scope and style), it is perfectly loyal to the full breadth of authoritative Talmudic literature, without the heavy influence of local custom.  Clearly a modern Sanhedrin, once restored according to halakhah, will adapt the Law according to the needs of the times, and in light of other opinions that exist.  However, as I personally witnessed during my own trying experience with the problem-plagued ‘nascent Sanhedrin’ project (which I left years ago), without a disciplined dedication to the Mishneh Torah as the base of halakhah, the Sages of Israel cannot possibly find the basic common ground required to fulfill the Sanhedrin’s essential role.  As I wrote in principle 13 of The 14 Principles of Our Torah Tradition:

The greatest challenge to be faced by a restored Sanhedrin in our day, is consensus: Effective judicial leadership of the nation requires general agreement among 71 Torah sages on literally hundreds of basic, critical legal issues from the outset, before they can even approach the enormous backlog of issues and challenges of the modern age. Over the centuries of exile, the range of rabbinical opinion has grown too broad, and the ideological rifts that divide the Torah world too deep for meaningful consensus to be reached over any practical span of time.

Besides being the common legal base of all rival sects and communities in the modern Torah world, Mishneh Torah is the most authoritative Code of Law written, covering whole areas of Law that become applicable for the nation under a Sanhedrin. Only by accepting Mishneh Torah as the initial baseline of the Halakhah, the general foundation and framework of Jewish Law, can the future Sanhedrin hope to fulfill an otherwise insurmountable task: unifying the Torah world and restoring Israel’s national observance of Torah after 1600 years of exile.

As the temperature rises for Jews around the world, it is clear that our time to get our house in order is limited.  We can once again perceive the mountain being held above our heads…

Few people understand what on earth that means, and how that legend preserves a vivid national memory of a historical event 3,320 years ago.  The following may reveal another forgotten secret:

We are all aware of the pre-school picture that children are given of Mount Sinai—a lowly hill full of flowers.  Midrash Rabbah teaches that this mountain was Chosen over the other much loftier peaks mentioned in the Torah (such as Har Nevo, for example) to be the site of the Giving of the Torah, because it was a humble and lowly mount.  The problem with this is that the generation of scholars who wrote the Midrash Rabbah, or at least the rabbis who had just preceded them, not only knew the exact location of Har Sinai, but knew fully well that it was the highest peak in the entire region.

Josephus, a learned kohen-priest who actually served in the Beith haMiqdash and was well-versed in the authentic traditions of his day, writes (The Antiquities of the Jews I,12:1[265]): “Now this [Sinai] is the highest of all the mountains thereabout…”  This also fits in well with Jebel El Lawz being Har Sinai, for which compelling evidence is brought in my name in Riddle of the Exodus (James D. Long, 2006)  How can both be true? 

We can easily invoke RaMBaM’s take on midrash, that one who believes every midrash literally is a fool.  We can also rationalize and say that it comes to teach us that Torah is only acquired through humility (hilkhoth Talmud Torah 3:8 [9]).  However, I believe the real answer is something truly awe-inspiring:

In his earth-shaking work, Worlds In Collision (1950, Buccaneer Books), the late Jewish scientist and Torah scholar Immanuel Velikovsky (despite a couple apostate opinions he expresses, which are unnecessary, and do not add to or diminish from the strength of his arguments) pieces together a likely scenario for the historical, global Sinai event.  Showing the harmony between dozens of traditional sources from every literate culture on earth—from Aztec traditions to the records of the Chinese—that all recall the same time in history, he proves something that would have been difficult for the great rational Sefaradi sages of the Middle Ages to take literally:  When the Yalquth Shim`oni teaches that when the Red Sea split, so did every water body on earth, and when our sages taught that every nation on earth heard the Ten Statements, they were passing down a memory that is shared by all mankind.   According to our tradition (Bereshith Rabbah), the Sinai event was no less than the end of the sixth world age, and the beginning of the seventh. 

The mal’akh, the agent, seems to have been a planet that swept dangerously close to the earth.  According to Midrash Shir haShirim (brought down by Rashi), the meaning of Exodus 10:10, is that Par’o was warning the Bene Yisra’el not to leave Egypt, because they would meet the bloody star Ra`.  In masekheth Shabboth 146a, we learn that “although the ancestors of the later converts [to Judaism] were not present at Mount Sinai, their star was there close by.”  (Worlds In Collision p.95)

By means of this agent, HaShem raised tides in which ocean water was held sky high in frozen animation, only to come crashing down, flooding the valleys and plains.  It is a vivid memory preserved in the traditions of the Finns, the Chinese, early Mexicans and the Native Americans of British Columbia. 

However, a body of such magnitude would not only raise water sky high, it would create earth wrenching, cataclysmic tides in the boiling mantle underneath the earth’s crust.  This is beautifully described in Hallel, Psalms 114:  “When Israel went out of Egypt… the sea saw and fled… the mountains skipped like rams and the hills like lambs… Tremble, you earth, at the Presence of HaShem.”  This topography-changing event would include instant mountaining. The manuscripts of Avila and Molina, who collected the traditions of the Indians of the New World, recall this vividly:  

…it is related that the sun did not appear for five days; a cosmic collision of stars preceded the cataclysm; people and animals tried to escape to mountain caves.  “Scarcely had they reached there when the sea, breaking out of bounds following a terrifying shock, began to rise on the Pacific coast.  But as the sea rose, filling the valleys and the plains around, the mountain of Ancasmarca rose, too, like a ship on the waves.  During the five days that this cataclysm lasted, the sun did not show its face and the earth remained in darkness.”  (Worlds In Collision, p.61)

This is really a drop in the bucket of all the sources he cites that legitimize minute details of the Oral Tradition on the written Torah.  It provides a way for the both the midrash and the geographical knowledge of the sages as recorded by Josephus, to both be true: 

At first, Har Sinai was a lower, humble peak, which is why, according to midrash, it was Chosen by HaShem.  We indeed get that sense that it was a low mount in the beginning of parashath Yithro, as Moshe agilely descends and ascends numerous times to relay HaShem’s communication to the people.  But, then at the height of the ‘theophany’ (Giving of the Torah), amidst the terrifying quaking, the mountain was lifted higher and higher.  From the perspective of those at its base, it felt as though the mountain were being held over their heads—threatening to bury them, should they not accept the Torah.  Verily, we suddenly have a different picture of Har Sinai when Moshe ascends for 40 days and nights:  He is now so far away, that Yehoshua` bin Nun, who spends the time partway up the mountain, is at once far away from his master (who remained in the cloud of HaShem’s Presence), yet still far enough away from the camp that he knows nothing about their lewd frivolity around the Golden Calf… clearly the topography had changed—Har Sinai had become a massive peak.

In conclusion, let us not be like generations of the past who all but a few were blind to HaShem’s rebuke, until they were at the brink of utter destruction.  We are so Blessed, and Loved with a compassion that is beyond human comprehension.  May we choose to receive authentic Torah personally and collectively, in awe and in love, and merit a speedy Redemption.

Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron, Beth Midrash Ohel Moshe

Adapted from the original article in the Ohel Moshe series, O’M 24, “Special Issue for Shavu`oth” 5767.   

ח וַיָּקָם מֶלֶךְ-חָדָשׁ, עַל-מִצְרָיִם, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יָדַע, אֶת-יוֹסֵף.

8 There arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Yoseph.

ט וַיֹּאמֶר, אֶל-עַמּוֹ: הִנֵּה, עַם בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל–רַב וְעָצוּם, מִמֶּנּוּ.

9 And he said to his people: ‘Behold, the people of the children of Israel are too many and too mighty for us;

י הָבָה נִתְחַכְּמָה, לוֹ: פֶּן-יִרְבֶּה, וְהָיָה כִּי-תִקְרֶאנָה מִלְחָמָה וְנוֹסַף גַּם-הוּא עַל-שֹׂנְאֵינוּ, וְנִלְחַם-בָּנוּ, וְעָלָה מִן-הָאָרֶץ.

10 Let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that, in the event of a war, they also join themselves to our enemies and fight against us, and leave the land.’

יא וַיָּשִׂימוּ עָלָיו שָׂרֵי מִסִּים, לְמַעַן עַנֹּתוֹ בְּסִבְלֹתָם; וַיִּבֶן עָרֵי מִסְכְּנוֹת, לְפַרְעֹה–אֶת-פִּתֹם, וְאֶת-רַעַמְסֵס.

11 Therefore they set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Ra’meses.*

Egypt’s hatred for the b’nei Yisrael (Israelites) is a theme running through the first Torah portions of Shemoth. Below are stunning images of ancient Hebrews in ancient Egypt.¹ With the possible exception of the image directly below, which could be pre-Sinaitic, I assume them to be from the New Kingdom era (First Temple times in Israel). However, it is possible that some of the relics found in the tomb of Tutankhamen were inherited from earlier pharaohs. Regardless of their exact date of origin, they give us a clear glimpse at how we were seen in the eyes of Egyptians throughout biblical times. They give us a real-life sense of the historical context of the accounts of the Tanakh.

(citation below²)
Note that the only slave/captive with tattoos all over has a Hebrew hairstyle (see the Pharoah’s footstool below). If this is post-Sinai, tattooing being forbidden by Torah law; could this have been forcibly done to the Hebrew captive as a vile, anti-Semitic act? This would still be possible if the image were pre-Sinaitic, from the time of our bondage—assuming tattoos were taboo even before the Giving of the Torah. Or it could simply be a glimpse into a time of the sojourn in Egypt, when tattooing was permitted.

How precious few Jews in the Western world know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were slaves in Egypt, and that HaShem took us out of Egypt with an outstretched arm? How many would seriously consider returning to a life of Torah and miSwoth if only their inner faith were substantiated by clear proof? It was mainly for such honest truth-seekers that this article was written.

As I’ve written before, I believe “The Riddle of the Exodus” by James D. Long (Lightcatcher Books 2006) to be mandatory reading for all mankind. With his explicit permission, I will quote and borrow heavily from his book here, mainly in my own words, including my own insights.

Despite the naysayers as to the origins of Sefer haYashar and the fact that layers were definitely added over the millennia, the text in our possession is a primary source for Rash”i and Me’am Lo’ez—who quoted from it generously. Its original translation into English in 1840 “contains endorsements from Hebrew linguists and biblical scholars attesting to the authenticity of the work.” However, nothing more legitimizing can be said, neither for Sefer haYashar or the authenticity of the traditions it contains, until one finds precise correlations between details in the midrash and those discovered by historians and archaeologists…

According to Sefer haYashar, the second to the last pharoah of Egypt (whose army would drown in the sea), the one referred to by biblical historians as “the pharaoh of the oppression” lived a remarkable 94 years. It is his death that HaShem referred to, telling Moshe, “all who seek your life have died”. The name of this sadistic tyrant was “Melol“, although we who suffered from his cruelty called him “Maror”. His firstborn son should have inherited his throne, but was found to be mentally incompetent. His brother Adikam, at the age of 20, became the next pharaoh, reigning four years—which explains how he escaped the destruction of the firstborn.

Consider the “Kings List, a record of seventy-five kings from the First to the 19th Dynasty” carved on the wall of the ancient temple at Abydos in Southern Egypt. Lo and behold, among the very last pharaohs of Old Kingdom—before it utterly crashed due to “natural disasters” according to the Egyptologists—was Pepi II, also called “Merire“. (There was no hieroglyph for the “l” sound, so “l” was pronounced as “r”, like in Japanese. M-r-r = M-l-l). He enjoyed the longest reign in Egyptian history: a stunning 94 years… His reign is also recorded in the Turin Royal Canon (the official name for an ancient papyrus housed in Turin, Italy, with information about the pharaohs of the past) as being succeeded by a son who reigned only a year, preceding the last, reign of the dynasty. Although this may seem to contradict Sefer haYashar, it doesn’t: the events of the death of pharaoh “Maror”, Moshe’s return to Egypt, and the beginning of the ‘Ten Strikes’ (Ten Plagues) to Egypt all took the span of a year. Now according to tradition, pharoah “Maror” suffered from an incurable skin disease for years. By the time he died, his body was already in an advanced state of decay. During his father’s last years and even the short-lived rule of his handicapped brother, Adikam may have fulfilled the functions of leadership, thus being remembered in Sefer haYashar as direct successor to Malul.

Who replaces “Neferkare the Younger” (Adikam) when he disappears from history? No surprise here: there was no mail heir to the thrown… a woman becomes pharoah… Something must have happened to his firstborn son.

What is incredible is that this amazing correlation, besides proving the authenticity of our Oral history, proves that the last pharaohs of Egypt (before HaShem brought it to its knees) were the last pharaohs of the 6th dynasty, which we know to be the fall of the Old Kingdom. Housed in the Museum of Leiden (Netherlands) is a damaged, ancient Egyptian papyrus, known to us as the Admonitions of Ipuwer. It is a list of dreadful events that shook the Egyptian nation to its very foundations at the time… It is dated to the end of the Old Kingdom: the same final days of Pepi II and Neferkare the Younger (Malul and Adikam)… and it reads like a newscast straight from the scene of the Ten Strikes (Ten Plagues). I quote from Riddle of the Exodus (In all quotes, the use of boldface and italics are my own additions):

Blood…

Papyrus 2:6 Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere.

Papyrus 2:10 Forsooth, the river is blood.

Papyrus 7:4 Behold Egypt is poured out like water. He who poured water on the ground, he has captured the strong man in misery. [According to Exodus 4:9 and 4:30, one sign Moses performed publicly was pouring water out on the ground, becoming blood. "The strong man" here might be a euphemism, even a degrading reference to pharoah]

Fiery hail…

Papyrus 2:10 Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire; while the [....] of the king’s palace stands firm and endures.

Papyrus 4:14 Trees are destroyed…

Plague…

Papyrus 4:1 Forsooth, hair has fallen out for everyone.

Papyrus 5:4 Forsooth, all animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan because of the state of the land.

Darkness…

Papyrus 9:8-10 Destruction… the land is in darkness.

Ex-slaves Spoil Egypt…

Papyrus 2:4 Forsooth, poor men have become the owners of good things. He who could not make his own sandals is now the possessor of riches.

Papyrus 3:3 Gold, blue stone, silver, carnelian, bronze and Yebet sone and ….are fastened to the necks of female slaves.

The `erev rav… (mixed multitude of Egyptians who left with the Banei Yisrael)

Papyrus 3:14 Those who were Egyptians have become foreigners.

The Pillar of Fire…

Papyrus 7:1 Behold the fire mounted up on high. Its burning goes forth before the enemies of the land.

Hatred for the B’nei Yisrael…

…Would that he [pharoah] perceived their nature in the first generation (of men); then he would have repressed their evils, he would have stretched forth (his) arm against it, he would have destroyed their seed and their inheritance…”

Not enough people have any awareness that the Egyptians apparently enshrined the memory of the Exodus in the hieroglyphs covering an ancient, black granite naos on display at Ismailia, in Egypt. It was a mystery until 1890, when it was translated, but it shouldn’t be today. It reads:

“Evil fell on the earth…the earth was in great affliction…great disturbance in the residence.”

“…neither man nor the gods could see the faces of those next to them…”

It describes how the king and his men fight “the evil ones at the Place of the Whirlpool,” whose location is described as Pi-Kharoti” (= Pi ha-Hiruth, see Exodus 14:2,9, Leviticus 33:7). It relates how the pharoah commands his men to follow him, and then disappears from their midst: “There at Pi-Kharoti the Pharoah is thrown by a whirlwind high into the air and seen no more.” (Consider the wind that blew the whole night, drying the seabed.) He is referred to as Par’o “T’hom”, which sounds very much related to “T:hom” in Hebrew, meaning “the depths”… i.e. “Pharoah of the Depths”! Note that although the midrashic account takes on a mythical character at that point, Pharoah’s disappearance from the scene is mentioned specifically in Sefer haYashar (parashath beshallaH).

James Long, the esteemed author, makes an fascinating linguistic connection: We already learned that the pharoah lost in the sea is Neferkare the Younger (see above), who was also referred to as “Nem-t’m-saf II” Could the consonants “t” and “m” be a shortened form of “T’houm”? An even more direct correlation can be made between the name of the pharoah T’houm and one of the treasure cities we built in Egypt: Pit’om. Long writes, “The prefix ‘Pi’ can be roughly translated ‘city of’ or ‘dwelling of. The above verse from the book of Exodus could very well be referring in retrospect to the “City of T’houm”, city of the drowned pharaoh.

There are more amazing parallels and correlations, but they are beyond the scope of this article. In the end, one must buy the book: http://lightcatcherprod.com/products_books_riddle.shtml

I can find no more appropriate concluding words than those in the article “The Truth About Yoseph and What to Do About It” © (see Beith Midrash, “Torath Emeth–A Torah of Truth”):

The first miSwah (commandment) described in Mishneh Torah, is to know that there is a G-d. (Laws of Foundations of Torah 1:1) Not to believe, not to have faith, but to know. While many people believe that seeing is believing, they are mistaken: Seeing is knowing. Once an idea has been observed to be true, time and time again, it is a known fact and not merely believed. The connections between Yoseph and Imhotep are only one subject treated in Riddle of the Exodus. However, even all of Jim Long’s honest Egyptology is but the tip of the iceberg of all the proofs of Torah through the principles and discoveries of modern science, archaeology and recorded history.

Why are we commanded to know, and not merely to believe? To me it is clear that any religion that considers belief or faith in its theology–not action–as the adherent’s greatest goal, admits its own weakness: It is as if they realize deep down that believing in their fallible belief system is quite a feat: it’s not easy, even for the uneducated! Therefore, the one who succeeds in ‘believing’ earns his/her way to Heaven…

Being that the Torah and HaShem are ultimately provable to the honest, sincere researcher—and through deductive reasoning alone—we are expected to know it to be true and then move on to fulfill 612 other miSwoth. After all, when you know something to be true, there is only one thing left to do about it: act on that knowledge. As our faith solidifies into true knowledge, may we be moved to action: to love HaShem and keep His miSwoth with all our heart, soul, and resources.

Written by Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron, Beith Midrash Ohal Moshe

Additional Images

Below are more images from ancient Egypt that bring life to our history.¹

“Above [the image below is a close-up]: Racial imagery from Tutankhamen’s tomb: the ecclesiastical throne, shown assembled, and a full view of the footrest. Bound Semitic and Black prisoners appear on the footstool: the Egyptian king would rest his feet on his foes. There is reason to believe the dates to the First Temple period.”³

“Above: Racial imagery from Tutankhamen’s tomb: bound Semitic and Black prisoners decorating the curved end of Tutankhamen’s walking stick: when the Egyptian king went for a walk, he would hold the enemies of Egypt in his palm.”

“Below: Racial imagery from Tutankhamen’s tomb: the Egyptian king’s sandals have bound Black and Semitic prisoners inlaid into the soles: when the king walked in these shoes, he would crush the enemies of Egypt underfoot.”³

Based on the article O”M 12 of the original Ohel Moshe series, written for parashoth Wa’era and Bo 5767.

Footnotes

*  Quote from Bible was copied from the authentic Yemenite manuscript edition found at the ‘Mechon Mamre’ website, www.mechon-mamre.org.  The English translation is original, but close to the electronic text (c) by Larry Nelson.

1. Thanks to the painstaking web-research of the Aluf Abir Yehoshua Sofer.
2. An image called “ram3captives” (Rameses III?) apparently from a Lutheran site called “The Old Testament and the Ancient Near East”, http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/.
3. These pictures and their captions are from an unlikely source: a racist website with photos from the tomb of King Tutankhamon, called “Egypt: The Nordic Desert Empire” http://www.vivamalta.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2299. There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the images: I have personally seen the throne below at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Conveniently, these wicked racists ignore a famous painting showing Tutankhamon to have been darker, negro-like complexion.)