Pollard and the End of Days
Rav Nachman asked Rav Yitzhak, ‘have you heard when Bar Nafli will come? ’Rav Yitzhak asked, ‘who is Bar Nafli’…Rav Yitzhak said, the Messiah [Sanhedrin 96b]
The Messiah will be absolutely mortal, born of a man and a woman [Rambam, Sefer HaVikuah 88]
The king messiah will be like one of us in every aspect, with a mother and a father. He also will be among the people in exile, suffering the afflictions of exile as his brethren.[Abarbanel, Yeshuot Meschicho 3:3]
Shevet achim gam yachad: “tribes of brothers [living and worshipping] as one, totally united” is the famous refrain of psalm 133, one of the fifteen songs of ascent chanted on the holy days of Sukkot the festival of booths. Hinai mah tov: “it is so good…” In the culminating of the three pilgrim feasts, all Israel unite to re-experience and affirm the teachings in the wilderness and to affirm that they will raise et Sukkat David HaNofelet, “the fallen booth of David” (Amos 9:11). From this verse the Mishnaic sage Rav Nachman derives a nickname of messiah (above). The extensive discussion of his arrival and of the end of days in Talmudic Tractate Sanhedrin emphasizes that the timing of his appearance reflects the status and behavior of all Israel: our actions make a difference, a big difference. So like the lead verse in the famous song, holy writings on the destiny of the Jews emphasize their character as a family that must be whole, intact, complete (shaleim) and in which each person is responsible for the wellbeing of all. The integrity that confronted the sorcerer Balaam turned his curses to blessings (Numbers 22-4).
Today again Israel must change a curse to a blessing…
The leaders of successive governments have turned their backs on Jonathan Pollard although increasingly large majorities of the people and the Knesset have demanded that he be returned to Zion. But he is in his 22nd year of unjust and deadly incarceration. All Jews suffer for this, in the land and in the exile where Pollard suffers explicitly what others suffer in less obvious ways, distant from the light that is the dream fulfilled.
This conflating Pollard’s situation evokes the duties of Israel in regard to the the messiah who is ever-present and ready, if the generation merits it to destroy the Haman’s, expel the trespassers, gather the exiles and rebuild the Temple; as the verses above denote, his suffering is that of the entire House of Israel and of the sort that prepares it to return completely, in every sense to its rocklike origins. Every Jew that dies or is in any way in bondage because idolaters submit to Edom may be considered, like King Hizkiah a subject of the verse, “It was our diseases that he bore and our pains that he endured while we considered him afflicted by G-d” (Sanhedrin 98b on Isaiah 53:19 and Leviticus 13:3).
Those who suffer for the internal and physical exile of Israel, the obverse of its lack of sovereignty, learn by suffering (aniya is in anya), grow in the attributes and titles of the messiah: majesty, mercy, and comfort which will induce and inspire the nations to bring gifts [shai loh] in joy to the restored Jewish people, to Israel.
The sages state that there will be no son of David “until the petty government has ceased from Israel,” until the arrogant, the idol worshippers, hypocrites and idolatrous judges [gazirpatai] will disappear.” Until that happens, “distress shall come like a river.” “If you see a generation upon which numerous troubles come like a river, expect the messiah” (Sanhedrin 98a on Isaiah 59).
Since 1993 the questions are and have been how is Israel to rid itself of idolatrous, stone-hearted judges and regimes of arrogant and petty hypocrites and worshippers of foreign gods? A war of complete independence remains to be fought. The sages state, “if the Jewish people repent they will be redeemed” and if they do not repent on their own, since the Eternal One has vowed that He will redeem them and never annul His covenant with them “He will appoint over them a king whose decrees are as Haman’s and the Jewish people then will repent” (Sanhedrin 97a).
Two thousand years ago the sages foresaw the events of the Oslo – Road Map period, the summers of expulsion 2005-06 and of the aftermath when the servility and bad faith of Israel’s government, and the vulnerability and raggedness of the entire people became exposed to the world. For thirty-five hundred years it has been lack of spirit that elicits the aggression of Amalek. This can express itself in the self-starving materialism that is the stance of Esau-Edom. The sages knew that “the meeting place will be used for licentiousness, the Galilee will lay waste, and the people of the border will wander from town to town and not be granted favor,” at least not by the government that, like a dog, follows Esau on a leash [ibid]: “the face of the generation will be like the face of a dog,” shameless, insolent and brazen, particularly its leaders, the very situation Moshiach comes to rectify. The shameless insolence of the Kadima-Labor regime showed in their expulsions and brutality toward Jews, in their rationalizations of this perversity and their dog-like slavishness to foreign masters. Moreover, “the wisdom of scholars will decay” and “rebuke will cease” from nearly all of those ‘religious’ who should but do not publicly rebuke this situation. When the people were expelled from Gush Katif, Rav Shapira stood alone among the most prominent Rabbis. Fifteen months later, late in November 2006, the Orthodox Union hosted Mr. Olmert, the executor of the expulsions ordered by Esau. Some ‘religious’ leaders still sustain the faithless shepherds in the Knesset. Other rabbis, in response to the murder of Jewish youths state that Jews should not hitchhike in the Land of Israel. Only a lone voice, and only after many afflictions openly quotes the rule that “when they come to kill you, rise up and kill them first,” which would bring a quick victorious end and subsequent peace to the “war on terror.”
So there is no true war on terror but rather a war on the Jews. Salvation waits.
What is the return and repentance (teshuva) that the Eternal One especially wants from Israel? Kind deeds, justice, embrace of the blossoming hills, Torah study and prayer. What is prayer, — that Jews ask of Him what He wants to give and has vowed to give them, the sooner the more joyous.
These times typify the dominance of “the degraded man who says with his heart, ‘no G-d’” when the passions rule (the heart, spoiled by mass media imagery says ‘no,’) per the paradigm of the Romantic – Modern period (psalm 14). About these times David also said “save, Hashem, for the devout one is no more, for truthful men have vanished from mankind.” This situation (which he often described) has special relevance to the darkest time of the year as well as of history for psalm twelve is on the Sheminit whose qualities are incorporated in the oil (shemen) and eight (Shemini) days of Hanukkah, the holiday celebrating the final, long-awaited victory of light over darkness, of liberation from spiritual, political and physical bondage. The oil that gives the eternal and perfect light of Israel also centers the name (perhaps a title) of the priestly family, HaShmonayim (“the Maccabees”) that won the victory whose purpose remains the paradigm for redemption against the arrogant, hypocritical, and idolatrous oppressors of the Jews.
“And hasten the End, — salvation; avenge with vengeance the blood of Your servants… for the triumph is too long delayed…” Events hasten onward.
Redemption brought near by good deeds, justice and charity puts one in mind of Jonathan Pollard who risked everything for Israel, and has been left in darkness when he should have light: Hashem, “hear the groaning of the prisoner and liberate all those sentenced to die…” This also was the experience and situation of Joseph in Pharaoh’s dungeon. Then too it was Mikeitz: “at the end,” the deep darkness from which Hanukkah flames.
Because Jews are and should strive to be responsible for each other, “like a single man with a single heart” and because Israel is both a nation and each of its individual persons his abandonment by dog-faced governments played out in the abandonment of soldiers in the field, of the Jews of Gush Katif, of the Galilee that was laid waste, and now of the borders in the Negev. All these evils and signs of the End, — the day that “is coming, burning like an oven” — evoke a psalm that powerfully articulates the identity of Israel as the isolated and afflicted man; it also, as a corollary, evokes the eternal Providence of the Almighty to cherish and settle Israel “in the face of the nations.”
“Days are coming when Jacob will take root; Israel will bud and blossom and fill the face of the earth like fruit.”
Whenever the righteous try to secure charity and justice for Pollard another tempest of lies shoots forth and strikes all Israel. “All day long my enemies revile me” is a phrase that fits these times and this situation only too well. Israel could say, quoting the psalm, “they curse by me,” all of them fom the State Department to the media of the Islamic world that teaches children that “Israel is the name of Satan”; media paid for by the tax payers of the west as Edom intermarried with Ishmael.
“A prayer of the afflicted man when he faints and pours forth his supplications before Hashem” (Psalm 102): “This,” comment the sages, “is the prayer which comes to the presence of G-d before all the others” (Zohar 23b on Genesis). This prayer is particularly suited to the twilight of history, our age when “all the nations of the world gather against Jerusalem”; when we watch them “consume Jacob, and devour his pleasant habitation” piece by piece like sharks, like predatory beasts. Year by year for decades we watch the noose pulled tighter by the powers. Still, “behold! They may indeed gather together but it is without My consent. Whoever will gather against you will fall because of you” says the Eternal One, will fall as the Nefillim (“fallen ones”), Anakim (“giants” or “enormities”), and the Rephaim (“shades”) fell, those who brutally attacked and those who should have helped but did not (Isaiah 54:15, Zohar 25a & b).
The discussion of the psalm recounted in the Zohar pursues the threads of these related themes and vocabulary. Israel isolated in the twilight burnt and burnt again…brought into a darkness that only its light can redeem.
“This [psalm 102] is the evening prayer which is single, without a husband; and because she is without a husband she is poor and dry. Like her is the just man, poor and parched. This is the seed of Jacob which resembles the evening prayer that typifies the night of captivity” (Zohar 23b). It is the twilight time, a time of spiritual night, the darkness before dawn when the angel of Esau wrestles with and tries to dispirit Jacob before the point of light appears, — the eternal light of Israel.
In this time and for a long time Israel is “poor, parched and dry”; lonely, without a spouse, incomplete “in subjection to all nations,” metaphors treated repeatedly in the prophetic readings of consolation during the weeks between 9 Av and Rosh Hashanah. The texts remind us that so long as Israel is subservient to American diplomats and their fig leaves in the UN and EU it is “in subjection”; it is not sovereign, not intact and cannot be wholehearted with G-d. Indeed, the obsession of the nations in the ‘land for peace’ era is that Israel must never be intact. Because it is fragmented and torn, not sovereign, not wholly committed to Judaism and the G-d of Israel it has been charred and parched, led by idolatrous dogs: “so today we praise wanton sinners” it is written regarding the effects of the despair that the good ever will be honored (Malachi 3:14-15).
Be heartened: this is the era when “honor will dwindle.” The husks are thickening, imploding. The light is coming but until then, injustice, nations in uproar and terror.
And so in this twilight of history, in the Erev Shabbat of the sixth millennium, Israel is the flame-surrounded evening prayer for the entire world, “like a lonely bird upon a rooftop…”
“For my days are consumed in smoke, and my bones are charred as on a hearth. Smitten like grass until withered is my heart for I have forgotten to eat my food.” In the birth pangs of messiah, Israel has reached the limit of contraction. The moan of the soul to Hashem, as in Egypt, will arouse His might on behalf of Israel who are ready to act.
Those with faith, and Pollard has become a miracle of faith will make a precious treasure for Hashem and He will have mercy on them as a man has mercy on his son who serves him. He “will arise and show Zion mercy, for the time to favor her, for the appointed time will have come.” The distinction between the righteous and the wicked will be made clear (Malachi 3:17-18; psalm 102:14). The fallen booth of David, the entire House of Israel will be raised on its land, a very mighty host: one nation in the land upon the hills of Israel (Ezekiel 37).
“The wise will shine like the radiance of the firmament,” like the radiance of Hanukkah in the darkness, the grace, dedication and faith he has learned and teaches (Daniel 12:3).
The current situation of Israel, the fallen booth of David reflects that of Pollard who has been left fallen in external darkness and is in many ways like that “an owl of the wasteland” that has “eaten ashes like bread and mixed my drink with tears…” This is every shoah of Israel, and the impending shoah of our days. But because many Jews “cherish her stones and favor her dust,” Israel and Jerusalem have not reached this condition and are hastening, even if a little the redemption. But the ongoing attacks point toward desolation and the need for awakening. A prayer that is like a moan will pierce the lengthening shadows and activate heaven… As Esau completes its doings the light of Israel will burst all the more brightly and the dream will live.
Fulfilling the kind deeds, charity, and justice that hasten redemption may require battles like those of the Maccabees, songs played on the Sheminis that clarify the distinction between the faithful of the land and those who prefer that Israel be defined as “a fun place to live,” those whose absurdity and rejection of their identity becomes more blatant every day. Battles and mighty deeds move the world from confusion to life, from cruelty to kindness, justice and charity. Peace grows from wholeness: shalom from shaleim.
“The prayer of the afflicted man who pours out his supplication before Hashem” emphasizes that the individual Jew recognizes his or her identity with the entire nation of Israel, its precious land and the honor of the Holy One and Creator. The structure of the Amidah, the core of Israel’s daily liturgy, shows that the prayer of the Jew is not only for himself, however great his pain, but for his or her pain to be lifted by the redemption of the entire nation, the flowering of the land, in-gathering of the people and complete rebuilding of Jerusalem. “Sound the great shofar for our freedom, gather us together; restore our judges as of old”; “build Jerusalem and dwell within it…” The constructive, life-affirming and practical aspect of Jewish faith, service and prayer are emphasized in the focus of this “appointed time” of independence that grows nearer as twilight comes on: Zion will be built. When the entire Land is repaired and complete, the Holy One “will have appeared in His glory. He will turn to the prayer of the devastated one… and liberate all those doomed to die… to declare in Zion the Name of Hashem and His praise in Jerusalem.” Eliciting this response sooner rather than later is the work of “the just man… poor and parched” like a single woman whose prayer pierces to the highest heaven (Zohar ibid; psalm 102:14-17).
The uplifting of these afflicted, “storm-tossed ones” is one with the glory of G-d. When His portion, Jacob, is intact in its place in the world, His presence fills the world. Dog-faced politicians have declared that Israel will never return to Shechem. But the deeds of the fathers are a pattern for their descendants and the quickening of the land since the Jews returned is among many proofs that Scripture anchors reality. When Jacob fully returns from exile to Shechem he will be shaleim, integral and complete. When he proclaims the G-d of Israel he will fully inhabit his honorific, “Israel” given by G-d Almighty and will join his fathers at Mamre, Kiriath-Arba that is Hebron” (Genesis 33:18-20; 35:27).
Shechem to Hebron to Yisrael Shleimah: When Jonathan Pollard is liberated the spine of Israel’s holiness will be intact and straight (yashar), Israel will be itself, sovereign in a land of grain and wine, and the world will yield its produce. For even the least of Jacob are like clean-flowing streams from the Lebanon (Zohar 135 on parsha Toldot and Song of Songs 4:15; cf. Isaiah 60:22); like aloes by rivers. Only a mad or evil world order wouldn’t want this to be; how precious a job it is to hasten it. And it will come; the Red Giant is dying and will die; its way is death. The ner tamid of Israel is life and will live.
Every effort to hasten this change is an evening prayer, “the prayer which comes to the presence of G-d before all others…”