Daf 3a (continued) - "Whispering Winds"
Ein Yaakov
- The World of Talmudic Aggada
By Dr.
Moshe Simon-Shoshan
Lecture 7: Daf 3a (continued)
Whispering Winds
As we move on
to the third and final section, the nature of the story is once again
transformed. The narrative leaves
behind the halakhic genres of exemplum and the case story, and morphs into a far
older and more widespread genre: the apocalyptic narrative. Apocalyptic narratives are stories in
which Divine secrets that are normally kept hidden to mere mortals are revealed
to a special individual. One common
form of apocalyptic narrative involves visions of God and His doings in Heaven. Apocalyptic narrative has its roots
in the visions of the great biblical prophets, especially Isaiah and Ezekiel
and, later, the book of Daniel. In
the Second Temple period, the apocalyptic narrative became a very popular and
influential genre. This tradition
continued to greatly influence Jewish (and Christian) literature into the Middle
Ages, especially mystical literature and the later midrashim. Apocalyptic narratives are also found
in the Talmud and the classical midrashim, though much less often.
This section
presents three distinct but similar revelations of Gods pronouncements in
Heaven, whose exact relationship with each other remains unclear. The first pronouncement is the Divine
voice R. Yosi hears in the ruin. The
words of this pronouncement are identical to those previously attributed to God
in his thrice nightly proclamations, in which He mourns the destruction of
Jerusalem, the Temple, and the exile of Israel.
This line creates the associative link between our story and the previous
passage. The difference between
these two depictions is the tone of voice in which these words are expressed. Previously, the sound of the words
was compared to the roar of a lion.
Now, God coos like a dove. This new
metaphor even further humanizes God.
He appears even more weak and vulnerable, as he yearns for the redemption of His
people and His Holy City.
Furthermore, the dove is consistently portrayed in aggadic literature as a
metaphor for Israel. Thus, God
cooing like a dove also suggests that He identifies strongly with His people.
This scene
also transforms the nature of the ruin in which R. Yosi prays. In the halakhic section of the story,
this ruin appears as an inappropriate place for prayer, due to its marginality,
instability, and uncivilized nature.
Now, it appears as a place where R. Yosi is privileged to overhear the most
intimate goings-on in Heaven. It is
not but the house of God; this is the gate of Heaven." This validates our initial intuition
that the story specifies that these ruins
are the ruins of Jerusalem because of its significance, and R. Yosi chooses to
pray in them, not simply as a way of avoiding the hustle and bustle of the road,
but because they are a positive destination.
It seems that these ruins are haunted, not by ghosts or demons, but by
God Himself. In this view, ruins are
not only a place of danger, but a place of spiritual opportunity.
The occasion
of this declaration is never fully clarified.
Is this voice always audible to the spiritually attuned who stand in the
ruin? Does God speak these words in response to R. Yosis prayers? Or perhaps R.
Yosi is hearing one of Gods thrice nightly cries described in the previous
passage. This final interpretation
raises the possibility that the entire story is understood as having taken place
a night.
This question
is further complicated by the next report of Gods cry of mourning. Upon hearing R. Yosis words, Eliyahu
calls out excitedly, confirming the authenticity of R. Yosis experience. Indeed, he tells us, God makes just
such a cry three times a day. Now,
we must consider the possible relationship between Eliyahus report of Gods
cries and the previous reports in the Gemara.
Does Eliyahu mean to say that R. Yosi has heard one of Gods three
regular cries? Or does he mean that in addition to the cry which R. Yosi heard,
which was a direct response to R. Yosis prayers in the ruin, God also makes
this statement three times a day?
Also, what is the relationship between the three times a day that Eliyahu
mentions and the three times a night referred to in the previous passage? Does
Elijah refer to this thrice nightly call? Or is the three times meant to
correspond to the three daily prayers of Shacharit, Mincha and
Maariv?
Finally,
Eliyahu recounts yet another instance of God crying out in mourning for the
exile. This occurs when Jews gather
in the synagogues and prayer houses and answer, May His great name be blessed
To what event does this refer? My teacher, the great Aggada scholar Yona
Fraenkel, assumes that this refers to the recitation of Kaddish during
communal prayers. He sees this event
as identical to the previously mentioned three times daily in which God calls
out in mourning. As we suggested
earlier, Fraenkel sees these three times as referring to the three fixed daily
prayers. The problem with this
interpretation, as Moshe Benovitz points out, is that the recitation of
Kaddish as we know it is thought by most scholars to have emerged only in
the Geonic period, centuries after the time of the Tannaim and Amoraim. Indeed, Benovitz suggests the
possibility that the Kaddish we are familiar with was in fact inspired by
this passage in our story. However,
though the Kaddish may be a relatively late innovation, the phrase
yehei shmei rabba, May Gods great name be blessed is quite ancient. Going back to the period of the
Tannaim, we have testimony to the existence of a series of interrelated
responsive liturgical formulae in which God, or His name, are declared to be
blessed for eternity. These include:
the Barkhu (the call to prayer); the zimun (the call to grace
after meals); yehi shem Hashem mevorach meata ve-ad olam; and the
response barukh shem kevod malkhuto le-olam vaed used in several
contexts. They also include the
formula that the Sifrei, Devarim 306, mentions without giving its
context: yehei shmo ha-gadol mevorakh, to which is responded le-olam
u-le-olamei olamim. Some sources
suggest that this last call and response was recited in conjunction with the
study of Aggada. Eliyahu, therefore,
most likely refers here not to the Kaddish of the thrice daily prayers
with which we are familiar, but more generally to the gathering of Jews in the
synagogue to pray.
Here then we
have an example of God responding to the prayers of Jews. This lends credence to the
possibility we suggested above, that God similarly responds to the prayers of R.
Yosi. There is, however, an important
difference between these two incidents.
In the first case, we find God responding to the prayers of an individual
great rabbi, who apparently evokes this response only when he prays in the ruins
of Jerusalem. We might conclude from this
that God responds as such to prayers of the spiritual elite and, even then, only
when they pray in preferred locales.
Now, we learn that, in fact, God responds as such to the people of Israel as a
whole, each and every time they gather to pray in the synagogue. Nevertheless, R Yosi remains superior
to the common Jew in that only he can actually hear Gods response. Indeed, we only know about Gods
responses to communal prayers because Eliyahu chose to reveal it to R. Yosi.
Gods
response is significantly different from the previously recorded Divine cries of
mourning. First, this statement is
preceded by a brief description of Gods actions that accompany it. We learn that God shakes his head
and says
According to the Talmud,
this is not the only time that Eliyahu describes Gods head gesture before
reporting His words. In the famous
story of the Oven of Akhnai, Eliyahu reports that following the showdown between
R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua in the house of study, God chortled and said, My
sons have defeated me
In our case, the description of Gods behavior
heightens the pathos of Gods words, by showing that his mourning extends beyond
His words and grips his very body.
This
description pushes the envelope for the Talmuds depiction of God as having
human characteristics. Until now,
this series of passages describing Gods declarations has engaged only in what
is known as anthropopathism, the attribution to God of human emotions. Now the text goes one step further
and engages in anthropomorphism, describing God as having a human-like body. This, of course, is a far more
problematic notion for traditional Jewish theology as we have inherited it. A Maimonodean reading would probably
interpret this description as metaphorical, meant to communicate the intensity
of Gods mourning, rather than suggest, G-d forbid, that He has a body.
Gods actual
declaration here is also significantly different from those previously reported. Gods mourning here is tempered. He first declares his joy that he is
being praised by the Jews in the synagogue, and only then expresses his regret
that both He and Israel must suffer the pangs of separation brought on by exile. There is an almost paradoxical
element to these lines. God mourns
over the exile using the image of the son who has been exiled from his fathers
table. This would appear to refer to
the destruction of the Temple and especially the cessation of the sacrifices. Yet in the previous sentence, He
declares that His people are praising him in His house. The synagogue, like the Temple,
seems to be Gods house, and there too Israel can enjoy a close relationship
with God.
This paradox
can be resolved by noting two subtle shifts from the first to the second
sentence of Gods statement. In the
first sentence, Israels presence in the synagogue is compared to being in Gods
house. In the second sentence, their
presence in the Temple is compared to sitting at Gods table. One could argue that sitting at the
table suggests a much closer relationship than simply visiting someones house. Second, the metaphor shifts between
the first and second sentence, from comparing the God-Israel relationship to the
relationship between a king and his servants, to comparing it to that between a
father and son. One can similarly
argue that this suggests that, whereas in the Temple God has a more intimate
father-son relationship with Israel, in the synagogue it is only a more distant
king-subject relationship.
According to
this analysis, Gods words here embody the tension inherent in the rabbinic
conception of the experience of exile.
On the one hand, the destruction of the Temple represents a traumatic
severing of the relationship between God and Israel, which is a source of
constant pain to them both. On the
other hand, through prayer and study, Israel continues to enjoy a regular and
close relationship with God. This
experience raises mixed emotions from both sides.
On the one hand, this continued relationship provides great comfort to
both Israel and God, at times perhaps sufficient to all but erase the feeling of
loss of the old days." On the other
hand, the experience in the synagogue and study house only serves to remind both
Israel and God of the greater intimacy that was possible with the Temple, thus
further opening the scars of the destruction and intensifying the pain.
The sugya
follows up this story with a citation of another baraita:
Our Rabbis
taught:
here are
three reasons why one must not go into a ruin:
because of
suspicion [of sexual misconduct], falling debris, and demons.
This source
explicitly states that ruins are dangerous.
It confirms our previous speculation that the rabbis were worried that
ruins pose a danger of collapsing, and that they may be haunted by dangerous
spirits. It also adds the concern
that one entering a ruin may be suspected of going there in order to have an
illicit sexual encounter. Once
again, the position of ruins at the margins of society makes them an attractive
location to marginal individuals, such as prostitutes and others who would skirt
the bounds of sexual propriety.
In summary,
this story, through its complex rhetoric, contrasts two different approaches to
prayer. We have a description of an
event, R. Yosis prayer in the ruin, followed by two perspectives on the event
expressed through two exchanges between R. Yosi and Eliyahu. The first dialogue takes what we have
called the halakhic-normative approach to prayer.
Prayer is seen primarily as a halakhically defined ritual. Its practice, like all halakhic
behavior, must be carried out through carefully balancing the often conflicting
demands and interests of the Halakha, including spiritual, moral and social
concerns. The second dialogue
expresses what we have called the mystical or experiential approach to prayer. In this view, prayer is essentially
an all-encompassing encounter with God that has the potential to lead to actual
Divine revelation. While praying,
all worldly concerns, including the concern for ones continued physical
existence, must fall to the wayside as one submits oneself entirely to the
experience of standing before God.
The conflict
between these two views takes place in the ruin.
In the halakhic view, the ruin is a place that is at odds with halakhic
life, which necessitates concern for human safety and fidelity to human society. In the mystical perspective, the ruin
is a potential portal to the next World, a space that is free of the conventions
of human society. It is thus an
ideal place to pray for those who are ready for a high-level prayer experience.
The question
of whether the ruin is an appropriate space for prayer parallels a similar
question that underlies the Gemaras overall discussion of the nighttime
Shema in this chapter: is the night an appropriate time for prayer? A halakhic, ritualistic perspective
on prayer might lead us to the conclusion that the night is not a time for
prayer. As we have noted in an
earlier shiur, the Temple operated only in the daytime. The night is a time in which human
activities, especially public life, are limited.
So too, Gods rule on earth is limited, if we are to accept the notion
that the demons run free at night.
Yet we do say the Shema at night and even pray Maariv (though
this prayer's status was far from clear in the time of the Gemara.)
We also saw a tradition that God roars
like a lion throughout the night, expressing His power even in the darkness. Later on, we shall see sources that
suggest that the nighttime is actually the optimal time to pray.
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