Vayhi: The End was Hidden from Him

By Rabbi Jonathan Chipman on December 21, 2007 - י"ב טבת תשס"ח

There is a curious turn in this parasha. Yaakov gathers his children together with the words: “Come and I will tell you what will happen at the End of Days.” באחרית הימים (Gen 49:1), but then goes on to talk about other things: he settles old scores with those of his children whose behavior was less than exemplary, and describes in a few choice words the unique character of each of his sons—but nowhere does he address the subject of the Eschaton, the Messianic End. Rashi, quoting the aggadah at b. Pesahim 56a, observes that ‘”He sought to reveal the End but the Shekhinah departed from him, and he began to say other things instead.” ביקש לגלות את הקץ ונסתלקה ממנו שכינה והתחיל לומר דברים אחרים

Interestingly, this is one of the few places, at least as far as I know, in which Rashi repeats the same idea almost verbatim within the space of barely a chapter. The opening verse of Vayehi (47:28) is unique in that there is no space whatsoever between it and the previous parasha; it is the parasha setumah par excellence. Rashi comments there that this “hiddenness” or “closedness” alludes to the fact that “the Shekhinah was closed to him.” ביקש לגלות את הקץלבניו ונסתם ממנו. (In this passage he cites Gen Rab 96.1, which uses the word נסתם rather than נסתלקנה). Yaakov was granted a glimpse of the End, and he wanted to pass on this knowledge to his children, but suddenly the gates of eschatological vision were closed to him, and he turned to other subjects: blessings/prophecies pertaining to the medium-range future of the various tribes.

This hesitancy to reveal the End, the idea that eschatological knowledge is a kind of esoteric gnosis, too powerful and dangerous to be disseminated, which led the Shekhinah to suddenly cut short Yaakov’s deathbed prophecy (at least in this respect), dovetails into a widespread Jewish reluctance to engage in hishuvei haketz, (חישובי קץ), in calculations of the date of the Final Redemption. “May the bones of those who calculate the End swell up” תיפח עצמן של מחשבי קצין, curses R. Shmuel b. Nahmani in b. Sanhedrin 97b. Admittedly, there is also an opposite tendency: that same page of Talmud gives a variety of suggested dates for the Messiah’s coming, all of them falling close to the time of those who proposed them; later, such notable thinkers as Ramban and Abravanel each had their own dates; and from the Hebrew year 5000 on (1240 ce), there were constant messianic movements, involving group aliyot to Israel, usually centered on the century bench-marks (see, e.g., Arie Morgenstern’s paper in Azure 12 [2002]); and in our own day, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe was notorious for the messianic frenzy into which he whipped up his Hasidim, nor was he alone in this respect.

But the halakhic ”bottom line” is nevertheless that of Rambam, who states that “one ought not to make [these matters] one’s main concern, as they bring neither to love nor to fear [of God]. Nor should he calculate the End… but wait and believe in the things in a genera way” (Hilkhot Melakhim 12.2).

ולעולם לא יתעסק אדם בדברי ההגדות ולא יאריך במדרדשות האמורות בענינים אלו וכיוצא בהן, ולא ישימם עיקר, שאין מביאין לא לידי יראה ולא לידי אהבה. וכן לא יחשב הקצין. אמרו חכמים, תיפח רוחם של מחשבי הקצים. אלא יחכה ויאמן בכלל הדברים כמו שביארנו.

I would like to focus on one specific application of this principle. For many years the predominant ideology of Religious Zionism (and here I am writing as an Orthodox rabbi, who in the broad sense has identified with that movement in the past, and mourns the loss of an ideological home) has been to justify its support of Zionism by identifying this movement as a harbinger of or as somehow foreshadowing Messiah. This was done, both to defend its support of the largely secular movement of political Zionism, and to justify its break with the traditional attitude of historic passivity of what has come to be known as the Haredi world, whose banner cry was the “three oaths” of Ketuvot 111b. The phrase in the Prayer for the State of Israel, ראשית צמיחת גאולתינו, “the beginning of the blossoming of our Redemption,” expresses this vision. All this has become exacerbated since 1967, with the de facto Israeli presence in almost all of historical Eretz Yisrael—Shechem, Hebron, Bethlehem, and of course the Old City of Jerusalem—and the movement of settlement, which has become so much identified with Religious Zionism, as if the union of the two were almost self-evident.

I would like to pose an alternative vision (which is of course not my own: such distinguished thinkers as the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz and, yibadlu lehayyim arukim, David Hartman, Aviezer Ravitzky, Uriel Simon, and among rabbinic leaders Aharon Lichtenstein and Yehudah Amital, have articulated it, in one way or another). In essence, we must recognize and accept that we are still living within unredeemed history, and that we can say nothing definite about the theological meaning of the State. My friend Dr. Menahem Kallus, when he leads prayers at Bira Amikta (the Leader Minyan), is in the habit of adding one word to the Prayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel: שתהא ראשית צמיחת גאולתינו, “that it shall be the beginning of the flourishing of or redemption”—thereby changing it from a statement of fact to a prayer for the future. I strongly agree with this view.

Thus, religious Zionism becomes perfectly valid as the religious branch of a secular, this-worldly moment, whose goal was the establishment and is the ongoing existence of a national homeland for the Jewish people, in a world which had become increasingly hostile to the anomalous sort of national existence Jews had been living in the Golah. Or, as Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz put it succinctly: “We are fed up with being ruled by the goyim!” The religious branch of Zionism may not even be concerned with transforming the culture of the State, but simply with making it possible for religious Jews to live and function here. (As Michael Rosenak once shrewdly observed: religious Jews in Israel speak of their model as Rav Kook, with his mystical, messianic vision, but in practice their model is Samson Raphael Hirsch: that is, focused on communities of religious individuals and families living in the state, not that differently than they did in Diaspora, assuring the availability of services needed for themselves and their families: synagogues, education, kashrut and Shabbat observance in public institutions, including a kosher Army—but without any grandiose, metaphysical historical vision) As a this-worldly movement, it behooves the State of Israel to be attentive to the reality of the world around us, and to conduct a policy based, not upon the belief that Messiah is around the corner or that the time has come for the Divine promise of inheriting the land to be realized in full, but in terms of realpolitik.

All this has clear implications as to how we deal with the burning political issues facing the state. In a nutshell, it leaves us open for negotiation with the Palestinians to arrive at some sort of equitable, peaceful solution to two nations living in the same land. And this applies to compromises, not only in the Land as a whole, but even regarding Jerusalem. From a strictly halakhic viewpoint (and I have argued this in the past) ownership of the Temple Mount per se, without the Temple and the order of sacrifices, תמידין כסדרן ומוספין כהלכתם, is utterly meaningless. If Jerusalem, or specifically the Temple Mount, is under some sort of sovereignty in the name of the Creator of heaven and earth who is worshipped by all the religions involved (a position that remains to be “sold” to the Muslim side), what offense is there in that?

But having said that, the path to peace must be conducted with open eyes, with great caution and realism, and even a certain element of skepticism as to whether our former enemies are indeed former. But all this on a worldly level, not as an uncompromising meta-halakhic or religious-visionary worldview.

Shabat Shalom

Rabbis for Human Rights recommends that you read these articles in Vayhi

Vayhi: The End was Hidden from Him - December 21st, 2007
Parashat Vayechi - July 9th, 2007
Vayhi: Transgressions and unnecessary violence in securing the land are unacceptable - January 5th, 2007

Categories: Vayhi
Tags: Bo, compromise, fen, human rights, ISM, order, palestinians, peace, peaceful, rest, settlers