We have far more that unites us than separates us. If we focus on this, there is no force either within or without our society that can defeat us.

On balance, Israeli society is extremely healthy.

Unemployment is at record lows. At a time of global recession, the Israeli economy is growing steadily.

Israeli Jewish women have the highest fertility rate in the Western world with an average of three children per woman. Education levels have risen dramatically across the board over the past decade with dozens of private colleges opening their doors to more and more sectors of the population.

Israel’s diverse Jewish population is becoming more integrated. Sephardic and Ashkenazi intermarriage has long been a norm. Secular Jews are becoming more religious. A new educational trend that received significant media attention in recent months involves secular parents who send their children to national religious schools to ensure that they receive strong educational grounding in Judaism.

And as secular Jews become more religious, both the national religious and ultra-Orthodox sectors are becoming increasingly integrated in nonreligious neighborhoods and institutions. Ultra-Orthodox conscription rates have increased seven-fold in the past four years. In 2010, 50 percent of ultra-Orthodox male highschool graduates were conscripted.

The IDF assesses that by 2015, the rate of conscription will rise to 65%.

While this is still below the general conscription rate of 75% among male 18-year-olds, the rapid rise in ultra- Orthodox military service is a revolutionary development for the sector.

With military service comes entrée to the job market. The trend towards employment integration was blazed by ultra-Orthodox women. Over the past decade, ultra-Orthodox women have matriculated en masse in vocational schools that have trained them in hi-tech and other marketable professions and so enabled them to raise their families out of poverty.

These ultra-Orthodox women, who are now being followed by their IDF veteran husbands, are part of a general trend that has seen women fully integrated in almost every sector of society and the economy. The fact that women make up the senior leadership echelons in both business and government is not a fluke. Rather it is a product of the largely egalitarian nature of Israeli society.

True, as is the case everywhere, Israeli women suffer from male chauvinism.

And like the rest of the world, Israel has its share of sexual abusers, rapists, and criminal and social misogynists. But imperfection does not detract from the fact that women in Israel are free, educated, empowered and advancing on all fronts.

As for the national religious community, its youth remain committed to serving as pioneers in strengthening Israel as a Jewish democracy. Not content to limit themselves to national religious communities in Judea and Samaria, more and more young national religious families are moving to poor towns and communities from Dimona to Ramle to Kiryat Shmona to strengthen their educational, economic and social underpinnings.

Modern Orthodox women are taking on expanded roles in religious councils, synagogues, religious courts and other bodies. Soldiers from the national religious sector remain overrepresented in all IDF combat units and in the officer corps.

Israel’s growing social cohesion and prosperity is all the more notable as we witness neighboring states aflame with rebellion and revolution, extremist Islamist forces voted to power from Morocco to Egypt and economic forecasts promising mass privation.

And in the Age of Obama, with cleavages between liberals and conservatives growing ever wider in America, and with the future of the European Union hanging in the balance as the euro zone teeters on the edge of an abyss, the fact that Israeli society is becoming increasingly fortified is simply extraordinary.

In light of these integrationist trends, the media circus in recent weeks that has portrayed Israeli society as frayed through and through has been startling. With women in Israel presented as underprivileged victims, national religious youth presented as terrorists and the ultra-Orthodox community presented as a gang of misogynist, violent crazies set to transform Israel – in the words of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – into another Iran, an average news consumer can be forgiven for wondering how he missed his country’s demise.

What explains this sudden flood of gloom and doom stories? Certainly it is true that in a highly competitive news environment, media coverage tends to over represent marginal social forces. Sensational stories make for banner headlines. And it is at the margins of society that a reporter is most likely to find sensational stories.

So it is that when reporters wish to push a socialist agenda, they descend on urban slums and talk to people hanging out on the street doing nothing. As a rule, these stories will not feature visits to vocational training schools that are educating poor people out of poverty.

Just as poor, uneducated single mothers in Lod can be depended on to blame their troubles on an insensitive government, so groups of ultra- Orthodox extremists in Beit Shemesh, whose own communities decry them, can be trusted to treat nonreligious women poorly.

None of this is to say that we should stand by and allow poor single moms and their children to go hungry or that we should accept abuse of women by ultra-Orthodox bullies. The former is an issue for social services. The latter is an issue for law enforcement bodies. And to the extent that these institutions are failing in their missions, they should be required to improve their performance.

But just the majority of single mothers, who are not impoverished, don’t deserve to be placed in the victim column, so, too, the majority of ultra-Orthodox Israelis do not deserve to have their reputation besmirched because of the bad behavior of a small, vocal and easily provoked minority.

ALL OF this brings us to the issue at hand. Stories highlighting the deviant behaviors of marginal social forces tend to be simplistic and misleading, and to serve identifiable political forces. And so, with our national discourse suddenly dominated by stories describing the demise of Israeli democracy, women’s rights and the rule of law at the hands of modern and ultra- Orthodox Jews, we need to consider who benefits from the stories.

It is notable that the seam lines being opened by all of the stories, which are again, about deviations from the norm of Israel’s social cohesion, all fall within the governing coalition. Stories of “Jewish terrorists” set the security hawks against the ideological hawks. They set the likes of Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his supporters against the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and their representatives in the Likud, Israel Beiteinu, Habayit Hayehudi and other coalition parties.

Stories about ultra-Orthodox misogynists make it politically costly for the Likud and Israel Beiteinu to sit in the same government as ultra- Orthodox parties such as Shas and United Torah Judaism. They also serve to weaken Shas among its nonultra- Orthodox voters. The fact that the ultra-Orthodox bus lines were inaugurated with the support of the Kadima government in 2007 is beside the point. It is the Likud that is now being blamed for their existence.

The current media-supported outcries against the national religious and ultra-Orthodox sectors follow the pattern of last summer’s social justice protests in Tel Aviv. The purpose of those protests was to discredit the government in the eyes of working class voters and young people.

The current protests also follow in the footsteps of the protests of 1998 and 1999 that brought down Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s first government. Those protests pitted his Russian immigrant coalition members against Shas. They pitted secular Israelis against his ultra-Orthodox coalition members. They alienated young voters from his leadership.

They set his socialist partners against his capitalist partners.

The cleavages wrought in Netanyahu’s coalition made members of his own party as well as his coalition partners fear the electoral cost of maintaining their membership in his government. And so one by one, they bolted his government until it finally fell.

Notably, many of the same forces – from the New Israel Fund to various political consultants who work for the Israeli Left to European NGOs – who were active in the protests in 1999 and in the social justice protests last summer are also playing a role in the current protests. The New Israel Fund raised NIS 200,000 in “emergency funds” to pay for buses to transport protesters to Beit Shemesh last week.

It also paid for two rallies in Jerusalem attacking religious bans on female vocalists earlier last month.

Last summer, Israel’s New Left movement led by leftist political consultant Eldad Yaniv took credit for organizing the anti-free market protests. Yaniv and his colleagues were assisted in conceptualizing the protests by US Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who was also the architect of the social protests in 1998-99.

Indications of how the political Left has been impacted by the current wave of demonstrations are mixed. A Shvakim Panorama poll from last week, which posited the existence of a new anti-religious party led by popular television personality Yair Lapid and a new anti-capitalist Sephardic party led by former Shas leader Arye Deri, indicated that the Left as a whole has been strengthened against the Right. While Kadima would lose most of its Knesset seats to Lapid’s party, it is Deri who would be the undoing of the Right.

The poll claimed that Deri, who since his release from prison has strengthened his bonafides as a secular- friendly political dove, would win seven mandates. Shas would drop from its current 11 seats to five. Deri’s rise would decrease the political Right in all its various forms from its current 67-seat majority in the 120 seat Knesset to a minority of 57.

The media have trumpeted this poll as the first harbinger of spring for Israel’s political Left. And certainly it provides some reason for celebration among leftist political forces. Like the protests in the late 1990s, and like last summer’s anti-capitalist protests, the current batch of anti-religious campaigns serves to turn Israeli against Israeli by feeding on and inflaming sectoral envies and insecurities. And given their success, we can certainly expect them to continue.

For the benefit of society as a whole, we must hope that the basic health and cohesion of Israeli society that has grown so miraculously over the past decade will prevail in the current contest. We have far more that unites us than separates us. If we focus on this, there is no force either within or without our society that can defeat us.

But if we give in to the forces of contention and chaos, we risk endangering everything we hold dear.



caroline@carolineglick.com

“I had not always believed that strength could come from brokenness, or that the thread of a divine purpose could be seen in tragedy. But I do now (Max Cleland).” (“Seven Levels of Teshuva: Avraham and Healing”)

The Torah uses a single verse to teach us that Jacob had a remarkable approach to life. (“A Different Sort of Fear of Life,” “Not Waiting For the Monument,” “The Fragrance of Permanence,” and, “Stopping the Leaks.”) We have seen that, “Vayechi is the story of a man who lived every moment of his life, even in death and after!” We determined that, “Jacob used these final scenes to guide his children to sense the fragrance of permanence, not of death and its ensuing impermanence.” We demonstrated that Jacob rarely “leaked” energy, a “death” experience, but managed to contain and expand the energy with which God filled him. The only time he “leaked” energy was when he lost the sense of the eternal.

Let’s continue to study Jacob’s life before Egypt to better understand where and how Jacob mastered eternal life. We left off after Jacob’s seven year wait for Rachel was as just a few days.

Jacob soon confronts someone thinking of death:

“When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or I’ll die!’

Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of the Lord, Who has kept you from having children?” (30:1-2)

Jacob, who wept upon meeting Rachel because they wouldn’t be buried together, whose mother also wished for death when thinking of children, has no patience for his beloved’s intense feelings of sadness over being childless!

Professor Nechama Leibovitz a”h, in her usual masterful way, applies a teaching of the Akeidat Yitzchak to this scene: Rav Yitzchak Arama points out that there are two names for the Primal Woman: “Isha,” as explained by Rashi, derived from ‘Eish,’ fire, representing the woman as an independent being; and, ‘Chava,’ the ‘mother of life, representing the woman as mother and caregiver. Professot Leibovitz explains that when Rachel wanted to die if she remained childless, she was choosing only one of her roles, that of Chava, the mother, and rejecting her life as an Isha. Jacob’s response was to point out that she cannot choose only one of the roles; she had to live as both.

I use this to explain the custom of the husband preparing the wife’s Shabbat candles; He is nurturing her Isha.

As beautiful as that explanation may be, I do not define Isha or Chava the same way. Chava means to articulate, The Articulator, and Isha has an added dimension of a person with greatness who willing forfeits her status just to be with her husband, just as Eve left the Garden to be with Adam, in fulfillment of, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you (3:16). (See “Family Secrets from the Articulator,” “Vashti v Esther,” “Conversations with Myself,” and, “Morning Blessings for the Nine Days-Part Three: Who has not made me a woman.”)

A careful reading of the text will explain Jacob’s reaction to Rachel’s cry, his fear of her connecting to the negative aspect of Isha, and Cain’s sin:

“When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or I’ll die!’” Rachel was jealous, breaking her eternal link to Jacob, just as Eve’s jealousy led her to trip Adam (Rashi; 3:6), and Cain to break his link to eternal life, humanity, and to murder Abel. (“Mistakes-Latznu,” “Ever Since Adam & Cain One,” “Trying Again,” “Commentary to the Vidui-Part Five; Avinu.”)

Jacob understood that again someone was breaking their link to the eternal and tasting death, so he said, “Am I in the place of the Lord, Who has kept you from having children?” Jacob was assuming the role of teacher, and repairing the break between “God,” the Attribute of Compassion, and “The Lord,” the Attribute of Power-Judgement:

“When God saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, ‘It is because God has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.’

She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, ‘Because God heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.’ So she named him Simeon.

Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.’ So he was named Levi.

She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, ‘This time I will praise God.’ So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children (29:31-35).” Leah consistently speaks of God, the Attribute of Compassion.

Rachel speaks of the Lord, the Attribute of Power-Judgment: Then Rachel said, ‘The Lord has vindicated me; He has listened to my plea and given me a son.’ Because of this she named him Dan (30:6).”

Then, something changes:

The Lord listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son. Then Leah said, ‘The Lord has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband.’ So she named him Issachar.

Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, “The Lord has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honor, because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun.

Some time later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah [derived from ‘Din,’ judgment].

Then The Lord remembered Rachel; He listened to her and enabled her to conceive. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, ‘The Lord has taken away my disgrace.” She named him Joseph, and said, ‘May God add to me another son’ (30:17-24).” [For those of you bothered by my switching the more common translation of God and Lord; I am following the teachings of my father zt”l who insisted that it does not make sense to say, “The Lord is God,” because God is His Essence; the Shema is to accept God as our Lord, meaning that He cares enough to judge our actions.]
Rachel and Leah were each relating to one aspect of our relationship with the Ultimate Being, which is a break of “Hashem Elokeinu,” God is our Lord, in the Shema, and a break in the story of the relationship between the Spiritual and Physical creations, expressed in, “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when God the Lord made the earth and the heavens (2:4).” (See “The Ladder Comes to Life.”)

Jacob taught Rachel and Leah that the only way we can maintain an unbroken link between the Spiritual and Physical creations, to link to the Eternal, is to relate to both God and the Lord.

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Debbie’s sister, her husband, son (The Question Machine), and her best friend, all Spanish speakers, have been with us for four days. Michael just returned from studying a year abroad in Argentina, and now speaks more Spanish than English. Basically, I’m under siege. I’ve tried explaining to them that when laying siege, it is preferable to speak the language of the besieged. They look at me with blank faces, as if they don’t understand English. At least, allow me to prove it to you:

“The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field. They called for the king; and Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to them.

The field commander said to them, ‘Tell Hezekiah:

‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours?

You say you have the counsel and the might for war—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me?

Look, I know you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him.

But if you say to me, ‘We are depending on God our Lord’—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?’

‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! How can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this place without word from God? The God Himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander,

‘Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall’ (II Kings 20:17-26).”

I must admit that their request is strange: Why would the Jewish noblemen expect the Assyrians to speak in Aramaic so as not to intimidate the people of Jerusalem? Wasn’t that the point of their speech?

“They called for the king.” The Assyrians were not yet trying to intimidate the people, but the king, Hezekiah. They understood that he would be making the decision whether to resist or surrender. But the king will not; he cannot, take the bait. Hezekiah represents God’s Will. Hezekiah is making a statement that it is not he who will decide, but God.

This is one belief that was not shared by Zedekiah when Jerusalem was besieged by the Babylonians.

I believe that the Jewish noblemen expected and wanted the Assyrians to refuse their request. They wanted the people to hear that the Assyrians were not only launching a military attack, but were attacking the spiritual lives of the nation. The people would overhear, and by continuing to resist and fight would be fighting for their spiritual lives, not just for their city and kingdom.

Zedekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem expected God (See: Jeremiah-Historical Background) to save them from the Baylonian siege just as He had saved Jerusalem from the Assyrians when Hezekiah was king. They forgot the lesson of the languages.

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“Illuminate our eyes in Your Torah.” The theme we are using this Shabbat is how Shabbat is an experience of the World-to-Come (See: “Kabbalat Shabbat-A Single Utterance”). The Talmud offers two powerful examples of the Special Light of the World-to-Come:

“And it shall come to pass in that day that there shall not be light, but heavy clouds [yekaroth] and thick [we-kippa'on] (Zechariah 14:6),” what does yekaroth we-kippa’on mean? Rav Yochanan said: This refers to Nega’im and Ohaloth (The laws of biblical ‘leprosy’ and the defilement of tents through a dead body), which are difficult in this world, yet shall be easily understood in the future world.

While Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said: This refers to the people who are honored in this world, but will be lightly esteemed in the next world. As was the case of Rabbi  Joseph the son of R. Joshua b. Levi, who became ill and fell into a trance. When he recovered, his father asked him, ‘What did you see?’ ‘I saw a topsy-turvy world’, he replied, ‘the upper [class] underneath and the lower on top’’ he replied:

‘My son’, he observed, ‘you saw a clear world (In which people occupy the positions they merit).’ (Pesachim 50a)

Application: Requesting the Light of the World to Come to Shine on this Shabbat

Kavanah: “We ask that God shine the Light of the Future World on our Torah study; the Light through which even the most difficult subjects will be understood.” Spend extra time studying Torah topics and books that are usually difficult to learn with after using this Kavanah.

Shabbat Before the Tenth of Tevet Kavanah: “Illuminate our world so that people occupy the positions they truly merit,” so that we can choose those from whom to study, as we Battle the Siege.

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In our society, we assume that if someone saves another person’s life, then the person saved owes the person who saved them. However, in some societies, the opposite is true, the person who is saved is owed by the person who saved them. In fact, in some societies, if someone saves another’s life, he is considered responsible for taking care of that person forever.

Here’s a typical example, from a British missionary in Congo:

“A day or two after we reached Vana we found one of the na­tives very ill with pneumonia. Comber treated him and kept him alive on strong fowl-soup; a great deal of careful nursing and attention was visited on him, for his house was beside the camp. When we were ready to go on our way again, the man was well. To our astonishment he came and asked us for a present, and was as astonished and disgusted as he had made us to be, when we declined giving it. We suggested that it was his place to bring us a present and to show some gratitude. He said to us, ‘Well indeed! You white men have no shame!’



I wonder which approach Joseph took, and which, his brothers.

“I am Joseph your brother, it is me, whom you sold into Egypt. And now, be not distressed, nor reproach yourselves for having sold me here, for it was to be a provider that God sent me ahead of you. For this has been two of the hunger years in the midst of the land, and there are yet five years in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest. Thus, God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival in the land and to sustain you for a momentous deliverance (Genesis 45 4–7).”

Joseph saves the lives of his brothers; he certainly had the right and the power to kill them for what they had done to him. Joseph has saved the lives of his brothers; he is the provider of all their food. Yet, despite the fact that he is the one who saved their lives, Joseph accepts responsibility to continue to feed and care for them. Joseph assumes that if God gave him the responsibility and opportunity to save their lives, that he was obligated to continue to care for them.

What about the brothers?

“He sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph, to prepare ahead of him in Goshen; and they arrived in the region of Goshen (46:28).” Jacob sent Judah to prepare: Jacob was teaching his children that they were now obligated to Joseph, not only because they had sold him into slavery, but because he had saved their lives.

I suspect that this obligation, that Jacob imposed on the brothers, is one of the reasons that the brothers never felt completely at peace with Joseph; they lived under this burden of obligation. I also suspect that the reason Joseph took his approach, that he was obligated to them, was so that they would not feel crushed by their obligation to him.

Konica is also the Jewish Thanksgiving. Which approach does God take for having given life to us? Are we to feel crushed by our obligation to Him?

That, is the most significant lesson taught by Joseph; God is obligated to us! “I created you and I shall bear you; I shall endure and rescue (Isaiah 46:4).” It is for this reason that we are able to trust that God will provide all our needs.

Is this not why we declare in “Modim,” not only what God has done to give us life, but also all that we are confident that He will continue to do for all of His creation?

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“Say the word and I’ll turn you loose

I got mine now you get yours

Just like you I’ve got my price

Sure is nice that someone paid

I’ve got my ticket out of here

But for you, I fear, it’s much too late

It’s nothing you can blame me for

In love and war

It’s every man for himself ‘

- Steppenwolf, *Every Man For Himself*

“Now it’s every man for himself tonight

We’re lookin’ out for number one, tryin’ to get on with our lives

And it’s heart-breakin’ and it’s soul achin’

When you got nobody else

So friends it’s good to have you here tonight

But it’s every man for himself

Neal McCoy, *Every Man For Himself*

With apologies to Steppenwolf and Neal McCoy, I must point out that one of the most significant lessons that Joseph conveyed to his brothers was that they could no longer function, “Every Man for Himself.”

“He then kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; afterwards his brothers conversed with him (Genesis 45:15).” We do not find Joseph focusing on his brothers as individuals, but only as a group. In fact, despite having paid special attention to Benjamin, he quickly moves from Benjamin to them all, as if to convey a message that they were all to him equal to Benjamin.

This does not mean that he stopped treating them as individuals: “To each of them he gave changes of clothing (Verse 22).” Only after insisting that they were all equal in his eyes, did he treat each as an individual.

I believe that this explains why we seem to have a redundancy in the portion: “Now these are the names of the children of Israel who were coming to Egypt (46:8).”

“All the people of Jacob’s household who came to Egypt; seventy (Verse 27).”

The family came as a unified family, and they came as seventy individuals.

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This question was asked before Rabbi Tanchum of Neway: What about extinguishing a burning lamp for a sick man on the Sabbath? — Thereupon he commenced and spoke: You, Solomon, where is your wisdom and where is thine understanding? It is not enough for you that your words contradict the words of your father David, but that they are self-contradictory! Your father David said, “The dead praise not the Lord (Psalms 115:7),” while you said, “Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead (Ecclesiastes 4:2),” but yet again you said, “for a living dog is better than a dead lion (9:4).”

Yet there is no difficulty.

As to what David said: ‘The dead praise not the Lord,’ this is what he meant:

Let a man always engage in Torah and good deeds before he dies, for as soon as he dies he is restrained from the practice of Torah and good deeds, and the Holy One, blessed be He, finds nought to praise in him.

And thus Rabbi Yochanan said, What is meant by the verse, “Among the dead I am free (Psalms 88:6)?”

Once a man dies, he becomes free of the Torah and good deeds.

As to what Solomon said, ‘Wherefore I praised the dead that are already dead’ for when Israel sinned in the wilderness, Moses stood before the Holy One, blessed be He, and uttered many prayers and supplications before Him, but he was not answered. Yet when he exclaimed, ‘Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants (Exodus 32:13) !’ he was immediately answered. Did not then Solomon well say, “wherefore I praised the dead that are already dead?’

Another interpretation: In worldly affairs, when a prince of flesh and blood issues a decree, it is doubtful whether it will be obeyed or not; and even if you say that it is obeyed, it is obeyed during his lifetime but not after his death. Whereas Moses our Teacher decreed many decrees and enacted numerous enactments, and they endure for ever and unto all eternity. Did then not Solomon well say, ‘Wherefore I praise the dead, etc.’ (Shabbat 30a)

Kavanah: “The dead do nor praise God,” and therefore I will take advantage of every moment of life to study Torah and do Mitzvot.

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The Israel Antiquities Authority unveiled a rare ancient seal that underscores the bond of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. The tiny clay seal, that likely certified the purity of ritual objects used in the Second Temple, was discovered in an excavation near the Temple Mount.

December 25, 2011

The Israel Antiquities Authority press release:

A first of its kind find, indicative of activity in the Temple, was recently discovered: a tiny item that was probably used as a “voucher” certifying the ritual purity of an object or food in the Temple Mount compound and in the Second Temple.


The discovery was presented at a press conference at which the Minister of Culture Limor Livnat and Minister of Education Gideon Sa’ar participated.

Layers of soil covering the foundations of the Western Wall, c. 15 meters north of the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, were excavated beneath Robinson’s Arch in archaeological excavations of the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden. On top of these layers, dating to the first century CE (the late Second Temple period), was paved the Herodian street which was the main road of Jerusalem at that time. From the very start of the excavations in this area the archaeologists decided that all of the soil removed from there would be meticulously sifted (including wet-sifting and thorough sorting of the material remnants left in the sieve). This scientific measure is being done in cooperation with thousands of pupils in the Tzurim Valley National Park, and is underwritten by the Ir David Association. It was during the sieving process that a tiny object of fired clay, the size of a button (c. 2 centimeter in diameter) was discovered. The item is stamped with an Aramaic inscription consisting of two lines – in the upper line  or  in Aramaic means pure and below it.

Following the preposition  in the word is the shortened form (two of the four letters) for the name of the G-d of Israel.



According to the excavation directors on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, archaeologists Eli Shukron of the IAA and Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa:

“The meaning of the inscription is “Pure for G-d”.

It seems that the inscribed object was used to mark products or objects that were brought to the Temple, and it was imperative they be ritually pure. This stamped impression is probably the kind referred to in the Mishnah (Tractate Shekalim 5: 1-5) as a  (seal). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such an object or anything similar to it was discovered in an archaeological excavation and it constitutes direct archaeological evidence of the activity on the Temple Mount and the workings of the Temple during the Second Temple period”.

Tractate Shekalim tells of the administration procedures on the Temple Mount in which our object was used, “Whoever required libations would go to Yohanan who was in charge of the stamps give him [the appropriate amount of] money and would receive a stamp from him in return. He would then go to Ahiyah who was in charge over the libations, give him the stamp and receive the libations from him”. There can be no doubt that this is a very exciting find.

The Mishnah also mentions in Tractate Shekalim, “There were four tokens in the Temple and on them were inscribed; calf, ram, kid and sinner [which were issued as a receipt to those who deposited the appropriate funds]. Ben Azzai says: There were five; and they were inscribed in Aramaic.” Our object does not belong to this group. It shows that not all of the details concerning the administration procedures of the Temple Mount have come to us by way of the rabbinic literature. Here an artifact from an archaeological excavation supplements our knowledge with a previously unknown detail. It is in this context and the spirit of Hanukkah that the Jerusalem District Archaeologist, Dr. Yuval Baruch, mentioned, “It is written in the Gemara (Talmud Bavli, Tractate Shabbat Chapter 2: Page 21) that the only cruse of oil that was discovered in the Temple after the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks, “lay with the seal of the High Priest” – that is: the seal indicated that the oil is pure and can be used in the Temple. Remember, this cruse of oil was the basis for the miracle of Hanukkah that managed to keep the menorah lit for eight days”.



In addition to this item, other artifacts dating to the Second Temple period were discovered. Some are even earlier and date to the time of the Hasmoneans, such as oil lamps, ceramic cooking pots and a fusiform juglet that may have contained oils and perfume, as well as coins of the Hasmonean kings, such as Alexander Jannaeus and John Hyrcanus.

Photographic credit – Vladimir Naykhin

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The Theme of this paragraph of Hallel is Trusting God: See “Hallel Rosh Chodesh Tevet: Paragraph Three”  “Trusters” and “Chanukah Hallel Paragraph Three: Becoming Trusters.”

“Let all those who put their trust in You rejoice (Psalms 5:12),” because You took vengeance upon Babylon (Tenth of Tevet); “let them ever shout for joy,” because in Persia, You took vengeance upon Haman and upon his sons (Purim); “shout for joy because You defended them,” in the days of the Greeks, when You surrendered the Greeks into the hands of the Maccabees and their sons (Chanukah); “let them also who love Your name and be joyful in You,” when You will inflict punishment upon Gog & Magog. (Midrash Tehillim 5:11)

We declare that we sing this Hallel of Chanukah and Rosh Chodesh Tevet as Trusters that God will give us cause to rejoice as He did after He punished the Babylonians and the Greeks.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

Tzitzit are always associated with light; they are even described as Clothes of Light. In this, they are also associated with Hanukkah, the Festival of Light. When we hold our Tzitzit during the Shema, we hold all four corners in our hands so that we are surrounded by Light. This is a perfect Kavanah to keep in mind as we move from Hanukkah, the Festival of Light, to the Tenth of Tevet, when Jerusalem was surrounded by the invading Babylonian army.

Rabbi Meir used to say: When a man wears the Tefillin upon his head and upon his arm, as prescribed, and his four knotted fringes enclosing on all four sides, and when as he enters his house there is a mezuzah at the entrance, you find that Seven Testimonies of his awe of God surround him like a wall. It was of such a person that David said: “The angel of God camps round about them who fear Him, and deliver them (Psalms 34:8).” [Midrash Tehillim 6:1]
Kavanah: “I hold my Tzitzit surrounding me as a wall to protect me from the enemies who surround me.”

This can also be used as a Kavanah when reciting Psalm 34 in the Shabbat morning Pesukei d’Zimrah.

Author Info:
Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.