The Intimate Estrangement
When the pagans entered the Holy Temple, they
saw the keruvim cleaving to each other. They took
them out to the streets and said: “These Jews...
is this what they occupy themselves with?!” With
this, they debased [the Jewish people], as it is written:
“All who had honored her have despised
her, for they have seen her nakedness.”[i]
Talmud, Yoma 54b
The prophets compare the bond between G-d and Israel
to the marriage relationship between man and wife.
The prophet Jeremiah describes G-d recalling the Exodus
as “the kindness of your youth, your bridal love,
your following Me into the desert, into a land that
was not sown.”[ii]
King Solomon refers to the covenant at Mount Sinai
as “the day of His betrothal,”[iii]
for the Torah, which outlines our duties as G-d’s
people and His eternal commitment to us, is the marriage
contract (ketubah) between ourselves and G-d.[iv]
When we violated the commandments of the Torah, the
prophets admonished us as a wayward wife who has betrayed
her husband; the resultant galut—the destruction
of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and our banishment
into exile—is referred to as a period of estrangement
and “separation” in the marriage; the messianic
redemption is the promise of a restoration of the
relationship to its original state and the forging
of a renewed, even deeper bond of love between the
bride Israel and her Supernal Groom.
In the innermost chamber of the Holy Temple, the
“Holy of Holies,” stood a golden ark, containing
the “Tablets of Testimony” on which G-d
had inscribed the Ten Commandments, and the original
Torah scroll written by Moses. Topping the Ark were
the keruvim, two winged figures, one male and
one female, hammered out of a block of pure gold.
The keruvim represented the relationship between
G-d and His people: the Talmud tells us that when
the people of Israel rebelled against the will of
the Almighty, the keruvim would turn away from
each other; when Israel was faithful to her G-d, they
would face each other;[v] times in which the love
and goodwill between G-d and His bride were at their
peak were reflected in the keruvim’s embrace
“as a man cleaves to his wife.”[vi]
The Talmud relates that when the enemies of Israel
invaded the Temple, they entered into the Holy of
Holies—a place so sacred that entry into it was
permitted only to a single individual, the High Priest,
and only on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year.
There they saw the keruvim embracing each other.
They dragged them out of the Temple and into the streets,
perverting and vulgarizing their sacred significance.[vii]
The Paradox
In our prayers we remind ourselves that “Because
of our sins, we were exiled from our land... and we
are no longer able to ascend and show ourselves and
bow before You... in Your chosen home, in the great
and holy house upon which Your Name is called.”[viii]
For 830 years,[ix]
G-d dwelled in a physical edifice on a Jerusalem mountaintop,
granting us a tactual experience of His presence in
our lives. But we proved unworthy of such closeness
and intimacy with the Divine presence. The Holy Temple
was taken from us, and we were cast into galut—a
state of existence in which the Divine face is hidden
and G-d’s love and concern for us is concealed—so
that the void in our lives should impel us to repent
our ways and repair the damage to our marriage inflicted
by our misdeeds.
But if galut is a time of estrangement between
G-d and Israel, why were the keruvim embracing
each other at the time of the Temple’s destruction?
Wouldn’t the destruction of the Holy Temple mark
a nadir in our relationship with the Almighty? What
greater paradox can there be: the Divine Groom is
destroying His marital home, allowing His nuptial
chamber to be violated and His bride to be carried
off by strangers, while the barometer of their marriage
indicates the ultimate in intimacy and union!
Three and Seven
Every Shabbat, following the reading of the weekly
Torah portion, a weekly selection from the Prophets,
called the haftarah, is read in the synagogue.
Usually, the content of the haftarah corresponds
to the week’s Torah reading. However, there are
weeks when the haftarah instead reflects events
connected with the time of the year. Such is the case
during the last ten weeks of the year, when ten special
haftarot—called the “Three of Rebuke”
and the “Seven of Consolation”—are
read.
The “Three of Rebuke” are read in conjunction
with the “Three Weeks” from Tammuz 17 to
Av 9, during which we remember and mourn the destruction
of the Temple and the onset of our galut.
On the 17th of Tammuz in the year 3829 from creation
(69 ce), the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the
besieging armies of Rome. After three weeks of fighting,
during which the Romans advanced with great difficulty
through the city, they succeeded in breaking into
the Temple; on Av 9 they set it aflame.[x] These two days are observed as fast
days, and the three weeks between them (referred to
by the prophet as “between the strictures”[xi])
as a time of mourning. In this period, the haftarah
readings consist of selections from the Prophets in
which the prophet rebukes Israel for her crimes and
iniquities and her betrayal of her covenant with G-d.[xii]
The “Three of Rebuke” are followed by “Seven
of Consolation.” For seven weeks, beginning with
the Shabbat after the Ninth of Av (Tishah B’Av),
the haftarah readings consist of prophecies
describing G-d’s consolation of His people and
the rehabilitation of their relationship.[xiii]
Thus we reexperience each year the process of rebuke
and condolence, destruction and rebuilding, estrangement
and reunion.
But why, specifically, a ten-week process? And what
is the significance of its division into three phases
of withdrawal and seven degrees of reconciliation?
Chassidic sage Rabbi Hillel of Paritch explains that
the “Three of Rebuke” and the “Seven of Consolation”
correspond to the ten attributes of the soul, which
are likewise divided into sets of three and seven:
the soul of man possesses three basic intellectual
faculties (conceptualization, comprehension, and application),
and seven basic emotional drives (love, awe, harmony,
ambition, devotion, bonding, and receptiveness). For
it is the interrelation between mind and heart that
enables us to understand the true nature of the “estrangement”
of galut.
Mind and Heart
The mind, by nature and necessity, is aloof and detached.
To apprehend a concept it must assume an objective
distance, divesting itself of all involvement with
or affinity to its subject and adopting a reserved,
even callous disinterest toward the studied entity.
Only then can its analysis and comprehension be exact
and complete.
The heart, on the other hand, is involved, attached,
gloriously subjective. The heart relates
to the object of its affections, bridging distances,
surmounting the barriers between self and other.
Yet true and enduring attachments are born only out
of understanding. Feelings which are based on nothing
more than impulse or instantaneous attraction are
ultimately as shallow as they are impassioned, as
transient as they are intense. It is those emotions
that are conceived in the womb of the mind which possess
depth and continuity; it is the love that is founded
upon an understanding and appreciation of the beloved
that can transcend the fluctuations of feeling, the
letdowns, the lethargy, and the many other pitfalls
of time and change.
So the seemingly cold and distant mind is, in truth,
the source and essence of any meaningful relationship.
The detachment associated with rational examination
actually lies at the heart of our emotive capacity
to bond with others.
G-d’s “Mind”
“From my own flesh, I perceive G-d,” says
the verse.[xv] Man is a metaphor
of the Divine: by examining our own physiological
and psychological makeup, we learn much about the
Divine reality and the manner in which G-d chooses
to relate to His creations.
Thus the mind-heart paradox—the manner in which
mental detachment is the essence and foundation of
true emotional attachment—provides us with a
model for the paradox of galut.
G-d’s relationship with us also includes both
“intellectual” and “emotional”’
elements. At times, we sense what appear to be signs
of detachment and disinvolvement on His part. G-d
seems to have shifted the focus of His attention from
our lives, abandoning us to the whims of “chance”
and “fate.” Our existence seems bereft of
all direction and purpose. G-d is “distancing”
Himself from us, our lives apparently no longer worthy
of His concern.
In truth, however, this Divine “objectivity”
carries the seeds of greater connection. It is a disengagement
for the sake of a more enduring relationship, a withdrawal
to create an even more meaningful closeness. Ostensibly,
galut is a breakdown, a diminution of the bond
between ourselves and G-d; in truth, it is the essence
of a deeper identification with and commitment to
each other.
G-d’s hiding His face from us in galut
is an act of love. Despite our painful incomprehension,
it serves to deepen our attachment to Him. In the
“Three of Rebuke,” we experience abandonment,
alienation and distance; but these give birth to the
“Seven of Consolation.” Bereft of the outward
expressions of our relationship with G-d, we are impelled
to uncover its essence, the quintessential bond which
transcends all physical and spiritual distance. Thus,
it is only through the experience of galut
that the deepest dimensions of our marriage are realized.
Externally, the Three Weeks are a period of detachment
and estrangement; in essence, they are the height
of attachment and connection.[xvi]
Thus the pagans armies entering the Holy of Holies
found the keruvim in intimate embrace. Without,
Israel was being vanquished and exiled, and the Holy
Temple set ablaze. Externally the marriage was crumbling,
the husband alienated and the wayward wife banished
to a foreign land. But within the Holy of Holies—within
the chamber which housed the essence of their marriage—the
bond between G-d and His people was at the height
of closeness and unity.[xvii]
[iii]. Song of Songs 3:11; see Talmud, Taanit 26b.
[iv]. See Rashi, Exodus 34:1.
[v]. Talmud, Bava Batra 99a.
[vii]. Talmud and Rashi, ibid.
(The Ark of Testimony, with the keruvim
atop its cover, were hidden in an underground chamber
in the Holy Temple 22 years before the destruction
of the First Temple, where they remain to this day.
Thus, neither the Babylonians nor the Romans would
have found the Ark in the Holy of Holies. The Talmud
explains that the keruvim that were dragged
out into the streets were not the keruvim
from on top of the Ark, but reliefs which decorated
the walls of the Holy of Holies and which likewise
acted as a “barometer” of the state of
marriage between G-d and Israel.)
[viii]. Mussaf prayer for the festivals.
[ix]. The First Temple stood 410 years, the Second, 420.
[x]. The 9th of Av is also the date of the
First Temple’s destruction, by the Babylonians,
in the year 3339 (423 bce).
[xii]. The “Three of Rebuke” are:
Jeremiah 1:2-2:3; ibid. 2:4-2:28 and 3:4; and Isaiah
1:1-27.
[xiii]. The “Seven of Consolation”
are: Isaiah 40:1-26; 49:14-51:3; 54:11-55:5; 51:12-52:12;
54:1-10; 60:1-22; and 61:10-63:9.
[xv]. Job 19:26; cf. Genesis 1:27: “And
G-d created man in His image.”
[xvi]. Chassidic teaching also offers another
analogy for the paradox of galut, this one
from within the world of intellect itself:
A teacher is in the midst of communicating
a concept to his disciple. Suddenly, he has a flash
of inspiration: a new, infinitely deeper and more
profound concept has erupted in his mind—a
concept which he immediately senses to be of great
value for his disciple. Practically in mid-sentence,
he falls silent; his eyes, which have been focused
upon the attentive disciple, close; the disciple’s
questions and remarks are repelled with a brusque
motion of his hand. The teacher’s every iota
of mental power is now concentrated on the task
of absorbing and retaining the still nebulous concept
hovering at the periphery of his mind.
The disciple is devastated. Why has his beloved
master turned from him? Why has he shut him out
so abruptly? Things go from bad to worse. At first
he was brushed aside—now he is being completely
ignored. At first his master closed his eyes—now
he has turned his back on him entirely.
The teacher senses the anguish of his pupil.
If he cared less for him, he would reassure him
with a word or two. But he knows that the slightest
diversion at this critical time would impair his
efforts to fully capture his newly conceived idea
before the flash of enlightenment recedes. He is
loath to relinquish even a single nuance of the
concept which will so enrich his disciple. So despite
the manner in which it is received by the pupil,
the teacher’s act of “rejection”
is, in truth, an act of love—an act which is
not only fully in keeping with the nature of their
relationship but which serves to deepen and enhance
it. On the surface, they are cut off one from the
other; in essence, they have never been closer to
each other.
This analogy also explains why galut
increases in severity the closer we move toward
our rapprochement with G-d. If the function of galut
were only to serve as a punishment for sin, then
its intensity ought to lessen as time goes by and
we atone for our transgressions. Historically, the
very opposite is true—the nearer we reach Redemption,
the darker the concealment of galut grows.
A case in point is our first galut, our 210-year
sojourn in Egypt. For their first generation in
Egypt, our forefathers flourished; for the next
century or so their situation deteriorated; but
the outright slavery and cruel tortures associated
with this galut came only in its final 86
years, and the most difficult and trying period
came in the final year of the Egyptian exile, after
Moses had already prophesied its end. The same is
true of our present exile: the spiritual state of
our lives—the most basic factor of galut—has
known a steady decline from the day of the Temple’s
destruction more than 1900 years ago. In its earlier
generations, an era populated by the great sages
of the Talmud, our relationship with the Almighty,
though obscured by the concealment of galut,
was still a deeply felt reality in many people’s
lives. As the generations progress, we find an increasing
coarsening and materialization of life, leading
to the almost total blackout of spirituality and
sensitivity to the Divine which characterizes our
present-day existence. This, despite the fact that
each successive generation has brought us closer
to the ultimate Redemption.
But this pattern reflects the process of
the metaphorical teacher’s “abandonment”
of his disciple: the deeper he delves into the concept,
the more he must retreat into himself, distancing
himself even further from the distraught pupil;
yet each successive retreat represents a greater
regard for his disciple and a greater commitment
to his role as teacher.
[xvii]. Based on the Rebbe’s talks,
Tammuz 28, 5716 (July 7, 1956); Av 4, 5749 (August
5, 1989), (Likkutei Sichot, vol. II, pp. 359-363;
Sefer HaSichot 5749, pp. 609-611; ibid., p. 614,
note 45).
The Pinch
