The Final Rabbinic Regalia

 I would like to make my readers aware of a Dvar Torah that the Sefath Emeth (Sefas Emes, Rav Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter zt"l) said about 130 to 150 yrs ago.   I found it in a very old version of an old Rabbanut Yom HaAtzma'ut Machzor that we still have in our possession.  I found this wort not only amazingly prophetic but a key to unlock how the birth of the State Israel would somehow, someway suddenly one Tisha B'Av in the very near future morph into the vessel for the Messianic Era.  More exactly how would this chaotic mixture of at least 6 million exiles be suddenly made the receptacle for the Coming of Mashiach ben David?  (At this point the Jewish population here is at significantly over 7 million.)  At this time watching the painstaking minuscule Judicial Reforms and the resistance of half the country under the leadership of Armilus (Ehud Olmert אולמרת with a thav or sav), it seems at a cursory glance decades into the future.  As a matter of fact the sheer undignified Chutzpah of leftist pilots to threaten to ground their planes in protest might be the key to encourage Hezbollah to launch a surprise attack when the abandoned airforce jets remain in their hangars.  

Either way, we remain in great need of a spiritually rejuvenating event for those secular Israelis who are not from the irredeemable Qlipot of the Erev Rav.  The Prophecy in question is in Ezekiel 37.  We shall call it Ezekiel's backup prophecy of the Arba Ruchot or his Prophecy of the 4 winds, a prophecy on the tail of the Dry bones, but unlike the dry bones prophecy, the 4 winds complimentary prophecy has not yet occurred!  This is how I came by this.  

The Sefas Emes made two indelible points.  First he notes that the Shalosh Regalim (Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot) are like piercing brilliant sunlight.  They are given in the Torah in several places, particularly in Parshat Emor (Lev 23) and in Parshat Pinchus (Numbers 28-29) and in Parshat Re'eh (Deut 16) amongst other places in the Written Torah.  He then proceeds to make the point that we have two Rabbinic Regalim, festivals of joy or song or both, decreed by Chazal through Ruach HaQodesh either near the time of the end of prophetic inspiration or after the Ages of Prophesy had already terminated.  These Rabbinic festivals, though, are lunar reflections of the Shalosh Regalim!   So where the 3 Regalim from the Torah shine like the Sun, the 2 Rabbinic Regalim reflect the light of the Sun as the Moon does.  He further goes on to hint that at the end of History there will be one more (or two more as we will soon see) Rabbinic festivals to reflect as the Moon does the light of the Torah's three Regalim.

The Sefas Emes then goes on to explain that The 8 days of Chanukah reflected the original dedication of Shlomo HaMelekh's Temple which concluded during the 7 days of Sukkot/ +1 day of Shmini Atzereth.  And then he describes how at Sinai the Written Torah was accepted with love (on Shavuot), but how Klal Yisrael was forced to accept the Oral Torah through coercion by threatening to drop Mt Sinai on their heads.  Only when Queen Esther decreed a 3 day fast to annul in Heaven Haman's extermination decree (during Pesach, by the way), did Klal Yisrael accept the Oral Torah with love during Pesach to alter their original reticence during Shavuot 2448.  The realization of the annulment of the extermination decree was realized the following Purim and Shushan Purim, 11 months later (after the original decree was annulled on the 23rd of Siwan).  To be exact, the Fast of Esther lasted either the 13th, 14th and 15th of Nissan with the first banquet of the King and Haman on the 16th at night and the hanging of Haman on the 17th at night, the 2nd night of Chol HaMoed.  Or the fast was on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of Nissan with the first banquet on the 17th at night and the hanging of Haman on the 18th of Nissan, the third night of Chol HaMoed.  Either way, the Feast of Unleavened Bread on the 1st night of Pesach was canceled that year, for the afternoon of the 14th and the 15th at night were central to Teshuvah b'Ahavah for originally rejecting the Oral Torah.

So this is where the Sefas Emeth's dvar Torah on this subject SEEMS to end, but one realizes that he was saying a lot more.  First of all, let us digress into how Isru Chag of all the festivals is actually from the Torah.  Everyone knows that a Qorban Shlamim was a festive offering that could be brought all year round.  One offered it during the day and after allowing for the Kohen to properly pour its blood at the Altar and to partake of his portion of the Qorban and to give to G-d His portion on the altar, the party of people had 2 days and the night in the middle to festively eat the Qorban.  The following night at Sundown, the Qorban was forbidden at which point if one partakes, he/she gets Karet (spiritual excision).  Now in a majority of circumstances, most people would come to the Tabernacle at Shilo and the Temples in Yerushalayim to offer a Peace offering during the 3 Regalim or Pilgrimage festivals and would offer it up during the festival from the first day, during Chol HaMoed or on the last day of Chag Pesach or on Shmini Atzereth.  In this way, if the Peace offering was offered up during the festival the Peace offering was a Chagigah which could be eaten on the day that it was offered + one additional day.  Shavuoth stands out as a one day festival, but our sages made it possible to offer up Qorbanot for 6 additional days so that Israel or later just Judea would not neglect to come for just one day of Shavuot.  Imagine walking for 3 days and turning back around on Isru Chag 2 days later to walk home for 3 days!  I believe these extra 6 days for Shavuot are D'Rabbanan though.  So the only D'Oraita day to turn your Peace offering into a Chagigah was on Shavuot (6th of Siwan or day 50 of Sefirat HaOmer) itself.  But once again as with other Festive offerings (Chagigot), the Qedushah of that Chagigah lasted until the end of Isru Chag, that one day after the holy party seemed to be over.  In this way that one day after had the Qedushah of the days of the festival, at least the Qedushah of Chol haMoed for anyone still partaking of a Qorban Chagigah.  This is the spiritual essence of Isru Chag.

So going back to the words of the Sefas Emes, what did he mean that Purim and Pesach were lunar reflections of 2 of the 3 Shalosh Regalim?  To be the lunar reflection of something, one needs to follow the regularity of the cycles of the Moon!  So just like Pesach is the full moon for the month of Nissan, Purim and Shushan Purim are at the Full moon for the previous month of Adar.  So Purim falls exactly one lunar cycle (30 days) before Pesach begins.  And the way the holy calendar usually works, the full moon for 30 day months like Nissan is the 15th of the month while the Full moon for 29 day months like Adar or Adar Sheini is between the 14th and 15th of Adar or Adar Sheini!  Now THIS is what the Sefas Emes ALSO  meant, for how is Purim a "lunar reflection" of Shavuot simply because it completed the acceptance of the Oral Torah that had begun on Shavuot 2448??  What does accepting the Oral Torah out of Love have to do with the cycles of the Moon?  Why mention the Moon at all?  But here we see that Purim really is a lunar reflection of Pesach!  Now going to the end of Chag Sukkot/Shmini Atzereth 6 months later we recognize that Shmini Atzereth is on the 22nd of Tishrei and Isru Chag is on the 23rd of Tishrei.  From there, the end of Isru Chag, we count forward, not 30 days, but 60 days or 2 lunar cycles.  In every year Tishrei has 30 days, and in most years (not every year) Cheshvan has 29 days.  So 60 days after the end of the day on Isru Chag Sukkot we reach Sundown on the 25th of Kislev, the first night of Chanukah!  Now THIS is what the Sefas Emes was referring to!  Both Purim and Chanukah are lunar reflections of Pesach and Sukkot, one 30 days before and the other 60 days after Isru Chag.  And only at the End of Days would there be a certain prophecy which would come to pass divided in two, part of it 30 days prior to Shavuot and part of it 60 days after the 7th of Siwan, Isru Chag of Shavuot.  So in this way do the words of the Sefas Emes really make sense.  The question then comes down to which prophecy, how can we pin it down, and how do we know that that very prophecy comes in two parts separated by years of doubt or better yet a Nisayon.

To be continued.....

Just to give a preview, the Prophecy in question is the Haftarah of Chol HaMoed Pesach, the first half of Ezekiel 37.  It is the prophecy chosen for Shabbat Chol HaMoed Pesach for a reason, to be the Acharit HaYamim prophesy for both Pesach, Sefirat HaOmer, until the day of Atzereth (Shavuot) itself.  Exactly 30 days prior to Shavuot is Hey B'Iyar, The Day of the Dry Bones.  It is a oft quoted joke of Chareidi non-Zionists that Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day) is really Yom Atzamot (Day of the Dry Bones).  The really funny thing is that the joke IS the Truth, the physical redemption of Israel without the Ruchniyut Redemption, and G-d in the year 5708, 3 years after Auschwitz, was not laughing.  Exactly 60 days after Isru Chag of Shavuot is Tisha B'Av, the long awaited future event that can be best translated as the Prophecy of the 4 Winds, the future event which has not yet occurred.  It IS a separate prophecy in Ezekiel 37.  First he prophesied on the dry bones, and when he saw that there was no spirit in those ingathered exiles, HaShem told him to prophesy over the 4 winds.  So Ezekiel in that rather short Haftarah for Chol HaMoed Pesach, prophesied twice, once about the physical redemption on Hey b'Iyar, the ingathering of Dry Bones, that everyone remembers and once about the spiritual redemption on Tisha B'Av, the Arba Ruchot, that few even know about.

More than anything I wanted to discuss my thoughts on other matters, but I want this posted by Rosh Chodesh Av.  Chodesh tov.