For my bat mitzva, I studied women in Jewish history. As I was thinking about the women yesterday, it occurred to me that while the main characters in our stories, books, and Tanach tend to be men, there is a constant theme of women moving the plot ahead. The women who came immediately to mind were Rivka, who ensured Yaakov got the birthright, Rachael who is considered mother to us all (and I will delve in to Rachael's contribution a little more in the dvar Torah itself), Serach bat Asher, who told her grandfather that her uncle Yosef was still alive, Yocheved, Miriam, Batya, Serach again upon leaving Egypt, Tziporah who had the faith to give her son the brit mila Moshe couldn't and all the way through to our more recent history where pregnant women his their pregnancies during the Holocaust, and found ways to give their sons a brit mila even in the worst circumstances. Our men are wonderful, but it's the women who determine what the lives of the family and the future of Am Yisrael will be. And we recognize that each month, that this often hidden part of Judaism is actually the root of the living tree.
Rosh Chodesh Tammuz - Mourning and Salvation
The only 'holiday' in תמוז is שבעה עשר בתמוז - a fast day that commemorates the walls of Jerusalem being breached by the Romans before the destruction of the 2nd בית המקדש.
שבעה עשר בתמוז starts a 3-week mourning period which deepens on ראש חודש אב culminates in the major fast of תשעה באב.
שבעה עשר בתמוז is historically a sad day for משנה תענית .עם ישראל 4:6 cites 5 calamities on this day:
1. It is 40 days from the day Moshe ascended to הר סיני. That makes it the day that he returned, the day he saw the golden calf, חטא העגל. And hence, it is the day that the לוחות were broken.
2. During the siege of Jerusalem in the era of the 1st בית המקדש, in 423 BCE it was the date that the daily burnt offering ceased to be brought in the Temple as life had been so thoroughly disrupted, a short 3 weeks before the destruction of the בית המקדש.
3. The walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans in 70 CE.
4. Apostomus, a Roman general, burnt a תורה scroll shortly before בר כוכבא's revolt, about 132 CE.
5. At about the same time, an idol was placed in the בית המקדש either by Apostomus or by King Menashe.
We've been in a long-term low-grade suspended state of mourning for the בית המקדש ever since. We daven to return not just to Jerusalem and the בית המקדש, but to re-establish a monarchy there.
This month we will be reading about בנות צלפחד, whose father died either due to collecting wood on שבת, for which he was executed, or in an attempt to get to ארץ ישראל. A group of men couldn't bear the thought of waiting 40 year to get to Israel and headed out on their own to get to the land and were all sadly killed. Either way, צלפחד left behind 5 daughters and no sons - Machla, Noa, Chagla, Milka, and Tirtza.
These women approached משה to ensure they could inherit their father's plot of land in Israel, as they were preparing by allocating land to every family. At the time, the הלכה was that only sons could inherit, but these 5 sisters so badly wanted inherit that they asked for special counsel. משה took the question straight to 'ה, and 'ה affirmed that the sisters were correct - they could inherit.
The timing of the request is strange. צלפחד had died in the 2nd year in the desert. משה was dealing with a nation that didn't want to go to Israel because they were fearful of being killed, a nation that had started to romanticize life in Egypt. Egypt! We just had a holiday a few months ago about how hard life was as slaves, and yet they were asking to go back. And even so, here came these 5 sisters demanding their portion of the land.
Were they after money? If they were, why would they have waited 38 years? They would have asked for his cattle immediately. They would have collected his his possessions and money long before if that was what they were after. They were there for the love of the land.
The woman most closely aligned with this 3-week period of mourning is רחל אמנו. Our tradition holds that of all the people advocating for us, it is רחל who truly speaks on our behalf ('ירמהיו ל'א: יד'-טו)
First, note that while Leah in her life was marked by eyes reddened from shedding tears, it is רחל אמנו who we picture crying for eternity. הבל היופי - beauty is fleeting.
Jewish tradition holds that these פסוקים in ירמיהו are THE source for our belief that there will be an eventual geulah, that God will bring us back from the exile He imposed upon us. A promise made to a woman, to a mother, crying on behalf of her children - and all of עם ישראל.
The תורה introduces the sisters with a listing of their lineage ('במדבר כ'ז: א):
Why bother giving us a lineage? It could have simply said בנות צלפחד of the tribe of מנשה. And why emphasize מנשה בן יוסף? We know who מנשה is!
As anyone in attendance at our first ראש חודש gathering will remember, יוסף so loved the Israel that he made עם ישראל promise to take his bones and bury him there. The notion of Egypt as his final resting place was painful for him. Before the Jews could leave Egypt, משה wandered for 3 days, looking for Yosef's bones. And Serach bat Asher, the only person still living who had come down to Egypt in the original group with יעקב walked him to the Nile. The Egyptians knew that the slaves would not leave without Yosef, so they coated his casket and sank it to the bottom of the river. Serach helped Moshe locate Yosef, and Moshe carried his bones through the desert because Yosef so loved the land. Yosef ben Rachael.
The daughters of צלפחד, descendants of יוסף and רחל אמנו - they are the ones who point us towards the path of fulfilling the promise 'ה made to Rachael. With love for the land guiding us, we will return.
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