Rabbi Akiva's wisdom may hold the key to post-Oct 7 healing - opinion

Every year between Tisha B’av and Rosh Hashanah, we read the Seven Haftarot of Consolation from Isaiah 40-61. The first begins “Comfort, oh comfort My people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1), while the fourth begins “I, I am He who comforts you” (51:12).

The question this year is: How can we be comforted after the horrific massacre of October 7, 2023, the subsequent loss of some 400 Israeli soldiers and civilians, and the recent murder of six hostages?

It is my custom when faced with a serious challenge in life to search our history for answers and inspiration. In the past, we also experienced terrible tragedies – much greater in scope than our current tragedy – and the Jewish people found comfort. How did they do so?

Abraham Ibn Ezra and modern Bible scholars teach us that Isaiah 40-66 was written by Second Isaiah ca. 540 BCE. Decades after the Destruction of the First Temple, the prophet is sitting in Babylon yet is absolutely certain that the Jewish people will return to the Land of Israel – and so it came to pass.

After 70 CE, the rabbis of the Mishnah faced perhaps an even greater tragedy. The Romans burned down the Temple and destroyed the city of Jerusalem and much of the Land of Israel. Hundreds of thousands were killed or sold into slavery. The Temple was not only a magnificent building; it was the entire center of Jewish worship. Without the Temple, there was no way to pray to God or to atone for sins. What did the Sages do?

We are told in Avot DeRabbi Natan, (A, 4:21): “Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was once leaving Jerusalem and his pupil Rabbi Joshua was walking behind him and saw the Temple destroyed. He said: ‘Woe to us that it has been destroyed, the place where the sins of the Jewish people are atoned!’ Rabban Yohanan replied: ‘My son, do not take it so hard. We have another form of atonement which is similar and what is that? It is gemillut hassadim, deeds of lovingkindness… ’”

This is an amazing story. Rabban Yohanan could have succumbed to despair like many at that time. Instead, he looked for alternatives to the sacrificial system, because he understood that it would take a long time to rebuild the Temple and the Jewish people needed other ways to worship God.

A SHORT while later, we hear that Rabbi Akiva and three other Sages “came to the Temple Mount and saw a fox emerging from the Holy of Holies. The other rabbis began to cry, while Rabbi Akiva began to laugh. They said to him: ‘Why are you laughing?’ He said to them: ‘Why are you crying?’ They said: ‘The place about which it’s said that if a stranger enters it, he will be killed (Numbers 1:51) – and now foxes are walking there and should we not cry!’”

Rabbi Akiva comforted them by expounding a verse from Isaiah chapter 8. He concluded: “Now that the prophecy [about the Destruction of Jerusalem] has been fulfilled, it’s evident that the prophecy [about the Return to Zion] will be fulfilled!” They said to him, “Akiva you have comforted us, Akiva you have comforted us!” (Makkot 24b).

This, too, is an amazing story for Rabbi Akiva should have been crying like his fellow rabbis, but, despite the Destruction, he was certain that eventually the Jewish people would be redeemed – and so it came to pass in 1948.

Spain and Portugal

We segue forward to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal. Hundreds of thousands were expelled or forced to convert. Shlomo ibn Verga was one of the victims. He was expelled from Spain in 1492 and fled to Lisbon where, in 1497, he was compelled to live as a converso. In 1506, he fled to Italy and then Turkey where he wrote Shevet Yehudah in the 1520s. It chronicles and discusses 64 separate episodes of persecution of the Jews.

The most famous, perhaps, is episode 52: “I heard from elderly Jews who fled from Spain that a plague broke out on one of the ships, and the captain cast them off in an uninhabited place, and there most died of hunger, but some of them made the effort to walk until they could find a settlement.”

“And one Jew and his wife and two sons made the effort to walk, and then the wife fainted and died and the man carried his sons, and he too fainted, along with his two sons, due to hunger, and when he awoke from his faint, he found his two sons dead. Out of his great anguish, he stood on his feet and said: ‘Master of the universe! You are doing much that I should leave my religion! You should know that, despite those who reside in Heaven, a Jew I am and a Jew I shall remain, and nothing you have brought upon me or will bring upon me will succeed!’ And he gathered from the dirt and the grass and covered up the boys, and he went to look for a settlement.”

IT MAKES no difference whether this particular story happened exactly as told. The point of the story is that Shlomo ibn Verga and his fellow exiles from Spain and Portugal underwent terrible hardships, and despite everything that happened to them – expulsions, autos-da-fé, forced conversions – they said to God: “A Jew I am and a Jew I will remain, no matter what!”

For Decades I was Silent

The last story is the story of my beloved uncle, Rabbi Baruch Gershon Goldstein, of blessed memory (1923-2017), who survived 1,000 days at Auschwitz. Sixty-three years later, he finally published his memoir For Decades I was Silent, and this is what he wrote at the end of the book:

“Jewish history is unique. It’s four-thousand-year existence beginning with the nomad Abraham to the modern State of Israel is a mystery…

“The rebirth of the modern Jewish State of Israel is indeed a continuation of the mystery of Jewish history. I do not know of any other people in the history of the world that was driven out of its homeland, survived in exile for almost two thousand years, and then returned to rebuild its land with such success… As late as 1900, Palestine had been a barren, stony, cactus-infested patch of desert. Almost overnight, Palestine has become a modern agricultural and industrial state, its desert replaced by fertile fields and planted with beautiful cities.

“Nazi Germany was unable to end Jewish history, trying as hard as it did. And I firmly believe that the enemies surrounding Israel today will not succeed in their attempts to destroy the Jewish state. Our tradition has taught our people, and our people have learned the lesson well – a lesson of faith – as we patiently and faithfully waited for the day when we would return to our land and remain a free and independent nation forever.”

Second Isaiah, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, Rabbi Akiva, Shlomo ibn Verga and Rabbi Goldstein faced much greater tragedies than we face now – and yet they managed to comfort their people.

We read at the end of the second Haftarah of Consolation (Isaiah 51:3): Ki niham hashem Tziyon, “Truly the Lord has comforted Zion, comforted all her ruins; He has made her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the Garden of the Lord. Gladness and joy shall abide there, thanksgiving and the sound of music.”

We have been privileged to witness the fulfillment of the first half of the verse. May we soon witness the fulfillment of the second half as well.

The writer serves as president of The Schechter Institutes, Inc. in Jerusalem.