There are a handful of Talmudic passages that have become popular Jewish song lyrics. Which of course causes me to ponder all of those lines in the Talmud that have not become Jewish song lyrics. As the post Tisha b’Av wedding season picks up next week, I am thinking of the ubiquitous wedding song: Keizat Merakdin Lifnei HaKalah, which means, “What should one sing when dancing before a bride?” The song lyric provides the answer that Beit Hillel gives to this question: כַּלָּה נָאָה וַחֲסוּדָה the bride is beautiful and gracious. But the Gemara in Ketubot (17a) also shares Beit Shamai’s answer to the question: כַּלָּה כְּמוֹת שֶׁהִיא which I would translate as “you call it like you see it.” According to Rashi, Beit Shamai does insist that one find something nice to sing about the kallah while dancing. And so, according to them, at some weddings everyone would dance and sing “the bride has a great personality” or “the bride has a rich father.”
The Ritva analyses this discussion and concludes that Beit Hillel’s approach is based on the principle that דכל שהוא מפני דרכי שלום אין בו משום מדבר שקר תרחק anything that promotes peaceful relations between people is not subject to the Torah’s demand to stay far away from falsehood.
The relationship between truth and peace is discussed elsewhere in the Talmud. In Massechet Yevamot (65b) we learn מוּתָּר לוֹ לָאָדָם לְשַׁנּוֹת בִּדְבַר הַשָּׁלוֹם it is permissible to deviate from the truth in order to promote peace. Several examples from scripture demonstrate this point including one example where God deviates from the truth when Avraham is informed of Sarah’s laughter. Avraham is told that Sarah’s laughter was on account of her incredulity upon hearing she would have a child at her old age. But we know from the prior verses that Sarah laughed when she contemplated how old Avraham was!
In Massehet Sanhedrin, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Karkha praises mediation as the only way to achieve balance between justice and peace:
רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן קׇרְחָה אוֹמֵר: מִצְוָה לִבְצוֹעַ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״אֱמֶת וּמִשְׁפַּט שָׁלוֹם שִׁפְטוּ בְּשַׁעֲרֵיכֶם״. וַהֲלֹא בִּמְקוֹם שֶׁיֵּשׁ מִשְׁפָּט – אֵין שָׁלוֹם, וּבִמְקוֹם שֶׁיֵּשׁ שָׁלוֹם – אֵין מִשְׁפָּט? אֶלָּא אֵיזֶהוּ מִשְׁפָּט שֶׁיֵּשׁ בּוֹ שָׁלוֹם? הֱוֵי אוֹמֵר: זֶה בִּיצּוּעַ.
It is a mitzva to mediate a dispute, as it is stated: “Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates” (Zechariah 8:16). Is it not that in the place where there is strict judgment there is no true peace, and in a place where there is true peace, there is no strict judgment? Rather, which is the judgment that has peace within it? You must say: This is mediation.
Truth and justice are inconsistent with peace. One person being right means someone else is wrong. If someone is wrong then they might be resentful. Therefore the loss of peace and harmony is the cost of insisting on pure justice.
The book of Zechariah offers another pairing of truth and peace, this time in a passage that is frequently quoted before next week’s start of the summer wedding season:
The prophet speaks of a transformation of our calendar in which our public fast days will be transformed into days of rejoicing and celebration:
כֹּֽה־אָמַ֞ר ה צְ-בָא֗וֹת צ֣וֹם הָרְבִיעִ֡י וְצ֣וֹם הַחֲמִישִׁי֩ וְצ֨וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֜י וְצ֣וֹם הָעֲשִׂירִ֗י יִהְיֶ֤ה לְבֵית־יְהוּדָה֙ לְשָׂשׂ֣וֹן וּלְשִׂמְחָ֔ה וּֽלְמֹעֲדִ֖ים טוֹבִ֑ים וְהָאֱמֶ֥ת וְהַשָּׁל֖וֹם אֱהָֽבוּ׃
“Thus said the LORD of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month shall become occasions for joy and gladness, happy festivals for the House of Judah; but you must love truth and peace.”
If you’re counting months, remember that the Biblical months begin with Nissan and therefore the fast of the fifth month is Tisha b’Av. Zechariah, who lived during the beginning of the Second Temple period, was sharing guidance on observing the days of mourning that were established to commemorate the destruction of the first temple during the years when the second temple stood in a rebuilt Jerusalem.
Rabbi Shimon Hasida is quoted in Massechet Rosh Hashanah (18b) as deriving a general rule for how and when we fast from this very verse:
דְּאָמַר רַב חָנָא בַּר בִּיזְנָא אָמַר רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן חֲסִידָא, מַאי דִּכְתִיב: ״כֹּה אָמַר ה׳ צְבָאוֹת צוֹם הָרְבִיעִי וְצוֹם הַחֲמִישִׁי וְצוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי וְצוֹם הָעֲשִׂירִי יִהְיֶה לְבֵית יְהוּדָה לְשָׂשׂוֹן וּלְשִׂמְחָה״. קָרֵי לְהוּ ״צוֹם״, וְקָרֵי לְהוּ ״שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה״! בִּזְמַן שֶׁיֵּשׁ שָׁלוֹם — יִהְיוּ לְשָׂשׂוֹן וּלְשִׂמְחָה, אֵין שָׁלוֹם — צוֹם.
What is the meaning of that which is written: “Thus said the Lord of hosts: The fast days… shall become times of joy and gladness, and cheerful seasons, to the house of Judah” (Zechariah 8:19). It calls them days of “fast” ״צוֹם״ and it calls them “times of joy and gladness. שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה”
How can this be?
He answers: When there is peace in the world, they will be times of joy and gladness, but when there is no peace, they are days of fasting.
בִּזְמַן שֶׁיֵּשׁ שָׁלוֹם — יִהְיוּ לְשָׂשׂוֹן וּלְשִׂמְחָה, אֵין שָׁלוֹם — צוֹם.
Rav Pappa offers a different understanding: This is what it means: When there is peace in the world these days will be times of joy and gladness; when there is persecution for the Jewish people, they are days of fasting; and when there is no persecution but still no peace, the rule will be is as follows: If people wish, they fast, and if they wish, they do not fast.
אָמַר רַב פָּפָּא, הָכִי קָאָמַר: בִּזְמַן שֶׁיֵּשׁ שָׁלוֹם — יִהְיוּ לְשָׂשׂוֹן וּלְשִׂמְחָה, יֵשׁ שְׁמָד — צוֹם, אֵין שְׁמָד וְאֵין שָׁלוֹם — רָצוּ מִתְעַנִּין, רָצוּ אֵין מִתְעַנִּין.
Our reality is that we live in an inbetween world. We are not subject to violent persecution, but we live without peace. Therefore, according to Rav Pappa, fasting is voluntary. This conclusion gives rise to. an extensive halakhic literature about the legal status of the public fasts for the duration of most of Jewish history when we were not subject to shemad but when we did not live at peace.. Shemad is not just persecution but refers to periods of time when Judaism faced an edict of extirpation, such as under the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian, and for other dark moments in Jewish history. While those dark moments loom large in our collective memories, they were few and far between and have been separated by centuries in which Jews struggled in life in ways that were similar to our non-Jewish neighbors. The clear conclusion of that halakhic discussion is that fasting is not optional for anyone who can fast without risking their health.
But I want to focus on two additional elements of Rabbi Shimon Hasida’s statement. The first is that the reason we fast on Tisha b’Av and all the other public fast days, is not because of what happened thousands of years ago and not to mourn what the Babylonians or the Romans did to us, but because right now – this year – this Tisha b’Av, when we look at our circumstances we define it as a time of “ein shalom” this is a time, literally, when there is an absence of peace.
And I think it’s striking that the word “shalom” in his statement is widely understood to refer to the existence of the beit hamikdash, the Temple. The right and peaceful circumstance in the world, under which Tisha b’Av and our other fast days will become days of celebration, is the circumstance in which a beit hamikdash exists. Why is the variable of whether or not there is an intact beit hamikdash, a rebuilt Temple, described as the presence of peace?
The beit hamikdash was where heaven and earth met. As a physical location where God’s presence rested it represented a bridge between the tangible created world and its Creator. Its absence is an ongoing reminder of the alienation of humanity from God. But the alienation of humanity from God is a manifestation of the alienation of humanity from one another. Since human beings are created in God’s own image the closest we can come to seeing God’s face is to encounter the face of another human being.
Famously, this encounter was placed at the center of the thought of the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, who critiqued much of Western philosophy for its inability to recognize that a genuine encounter with another person introduces a relationship with the infinite — one that philosophical systems cannot define, constrain, or predict. Descartes invented modern philosophy by shutting himself up in an oven and discovering himself and his own existence and he built an awareness of the world from his awareness of his own existence. Levinas centered on the encounter with the other and the ethical obligations that imposes as the true foundation for understanding the world and our place in the world.
In the absence of peace we fast אֵין שָׁלוֹם — צוֹם , in the absence of the beit hamikdash we fast אֵין שָׁלוֹם — צוֹם.
Neils Bohr is said to have remarked that the opposite of a simple truth is a lie but the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth. When the Ritva wrote that דכל שהוא מפני דרכי שלום אין בו משום מדבר שקר תרחק anything undertaken for the sake of peace does not fall under the prohibition against lying it is because human harmony and peaceful relations is a profound truth. Every bride is beautiful and gracious in the eyes of her beloved and the small deviations from truth that enable people to live together in peace are themselves expressions of a higher truth.
As Zechariah said, וְהָאֱמֶ֥ת וְהַשָּׁל֖וֹם אֱהָֽבוּ׃ – we are meant to love both truth and peace and we can do that when we recognize the higher truth that peace entails.
The Prayer for Peace, inspired by Rav Nachamn of Breslov that we have recited here also alludes to this higher truth when it invokes הָאֱמֶת לַאֲמִתּוֹ the truth in all its depth, the ultimate truth, the most true thing that can be, which is that God created us to seek out God and to seek out one another and that these two quests are one and the same.
There are two Tisha b’Av customs that speak to these two alienations.
There is a widespread custom each year after Tisha b’Av to store the Tisha b’Av kinot books together with the sheimot – our worn out sacred books that await burial – as a way to indicate our hope that we have observed the last Tisha b’Av with fasting and mourning and we will not need our collections of lamentations and dirges again. I thought of that custom when the shul maintenance staff hauled our own kinot books out of storage on Friday and placed them in the office ready for use tonight. It was a sad moment because it brought home to me that another year had gone by in which we still live estranged from God and a beit hamikdash seems farther away than ever.
Another Tisha b’Av custom which I find particularly meaningful is the custom to refrain from extending greetings to one another, as if we are mourners in a shivah home. We gather each summer, in perhaps the largest gathering in weeks in the midst of various summer travels, but we come and go in relative silence. In this way too, our isolation, even in a big crowd, can remind us that our mourning is because of our inability to see the other and to recognize their infinite value as someone created in the Divine image. Most painful of all to me this year is contemplating how often we fail to see the encounter with another as an encounter with the Divine,
When we can see others, however foreign, however frightening, as being the product of a Divine creation, then these days will be transformed לְשָׂשׂ֣וֹן וּלְשִׂמְחָ֔ה וּֽלְמֹעֲדִ֖ים טוֹבִ֑ים to days of joy and rejoicing and as special occasions.
Until then I wish you all an easy fast.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 