"Ha-Tikva" Then and Now
yom
ha-atzmaut 5769
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"Ha-Tikva"
– Then and Now
By
Harav Ya’akov Medan
Translated
by
Israel’s
national anthem, "Ha-Tikva," is the first stanza of a poem written by
Naftali Herz Imber (1856-1909), with amendments to its closing lines. Over a
hundred years ago, the poem was the unofficial anthem of the early pioneers in
Eretz Yisrael. It was, for all intents and purposes, the anthem of the
Zionist movement; it was sung when David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment
of the state, and later became the official national anthem. The strange
circumstances under which it attained its official status, the problematic
personality of its composer, and - most of all - its content, which is seemingly
irrelevant to a nation that has already realized its vision and dwells in its
land, have given rise to the question of whether it should be replaced by a more
appropriate choice.
Such
suggestions have been raised by various groups from time to time, and especially
by Religious Zionists. One of the more widely known proposals was to adopt
chapter 126 of Tehillim (Shir ha-ma'alot be-shuv Hashem…) as our
national anthem. After certain figures in the government who had signed the Oslo
Accords proposed replacing "Ha-Tikva" with "Shir ha-Shalom" (the
"Song of Peace"), a song that depicts the soldiers and citizens who gave their
lives for the establishment of Israel as victims who died in vain, the Religious
Zionist camp became the most vociferous defenders of the present anthem.
I
will attempt here to identify some elements connecting this poem with concepts
emanating from authentic Jewish sources.
A.
Exile
and Hope
The
words, "od lo avda tikvatenu," "our hope is not yet lost," are borrowed
from Yechezkel's prophecy concerning the dry bones. In that context, the House
of Israel in exile declare, "Our bones are dried and our hope is lost (avda
tikvatenu); we have been cut off" (Yechezkel 37:11). The composer of
"Ha-Tikva" argues that the loss of hope is the result of an internal
process, rather than objective circumstances that are imposed upon the nation by
external forces.
An
independent nation in its own land is a living organism, with a brain and a
heart. A nation that loses its land and its independence is like a body that is
brain-dead; it is incapable of doing anything, but its heart continues to beat.
A body with a beating heart, even if its brain is not functioning, is not dead;
it exists in a coma. It cannot actively perform any action, but the body does
not decay and decompose. When salvation comes for the brain, the body will be
ready to carry out its commands. Similarly, as long as the nation in exile
retains hope in its heart, its flesh will not decompose and its bones will not
scatter. When the time of salvation arrives, there will remain a nation that is
ready to be redeemed.
The
prophet Yechezkel speaks about an exiled nation mired in despair; they are thus
compared to corpses that are not only lifeless but whose flesh and skin have
decomposed and whose bones have been scattered. "Ha-Tikva" likewise
describes a nation in exile, but the soul of this nation is alive and its eyes
look towards Zion. (As
B.
Hope and Reality
Both
Yechezkel's prophecy and "Ha-Tikva" speak of despair and hope in exile.
The prophecy, as we would expect, also addresses the solution to the problem.
According to Yechezkel, the end of the exile lies entirely in the hands of God,
just as only God can resurrect the dead. In contrast, the poem (in its original
form) concludes with the nation still in exile, leading to the claim that it is
inappropriate as the anthem of a State that has shaken off the dust of exile and
risen from the ashes.
However,
hope has another aspect to it, as expressed in the words of
Iyov:
A
mortal, born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble. He emerges like a
flower, but is cut down; he flees like a shadow and does not endure… Since his
days are determined, the number of his months is with You; You have set his
bounds and he cannot pass them. Turn from him that he may rest, until like a
hireling his day is accomplished. For there is hope for a tree, if it is
cut down, that it will sprout again and that its tender shoots will not cease.
While its roots may grow old in the earth and its trunk die in the ground, from
the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a living plant. But
man dies and is laid low; man perishes and where is he? With all the waters of
the sea, and after the river is parched and dried up, man lies and does not
rise, until the heavens are no more; they shall not awaken nor be raised from
their slumber… Surely the mountain falling crumbles, and the rock is moved from
its place. As the waters wear away the stones, its torrents washing away the
dust of the earth, so You cause man's hope to be lost. (Iyov
14:1-19)
In
Iyov's metaphor, man is compared to a plant that withers – "until like a
hireling his day is accomplished." Man has no connection with the earth, whose
days are without number. His labor upon the earth is like the work of a hireling
on his master's land. The time allotted for his work is set in advance, and when
it is over, he leaves with no care or feeling for the fate of the land that he
has tilled. For man, the land is nothing but a source of financial profit.
Severed from the land, which expresses eternity, his life is a fleeting moment,
like a wildflower with no roots to anchor its existence. His death is inevitable
and hopeless, like that of a withering plant. The inescapable conclusion is that
"You cause man's hope to be lost."
For
a tree, in contrast, there is hope. Even if it is cut down, it may yet sprout
anew. Even if it grows old and withers, it will come alive at the mere hint of
water. Its fate is different from the fate of man, owing to its connection with
the timeless earth. The tree's roots are firmly planted in the ground, and it
continually draws its sustenance and nourishment from the earth. Death is
therefore foreign to it; more importantly, it knows no
despair.
Above,
we contrasted the hope expressed in Imber's "Ha-Tikva" and the lack of
hope among the exiles in Babylon in Yechezkel's prophecy. Let us now consider a
similar contrast between the loss of hope for man in Iyov and the hope
expressed by the Rambam in his presentation of the commandment to sanctify the
new moon:
I
shall add the following explanation for you: Were it possible, for example, that
there would be no Jews living in Eretz Yisrael (Heaven forefend that God
should do this, for He promised that the remnants of the people would never be
entirely uprooted)… then our calculations would not help us in any way
whatsoever [and we would lack the ability to sanctify the months and the
festivals]… (Sefer Ha-Mitzvot, positive commandment
153)
According
to Iyov, a tree has hope because its roots are planted in the ground; thus, even
if its trunk is cut, new life may spring from its concealed roots. Man, on the
other hand, is severed from the earth, and his death represents final and
irrevocable cessation. The Rambam asserts that the roots of the Jewish nation
are planted and anchored in the ground of its land. Even during the exile, there
was never a time when the Jewish presence in the land ceased entirely. The small
number of families who maintained the continuity of Jewish settlement, under
foreign domination and very difficult conditions, represent the roots concealed
in the earth by virtue of which the nation will once again come alive and
flourish in its land. Had these roots ceased, heaven forefend, the remnants of
the nation in the land would have disappeared entirely, the sanctity of the
festivals would have no validity, and the blessing "Who sanctifies Israel and
the appointed times" would no longer have any meaning.
Both
in Iyov's metaphor and in Rambam's halakha, hope is dependent upon a
connection with eternity, represented by a connection with the land. Acording to
Iyov, man's connection with the land is devoid of roots, while the Rambam
maintains that roots do indeed exist, at least in terms of the nation as a
whole.
Let
us now compare the Rambam's "hope" with that of Imber. Both address the riddle
of Israel's endurance throughout exile, but in different ways. In his youth,
Imber received a Chassidic education. In his view, even a nation that has been
extinguished in exile, and which has no roots in and grasp on reality, may still
draw the source of its vitality from the inner, psychological processes of
"nefesh Yehudi homiya" ("a Jewish soul stirs") and "ayin le-Tzion
tzofiya" ("its eye looks to Zion"). The Rambam adopts a more realistic
understanding of history. He seeks the roots of an awakening in reality itself,
in the actual presence of Jews in God's land. If the isolated families living in
the land were, in Rambam's view, the roots preserving the life of the nation,
whose trunk and branches were in exile, then now, with the trunk sitting firmly
in God's land, there is certainly a firm basis for hope.
C.
Stones Eroded by Water
In
his battle against the despair projected by Iyov, the Rambam is preceded by his
great master in the laws pertaining to Israelite kingship – Rabbi Akiva. Like
Iyov, Akiva was also brought to the brink of despair when he undertook, as an
illiterate, mature adult, to start studying Torah in all its immense breadth and
depth. Akiva's mind and heart were blocked up after so many years of shepherding
and harboring resentment towards the Torah and its scholars. Interestingly, both
Iyov and Akiva, as they approach despair, are confronted with a similar sight of
stones that are shaped and molded by drops of water that flow over them. Iyov
responds to this sight by declaring, "As the waters wear away the stones, its
torrents washing away the dust of the earth, so You cause man's hope to be
lost."
In other words, there is no hope for man against the natural forces of wear and
tear and decay. He will perish and be consumed just like the stone that is worn
away by the water flowing over it.
Akiva
considers the same phenomenon from a different
perspective:
How
did Rabbi Akiva start out?
They
said: he was forty years old and had never studied anything. Once he stood at a
well. He said, "Who engraved this stone?"
They
told him, "[It was] the water, which drips upon it every day." And they said to
him, "Akiva, are you not familiar [with the verse,] 'As the waters wear away the
stones'?"
On
the spot, Rabbi Akiva made the following deduction: If something soft [like
water] could chisel its way through something hard [like stone], then surely the
words of Torah, which are as hard as iron, can penetrate my heart, which is
flesh and blood!" Immediately, he returned to studying
Torah.
He
went with his son, and they sat in front of teachers of young children. He said,
"Rabbi, teach me Torah!" Rabbi Akiva held one end of the tablet and his son held
the other end. He wrote him "alef"
and "bet"
and he learned them. Then he wrote from "alef"
to "tav"
and he learned it. He taught him Torat
Kohanim
and he learned it. He continued stdying until he had learned the entire Torah.
(Avot
De-Rabbi Natan,
version 1, chapter 6)
Iyov
looked at the stone's erosion and it led him to despair. Akiva focused on the
power of the water and its effect on the stone, and that gave him hope and
strength.
It
was not only for himself that Rabbi Akiva drew hope, but for his entire nation.
Just as the stone was strong and hard, so the Roman empire was strong and hard
towards the nations that were crushed under its dominion. But the nation of
Israel was as weak and soft as water. And just as water flows from a high place
to a low place, Israel fell from the elevated, glorious heights of the Hasmonean
kingdom to the abyss of subjugation and the destruction of the Temple.
Nevertheless, Rabbi Akiva maintained his faith in their
power:
On
another occasion, they went up to Jerusalem. When they reached Mount Scopus,
they tore their garments. When they reached the Temple Mount, they saw a fox
emerging from the place of the Holy of Holies. They began to weep, but Rabbi
Akiva laughed.
They
said to him, "Why are you laughing?"
He
said to them, "Why are you weeping?"
They
said, "The place concerning which it is written, 'The stranger who approaches
shall be put to death,' now has foxes roaming over it; shall we not weep?!"
He
said to them, "That is why I laugh… The text links the prophecy of Zekharia to
that of Uria. In Uria's case, it says, 'Therefore, because of you Zion shall be
plowed like a field.' In Zekharia it says, 'Old men and old women shall yet sit
in the courtyards of Jerusalem.' So long as Uria's prophecy had not yet been
fulfilled, I feared that Zekharia's prophecy would not come about. Now that
Uria's prophecy has come about, I know for certain that Zekharia's prophecy,
too, will be realized."
With
these words they said to him, "Akiva, you have comforted us! Akiva, you have
comforted us." (Makkot
24b)
Perhaps
one might think that Rabbi Akiva concerned himself only with inner,
psychological processes of consolation over the destruction, and that the
processes that he envisioned were for the distant future and experienced only at
great intervals. But this is not so; the hope that flooded him at the sight of
the fox emerging from the place of the Holy of Holies was not mere grist for
speeches. On the basis of that fox, and on the basis of that lesson, Rabbi Akiva
educated a generation – tens of thousands of scholars who, led by Bar Kokhba,
rebelled against the Roman tyrant. It was not mere psychological comfort that
Rabbi Akiva drew from the fox and from its lesson; rather, he drew true hope and
faith, with real roots planted deeply in the land. This was hope with practical
consequences.
D.
Vision and Fulfillment
Once,
Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Akiva were in a boat. Rabbi Akiva made a sukka
on the boat. The next day, the wind blew it away. Rabban Gamliel said to him,
"Akiva, where is your sukka?"
(Sukka
23a)
Cynics,
skeptics, and those who hold our sages in scorn could view the above beraita
as a summary of Rabbi Akiva's entire national endeavor in the Bar Kokhba
rebellion: unrestrained optimism and excess energy, producing castles in the air
unable to stand up to a moderate wind; a tree boasting a thick trunk and heavy
branches, but with no real roots, easily overturned in the breeze. The skeptics
would no doubt take such a view of Rabbi Akiva's speech upon seeing the fox.
After all, it was not elderly Jewish men and women who sat enjoying the sunshine
in the courtyards of Jerusalem after the Bar Kokhba rebellion had ended; rather,
there were piles of corpses – tens of thousands – with no one to bury them. But
this is not so: "If the Holy One, blessed be He, ensures that no mistake comes
about through the animals of the righteous, then how much more so through the
righteous themselves!" (Ketuvot
28b).
Like
the prophecies of the biblical prophets, Rabbi Akiva's vision and teaching were
not unaffected by the decisions taken by the generation of redemption and its
leaders. Bar Kokhba was worthy of redeeming Israel, and Rabbi Akiva's students
were worthy of bringing about the redemption together with him. According to the
testimony of the Jerusalem Talmud (Ta'anit
4:5),
Rabbi Akiva declared concerning Bar Kokhba, "This is the King Messiah." However,
the Rambam (Hilkhot
Melakhim
11:3-4) interprets these words as meaning, "He has the potential
to be the Messiah." Only "if he would act successfully… then it would be certain
that he was the Messiah." Bar Kokhba was assumed to be the Messiah "until he was
killed, for his sins," and it is not for slight wrongdoings that the redemption
was postponed.
Bar
Kokhba's declaration to God, "Do not aid us and do not hinder us," and his
killing of Rabbi Elazar ha-Moda'i (Jerusalem Talmud, ibid.) express the degree
to which he was disconnected from the spiritual process of redemption guided by
the spiritual leaders of the generation. This may also explain why entire
regions in Eretz
Yisrael
failed to cooperate with Bar Kokhba in his rebellion against Rome. Rabbi Akiva's
original hope was a true and genuine one, but it failed owing to the sins of the
generation.
E.
Hope and Despair
The
voice of the skeptic is not yet stilled. The vision and the hope, he claims, are
all very well, but the attempt to bring about their realization is a messianic
delusion, carrying a high spiritual price when the time comes for realistic
awakening and disappointment. Many people end up abandoning the path of faith
when their expectations of redemption are not fulfilled.
Our
response to such an argument is that one cannot be a disciple of Rabbi Akiva by
half measures. When the military and political rebellion led by Bar Kokhba
failed, Rabbi Akiva persisted with full force in his fight for the spiritual
independence of the nation. He gathered groups and taught Torah in defiance of
Roman law, never heeding the advice of Pappus, son of Yehuda, who asked him,
"Akiva, have you no fear of the law?" (Berakhot
61b). Even on the fateful day when he was sentenced to death for his activities
and he he was taken to have his flesh torn with iron combs, Rabbi Akiva did not
lose his faith. On the contrary, the failure of his political efforts and the
terrible death that he suffered served only to increase his love of God, with
the clear knowledge that not all of God's decrees can be understood by the human
mind. In this respect, too, Rabbi Akiva was different from Iyov who, when beset
with suffering, began to curse.
A
person who decides to follow the path of realizing the hope and vision of Rabbi
Akiva must also be able and willing to pay the price when the time comes, not to
blame God, Heaven forefend, but to incease one’s love of Him. One must also know
that the spiritual battle is not over, and that the true values for the sake of
which the battle was waged remain valid. The hope for the revival of these
values is proportional to one's faith in them during difficult
times.