On the first yahrzeit of my holy, pious son, the Rav, of blessed memory, the second day of the Festival of Sukkoth. The verse associated with his name, Elimelech, recited by my holy, pious son, of blessed memory, after the silent Amidah is:
“Say unto God, You are my Lord: My prosperity is not Your charge. But for the holy who are in the earth and the heroes in whom all my longing dwells.” (Psalms 16:2)
We learn in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 47a): “It is written (Psalms 79:1–2), ‘A psalm of Asaf. O God, heathen nations are come into Your inheritance; they have razed Jerusalem to rubble; the corpses of Your servants are given as food to the birds of the sky, the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth.’ To whom is the psalmist referring when he says, ‘Your servants,’ and whom does he mean when saying, ‘Your saints’? Surely, chasidim—‘saints,’ must be understood literally, while ‘servants’ are those who deserved death, but having been slain are elevated to the status of ‘servants.’ ”
There needs to be some elucidation. Chasidim (saints), who were already saints before they died and whose “flesh was fed to the beasts of the earth,” were surely elevated through their martyrdom, yet they are still called chasidim after the fact. Those, however, who were not originally servants of God but were elevated to the level of “servants” through their martyrdom at the hands of idolaters, have their status changed and are no longer called by the names they had before their deaths. Why, then, are “Your servants” newly named?
A simple explanation might perhaps be that, with respect to worship of God, there simply is no title higher than chasid in the entire Scriptures. So while after martyrdom, chasidim do rise to higher levels by virtue of their deaths, there is no other name by which they can be called. All that can be said is that they have become greater chasidim.
It may also be as follows. We learn in the holy Zohar (vol. II, 42a) that the epithet chasid (saint) is derived from the Hebrew word, chesed (loving-kindness), as is well known. Now, chesed always implies kindness toward others. We learn in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 110b): “The Generation of the Wilderness has no place in the world to come. This was the opinion of R. Akiba. . . . Rabba Bar Channa in the name of R. Yochanan said, ‘It was an instance when R. Akiba abandoned his chasid qualities.’ ” The talmudic reference to the chasid qualities of R. Akiba was to his universally acknowledged love for Jews, his defense of them, and his prayers for the happiest of fates for them. Clearly, only someone of a benign disposition, who is benevolent and transparent in his dealings with others, can become a chasid. If someone is not by nature a good person, he will have to work hard to turn himself into someone of service to Jews, and only then can he become a chasid.
From this we can understand why at the Simchath Beth HaShoevah (Water-Drawing Celebrations) in the Temple, which began on this, the second night of the Festival of Sukkoth, only chasidim (Men of Piety) and anshei maaseh (Men of Stature) used to dance before the crowds (see Mishnah, Sukkah 5:1–4). The holy Rav, in his siddur, discusses the reasons why.
Let us try to answer another question. Why is it that the Water-Drawing Ceremonies in the Temple, which celebrated God’s chesed (loving-kindness), began precisely on the second night of the Festival of Sukkoth, whose ushpizin (symbolic guest) is the Patriarch Isaac, the paradigm of gevurah (withholding)?
This can perhaps be understood with the help of what was said above. In the world to come, Isaac will be the champion of Jews and the chief advocate for Israel. He will attempt to atone for them even with his body and his life. As we learn in the Talmud (Shabbath 89b), Isaac will say to the Holy Blessed One, “Behold! I offered my up soul as a sacrifice to You.” The characteristic gevurah (withholding) of Isaac manifests itself here as the desire to take upon himself the judgment that was intended for all Israel. Such gevurah is actually the highest level of chesed, and so it was specifically on this second day of Sukkoth, when the ushpizin is the Patriarch Isaac, that the Celebration of the Water-Drawing, which is chesed, began. The chasidim and anshei maaseh were dancing in response to the outpouring of chesed that was flowing to the Jewish people at that time.
We need to understand, however, why it is only in the world to come that Isaac will say to the Holy Blessed One, “Behold! I offered up my soul as a sacrifice to You.” Why did he not intercede during the destruction of the Holy Temple, or during any of the calamities that have befallen the Jewish people? Why at such times does Isaac not beg God to let him atone for the Jewish people, saying, “Behold! I offered myself up to You”?
The deeds of the Patriarchs are templates for their children. The Akeidah (Binding of Isaac) was only a commencement of Jewish forms of worship. In all of our present-day worship, we say, “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob . . .” to express our connection with their ways if worshipping God. And so, the Akeidah was not only a test of Isaac, but also the commencement of a form of worship that requires total self sacrifice for God and for Jewish people.
The Akeidah was a test of the desire and intention of Abraham and Isaac. It was never actually accomplished or completed because the angel said to Abraham (Genesis 22:12) “Do not harm the lad.” For this reason, the murder of a Jew by idolaters, which as an action devoid of worshipful intention is in absolute antithesis to the Akeidah, actually consummates the Akeidah. The Akeidah was just the beginning, the expression of intent and desire, while the murder of a Jew is the conclusion of the act. Thus, the Akeidah and all the murders of Jews since are components of one event.
That is why it will only be in the world to come, may it happen speedily and in our days, when the last of those to be murdered in order to complete the Akeidah process will have been martyred for God, that Isaac will say: “Behold! I offered up my soul to You, in an act that has been completed by all the martyrs who consummated my sacrifice.” This could not have been said at any earlier time, because only in the world to come will the sacrifice have been completed in fact. Before the completion of the Akeidah of Isaac and his children, before the last sacrifice of murdered Jews, Isaac cannot say “Behold! I offered up my soul to You.”
This is what is hinted at in the verse (Genesis 22:1) “After these events, God tested Abraham.” The test refers not only to the events directly relating to the Akeidah at which only Abraham and Isaac were tested, but also, as the text says, “After these events,” because all murdered Jews comprise the final act of the Akeidah. Their martyrdom turns God’s wrath away from the Jewish people, and so the murdered ones die for all the Jewish people, in an act that rises to the level of the chesed (loving-kindness) of Abraham. This is why the verse quoted above does not call murdered chasidim (saints) by any other name, as was the case with “servants.” Even though they do attain a higher level, the chief desire and purpose of chasidim is ever the chesed that they can perform for the Jewish people, as opposed to a desire to be elevated themselves. As stated earlier, chasidim are so called because of their chesed for Jewish people.
Therefore, on an anniversary day such as this, and on all days like this, we need to repent. It stands to reason, for if every animal sacrifice in the Temple needed to be accompanied by repentance, how much more so now, with these holiest of sacrifices, must we repent. And if, God forbid, we do not accompany their deaths with our repentance, and we do not take it upon ourselves to worship God from now on, it is possible that the martyred souls in heaven will ask, “If this is so, why then were we sacrificed?”
With this, we can understand the Talmud (Yoma 66b) that relates the following description of the Scapegoat ritual of Yom Kippur in the Temple: “They made an elevated causeway over which the scapegoat was led, because the Babylonians would pull its hair, shouting, ‘Take our sins and go. Take our sins and go.’ R. Judah said, ‘They were not really Babylonians, but Alexandrians. But, since the Palestinians hated the Babylonians so much, they called the Alexandrians in this instance, Babylonians.’ ”
Even at a simple level, this is difficult to understand. One normally associates an enemy with something bad, and yet in this instance the Babylonians are credited with a good thing. That is, it would certainly appear to be a good thing, for surely the desire to have the scapegoat hurry along was motivated by the desire to be rid of their sins. That is why they shouted “Take our sins and go. Take our sins and go.” And why did R. Jose, whose family was from Babylon, react in the way the Talmud recounts when R. Judah said, “They were not actually Babylonians, but Alexandrians”? He said, “May your mind be relieved even as you have relieved my mind!” End quote. What was so bad about their behavior that R. Jose, a Babylonian, was relieved to hear that they were actually Alexandrian?
When we see how the people of Jerusalem behaved, it becomes obvious why the Alexandrian behavior looked so bad. We learn subsequently in the Mishnah (Yoma 6:4): “The nobles of Jerusalem would walk with the priest leading the scapegoat. At every booth they would say to him, ‘Here is food and water.’ They accompanied him from booth to booth.” This is the essential teaching to be learned from this story: When a Jew attempts to atone for the sins of Israel, even if he is not atoning with his own life but with the life of a goat, he should still not go alone while we stay in our places without doing anything. So, as the Mishnah recounts, the nobles of Jerusalem accompanied him, walking a little in his holy footsteps. Their behavior was the opposite of those who said, “Take our sins and go,” and this is why they attributed this conduct to their enemies, the Babylonians.
From now on, we must repent, elevating our worship. Aside from the fact that we ought to do it for our own sake, it is also for the sake of the holy martyrs that we need to enlarge upon our worship of God and to repent still more. Then God, blessed be He, will save us. Even though we do not deserve to be saved, God forbid, He will do it for the sake of the holy sacrifices. For shall it have been in vain, God forbid, that their blood has been spilled like water?
This explains the verse with which we began the chapter, “Say unto God, You are my Lord: My prosperity is not Your charge. But for the holy who are in the earth and the heroes in whom all my longing dwells.” The name Adonai—God—is the paradigm of Judgment. What we are saying to God is this: Your Judgment upon the holy ones of Israel, who have been murdered, has been done. Now, though I do not merit salvation and “My prosperity is not Your charge,” nevertheless, “For the holy who are in the earth,” for their sake, rescue us swiftly.