Ta’anit 4

In my 4^th year of rabbinical school I was taking a greyhound bus to visit my then fiancé, now husband, in his grad school program at Syracuse.  I was spending the time on the bus studying.  To be specific, I was learning about the Yotzeir  prayer, a prayer that traditional Jews say on a daily basis, a prayer we say before reciting the morning Shema – the maxim of our faith!  In this prayer we call God “creator of Light” and the  “Creator of Darkness” “Maker of peace” and “creator of evil”. I had always thought this was a beautiful prayer, thanking God for all the variety in creation, for the vastness of creation. Our prayer books, in fact, title the prayer “creation”.   

But that is not what I was reading.     

There, on the Greyhound bus, I learned that this key prayer was not merely a beautiful thank you to God – no, it was a polemic against our neighbors. This prayer borrowed its text from the prophet Isaiah, quoting God’s words to Cyrus.  Cyrus was the king of Persia which at the time was grappling with Zoroastrian dualism.  See Zoroastrians believed in two gods: a god of light and goodness, and a god of darkness and evil.   The Yotzeir prayer was a reminder that these two seeming opposites, light and dark, good and evil, can come from the same source.  

Now, this made sense to me in the original context, a prophet telling a king that there is only one God and that the Zoroastrians, who were a threat, were wrong in their beliefs, but what upset me so much was the idea that we made this “put down” of another people’s faith part of our daily prayers.  What upset me was that, here we are, thousands of years later, still saying this polemic against Zoroastrians!  While Jews are less than 0.2% of the world population, Zoroastrians are much less.  Have you ever met a Zoroastrian?  So, why, why did we still have to say this prayer which was suddenly not looking like a beautiful prayer of praise for creation, but instead, it was striking me as flat out petty crap.   

And I had a little break down.  And so did the bus. 

There I was in a broken-down Greyhound bus on the side of the highway, and I began to rethink my path.  Judaism was not jiving with my rational mind.  I had made a huge mistake. So, I took the rational approach.  I had my college education to fall back on; I was a couple of months away from my Master’s in Hebrew Literature.  I was sure there was something else I could do.   

About 45 minutes later, I had a plan, I would finish out my Masters, drop out of rabbinical school, I would work as a Hebrew teacher or religious school teacher until I found a real job using my undergraduate degree. Having made these decisions and feeling a bit more secure, I had nothing to do but look out the window.  

It was a beautiful sunny day.  Dust dancing on beams of sunshine, birds chirping. 

In crept that feeling of connection to the world around me while simultaneously feeling small and alone – that glimpse of infinity– this is when I feel closest to God.  This creation prayer had left me feeling wounded, but here was creation itself, giving me a sense of wonder and awe.   

I was moved to do something I had never done before . . . I prayed for a sign.  I prayed – God please send me a sign if I should continue on this path. . .    

And right then the engine started, the bus started moving, and I found myself back on the path I had been on an hour ago.   

I share this request was unreasonable, and today our daf shares three unreasonable requests made and God’s response:

Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan said: Three people entreated God in an unreasonable manner. To two of them God responded reasonably, with a favorable response to their requests, and to one God responded unreasonably, i.e., unfavorably, in a manner befitting the unreasonable request. And they are: Eliezer, servant of Abraham; Saul, son of Kish; and Jephthah the Gileadite.

1. Eliezer, servant of Abraham, he made a request when he prayed beside the well to find the bride for Isaac, as it is written: “That the maiden to whom I shall say: Please let down your pitcher that I may drink; and she shall say: Drink, and I will also give your camels to drink; that she be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac” (Genesis 24:14). Anyone could have shown up! She might even be lame or even blind, and yet he had promised to take her to Isaac (offended? me too, glad we have moved forward with our treatment of those with different abilities – but we still have a long way to go. I believe we need to face our prejudice if we wan tto make progress, so here it is.) Nevertheless, God responded to him reasonably and the eminently suitable Rebecca happened to come to him.
2. With regard to Saul, son of Kish, he made an offer when Goliath the Philistine challenged the Jews, as it is written: “And it shall be that the man who kills him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter” (I Samuel 17:25). The man who killed Goliath might even have been a slave or a mamzer, one born from an incestuous or adulterous union, who would be unfit to marry his daughter (again, I am glad we have matured in our thinking. At the time, it would have been inappropriate for a princess to marry these people) . Nevertheless, God responded to him reasonably and David happened to come to him.
3. By contrast, there is the case of Jephthah the Gileadite. Upon leaving for battle he issued a statement, as it is written: “Then it shall be that whatever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace…it shall be to the Lord and I will bring it up for a burnt-offering” (Judges 11:31). This might even have been an impure, non-kosher animal, which he had committed himself to sacrifice. In this instance, God responded to him unreasonably, and his daughter happened to come to him.

What’s the difference between the first two and the third? The first two have to do with marriage, and we are taught that God spends God’s time making matches, as we read in Bereshit Rabbah 68:

A Roman Matron asked Rabbi Yosi ben Halafta, “In how many days did God create the world?” He said, “In six, as it is said, ‘Since six days God made…’ (Exodus 20:11) “And since then,” she asked, “what has God been doing?” “God sits [on the Heavenly Throne] and makes matches: the daughter of this one to that one, the wife [i.e. widow] of this one to that one,” responded R. Yosi. “

God had already ordained who Isaac (Rebecca) and who Michal (Kind David) would marry. There was little chance these requests from Eliezer or Saul could go wrong. Jephthah, on the other hand, had no reason to say what he said – he was being careless. When his daughter came out, he could have sought out the rabbinic authority at the time who would have annulled his vow – but he was too proud. The Torah makes it clear that our God rejects human sacrifice, yet he went on with it.

So, was the bus restarting God answering my unreasonable request?

I don’t know. Maybe I would have taken anything that happened at that moment as a sign to stay in Rabbinical school. I am so glad that I did.