This week’s Parshah sees the passing of Aaron. Immediately following his death we read “and they were seen” i.e. exposed and hence vulnerable. Why was this? The Clouds of Glory that had accompanied the Jews throughout their journey through the desert departed from them when Aaron died. We then read, “The Canaanite…. Heard… and he waged war”. What did they hear? They heard that the Clouds of Glory had left the Jews, and they took this as a Divine sign that permission had been granted to wage war against them.
The temporary lack of The Clouds of Glory and the resulting battle, ‘inspired’ many Jews to do an about turn. They appointed a leader who led them back towards Egypt! They journeyed back on themselves managing to retrace their last eight encampments until the pursuing tribe of Levi caught up with them. A heated discussion erupted which ended with the very first civil war for the Jewish Nation. Seven families from the rebels were killed, along with four families from the tribe of Levi.
This first civil war – recorded by Rashi in his commentary on the Torah three times accounts for missing families in various different accounts in the family listings and also accounts for complications and discrepancies in the exact places of their journeys.
Aaron died on the first day of Av, and each encampment backwards took one day. The conclusion? The first civil war of Jews fighting and slaying fellow Jews took place on the ninth of Av – Tisha Be’av! The day in the Jewish calendar for national mourning.
The Talmud tells us that the exile from the second Temple which we still find ourselves in today is a result of the ’baseless hatred’ that there was and is amongst Jews. It is more than interesting to note that the very day we lost the Temple due to ‘baseless hatred’ – a breakdown of National Brotherhood – was the same day that years earlier we had been fighting one another in the first civil war!
Furthermore, the central character trait of Aaron was that of pursuing peace. He was the man on the ground ensuring that peace, harmony and unity prevailed in the Jewish camp. It’s no surprise therefore that in the merit of having Aaron in our midst we were privileged to have the Clouds of Glory. These clouds enveloped the entire nation, binding them into one unit – the very work that Aaron busied himself with. When we lost Aaron we spiralled out of control and the result was the antithesis of unity – civil war: Jews fighting Jews.
I’d like to add an interesting anecdote. In 2005 the Israeli government implemented its Disengagement Plan – in which it evacuated all Israeli’s from the Gaza strip. I was learning in Yeshiva in Jerusalem in the months running up to the disengagement. The moral dilemma arose of soldiers refusing to forcibly evict fellow Jews – sometimes even family members. Could soldiers opt out from having to fight? Huge gatherings, including one at the Kotel ,with hundreds of thousand participants were organised. Flyers, wristbands and much paraphernalia was distributed up and down the country in an attempt to halt the government plans. Their motto was, “Jews do not expel Jews”.
I left Israel to come and get married. In the summer I went to a family camp in France. The morning after Tisha Be’Av I remember coming down to the hotel lobby and catching a glance at the picture on the front pages of the French newspapers. I remember seeing heart breaking scenes of the IDF forces battling with the residents of the Gaza strip. That day, the tenth of Av was the day the disengagement plan began. I speculated at the time how unfortunate it was that another Tisha Be’Av had just passed, another day of national mourning over the Temple which was destroyed because Yidden couldn’t get along. The very next morning I saw images of Jews fighting Jews. I wonder what Hashem was ‘thinking’ when he made the organisers switch the date of the disengagement from July 20th to August 15th, which just ‘turned out’ to be Tisha Be’av. Was there perhaps a subtle message in the fact that we had to witness another type of ‘civil war’ during the same hours when the Temple was burning?
Good Shabbos
Yaakov