UnLovable

by Rabbi Yehoshua Berman

Honeybees are great little critters, aren’t they? After all, the honey they produce affords us a sweetness that is as satisfying as it is amazing, topped off with a host of health benefits to boot. Of course, this romanticizing of honeybees is only so long as you don’t upset the hive. Because getting swarmed by an army of angry bees is perhaps even more terrifying than it is painful. And for some people it can be fatal. Now, honeybees have an interesting thing about them that their stinger is double-barbed. So when they inflict a good, sharp sting, they get stuck. The double-barb shape makes it impossible for the bee to pull out its stinger. What happens, then, when the bee does force itself loose, is that it suffers a massive abdominal rupture. Part of its digestive tract with some muscles and nerves get left behind. Within minutes, the bee is a goner.

And that, explain the Sages, is why the Emorites were likened to bees.

When ten of the twelve spies who had scouted out the Land came back with fearful reports of insanely huge people – a report that they buttressed by showing the Jews some insanely huge fruits that they had brought back with them – and impossible to conquer cities whose impregnable walls seemed to rise to the heavens, the People cried bitter tears of anger and despair. “Why has G-d brought us here to be slaughtered,” the People complained. They spoke of appointing a new leader and returning to Egypt. Despite all that G-d had done for them until that point, they lost all faith. And for that, they would have to wander for 40 years in the desert. “The children that you said would be pillaged and plundered,” G-d communicated to them through Moshe, “will enter the Land and inherit it. But you will have to die in the wilderness.” When the Jews heard the decree, they realized what a grave error they had made and immediately tried to make amends. They apologized profusely and told Moshe that they were ready to storm the Land and take it over right away. That they will rely on G-d’s salvation and not waver in their determination to fight as G-d had commanded them.

But it was too late. G-d told Moshe to tell them that they’d better do no such thing. “I am not in their midst,” G-d said, “and the Canaanites will defeat them.” Alas, the Jews did not listen. Many of them apparently felt that this was merely a test from G-d, and they stormed the Land despite Moshe’s grave warning. And that is when the Emorites, one of the Canaanite nations that lived along the border, inflicted great casualties upon the Jews. Just as bees swarm and attack, Moshe reminded the Jews forty years later, so too did the Emorites go after and smite you.

And why was the bee-analogy deemed most appropriate? For just as bees perish upon inflicting their sting, the Sages explain, so too did the Emorites fall dead when inflicting their sting upon the Jewish People.

Now, let’s not forget: the debacle of the spies’ evil report, the Jews losing faith, and the forty-year decree of wandering was one of the absolute lowest points in Jewish history. In fact, the Sages reveal that the unjustified tears that the Jews shed on the night following the spies’ terrible report were the catalyst of the endless river of tears that would come as a result of the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent exile centuries later. The night they cried was the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, and in Heaven a decree rang out, “You cried tonight unjustified tears. Now there will be established for you a crying for generations!” The Sages further elaborated that the rejection of G-d that took place in the debacle of the spies was not an isolated incident. It was the nail in the coffin of the horrendous sin of the golden calf that the Jews had perpetrated a mere thirty-nine days after the Revelation at Sinai, and all the other terrible sins that followed. These sins set in place an odyssey of pain and suffering that has by now spanned almost two full millennia. Persecution. Pogroms. Blood libels. Expulsions. Genocide. Terrorism. All of the horrific death, destruction, and suffering that the Jews have suffered throughout the centuries, and that continue to this very day, can be traced back to the two arch sins of the golden calf and the debacle of the spies.

So why, then, at this lowest of all points did G-d see fit to perform such a great miracle for them? Why did G-d see fit to make the Emorites, whom He said would smite the Jews mercilessly and inflict great casualties upon them since His Presence was not in their midst, drop dead like bees upon laying their hands on the Jews? And why did Moshe see fit to reference this miracle when he delivered his scathing rebuke to the Jews about all the heinous sins that they had committed over the course of their forty-year sojourn in the desert?

The truth is that this question echoes a famous question about the description of the cherubs at the time of the destruction of the Temple. The golden cherubs that adorned the cover of the holy ark that contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments, explain the Sages, would miraculously express the state of the relationship between G-d and his People. If the cherubs were facing each other, that was a sign that G-d and his People were close. The love was strong. The relationship vibrant and healthy. But when the cherubs would face away from each other, that was a sign of disfavor. Of dysfunction in the relationship. That the Jews’ sins were distancing them from their Creator.

When the Gentiles broke into the Temple and the holy of holies, say the Sages, they found the cherubs locked in an intimate embrace. This, say the Sages, is what the verse in Lamentations – the book that the prophet Yirmiyahu wrote to lament the destruction of the Temple and the exile and horrific suffering of his People – means when it says that “those who used to respect her, denigrated her, because they saw her nakedness.” The conquering Gentiles paraded the intimately-embraced cherubs through the streets and mocked the Jews for being involved in “such things”.

There is much to be gleaned from this teaching of the Sages, but for our purposes we will focus in on the question that is so often asked: why, at a time of such wrath and destruction, were the cherubs locked in an intimate embrace? Wasn’t it a time of ultimate distance and estrangement?

An answer to these questions is expressed succinctly in the Sages’ explanation of the verse that recounts what the Jews said when they flew into a bitter and despondent rage upon hearing the spies’ awful report. “You complained in your tents and you said, ‘Because G-d hates us has he taken us out of Egypt, to deliver us into the hands of the Emorites to annihilate us’.” In these words of rebuke, explain the Sages, Moshe was conveying to the Jews, “Really, He had only love for you, but it is you that hated Him!” As the saying goes, conclude the Sages, “That which is in your heart about your fellow is that which is in his heart about you.”

Now, what does that saying mean? It can’t mean that the way you feel about someone is the way he is going to feel about you, because Moshe was telling the People that G-d loved them and they were the ones who hated Him! So what the saying must mean is this: that which you feel about your friend is what you think he feels about you. In other words, if you harbor hatred in your heart for someone, then you will be convinced that that is exactly how he feels about you. Because you hated G-d, Moshe was chastising the People, you became convinced that He hated you. But the truth is that the hate was one-sided. You may have hated Him, but He loved you!

But even that explanation seems unsatisfactory, for how would it be possible for the Jews to hate G-d if G-d loved them? After all, the verse says, “Just as a face is reflected back upon the water, so too is the heart of one man to another.” Put otherwise, feelings are contagious. If someone loves you to bits, you just can’t help but love them back. Smile at the world and the world smiles back at you. G-d’s love for the Jewish People is stronger than anything we can possibly imagine. So how was it possible for the heart of the Jewish People to not reflexively feel a great love for G-d just the same? How was that love not reflected back?

For this reason, I would like to suggest that the real meaning of the saying quoted by the Sages is, “You are going to feel about someone what you think he feels about you.” It is not that you will become convinced that someone hates you if you hate them – although that may in fact be true as well – that this saying is coming to underscore, but that if you are convinced that someone hates you, then you are going to hate them “back”. It is possible that someone may in fact love you, but if for some reason you are convinced that that person hates you, then you will not be able to feel their love for you. You will feel hatred because that is what you are convinced is there. And when you feel hatred – albeit imagined – you are going to “reciprocate” with hate.

That is what happened with the Jewish People in the desert. In truth, G-d loved them. But they were convinced that He hated them. Therefore, they felt hatred towards Him.

Of course, this leads us to the next question. How does that happen that one becomes convinced that someone hates him when in fact that person really loves him very much?

The answer to this question, I believe, is self-hatred.

Time and again, the Jews failed to live up to the high moral standards to which they had committed themselves. Time and again they failed to maintain their faith and conviction in the G-d who had wrought such great miracles and wonders for them. Who had carried them as if upon the wings of eagles. In Egypt, as well, they had sunken so very low. They had reached, reveal the Sages, the 49^th level of impurity. One more level down, and they would have gone over the brink and been unsalvageable. They had adopted the idolatrous behavior of their host nation. It was so bad that, at the time of the Splitting of the Sea, accusing angels accosted G-d, as it were, and challenged Him as to why He was drowning the Egyptians and saving the Jews. “Both these and those,” the angels exclaimed, “are idol worshippers!”

The Jews, then, were acutely aware of the sordid points of their past and the shameful points of their present. They became convinced that G-d must be so utterly disappointed with them that how could he feel anything toward them other than hatred. The Jews became convinced that they were unlovable. They detested themselves.

And when a person is overcome with self-loathing, it creates an impenetrable blockage on his heart that makes it impossible for him to feel the love that others have for him. His hatred of self makes him convinced that that is how others feel about him. And when a person is convinced that others hate him, he will hate them “back”.

The crucial, critically-important message that the Jews needed to learn is that no matter how many times they fall or how badly they mess up, G-d will never stop loving them. He didn’t stop loving them at the time of the sin of the golden calf, and he didn’t stop loving them at the time of the debacle of the spies. When the Jews crossed the split sea, G-d provided them with treats that sprang forth from the walls of water – complete extras – just to show them that He was saving them not only because He was bound by the promise He had made to their ancestors, but because they are His chosen People whom He loves by dint of that chosenness. When Moshe rebuked the People for the sin of the golden calf at the end of the forty years, he did so only by alluding to it through referring to an unknown location called “Di Zahav”. The words “di zahav”, explain the Sages, mean “too much gold”. At the time of the sin of the golden calf, Moshe argued in favor of the Jewish People by accusing G-d, as it were, of giving them too much money. If you spoil a child, Moshe argued, then how can you complain when that child later makes big mistakes?! G-d accepted this argument. He confirmed that the Jewish People, despite whatever heinous failures they may experience, are His beloved children and that nothing can ever change that. And He demonstrated this undying love again when the Jews were smitten mercilessly by the Emorites. Yes, they had to be smitten because they had done something very terrible and sometimes there is no choice but for G-d to use tough love with his People. They will only suffer in the long run if He doesn’t. But these are still my children, it was as though G-d exclaimed, and he who lays a hand upon them will perish! Thus, the Emorites fell like bees when they inflicted their stings upon the Jews.

And at that worst moment of destruction when the Temple was being burned to the ground and the Jews were being slaughtered and exiled in chains, the cherubs were locked in the most intimate embrace. Yes, my children, G-d was conveying to his People, this is a moment of great wrath and incredibly strict justice. It is a moment of utter sadness and catastrophe. But never forget that you are My children. Never for a moment think that you are unlovable to Me. No matter how low you may fall, and no matter how despondent the situation may seem, you are My children and I love you forever.

Yes, it is the Nine Days. Yes, it is almost Tisha B’Av when we sit on the floor and mourn the destruction and the continued exile with all of its endless suffering and tears and our great distance from G-d. But with all the sadness and mourning, we must never forget the reality that is the  unwavering constant. The immovable bedrock. That no matter what we do or what happens, we never become unlovable to G-d.

You are my children, and I love you forever.