In this episode, Rabbi Reinman shows how Galus Bavel foreshadowed the good and bad times in the Jewish diaspora.
Chapter Thirty-five: The Babylonian Exile
Unlike the Assyrians, the Babylonians were astute victors, and the ten thousand captives carried off from Yehudah eleven years before the destruction of Yerushalayim had been treated well. Nevuchadnezzar recognized the nobility of the Jewish core element that had maintained its high moral standards in the face of adversity, and he sought to integrate this elite group into the multiethnic Babylonian tapestry, along with the elites of other communities in the far-flung empire.
As part of this program, the king invited the best and brightest young men from the various communities to live in the royal palace where they would be educated and trained for service. Among these apprentices were four young Jewish prodigies named Daniel, Chananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and in order to integrate them better, Nevuchadnezzar gave them the Babylonian names Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Daniel’s rise in the imperial government was meteoric, and he became governor of Babylon. The others also rose to high positions.
At this point, there was a religious crisis. Nevuchadnezzar erected an enormous golden idol on the plain of Dura near Babylon, and he decreed that at specific times everyone had to bow down to it. All who refused would be thrown into a fiery furnace. This was not a religion decree. Those who bowed down were free to practice their own religion any way they saw fit. Rather, it was a political decree. Honoring the king included honoring his god. Failure to do so disrespected the king. Chananiah, Mishael and Azariah refused to comply and were thrown into the furnace. When they emerged safely, Nevuchadnezzar declared, “Praise be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent His angel and rescued His servants … for no other god can save in this way.”
Protected by royal sanction, the Jewish exiles began to lay the foundations of the great Babylonian Jewish community that would endure for a thousand years.
The immediate concern of this first group of exiles was the preservation of the Torah, especially the Oral Law without which the Torah cannot be understood. From the beginning, the Oral Law had been passed down by a system of transmission supervised by the leading Torah sage of each generation. After Yehoshua, this task had been shouldered by the Judges, the Torah sages who were also the unofficial political leaders. With the rise of the monarchy, the stewardship of the Oral Law had been assumed by the unbroken succession of Prophets, which ran parallel to the royal succession. But now the kingdom was on the verge of collapse, and the dispersion had already begun. Yirmiyahu had prophesied that the exile would end after seventy years, but what form would the restoration assume? Would there always be prophets to teach the people? And if not, how would the special bond between the Jewish people and God and His Torah be sustained?
Paradoxically, exile and captivity had brought the core element of the Jewish people more freedom than it had enjoyed in a century. In Babylon, there were no corrupt monarchs and pagan enthusiasts to battle for the Jewish soul. Confined to this distant land but breathing the heady air of spiritual freedom, these elite exiles, among whom there were a thousand sages, understood that the future of the Jewish people rested on their shoulders. They knew that it was their mission to form the nucleus of a rejuvenated Jewish nation, and they poured all their energies into creating a solid bedrock of Torah for the future. They established numerous yeshivahs in all the cities and towns where they settled, and the intense study of the Torah flourished …
Read full chapter and earlier chapters at www.rabbireinman.com.
{Matzav.com}
