Season 1: Episode 2 - The Return To Zion, Re-building the Walls of Identity, Religion, and Jerusale

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So what's the story? In the words of the immortal Chinua Kebe, the story is our escort. Without it, we're blind. Does a blind man own his escort? No, neither do we the story. Rather, it is a story that owns us and directs us. And this is the Jewish story. Is it a story about the Jews, about what we do? Do we make this story? No, the story is what makes us. Episode 2 The Wall Builders You ever wonder what the voice of God would sound like? Well, I can tell you exactly how Ezra heard it. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing saying, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth has the Lord God of heaven given to me, and he has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

Whosoever there is among you of all his people, his God be with him. Let him go up to Jerusalem. These are the words of the Declaration of Cyrus as they appear in the beginning of the book of Ezra. And it might just be enough for us if it weren't for the fact that the scroll of Cyrus himself is sitting in the British Museum, and we can compare the text. And when you look there, you will indeed see that Cyrus saw himself as appointed by all of the gods, Marduk, chief amongst them, to return the captive peoples, to rebuild the idolatrous shrines in order that they should offer sacrifices for the peace of the kingdom. But what you won't see there is Jerusalem or the Jews. So how is it that Ezra was able to hear the voice of God in the words of Cyrus?

Well, first we've got to know a little bit about him. When you look at the beginning of chapter 7, which is where Ezra truly appears in his books, because as we'll speak about, there are going to be three waves of return in this time of Shivat Zion, the return to Zion. But there in chapter 7, Ezra gives us one of his primary points of identity. He's a priest. He's not just a priest, but he gives us a genealogy of 16 generations, from Aron HaKohen, the brother of Moshe, all the way down to Ezra. Now, anyone who can do a little bit of math can quickly tell you that there are a lot more than 16 generations from Aaron to Ezra. And that may pose a bit of a problem in terms of Pshat, the plain reading. But in terms of a deeper understanding, it's very clear that we are linking Ezra to the generation of Moshe.

And in case you think that genealogy is secondary, just remember that in that first temple time that we spoke about last week, when the mission was to embody the kingdom of God in a kingdom of flesh and blood, what it meant to be a Jew was really to live in Judea. But now, with the advent of exile, geography is no longer an adequate definition of being part of Am Yisrael. And the next element which will really come to the fore will be genealogy. The familial unit becomes dominant, as we'll see as our story goes on. So he's a priest. And furthermore, we know that there's a connection between Ezra and the prophets. As he said in his interpretation of the Cyrus scroll, it's the word of Jeremiah which is being fulfilled in the events of his day.

And the Seder Olam Rabbah, that great rabbinic chronology, as well as the Rambam's introduction to the Mishnahh Torah, which is a highly worthwhile read as well, tells us that Ezra was the student of Baruch ben Neriah, who himself was a student of Jeremiah, meaning that in one hand, Ezra was a priest. On the other hand, he was a student of the students of the prophets. And in fact, according to one opinion in the Gemara and Megillah, he was Malachi himself, the last of the prophets. But finally, and to me most importantly, let's see what Ezra says about himself. He describes himself in his book as a sofer mahir b'torat Moshe, a ready scribe in the Torah of Moshe, Ezra the scribe. he is the one who will give the form to the Torah that will carry us from the past of the prophets into the future of wisdom because just like Daniel stands on one side of this abyss of the Persian period filled with mystery as it is and he is the mythic link to the past of the prophets so too Ezra is the bridgehead on the other side who will lead us on the path of wisdom and if you want to appreciate the depth of Ezra's relationship to the text as a sofer, all you need to do is open up the Gemara in Sanhedrin and see what it has to say.

21b, for those of you who want to see it yourselves. It says there, Rabbi Yossi says, had Moshe not come first, Ezra would have been worthy of receiving the Torah for Israel. Because about Moshe it says, Moshe went up to God. There is a description of Sinai. And of Ezra it is written, he, Ezra, went up from Bavel. And going up means going to get the Torah. the Gemara goes on and it says well even though the Torah wasn't given through him its writing was changed through him as it said and they could not read the writing nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof now if you're paying attention you'll see that the proof text that Ezra changed the Torah comes from the book of Daniel and it doesn't just come from the book of Daniel it comes from that episode of the writing on the wall right?

the commentators in the Gemara explain that when Daniel as we spoke about last week saw that vision of the hand writing on the wall behind the lampstand when Belshazzar and all his nobles were struck dumb with fear and nobody could understand what it said, it must have been that the room was filled with Jews as well, and none of them could read it either in other words, the language of the Jewish people was no longer available to them, they couldn't read the writing on the wall. Only Daniel, with his link to the prophetic past, was able to do so. But Ezra, the Gemara goes on to say, changed the script of the Torah from Ivri, the ancient Proto-Hebrew or Canaanite script, to Ashuri, the Hebrew script which you are familiar with today.

In other words, when the Torah passed through Ezra's hands, he gave it on to Am Yisrael in a form which would allow them to read the writing on the wall. Now, whatever we want to say about Ezra and his role as a priest, his role as a scribe, his role as a student of the prophets, and perhaps even one of the prophets as well, what we can say for sure is that he heard the voice of God in the declaration of Cyrus. And he brought the people, the Torah, in a form that would teach them to do so as well. Because the path of wisdom is no longer hearing the voice of God, but rather being able to divine the voice of God in the events of time. Remember, Daniel taught us in that vision that he interpreted for Nebuchadnezzar that history is now a mask over the divine will.

We're going to have to talk about three waves of return in this time of Shibat Zion, of the returns of Zion. And in truth, the historians will pick apart, as they tend to do, the historical chronology of these waves. But I'm going to deal with them as they present themselves in the book of Ezra. Because the reality is, from a narrative perspective, it doesn't actually matter so much who came first or what exact year it happened. What matters to us is the gradual cultivation of a consciousness which the leadership of this generation embarked upon in order to create a people who, despite the fading voice of prophecy, would still be able to determine the divine will. the first wave the first wave was led by Zerubbabel and Yeshua the Kohen Gadol it describes at the beginning of the book of Ezra the great excitement that when the Persian Empire to fulfill the words not only of Jeremiah but Daniel as well came after only 50 years of the exile and smashed Babylon then they became the silver arms and chest that Daniel had envisioned and picked up the Jewish people opening the doors for their return to the land of Israel.

And this wave, led by Zerubbabel, who was himself a descendant of the house of David, and Yeshua the Kohen Gadol, had as its purpose the rebuilding of the temple. The people conceived of their mission in the world to maintain the connection between heavens and earth, which was embodied in the altar. And there's a tremendously beautiful and sad description there in the third chapter of Ezra that many of the priests and the Levites and the heads of the fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first temple when its foundation was laid, when they saw the new temple that had been built, wept with a loud voice. But many were shouting with a voice of joy, those who had not seen it. And the people could not recognize the shout of joy because of the mingling of the shout of weeping.

And in many ways, this encapsulates not only their return, but if you think about it, our return as well. Are we overjoyed for the great grace that God has given us in being here in the land of Israel today, just as in the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel, who we're speaking about right now, people were overjoyed that the words of Jeremiah are being fulfilled before their very eyes, or are they heartbroken at all they've lost in order to get there? But if you want to understand the real essence of this first wave, and how it lays the foundation not only for Shivat Zion, for the return design, but really in many ways for Jewish history unto our very day, then you have to look at the fourth chapter of Ezra.

There you'll see that the returnees strove mightily to rebuild the temple. And as they were doing so, they were greeted by the peoples around them, the so-called nations of the land. How were they greeted? With great joy. These people said, what? You're back? Hey you going to rebuild the temple to your God That great We been sacrificing to your God for 70 years since you were gone Let us help you Now before we examine what the response of the returnees was let's just take a second and identify who were these peoples of the land. On one hand, the text identifies them as Samaritans, Shomronim, and they'll have a number of names and they're a bit of a moving target. But historically speaking, who they are is the peoples who replaced the 10 northern tribes of Israel.

Way back in 722, before the common era, 200 years or more before the time of our discussion, the Assyrian Empire had taken away the whole northern kingdom of Israel, the 10 tribes. This is the source of the legend of the 10 lost tribes. But the Assyrians didn't just exile the 10 tribes. They brought peoples from elsewhere whom they had exiled from their land and put them in their place. That's how the Assyrians worked, because if you uproot a people and put them somewhere else, and you bring in other people and put them in their place, well, then that old nexus of the ancient world between blood, God, and land, which would lead ultimately to the conception of nationality, was undermined. Why are you going to rebel against the powers that be when you've been bereft of your God, that your kinship relationships have been shattered and you've been uprooted for your land?

So therefore, the Assyrians brought new tribes into the land. But very quickly, as the Tanakh itself testifies, lions and tigers began to attack them because they didn't know how to honor the gods of the land. So the Assyrians brought them priests of the Jews to teach them the basics of the law. And these people are the Shomronim. They will be quasi-Jews. And we're going to see that they will also be a thorn in the side of the returnees until the time of the advent of Greece. So these peoples gathered round. Oh, by the way, there's one more thing we have to ask. Were there any Jews left in the land after the exile? If you read Jeremiah, the idea that the land lay desolate, that God would empty the land of all peoples, that it would be bereft of its inhabitants, is a backbone to his prophecy.

And yet, in the narrative portions of Jeremiah, it's very clear that the Babylonians left dressers of vine and planters of seed in order that the land not be desolate because, hey, it's not particularly profitable to conquer a desert. So perhaps these people were also made up of the remainders, the Jews who, as we know, in the first temple period had also been sunk into idolatry, who held on to the remnants of their identity, combined together with the Shomronim, and now that the returnees, the ideological core who had shaken off the slumber of exile and had returned to the land, they wanted to join forces. So when the returnees began to build the temple and these peoples around them gathered around and said, hey, let us build the temple, what was their response?

Now remember, if Ezra heard the voice of Jeremiah in the declaration of Cyrus, if he really heard the voice of God, but the fulfillment of God's prophecy through Jeremiah, then why is it that the returnees here would not hear the voice of Isaiah? my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples, says Isaiah it's one of the most powerful messianic visions there is and here is the moment they've come back to their land they're rebuilding the temple and the nations around them want to participate why did they not see this as a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah because indeed they did not they said, uh-uh, nothing doing it's not for you to build a temple to our God it's for us and what flows from here?

well it's very interesting the book of Ezra shifts at this point and begins to record letters which are sent by the Samaritans back to the Persian kingdom saying ooh look out for these Jews ooh Jerusalem is a rebellious city ooh if you let them rebuild it you'll have no portion on this side of the river and then the Jews send back letters themselves saying no no no we were promised by Cyrus we're allowed to build and back and forth the argument goes. If you want to understand the depth of the narrative which is rooted here all you need to know is that the sages ask the question, who were the messengers sent to accuse the Jews and who did the Jews send to defend them? Well, it's very clear. Haman was sent to accuse us and Mordecai was sent to our defense meaning the Purim story is rooted here.

It's rooted here in the refusal of the returnees to forge a partnership with the nations around them in the building of the temple. It's rooted in the insistence of the Jews that we are the Jews and you are not, and the hatred of us which flowed from there. And that is a pattern which we can follow to this very day. Now, why they may have said such a thing, we're going to have to wait to see for another moment. But I want you just to remember that what they did was throw up a wall. That the returnees said it's not for you to build a temple for our God, but rather for us. And that was the first wave. The second wave is the one which the book of Ezra identifies as led by Ezra himself. He gathers together thousands of more returnees.

And here it's worthwhile to note that it seems from both internal evidence of the Tanakh and the historical evidence that the vast majority of Jews did not return. They stayed back there in Babylon, and the ideological core, the priests, heads of fathers' houses, as well as it seems people for whom it just wasn't working out there in Babylon, returned. And Ezra comes back with a whole new cache of the vessels of the temple, with gold and silver that had been contributed by the exiles, and with another wave of immigrants. It's interesting, by the way, that he says that he was ashamed to ask the king for any armed guard. And so therefore they undertook this hazardous journey, completely unprotected, but they succeed.

They succeed in coming. And what was Ezra's mission? Well, he says very clearly that Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to perform and teach in Israel statute and ordinance. Furthermore, he had in his hands, as it says in the seventh chapter, lines 25 and 26, a mandate from the government. You, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God which is in your hand, appoint judges and magistrates who will judge all the peoples beyond the river. And whoever does not fulfill the law of your God and the law of the king, promptly judgment shall be inflicted upon him, executed, uprooted, fined, or tortured. Ezra has come back to combine his capacity to garner authority through his status as a Sofer Mahir, a ready scribe in Torah at Moshe, together with governmental power, the ability to actually judge and punish, and use that combination of wisdom and law, together with governmental force, as an organizing principle to put his society back together.

and his first test is not long in coming because it says that once these were completed meaning he has reestablished some order the chiefs approached him saying that the people of Israel the priests and the Levites are not separated from the peoples of the lands like the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, etc. they've taken their daughters for themselves and for their sons and the holy seed has become mingled with the peoples of the lands this is the first reference in the Tanakh to the tragedy of intermarriage now how does Ezra react? he's struck dumb the description is he falls down on the floor tears his shirt, dumps dirt on his head and can't even speak until midday and then it says that all those who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me In other words, Ezra is struck dumb by this phenomenon, a phenomenon which, remember, that up until now does not seem to be posed as a problem in the Torah.

Now, it's true the Torah forbids intermarriage with the Canaanites. Those are the seven nations whose destiny was to be destroyed. And furthermore, with certain other nations, like Moab, it forbids marriage at all as well. And then there are others, like Egypt, that after three generations, it permits. But what Ezra has done is he's, to a certain degree, blurred the boundaries between those three categories and combined them into a general principle of not mingling the seed. And one of the questions we're going to ask is why. Why does he build this wall between Israel and the nations? But before we can answer that, we need to see what happens. So this ideological core gathers around him, this core which defines itself by that which it fears.

And it behooves us to contemplate today when a good portion of the Torah-observant world also calls itself Haredim, those who tremble before God, that how do we define ourselves? By that which we fear? But either way, this dynamic of an ideological core and the masses around them will be characteristic of Am Yisrael's historical form. That that core is going to strive for truth. It has the ideological clarity through its learning, through its leadership. And it will pray that the nation be a fitting vessel for it to the extent that it's able. And will have in various times more or less success. In this sense, you can think of the Torah as a seed, as the DNA, as the genetic code which lacks any form.

When you plant it in Babylon, when you plant it in Poland, when you plant it in Spain, in North Africa, in America, It will reach deep into the soil and high up into the sky to pull the materials together to embody the Torah. And that embodiment is what we call Israel, Am Yisrael. And yet there will always be a dynamic at which the body doesn quite manage to perfectly manifest the genetic code For those of you who remember your biology that the genotype phenotype problem And the failure to act as a true cloud, as a true unit, a true embodiment of the principles of the Torah will reduce our ability to spread the light of God to the nations and in many ways will fuel their hatred of us. Remember, the Purim story is always behind the veil when we're speaking about the Persian period.

You know, Rav Kook, in Orot Yisrael v'umot olam, in the light of Israel and the nations, says that in this historical phase, Am Yisrael has come into the world to teach the world the nature of obligation, through our very behavior, not by telling them what to do, but by we ourselves embodying the notion that there is obligation. It's kind of like a conscience, right? Nobody loves their conscience, but when our conscience succeeds in getting us to live up to our higher selves, we at least value it. But if our conscience fails, if Am Yisrael is unable to truly embody the nature of obligation in the world, even though we talk about it all the time, well then, that conscience just becomes a nagging voice that prevents us from enjoying our more basic life pleasures, in which case we want to stamp it out.

And in many ways, that is the source of anti-Semitism. So in this, we have some of an answer to why it is the first wave would not join forces with the nations around them in order to rebuild the temple, and why it is Ezra suddenly sees such an existential crisis in the phenomenon of intermarriage. because the inability of this ideological core to fully shape the people and empower them to live the commands of the Torah evokes a negative reaction of the nations to Israel's partial living of the truth and that necessitates the building of walls because walls serve two purposes they keep what's inside inside and they also keep what's outside out. And this is the balance between fear and faith. Fear of what lies without, lest we mingle the seed and lose our way because we're unable to be some massive flowing spring, some tremendous influence on the world.

We are a broken people in return from exile. A sherit, a remnant which has been saved. So that's that fear. And yet there's a faith that if we can regroup, if we can manifest the cultural weight, the cultural heft of what it is to be ourselves, then we have all we need. So the faith is what we keep in and the fear is what we're holding off. So what's Ezra's reaction to this tremendous challenge he faces? He cries out at the end of the ninth chapter, I'm embarrassed and ashamed to lift up my face to you. God, you've been so good. we were evil, we were awful, you broke us, you destroyed Jerusalem, you sent us away, and now you've brought us back. You've lifted us up before the kings of Persia to give us life and to give us offense in Yehudah and Yerushalayim.

Right? He's given us a wall. It's very clear from this that Ezra saw his situation as a position of hold fast, that they had not come back to become the influencers of the world like the first temple period when the kingdom of God was embodied in the kingdom of flesh and blood. Rather, they'd come back to try to regain that cultural momentum that would allow Am Yisrael to be themselves. So in this aspect of wall building between Zerubbabel's leadership and the rejection of the nations around them, and remember, those nations were the Shomronim, and they were probably the remnants of the Jews themselves who had never been taken away. and Ezra's throwing up a wall to intermarriage with the other nations, something which it seems in the biblical narrative up until now had essentially amounted to conversion.

I mean, David had foreign wives, Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh. We see in many instances that non-Jewish women entered into Kahal Yisrael, the community of Israel, simply through marriage. But the drawing of these walls opens off for us a very important dynamic in the construction of identity. Because really, in the end of the day, that's what Ezra and Zerubabel and Nehemiah, who we'll speak about in a moment, are doing. As I said before, in the first Temple of Times, the membership within Am Yisrael was largely defined geographically. Meaning, here you are in the land of Israel. There's the Temple. We are Am Yisrael. It's true that the Torah knows there is such a thing as a ger, as a resident alien.

And there's much more that needs to be fleshed out here. But nevertheless, the fundamental posture was one was that geography defined identity. And then I pointed out that once the geographic vessel was shattered and we were sent into exile, the identity fell back upon genealogy, familial relationships. And probably for quite some time, again, up to this very day, I don't know if anybody out there has ever been called a member of the tribe, right? that remains a primary marker identity. But now in the book of Ezra, in this time period of Shivat Zion, the return to Zion, we're beginning to see the emergence of a new model of identity. And it has two elements. We'll call them exclusion and entirety. Exclusion is drawing a boundary.

I am me and you are not. And though that may sound harsh, the truth of the matter is, a clear sense of boundary is what allows for healthy relationships. And this is the phase of history we're entering into. Because as the Jews continue on the path of exile, and if you don't know, by the way, it's going to happen again, as we continue on the path of exile, we will be scattered to every nation, every language, every religion, every continent, and everywhere we are, we will be ourselves. It's true, there will also be members of Am Yisrael that will drift off and assimilate into the surrounding cultures. It's a dynamic process. But nevertheless, in order to be able to enter into dialogue and to gain wisdom from everything which we encounter, we must have a clear boundary of self.

And that is exclusion. And that's what Zerubbabel says. It's not for you to build a temple to our God. It's for us. The other element of identity is entirety. They claim that there is no other legitimate teller of this story. And in this case, it is very important to value the fact that Ezra was not just fighting legal halachic battles about intermarriage. And he was not just attempting to establish courts which could mandate order. He was also Sofer Mahir, but Torah Moshe. He was a ready scribe in the Torah of Moshe. He is the one, according to the sages, who instituted the twice-daily Torah readings in public during the weekday on Monday and Thursday. Why? Because if you read the story out loud again and again and again, it becomes the story of your life.

And furthermore, the claim of continuity directly from the students of the prophets allows Ezra, as he said right at the beginning of his book, to look at the events of history and claim that they are a fulfillment of the will of God through the word of Jeremiah. And that anyone else who thinks that they're telling the story of Am Yisrael is wrong. So there is exclusion that's the drawing of the boundary. And there's entirety, which is the owning of the story. Because if there is no legitimate other version of the story, then everyone who is within our boundary, who has not been excluded, and who accepts that we are telling the story, well then, if we interpret, reapply, adapt, the story never changes.

Because there's a continuity of concept. We are Am Yisrael. Everything outside our boundary is not. And there is no one else who can claim to be us. So the concept of Am Yisrael has continuity. But the content of what that means, what is it we actually do? How do we manifest ourselves? What are the practices, customs, laws, beliefs that define Am Yisrael can shift over time and not violate identity. This is an important point for modernity, so I'm going to repeat it. There's a difference between concept and content. The concept we are dealing with is Am Yisrael, the Jewish people. And it's a big challenge of the academics. They say there is no continuity between biblical Israel and the religion which emerges in the Second Temple.

So I'm going to say that they're half right because there is much shift in content. There's many things which we as the Jewish people do in the second temple period, which we did not apparently do during the first. And there's many things in the first temple period which we did not do in the second. That's the content. However, the concept, the idea of Israel, and the principles that we'll speak about, such as chosenness, such as a light to the nations, such as the task connecting heaven and earth, that concept does not change. And when you have exclusion, a clear boundary of who is in and out, and entirety, a total legitimate ownership of the story, then as long as you have continuity of concept, the content can grow, shift, and adapt over time.

So those are the first two waves. The third wave actually is not Ezra himself, but is rather Nehemia. This is where we articulate the political embodiment of Israel. Because Am Yisrael now lives in Yehud. Yehud is a province of the Persian emperor. And by the way why were the Persians so invested in a strong social fabric in the land of Israel Well the most basic reason is because we were loyal Persian allies on the western frontier of their empire There is a treasure trove of documents which were discovered in a place called Elephantine, modern-day Aswan on the Nile River. And there, amongst the marriage documents and the legal contracts and the various other things, we'll find an astounding description of this nexus between power and authority in service of Torah that I mentioned before.

To my brethren, Yedoniyah and his colleagues, the Jewish garrison, meaning there were Jews established a military colony on the Nile River in order to maintain the tax and border control for the Persian Empire. Your brother Hanania, who is the Jewish governor of the Heud province for the Persians, he wishes welfare to his brothers, etc. He says, now, authorize a festival of unleavened bread for the Jewish garrison. Count 14 days of the month of Nisan and observe the Passover from the 15th to the 21st. Be ritually clean. Take heed. Do no work on the 15th or the 21st, nor drink beer, nor eat anything which there is in leaven until sundown on the 21st. For seven days it shall not be seen amongst you. Do not bring it into your dwellings, but seal it up between these dates by order of King Darius.

That's the king of Persia of his day. This is a phenomenal testimony to the fact that Passover as we know it was being celebrated by a Jewish garrison on the banks of the Nile by the authority not only of the Jewish governor of Yehud, but the king of Persia. So there was a power in the social fabric of Yehud that served the Persian Empire. And we need to appreciate the fact that Am Yisrael lies on the border. Right? If you were God, so to speak, and you were going to create a nation that dwells alone, that famous phrase that describes Israel in the words of Bill and the prophet back there in the book of Bamidbar in the Torah, you're going to create a nation that dwells alone. Where would you put them?

I don't know, the Gobi Desert comes to mind, Antarctica. Where you wouldn't put them is at the crossroads of the ancient world, right? Where the Bible places Israel first on the crossroads between Egypt and Assyria, and then in our time period, in the crossroads between Persia and the emerging Greek Empire. Later, it will be the crossroads between Rome and the Parthian Empire. to its east. And I don't know if you read the papers, but today we are once again on that boundary between east and west. And it's something we're going to have to contemplate. What does it mean to be a people that dwells alone? Right smack dab in the middle of Times Square, in the middle of it all. And in many ways, now we can understand the importance of that response by Zerubbabel.

It's not for you to build a temple to God, but rather for us and that response of Ezra. You must get rid of these foreign wives who cannot mingle the holy seed. Because we are meant to be in the middle of events, but we are meant to be alone. Because Amlevadad Yishkon, a nation that dwells alone, can also be translated as an indwelling nation. Yishkon is the same language of Shekhinah, of the Divine Presence. We are meant to be a people whose reality flows from within. And in the second temple period, our mission has shifted. We are not embodying the kingdom of God in a kingdom of flesh and blood, as Daniel's vision has taught us. History is now a mask over the divine intention. What we are now is a rock in the stream.

In the midst of the stream of history, we have to have that inner fortitude and that cultural heft to hold our place with determination, assert our values as the events of the world flow around us. And the hope is that if well-placed, we're able to not only hold fast, but to shape the stream of events as well. So we're going to end with just a couple words on Nehemia. Because Nehemia is also a wall builder. Nehemia gets his own book in the way we divide the Hebrew Bible now. But you should know that the sages saw Ezra and Nehemia as one book. Nehemia begins his career, as he himself describes, as the cupbearer to the king. And one day, the king of Persia, Artaxerxes, right? And one day the king looks and he sees he's sad.

And Nehemia, he asks Nehemia, what could possibly bother you? What was bothering Nehemiah is that he had just heard from his brother Hananiah perhaps by the way the very same Hananiah mentioned in the elephantine papyrus that we spoke of before he just heard that Jerusalem was in ruins that they had not succeeded in rebuilding its walls and so Nehemiah says to the king how can I not be sad when the city of the graves of my fathers lies desolate the king says what are you asking me for and then he goes for broke and he shoots for the governorship And indeed, Nehemiah is appointed as the governor of Judea. And he goes back, and just as Rehoboam managed to restart the temple service, and just as Ezra managed to establish the courts and draw the boundaries of culture between Israel and the nations around it, so too Nehemiah comes back and rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem.

In an incredible 52-day marathon, he brings the walls of Jerusalem from rubble to fortification. He also brings together the people, and in the chapters 9 and 10 of Nehemia, does an incredible thing. First, he reviews all of Jewish history up to his day. A pattern which we see begins in the book of Davarim, with Moshe retelling history. And we see it at Yehoshua, in the 24th chapter of his book, what's called Ma'amad Shechem. His standing at Shechem reviews Jewish history before he pushes the people to commit to God. And in the book of Shmuel at Mitzpah, Shmuel reviews Jewish history before he calls upon the people to unify their hearts with God. And now Nehemia does the same. He looks back at history, and he draws a line of how the past has brought us to the present.

And then he makes what's called Brit Amana, a faithful covenant to keep the Torah once again. And the people all swear. and there's another reading of this scroll of the Torah in the language that Ezra has given them that they can actually understand and a new commitment to fulfilling it in the future. We have to appreciate the power of this pattern. If you've ever spent any time traveling in the backcountry, as I've spent plenty myself, especially off trail, you know there's kind of two ways to get where you're going. One is you can see clearly what's ahead of you. But if you're down in the valleys or in the thick of the forest, that's often not true. So the other way is actually what's called back-sighting.

Anytime history tosses you up on a high point, anytime you get yourself up on a ridge and you suddenly have enough horizon to see, you look back at where you came from. And by looking back at where you came from, you can draw a line to where you are. And when you connect where you came from to where you are, that allows you to put a line forward to where you're headed. because this Brit Amana, this faithful covenant that Nehemiah makes in the 9th and 10th chapter will set the stage for the past in forming a present identity which can be motivated to build the future that Am Yisrael wants to live in. So here we are, the wall builders. First, the power of Ezra, hearing the voice of God in the declaration of Cyrus and setting himself the mission of bringing the Torah to the people in a way which can teach them to hear it as well, as we said, that they'll be able to read the writing on the wall.

This was also this time of establishing exclusion. It's not for you to build a temple to our God, but rather for us. And entirety, that the leaders of the return have exclusive ownership on the legitimacy of the story. and Nehemia building the walls of Jerusalem and giving a physical embodiment to this vision together with that embodiment in the text that Ezra handed us. And this pattern of historical back-citing is actually written into the text by Ezra himself. Because, you know, the sages tell us that Ezra wrote his own book as well as Debrei Ayamim, Chronicles. And there at the end of the book of Chronicles you will find a repetition of the Declaration of Cyrus. And you will see that the last word of the entire Hebrew Bible was written by Ezra himself, and it is, Vay'a, let him go up.

All those whose God is in Jerusalem, let him go up. And the important thing to understand is this, is that oftentimes when people see a book, they get to the end and they assume it's over. And in fact, that would be logical, but you need to understand the author to appreciate that this is not the end of the story. On the contrary, Ezra's mission was not about the past. He wrote the book of Chronicles in order to set the past as a solid foundation for the present identity that he was building. But he wasn't satisfied with the present. Ezra also had a vision of the future. So that last word of the Hebrew Bible, vayal, let him go up, is actually the first word of the story. So let us take it to heart. Let us back sight and learn the Holy Scriptures in order to see ourselves in the present as taking the next step upwards toward that future of which we dream.

I want to thank everybody who helps make this show possible. Pardes Institute gives me a place to teach and reach so many Jews. that's pardes.org.il also the good folks at the Land of Israel Network you should be blessed in all your endeavors and of course Sulam Yaakov it's my home and thank you to all those private individuals who gave heart and soul to make this real