Why Hide the Ark of the Covenant, Part 2

(Part 1)

As the Ninth of Av approaches, I am reminded of the critical cultural revolution that is necessary for our people to get back to the state of affairs in which the national day of mourning becomes a holiday.

The number 40 is one of those frequently recurring biblical motifs, like the numbers 7, 8, 39, 49, and 50. The reigns of the greatest kings lasted for 40 years, and the flood lasted for 40 days, just like Moses’s two stays on Mount Sinai. Interestingly, Moses’s own tenure as leader of Israel was extended to a round 40 years because of the 40-day mission of the spies, which happened on the Ninth of Av. We should take careful note that God’s decree, that the generation of fighting-age men that left Egypt would die out in the wilderness, was, for those condemned, less of a punishment and more of a harsh statement of reality. “You prefer to sojourn in the wilderness, with your food raining down from heaven on a daily basis, your water provided in similarly miraculous and steady manner, and all of your needs, including shelter, provided by the Clouds of Glory, than to enter Canaan to fight for your homeland and to lead natural existences, and therefore you will live out your lives in your preferred state, and when you finally die out, the promise to the fathers will be fulfilled in your children.”

God told our ancestors, “you want the status quo that is the exile? Then you will get the status quo that is the exile. Halachtem immi b’qeri, af ani eileich immachem bahamath qeri.” The very first incarnation of the galuth was the people’s stated desire to maintain the status quo, and the defining feature of the galuth throughout the ages, in terms of our culture, our mindset, and especially our view of halacha has been the stated goal of those in positions of authority to maintain the status quo. “Stay in hutz la’aretz; do not try to get ahead. Definitely do not study the Torah and conclude that perhaps we need to return to the way we used to keep the Torah.” And, when we try to break out of that status quo, we are granted success. Conversely, if we intentionally maintain the status quo, then we deserve the status quo. The galuth is sustained by those who sit in it. It is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy. If Tish’a B’av is a fixture of our calendars, if we plan for it already in Tishrei, then when the summer rolls around we will receive Tish’a B’av. This is is perhaps what the sages of the Midrash meant when they described how every year, the men of that generation would, on the night of the Ninth of Av, leave the camp and literally dig their own graves and lie in them, and on the morrow, a number of them would not return to the camp. They were the authors of their own downfall.

All of the American publishers with whom I spoke in the last two years know that investing in fancy new editions of the Kinnot, with commentaries from Rabbi Soloveichik and Rabbi Sacks and other masters of Jewish thought is the way to go because hurban, destruction, is big business, but they can’t spare a dime and don’t have the time for Haggadat Hapesah, which naively assumes that this year, finally, things will be the way they are supposed to be, the way we have insincerely declared we want it to be. You reap what you sow. The Ninth of Av is happening this year because we made it so. Almost like we wanted it to be so. Because we definitely did not do anything to indicate that we wanted otherwise.

But, returning to the aftermath of the spies, we see the people were not subjected to any plague like those who sinned in other instances, nor were they attacked by any aggressors, nor were their judges instructed to try and punish the most egregious offenders. Instead, they were allowed to continue the lives to which they had become accustomed, and they would die peacefully in their sleep once their times had come. Moses’s ministry thus was a 40-year investment in a new generation that would learn the lessons of the Ninth of Av and develop the resolve necessary to pass the test that their fathers failed. And it worked.

Similarly, David, with his novel and ingenuous plan to build a permanent Temple for God, found himself in a generation that had grown complacent with the state of hurban that had commenced with the destruction of Shiloh. It took all 40 years of his reign to wait for a new generation, one that desired the building of the Temple as much as he did (TY Sh’qalim 2:5):

א”ל ר’ אדא בר אהבה אמרה משמיה אין דור שאין בו ליצנין כדורו של דוד מה היו פרוצי הדור עושין היו הולכין אצל חלונותיו של דוד אומרין לו דוד דוד אימתי יבנה ב”ה אימתי בית ה’ נלך והיה דוד אומר אע”פ שמתכוונין להכעיסני יבא עלי אם לא הייתי שמח בדבריהם דכתיב (תהילים קכב) שמחתי באומרים לי בית ה’ נלך 

As we can see, it happened. The scoffers of David’s latter days would joke about how they had to wait for the elderly king to pass away before they could get started with building the Temple, but where were they when he just took the throne, and he was the only one who even thought of such a thing?

It seems that these types of revolutions take a generation, a nice, round, 40 years. My experience tells me that the new Israeli regime, even if figure-headed by a yarmulka-capped head, does not exactly have the rebuilding of the Temple as a priority. Here in the land of Israel, we are in need of an ideological revolution.

But we are not alone. As global instability becomes more widespread, we become acutely aware of the revolution that needs to overtake the diaspora.

…

Which brings us back to our current research topic. I certainly do not buy the argument that Josiah hid the Ark of the Covenant in order to protect it from falling into the hands of the Babylonian conquerors, 1. because there does not seem to be any scriptural support for this contention, 2. because I believe scripture does support the reason I offered in the previous post, and 3. because unlike the other Temple implements, which fell into the hands of both the Babylonians and Romans, and were then desecrated, we already have seen what happened to the Ark when it was captured by the uncircumcised heathens: it brought retribution upon them. Had the Babylonians or Romans been foolish enough to take the Ark, they would have learned their lesson even faster than the Egyptians and Philistines did.

Instead, I offer this passage, once again from Sh’qalim (6:1).

מי גנזו יאשיהו גנזו כיון שראה שכתוב (דברים כח) יולך ה’ אותך ואת מלכך אשר תקים עליך אל גוי אשר לא ידעת אתה ואבותיך עמד וגנזו הדא הוא דכתיב (דברי הימים ב לה) ויאמר ללוים המבינים ולכל ישראל הקדושים לה’ תנו את ארון הקדש בבית אשר בנה שלמה בן דוד מלך ישראל אין לכם משא בכתף אמר להם אם גולה הוא עמכם לבבל אין אתם מחזירין אותו עוד למקומו אלא (שם) עתה עבדו את ה’ אלהיכם ואת עמו ישראל 

Josiah said to them, “if the Ark goes into exile with you, you will never return it to its place.”

Notice that Josiah was not afraid of the Babylonians taking the Ark; as we saw it it could take very good care of itself. Instead, he was afraid the Levites would take it to accompany the people in exile, and then once it would be there in Babylonia, the Levites would, for whatever reason, not return it to the Temple when the time came. Why not? Well, as we read in Ezra, there was little enthusiasm to leave Babylonia when the time came, and the Levites were especially lackadaisical. Nothing has changed in all these centuries. To take the Jew out of galuth, you first have to take the Galuth out of the Jews. Now imagine the Ark had joined the Jews in exile. They would have come up with all sorts of lofty-sounding divrei torah about how the shechina is with them in Babylonia, how their synagogues are much more than miqd’shei m’at and other such justifications, just as today we delude ourselves with excuses for not leaving the diaspora, not voting for leadership that pledges to uphold the Torah, and not pressing for the building of the Temple. Our actions, or better, our inaction, is the root of our predicament.