Who Was Gedalia and Why Do We Fast for Him?
There has been a lot of talk about kings in America in recent months, but if you think having one is a good idea, a quick romp through Jewish history will disabuse you of that notion.
Our very first king failed so significantly that permission to found a dynasty was withdrawn. The second king, David, will be the progenitor of the Messiah, and his son, Solomon, is still the epitome of wisdom. But Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, presided over a civil war that eventually resulted in the loss of 10 tribes. Things never really improved from there.
As related piecemeal in Kings II, Jeremiah and Chronicles II, 13 generations on, Menasheh acceded to the sovereignty of Judah and promptly restored idolatry to the land, along with all its abominable practices and then some. In response, G-d, through the prophets, stated that he would wipe out Jerusalem and abandon what was left of the people of Israel. After 55 years, Menasheh died and was followed by his son Amon, who was no better. After Amon’s murder, his son, Josiah, became king in turn.
By this time, the people of Judah were scarcely worth the name “Jews.” It was not until Josiah had reigned for 18 years that the Kohen Gadol said he had found a Torah scroll in the Temple and gave it to Shaphan, Josiah’s scribe.
When Shaphan read the scroll to Josiah, he tore his clothes in anguish, as he had apparently been unfamiliar with it until then. He immediately cleansed the land, destroyed all idolatrous places, removed the diviners and returned the entire land to the worship of G-d. It didn’t help.
G-d stood by the earlier prophesies. His reward to Josiah was to take him in death so that he would be spared the sight of the destruction that was to be rained on Judah.
And it was not hard to see whence the destruction would come. There were three global powers, and Judah was not one of them. Babylonia had reduced Assyria to a remnant of its former glory. When Nineveh was captured, the government relocated to Carchemish by the Euphrates, and Pharoah Neco of Egypt went there to lend his support. Josiah opposed him and was killed at Megiddo.
The peasantry crowned Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, who promptly returned Judah to the apostacy of the generations before Josiah, but Pharoah Neco imprisoned him at Riblah, then appointed another son of Josiah, Eliakim, whom he renamed Jehoiakim.
The forces of Egypt and Assyria were defeated, as Josiah had anticipated, and eventually withdrew before Nebuchadnezzar and took Jehoahaz with them. He never returned, and, under Jehoiakim, Judah became a vassal state of Babylonia, which ruled from the Euphrates to Sinai.
After three years, Jehoiakim rebelled and was besieged by the Chaldeans, Moabites, Ammonites and Arameans, all from states incorporated into the Babylonian empire. Nebuchadnezzar himself captured Jehoiakim and took him to Babylonia along with many of the Temple vessels for his palace.
Jehoiakim’s 18-year-old son, Jehoiachin, then assumed the throne, but within three months, Nebuchadnezzar brought him, his family and the entire 10,000-strong artisanal and professional classes of Jerusalem–all but the poorest of the rabble–along with the remaining precious items from the Temple and the king’s palace to Babylonia. He crowned Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle and another of Josiah’s sons, and changed him name to Zedekiah.
Like his nephew and brothers, apparently oblivious to the notion of overwhelming force, Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, who descended upon Jerusalem in force on the 10th of Teveth, besieged the city for a year and a half, breached the walls, looted every precious item from the Temple and the palace and burned what was left.
The king and his army fled through the garden gate. Pursued by the Babylonian army and overtaken in Jericho, Zedekiah, whose army had fled, was taken to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, where he was blinded, but not before being forced to watch his sons executed. Which brings us to Gedaliah.
Rather than leave the land empty, Nebuchadnezzar left the peasantry to farm it and appointed Gedaliah ben Akikam, grandson of Josiah’s scribe Shaphan, as governor. When the officers of the army who had successfully fled into hiding heard, they came to Gedaliah, who told them to resettle Judah and serve the King of Babylonia.
When Nebuzzaradan, Nebuchadnezzar’s chief executioner, gave Jeremiah the choice of accompanying the exiles to Babylonia or returning to Judah, he went to Gedaliah at Mizpah. The Jews who had previously been exiled to Moab, Ammon and Edom also returned, and the land yielded wine and fruit. But Babylonian rule was not a Pax Romana.
One of Gedaliah’s generals, Johanan ben Kareah, told Gedaliah that Baalis, the king of Ammon, had sent Ishmael ben Nethaniah, a descendant of the royal family of Judah, to kill him. Johanan requested permission to kill Ishmael, but Gedaliah refused to believe him. On Rosh Hashanah or the day after, Ishmael and 10 of his men joined Gedaliah and his guests, including prominent Jews and Babylonian officers, at a meal. Before it was over, Ishmael and his men rose up and killed everyone.
Ishmael took the Jews remaining at Mizpah captive, but Johanan and his men overtook him. The captives rebelled and joined Johanan. They then asked Jeremiah to pray to G-d to tell them which way to go. In 10 days, Jeremiah came back with the answer: stay where you are; if you do, G-d will protect you from the Babylonians.
Having asked for prophecy, the generals then ignored it. They accused Jeremiah of lying and headed toward Egypt, whither they had intended to go all along. Thus, with the murder of Gedaliah, the Jewish presence in Judah disappeared, not to return until the destruction of the Babylonian empire by the Persians, 70 years later.
Was Gedaliah a craven collaborator, a template for a Vichy government over 2,000 years later, or was he making the best of a bad situation by restoring the population of a Judah to come?
The Babylonians were certainly brutal, but were they any worse than any other nation would have been at the time? More to the point, could the Kingdom of Judah have stood on its own? Not without a miracle, and G-d had made it clear that there was none in the offing. In light of Jeremiah’s choice to return to Gedaliah’s domain, not to mention the instruction later conveyed through Jeremiah to stay put, it seems clear that Gedaliah was the last best hope for any type of Jewish sovereignty, however subordinated to the geopolitical realities of the time.
Yet Gedaliah himself was not completely blameless. Rather, he was indirectly at fault for Ishmael’s murder of the men he struck literally “with the hand of Gedaliah,” Jer.41.9, often translated as “because of,” “through,” “after” or “in the wake of.”
According to Abba ben Joseph bar Hama, the sage of the Talmud known as Rava, Gedaliah was partly to blame for his own death as well as those visited on others by Ishmael because he ignored Johanan’s warning. While we are not to accept malicious gossip as true, we have an obligation to examine it if it could cause harm. Niddah 61a. In this case the harm was incalculable.
And so we fast for one day, the day of Gedaliah’s murder, if it took place on the third of Tishrei. If, in fact, it took place on Rosh Hashanah, we fast the next day, the third of Tishrei, as fasting on Rosh Hashanah is prohibited. Selichot prayers are added to the morning service and the long version of Avinu Malkeinu is added to morning and afternoon services. Anienu is added to some recitations of the Amidah, depending on the tradition of the particular community.
The Torah readings are from Exodus 32:11-14, which is Moses’s prayer for mercy for the Children of Israel after the sin of the golden calf, and 34:1-10, which describes Moses’s ascent of Mount Sinai after he has replaced the broken tablets and includes the 13 attributes of G-d’s mercy and his covenant with the Children of Israel to set them apart from other nations.
Ashkenazim read as the Haftarah Isaiah 55:6-56:8, in which we are exhorted to return to G-d and forsake our evil thoughts and actions, be just and righteous and observe the Sabbath.
Most important is the giving of charity. In the Talmud, Mar Zutra explains that, while fasting is a requirement, Zechariah 8:19, the merit we derive from the fast comes from the charity we give on that occasion. Berachot 6b. The tradition is to donate the cost of a meal.
I’ve a good and sweet New Year and an easy fast on Tzom Gedaliah. May the fast of the seventh month become a day of joy and gladness speedily in our days.
More Info
The fast begins at dawn and ends at nightfall–i.e., the emergence of three medium-sized stars. MyZmanim.com can give exact times for any location.
Pregnant and nursing women, the sick and the frail elderly are exempt from fasting, but should not eat or drink in public.
Children who are below the age of bar or bat mitzvah but who can understand the occasion should refrain from treats such as sweets.
Give charity, traditionally the cost of a meal.
Sue Kleinberg is a contributing writer to Jlife magazine.
