Tzom Gedalia - The Fast of Gedaliah
Today is a dawn to dusk fast day.
Yeah. The day after Rosh HaShanah.
Today we remember Gedaliah, but who was he, anyway?
Today is a day to think about siblings, and jealousy, and rivalry, and love.
When King Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, conquered Jerusalem, he killed or exiled most of the inhabitants and appointed Gedaliah governor over the Kingdom of Judah. However, King Baalis of Ammon was hostile and envious of the Judean remnant and sent a Judean, Yishmael Ben Nataniah who was descended from the royal family of Judea, to assassinate Gedaliah. In the seventh month of Tishrei, four or five years after the destruction of the Temple, a group of Jews led by Yishmael came to Gedalia in the town of Mitzpa and were received cordially. Gedaliah had been warned of his guests’ murderous intent, but he couldn’t believe it and determined the report was slander. In his worldview, there was no space for Judeans to kill Judeans.
Yishmael murdered Gedaliah, together with most of the Jews who had joined him and many Babylonians Nebuchadnezzar had left with Gedaliah. They threw many of the bodies in a pit. The remaining Jews feared the vengeance of the Babylonian king and fled to Egypt. (2 Kings 25:25-26; Jeremiah chapter 41)
We don’t know why Yishmael desired the death of Gedaliah.
We do know his death ended Jewish autonomy in the Land.
When we sing Avinu Malkeinu, we are saying that we, collectively, have a parent: Avinu.
Our Father.
When we sing Avinu Malkeinu, we are saying that we, collectively, have a king: Malkeinu.
Our King.
If we have a collective parent, then we have siblings.
Then we are all siblings.
If we have a collective parent who is also a king, then we are royalty.
We are all royalty.
If we are royal siblings, then our choices regarding one another are the choices of a powerful family.
If we go back in our story, we find another story of family, of brothers, who threw a sibling into a pit and sold him into slavery. Eventually, the brother in the pit and his entire family ended up in Egypt, too.
But this isn’t the only other story with an Ishmael.
We also have the first story. We have a story of brothers, Isaac and Ishmael, and thankfully it didn’t end in bloodshed and assassination, it ended in reconciliation. How and why is off screen, but both brothers buried their father - who is also our father - Abraham. They buried him together. Reunited.
Our relationships don’t need to be perfect, they don’t need to be easy, but we do need to know - really know - that just as our capacity to love grows when we bring new being into the world and into our lives when we have children, adopt children, teach children and have other human experiences of expanding life, so, too God in whose image we were created must have that capacity.
When we know the love available to us is abundant, we don’t need to fight over it in a vain attempt to get more of it.
When we know, we can heal and not end.
We can have the worldview that there is no space for us to kill one another.
We can have the worldview that if you are you because I am me, and I am me because you are you, then you and I need one another.
And that is why we fast today.
Whether or not we are eating.
Because without that worldview, we are all in exile.
Cornell West famously said that justice is what love looks like in public.
Maybe healing is what love looks like in the soft spaces between and inside us.
May you find meaning and healing in this day.
Shana Tova.