Parshas Va’eschanan
By Rabbi David Zauderer (Toronto, Canada)
The Haftarah is a weekly portion from a book of Neviim (the Prophets), that is read publicly in the synagogue just after the Torah reading on Shabbos and on many other special days. Typically, the Haftarah has a thematic connection to the Torah reading, as it was originally introduced as a substitute for the regular reading at a time when public reading of the Torah was banned by the secular authorities. More Haftaros come from the Book of Isaiah than from any other Book of Prophets.
In the summer, we have a long series of Haftaros that come from this Book. These are called sheva d’nechmasa, the “seven of consolationâ€. They begin with the Shabbos following Tishah B’Av, which is called Shabbos Nachamu. The Shabbos actually receives its name from the Haftarah, which begins, “Nachamu, nachamu, ami …console, console My peopleâ€. This comes from Isaiah chapter 40, which is read as the Haftarah for this week’s Torah portion, Parshas Va’eschanan. The “seven of consolation†contain prophecies that offered the people consolation and hope after the destruction of the First Temple. They are all taken from Isaiah, as the last third of his book focuses heavily on the theme of consolation.
Now I know what you’re thinking … it’s very nice to read Haftaros with ancient prophecies full of hope, consolation, and longing for the Messianic Era when the Temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt and there will be true peace on earth. But we’ve been hoping and longing for almost 2000 years now already and still no Messiah!!
If you are one of those people who are starting to give up hope, then have I got a consolation for you!
But first a little background is necessary …
According to Jewish tradition, the Hebrew calendar started at the time of Creation, placed at 3761 BCE. The current (2019/2000) Hebrew year is 5779. And according to classical Jewish sources, the Hebrew year 6000 (from sunset of 29 September 2239 until nightfall of 16 September 2240 on the Gregorian calendar) marks the latest time for the initiation of the Messianic Age. The Talmud, Midrash, and the Kabbalistic work, the Zohar, all state that the 'deadline' - what some like to call “Y6K, the Jewish Doomsday†- by which the Messiah must appear is 6,000 years from creation.
What this means for all of us is that the Messiah must come in no more than 221 years – still a pretty long time to wait – and a relatively small consolation.
Enter the “Missing 165 Years†….
Scholars have long grappled with the apparently differing chronological dating for the Second Temple implied by the Talmud and historical records: The Talmud in Avodah Zarah 8b dates the building of the Second Temple to about 350 BCE; Historians date it to about 516 BCE. This amounts to a discrepancy of about 165 years(!) between the traditional and conventional chronologies!
In general three approaches have been taken to address the chronological differences, i.e. Historical dating is in error; the Talmud’s chronology is in error; the Talmud purposely manipulated the dating to achieve some important objective.
The first approach would have us reject the objectivity and integrity of the historical records. The problem with this approach is that there is a substantial amount of available historical evidence that is difficult to refute.
The second approach, that the Talmud erred, is equally unacceptable. It is simply not credible to think that less than one century after the destruction of the 2nd Temple the Talmudic Sages had inadvertently lost track of about one third of the time span that the Second Temple existed.
A third very novel approach – suggested by Rabbi Shimon Schwab ZTâ€L and others - accepts the correctness of the historical count but asserts that the Talmudic Sages did not mean for their new chronology to be taken literally.
[Rabbi Shimon Schwab (1908 - 1995) was an Orthodox rabbi and communal leader in Germany and the United States. Educated in Frankfurt am Main and in the Yeshivos of Lithuania, he was rabbi in Ichenhausen, Bavaria, after immigration to the United States in Baltimore, and from 1958 until his death at Khal Adath Jeshurun in Washington Heights, Manhattan.]
Rabbi Schwab theorized that “our Sages—for some unknown reason—had ‘covered up’ a certain historic periodâ€, and that we are really 165 years ahead in the Jewish calendar. He suggested that, based on the instructions in Daniel 12:4 to obscure the date of the Messiah's arrival, the Sages didn’t want people to predict the time of the coming of the Messiah and therefore made deliberate changes to the dating system.
[To read more about the “Missing 165 Years†and the various attempts to reconcile the apparently contradictory chronologies, click on these websites (among others): https://web.stevens.edu/golem/
So how is this a consolation for all of us, you ask?
Think about it. We are now counting the year 5779 in the Jewish calendar, and if we add the “missing 165 years†of Jewish history (that the Sages of the Talmud deliberately “hid†from us – according to Rabbi Schwab’s theory), the date for this year would actually be 5944, which leaves only 56(!) years till the end of the 6th millennium during which the Messiah has to come. This means that even if we don’t live to see the Messianic Era, G-d forbid, then at least our children and for sure our grandchildren will live to witness this amazing and miraculous period at the end of history!!
Now that’s a big consolation!
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=578