Chochmas Nashim: Tears Endure
By: Suri Davis
On Rosh Hashanah, when we blow the shofar, the sound of the shofar is like a lamentation, like the voice of one who is crying out. The medrash asks what the purpose is of the 100 voices of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. The answer is that it is supposed to arouse G-d’s mercy. It is connected to the mother of Sisrah who cried out when her son did not return from battle.
In Sanhedrin 47: Rabbi Chananel questions why we are concerned about the cries of Sisrah’s mother, in that Sisrah was not a righteous person, so why would Sisrah’s mother’s tears, move G-d’s mercy on Rosh Hashanah.
Rabbi Chananel tells us that there might have been a misprint, that it wasn’t Sisrah’s mother who was crying, but Sarah, who was crying when Satan informed her that Isaac was being placed on the altar as a sacrifice.
It was Sarah’s tears that we exhume each year when we blow the 100 voices of the shofar to move G-d’s mercy for the Jews in the merit of Sarah’s tears.
Rabbi Chananel continues, that Abraham was concerned that his merit for his desire to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on the altar would be reduced or diminished by the concomitant loss of Sarah’s life as a result of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac.
The fact that we use Sarah’s tears to raise G-d’s mercies each Rosh Hashanah is an indication that Sarah’s tears and death were not for naught. That throughout the generations to come, all Jews would utilize Sarah’s tears to repent and ask G-d for forgiveness. That Abraham’s merit was not thereby reduced by Sarah’s tears. We are in the middle of the Jewish month Mar Cheshvan, the bitter month of Cheshvan in that there are no Jewish holidays in this month; bitterness usually produces tears, tears are not lost. Sarah died, and her tears and merit of Abraham endure forever, as indicated by the prayer we say each morning during morning Shacharit services:
“Master of the Universe may it be Your will Hashem our G-d, and the G-d of our forefathers, that You remember for our sake the covenant of our forefathers. Just as Abraham our forefather suppressed his mercy for his only son and wished to slaughter hi in order to do Your will, so may Your mercy suppress Your anger from upon us and may Your mercy overwhelm Your attributes. May You go beyond the letter of Your law for us and deal with us G-d with the attribute of kindness and the attribute of mercy. In Your great goodness may You turn aside Your burning wrath from Your people, your city, Your land, and Your heritage. Fulfill for us, G-d the word You pledged through Moses, Your servant, as it is said: “I shall remember My covenant with Jacob; also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham I shall remember; and the land I shall remember.”
In this week’s Rambam Yomi, we learn about Pigul, which is that a sacrifice becomes null and void if at the time the priest is eating it, he loses the correct intent when eating the sacrifice. We no longer have sacrifices, we have substituted sacrificing with prayers. It appears to me that a sacrifice could be void if the requisite intent is lost, so too, if one prays without intent, might those prayers be void. Yet we learned early on in Tanya Yomi that if one davens/prays without requisite intent, the prayers are not lost. They are held up in heaven by G-d, until the day the man prays with intent, and then all the collected prayers without intent enter heaven together with the prayer which was said with intent.
G-d promised us our land and redemption. We who are learning Daf Yomi, are learning about how important it is to fulfill one’s oath. We learn our behavior from G-d. Certainly if we have to fulfill our oaths speedily, we ask G-d to do so as well. May G-d hear our prayers and together with mercy promised to our forefathers redeem us speedily and return us to a rebuilt Jerusalem speedily in our days.
Shabbat shalom.
-Suri