The Haftorah for the Shabbat of Pesach is the Vision of the Bones. For Jews, the Exile is not life, but only a place of survival like dry bones until we return to Zion.
“The hand of Hashem came upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of Hashem, and placed me in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones. And He led me around them, and they were many in the valley, and they were exceedingly dry” (Yechezkel 37:1-2)
Hashem wants us to know that the Exile is a cemetery. When Yechezkel prophesied about the Resurrection of Dead, he was hinting at the revival of the Nation of Israel in our Land.
What are the bones which were revealed to Yechezkel in a prophetic vision? According to our Sages, the dry bones are a parable for the lifeless remnant of the Nation of Israel scattered around the world. They do not represent specific individuals but the entire community in Exile (Sanhedrin 92b. Also Rashi on the Haftorah).
In his classic book of Jewish Faith, “HaKuzari,” Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi writes that the Jews in Exile, without their own Jewish Land, National Sovereignty, Jewish Kingship, and Temple are like a body without a head or heart! In the conversation between the king of Kuzar and the Jewish Sage, we learn that the condition of the Jewish People in Exile is even more severe. We do not even have a body, but are scattered limbs, like the dry bones shown to Yechezkel in his vision.
But these bones still possess the spark of life which once functioned as a head, heart, spirit, intellect, etc… They are greater than stones which never possessed life (Kuzari 2, 29-30). Because of our genetic inheritance from our holy Forefathers, we can still be brought back to life from the graveyard of Exile through our return to the Land of Israel.
For Jews, the Exile is not life, but only a place of survival until we return to Zion. The question, however, remains if we can truly succeed in our national revival on the basis of such weak remnants. The Prophet wonders if such dry bones can come to life. “And I said: Hashem, G-d, You know. He said to me: Prophesy over these bones and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of Hashem” (ibid. v. 3-4).
For Jews in the Diaspora it is not easy to accept the fact that they are living in a graveyard. However, the Vilna Gaon, the Gra, who was a lighthouse for his generation and the following generations, described the Exile for us without trying to beautify it.
The Gra explicitly declared that the Exile is a grave, and that since the destruction of the Temple and our detachment from our Land, we are like a body without a soul, surrounded by and destroyed by worms, with no chance of ultimate survival. The worms, he explains, are the nations who tear us apart and who defile us with their cultures.
At the beginning of the Exile, we were at least concentrated in one place, around the great Yeshivot of Babylonia, like a body before its disintegration. But after the period of decay, our bones dried out and were scattered to the corners of the earth. A life-force still existed, through our great Sages, the pillars of our Nation, until the bodies gradually crumbled and the Sages disappeared. The only thing which remained of our Nation was a small amount of dust, waiting for the promised revival in order to live anew – “shake off the dust, arise” (Yeshayahu 5:2. See “Likutei HaGra” at the end of Sifra De-Tzeni’uta).
We must understand that when the Vilna Gaon described the disintegration and decay of the Nation of Israel, and all the more so of Torah scholars, he did not mean on an individual level. There have always been great Torah scholars, giants of spirituality, holiness and proper character traits, among the Jewish People. Rather, he is addressing the communal level, when we exist as minorities at the mercy of others without a sovereign Land and national format of our own.
Our prophecy continues: “Thus says Hashem, G-d, to these bones: I will bring spirit into you and you will live. I will put sinews upon you and bring flesh upon you and draw skin over you, and I will put spirit into you and you will live, and you will know that I am Hashem” (ibid. v. 5-6). This revival progresses in stages: First the sinews appear and then the flesh and skin, and finally the spirit.
“And I prophesied as I had been commanded… And the bones drew near, bone to matching bones” (ibid. v. 7). The Nation scattered to the corners of the earth gathers and returns to its Land, which begins to blossom anew. From lone individuals we transform into a community, Klal Yisrael, which is the foundation of a national Jewish state.
But a problem remains: “I looked and sinews were upon them and flesh had come up and the skin had been drawn over them, but the spirit was not in them” (ibid. v. 8). There is truly a national revival, materially, agriculturally, industrially, militarily and socially, but it lacks the spiritual and religious life in a collective sense. “He said to me: Prophesy to the spirit, man, and say to the spirit…from the four directions come, spirit, and blow into these slain ones so they may live. And I prophesied as I had been commanded, and the spirit entered them and they lived and they stood on their feet, a great multitude” (ibid. v. 9-10).
This is the role of the prophet “to call to the spirit,” to re-instill spiritually into the Nation and to educate them, with the help of all his students dedicated to this mission.
The prophet tells us at the opening of the vision: “Man, these bones, they are the entire House of Israel, they say: Our bones have dried and our hope is lost. We are doomed” (ibid. v. 11). The Exile lasted so long that the Nation fell into despair: “Our hope is lost.”
This expression is the basis for the line in our national anthem “Ha-Tivka”:
We have not lost our hope.” No! Nothing is lost. There is still hope because the outcome is certain. “Therefore, prophesize and say to them: Thus says Hashem G-d: I open your graves and I raise you from your graves, my Nation, and I will bring you to the Land of Israel. Then you will know that I am Hashem, when I open your graves and when I raise you from your graves, my Nation. And I will put my spirit in you and you will live, and I will place you on your soil, and you will know that I, Hashem, have spoken and done, so says Hashem” (ibid. v. 12-14).
-All of these prophecies are materializing today before our eyes. We live them each day.
-We have witnessed an ingathering of Jews from all over the world to Zion.
-We have witnessed the rebirth of our Land and the miraculous creation of a powerful Israelite Nation, established with the grace of Hashem.
-Jerusalem has re-awaked to life with the return of its scattered children.
-Israel is once again a beacon of morality and justice to the world, and we are certain that the spirit which has begun to spread within us will proceed on its path to wholeness.
The prophet spoke the truth, and this truth continues to reveal itself in all of its fullness. May the ingathering extend untiringly with the return of all Jews to our Homeland, ushering in the completion of Israel’s Redemption and the Redemption of the world.
