The Yalkut Shimoni, a vast collection of rabbinic commentary on the Hebrew Bible, compiled sometime in the 13th century, hints at just such a thing. Specifically, the commentary on the Torah, section 788, drops a tantalizing clue: the tribe of Benjamin, it says, used to speak in a coded language. Imagine that! A whole tribe communicating in secrets! Sadly, the Yalkut Shimoni only offers us a "hint" to the year 775, leaving the rest of the enigma for us to ponder. What could they have been saying? Why the secrecy? It’s enough to make you want to learn ancient Benjamite slang!
But the Yalkut Shimoni doesn't stop there. It goes on to discuss two particularly joyous days in the Jewish calendar: Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and the fifteenth of Av. We all know Yom Kippur – a day of solemn reflection, repentance, and, ultimately, forgiveness. A day when, tradition tells us, the second set of tablets containing the Ten Commandments were given to Moses, sealing the covenant between God and the Israelites.
But what about the fifteenth of Av? What makes it so special that the Yalkut Shimoni equates its importance with Yom Kippur?
The text tells us that "there were no festive days for the Israelites like the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur." for a second. That's high praise! Yom Kippur makes sense – it's a day of profound spiritual significance. But the fifteenth of Av?
According to Rav Yehuda, the fifteenth of Av marks the day when the tribes of Israel were finally allowed to intermarry. For generations, restrictions had been in place, designed to keep land within specific tribal boundaries. The scriptural source for this? "This is the thing that the Lord has commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad" (Numbers 36:6). This ruling, however, was limited to that specific generation. It was a day of unity, of breaking down barriers, of bringing families and communities together.
But Rav Nachman offers a different perspective. He suggests that the fifteenth of Av commemorates the day when the deaths of the generation who had wandered in the desert finally ceased. Remember that? Forty years of wandering, a whole generation paying the price for the sin of the spies (Numbers 13-14). Rav Nachman highlights that during this time of collective punishment, communication with Moses was limited. As the Torah says, "And it came to pass when all the men of war had completely ceased to die" (Deuteronomy 2:16). Only then, after this period of divine anger, did God speak to Moses again, saying, "You have gone through enough of this" (Deuteronomy 2:3).
So, the fifteenth of Av, according to Rav Nachman, isn't just about the end of physical death, but also the renewal of communication, the restoration of connection between God and humanity.
Both explanations, in their own way, point to a day of healing, reconciliation, and new beginnings. Whether it's the breaking down of tribal barriers or the end of a generation's suffering, the fifteenth of Av represents a shift from separation to unity, from punishment to forgiveness, from silence to communication.
Maybe, just maybe, understanding the significance of these days, these moments in our history, can help us decipher some of those other hidden codes, the whispers just out of reach, and bring us a little closer to understanding the deeper mysteries of our tradition.