The Hebrew Month of Tammuz

by Stan Schroeder

As Jews, we are the beneficiary of two calendars. We are familiar with the secular (Gregorian, named after Pope Gregory) calendar that we use in everyday life in the US. We are less familiar with the Hebrew calendar, although we use it for Jewish holidays and yahrzeits. Like the secular year, the Hebrew year consists of 12 months. Hebrew months are lunar months, beginning with the new moon. The year is adjusted to a solar year by adding an extra month (Adar II) seven times in a 19 year cycle. The Hebrew month of Tammuz starts Sunday, July 7.

It has another significance that has to do with the yahrzeit of Naomi Shemer, the Israeli songwriter who is most famous for writing Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold) in 1967. She wrote another song in 1979, Emtza Tammuz (Middle of Tammuz). In it she writes how sad it is to die in the middle of Tammuz, perhaps thinking of her own possible death. (See the lyrics in the right hand column.) She eventually died of cancer in Tammuz in 2004.

Naomi Shemer (married name) nee Naomi Sapir was born in Kvutzat Kinneret July 13, 1930. Her parents, Rivka and Meir Sapir, were founders of the Kibbutz. Since she was a child she participated in singing and poetry reading evenings. At the age of six, with her mother's encouragement, Naomi began piano lessons.

Established in 1913, it was known as a kibbutz whose members couldn’t agree on anything. They did agree to send Naomi to learn at musical academies in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv when she became older. A few years later she returned to the Kibbutz where she taught little children music.

In 1953, she joined the IDF and served in the Nachal Brigade. It contains the prestigious IDF entertainment troupe. After she was discharged, she teamed up with composer Yochanan Zarai to help write the musical Chamesh-Chamesh (Five Five). In 1954 she married actor Gideon Shemer and in 1956 gave birth to their daughter, Halleli.

She was invited to write for the first show of the band Batzal Yarok (Hebrew for Green Onion). This enabled her to start putting her words to her own music. Her first song that she both wrote and composed was The Long Path in 1957 and was a major success.

In 1960, Shemer wrote many songs for Nachal's entertainment troupe that were all immediate successes. All through the early sixties, Shemer wrote many songs for different groups and musicals, each one broadening her fan base. Around that time Naomi separated from her husband and went with her daughter to Paris. She came back to Israel before 1967 and was married to lawyer Mordechai Horowitz. In 1969 she gave birth to their son, Ariel Horowitz, who is now an Israeli singer-songwriter.

One of the pinnacles of Shemer's career was in 1967 when she wrote the song Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold). The idea for the song came from Mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek, who wanted a special song written about the city hosting the Israel Song Festival that year. The song was an instant success at the festival. Three weeks later the Six Day War broke out, and East Jerusalem and the Old City were recaptured. Shemer then added a new verse to the song describing the situation after the war. In the months after the war the song became a sort of second national anthem.

Naomi Shemer won a battle over cancer in the late seventies. At this time she wrote the song Emtza Tammuz (Middle of Tammuz) in which she foresaw her death during the Hebrew month of Tammuz. Around 20 years later, the cancer returned, and eventually led to her death June 26, 2004 during the month of Tammuz. She was buried on the Kibbutz where she was born and raised. In accordance with her wishes there was no eulogy at her funeral. Instead several of her songs were sung.

Statements by prominent Israelis after her death summarized her contributions to Israel and those of us who love the land and its inhabitants.

"Naomi Shemer's Hebrew songs left bookmarks on the country's history," said President Moshe Katsav. "Her songs expressed an intense love for the country and for the people of Israel. The words of her songs are her legacy, and they will accompany us forever."

Education Minister Limor Livnat instructed schools around the country to devote part of their studies that day to Shemer's lifetime work. "We have had a great privilege that a giant like Naomi Shemer has lived and created in our generation," Livnat said. "Naomi has left us an immortal legacy of Hebrew works on which many generations of Israelis will be raised," she said. "The kingdom of Hebrew song has today lost its queen."

Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Naomi Shemer was a rare example of Israeli consensus. "Few people have been able to unite the nation with their personality, with their actions and creations, and with sadness at their deaths," Peres said. "She left us with song, taught us to mourn, and to rejoice as a nation, and as individuals."

"Naomi Shemer's death is a great loss," said actor Shaike Levy, who as part of the entertainment troupe performed many of Shemer's songs. "There are composers whose creations flow like a river. There are others whose works are like a fountain. But with Naomi Shemer it was like rain, because we all got wet," he said.

Her closeness to the natural cycles of the Land of Israel, coupled with her deep knowledge of the Bible, its text steeped in natural imagery, made her work so Israeli. Her songs are uniquely part of this marvelous country that is so closely tied both to ancient Israel and to the modern state.

Board Meeting Dvar Torah (October 2, 2019)
By Owen Delman

“Blind obedience without the restraint of reason or morality is dangerous.”

“Abraham should not be honored for willing to kill his child because of a command from God.”

“The key word is blind — this is the stuff of fanatics and terrorists.”

These are some of the concepts regarding the Akedah discussion today. There are rabbis who refuse to include the Akedah in their Rosh Hashanah services because the concept is unacceptable. They reject any of the interpretations which attempt to justify the basic premise of God commanding a sacrifice. Given the holocaust with the murderers using as a defense that they were “just following orders” (an example of ‘blind obedience’) they condemn the whole concept.

Bringing it into our present day, they say if there had been a trial of Abraham he would have used the defense of “God ordered me to do it” and that this is quite similar to the defense stated by the assassins of Yitzhak Rabin who claimed that to give any part of Israel back would be a denial of God’s plan for Israel.

So how should do we deal it?

In Stan’s Torah study group we often hear the refrain “but that can’t be true” or “but that doesn’t fit with something in another part of the bible.” The questioner gets reminded that these are stories, parables used for teaching concepts.

After services yesterday, (where I had posited a number of theories of what the Akedah meant) a friend came up to me and asked me which one was the correct interpretation.

I asked him with which one he felt most comfortable because there is no one answer.

The Bible is not history, not an accurate accounting of past events

Let me stop for a moment: I’ve studied history and literature. Let me explain the differences.  History is a written account of past events based on the author’s examination of events and documents to back up his conclusions. Literature is a creation of an author perhaps based on fact or wholly conceived by the author. The Akedah is a story in the Torah meant as a lesson; a piece of literature. In the study of literature it is accepted that it is less important what the author meant as opposed to what the reader sees in the work — how it affects him. There is no correct answer, only how the viewer is affected by the piece.

Once a piece of art (literature, painting, sculpture, etc.) is given to the world, it matters little what the artist meant. What is important is how it is perceived and how it affects the contemporary viewer.

When you understand the Akedah for what it is to our day, to us, it becomes much more understandable. Those rabbis who won’t even allow the Akedah to be part of their Rosh Hashanah story may be missing a wonderful teaching lesson for the sake of political correctness.