A Virtual Tour

I would like to take you on a virtual tour of Israel in the footsteps of Parashat Noaḥ.

Our first stop is Massada. The ancient historian Josephus described the suicide of the defenders of Massada, which brings us to our parasha. Our Sages understood the verse :

And surely your blood of your lives will I require …                                                                Genesis 9:5

to be the source which prohibits suicide. Thus, our question is: was the suicide at Massada halachically permissible?

 Our search for the answer to this question takes us north to Yodfat in the Galilee. The Book of Yosifon, a medieval reworking of the writings of Josephus, relates that as the fortress of Yodfat fell to the Romans, a group of soldiers and their officer managed to escape and hide in a nearby cave. A discussion ensued, in which the soldiers suggested that they commit suicide, rather than falling into the hands of the Romans. The officer countered that suicide is forbidden, to which the soldiers responded that there is the precedent of King Saul. The officer responded by stating that King Saul was wrong to have killed himself.

As a parenthetic comment, Yosifon reports the name of the officer:  Josephus. According to this, the person who is the prime source for describing the events of Massada and who lauds the suicide of its defenders, was in the same position as they, and yet chose not to commit suicide.

In any event, the soldiers were correct concerning King Saul, as Midrash Breishit Rabba teaches that Saul's suicide was permissible:

“And surely [ach] your blood” includes one who strangles himself [i.e. no blood is actually shed]. I may infer that King Saul’s suicide is included [in the prohibition], therefore the verse says “ach”.

Our next stop, therefore will be Mount Gilboa, where King Saul killed himself, as we read in the final chapter of First Samuel:

Saul said to his armor bearer: draw your sword and stab me, lest these uncircumcised stab me mock of me, but his armor-bearer would not; for he was afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword, and fell upon it.                     I Samuel 31:4

 Therefore, the answer to our question is to be found approximately 120 kilometers north of Massada. We can now rephrase the question: what factor allowed King Saul to take his own life, and does that factor apply to the defenders of Massada?

Among the various explanations of the permissibility of King Saul’s suicide, Yam Shel Shlomo suggests that had Saul been taken alive by the Philistines, his soldiers undoubtedly would have attempted to rescue him. Even if a commando raid were successful in freeing King Saul, it would certainly come at the cost of a number of lives. Yam Shel Shlomo posits that suicide is permissible if it saves other lives. While Yam Shel Shlomo does state how many lives must be saved, it seems logical that it is sufficient for two lives to saved, since this will yield a net saving of one life. In any event, according to Yam Shel Shlomo’s analysis of King Saul’s suicide, that of the defenders of Massada would not have been halachically sanctioned.

We continue our tour to the Plains of Jericho. As the Babylonian army breached the walls of Jerusalem, Zedekiah, the last king of the Davidic dynasty, until the arrival of Mashiach, escaped from Jerusalem, but was caught in the Plains of Jericho, where the Babylonians executed his sons in front of him and then blinded Zedekiah. [II Kings 25:7]

Midrash Eicha Rabba presents the comment of Rabbi Yehuda, which at first glance is quite difficult to comprehend:

Why did Zedekiah not have the wisdom to hit his head against a wall until he died, rather than causing his sons to be killed before his eyes?

Most surprisingly, Rabbi Yehuda takes Zedekiah to task for not having committed suicide! Rabbi Yehuda’s comment becomes understandable in light of the approach of Yam Shel Shlomo. The Babylonians did not want to kill Zedekiah’s sons per se, rather to torture Zedekiah by having the last thing he could see be their execution. Thus, had Zedekiah killed himself, he would have saved the lives of his sons, and such a suicide would be permissible.

Our final, and most important, stop is Yavne. With the imminent capture of Jerusalem by the Romans, Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Zakkai succeeded in moving his yeshiva from the doomed capital to Yavne [Babylonian Talmud Gittin 56 a-b]. The historian Ben Zion Keidar has commented that the mainstream of Jewish history bypasses Massada and flows rather through Yavne. If the Jewish People reacted to adversity with the approach of Massada, we would have disappeared from the face of history many generations ago. What has preserved our people and allowed us to thrive is the approach of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, the realization that the Jews’ survival is dependent upon their continued study of Torah and fulfillment of mitzvot.

This is the eternal message of our “trip”.