Dry Bones

Picture it. You’re in a scorched desert valley. It’s hot, it’s dusty, it’s dry. The sun is beating down and your thirst is building. You are feeling faint, dizzy from the heat – you’re about to pass out when suddenly the sandy dust clears and you see that you are in a valley filled with thousands of bleached white bones, dry, powdery bones and human skulls.

Think it’s a mirage? A nightmare? A hallucination?
Well it could be any of those things – but for Ezekiel, it is a vision of prophetic proportions.

I’m going to talk about our Haftorah portion today – because it is such a fascinating one – and one that has inspired so much commentary.

Ezekiel lived 2600 years ago in what today is called Iraq and which was at that time called Babylon.
Babylon was the most modern and sophisticated city in Ezekiel’s world. The capital city of an international empire. An empire that crushed other nations. An empire that had swallowed up countries on every side. Including Ezekiel’s. It began with the invasion.

The Babylonians invaded Israel in 598 BCE. They destroyed the Holy Temple. And they killed every Israelite they could lay their hands on. Except for the ones they took back to Babylon to be slaves, including Ezekiel who was a priest in the Temple.

From Babylon, Ezekiel prophesied that the Jews would eventually return to their homeland.

Known for his passion, his flair for the dramatic and his extraordinary imaginative visions, Ezekiel’s story of the Valley of the Dry Bones was selected as Shabbat Chol Ha Moed Pesach's haftorah due to its parallel to Passover - our redemption from Egypt and the promise of being brought to the Promised Land.

The Talmud Bavli says that Ezekiel’s was a dream about a parable. The later Midrashim say it was a miracle that actually did occur. Since miracles are what our traditional teachings say Pesach is about, this is an additional theme as well in this Haftarah.

The Haftorah today begins with Ezekiel’s most famous vision - a vision in which he finds himself in a valley that is full of dry bones. God speaks to him and instructs him to prophesy to the bones to hear God's word so that God may breathe life into them and they may live again.

As we read just now,
"God...set me down in the valley, which was full of bones...they were very abundant... they were very dry...Oh dry bones, hear the word of the Lord: I will bring spirit into you and you shall live. I shall put sinews...and flesh...and skin over you. I open your graves and raise you from your graves...and I shall bring you to the Land of Israel."

Ezekiel's prophecy introduced the concept of resurrection which eventually became a cornerstone of Jewish belief. The Mishnah established resurrection as a religious principle as did Maimonides who included it among his Thirteen Articles of Faith. Even today, traditional prayer books include a prayer that speaks of God as one who "revives the dead" (mechayyeh ha-matim).

In rabbinic literature, the resurrection of the dry bones was played down by a number of rabbis. Rabbi Eliezer somewhat reduced the significance of Ezekiel's resurrection of the dry bones, pointing out that "the dead whom Ezekiel revived stood up, recited a song [of praise] and [immediately] died"(Sanh.92b).

Rabbi Judah apparently regarded the story as an allegorical vision; but other rabbis fully accepted the resurrection miracle.

Rabbi Gunther Plaut suggests that the vision should be seen as a metaphor - a preaching device used by all the prophets and especially by Ezekiel.

Other commentators agree that the vision was an allegory meant to impact upon Ezekiel and the people to whom he told the vision. The dry bones represent the despondent people, the graves represent the countries in which they are exiled. God promised "to open their graves" in response to the people's despair. They weren't actually dead. They were so traumatized by their losses that they were dead-like. By infusing them with God's spirit, they would have a resurrection-like experience.

Rabbi Sheldon Blank refers to Ezekiel's message as a metaphor of national resurrection. Not only would the people be reborn as a nation, but they would also have a spiritual reawakening. By sharing his vision with the despairing people living in exile in Babylon, Ezekiel was able to rekindle their belief in God and to give them hope that they would eventually return to the land of Israel to live again.

Many Jews believe that the creation of the State of Israel, which came about only three years after the end of the Shoah, represents the seeming fulfillment of Ezekiel's rather bizarre 2,600-year-old vision.

Do you ever wonder where the stories of the Prophets came from? Knowing their origins can help us understand their subtleties and their connection to our parshiot. The Book of Ezekiel was written for the captives of the tribe of Judah living in exile in Babylon following the Siege of Jerusalem of 597 BC. Up until that exile, their custom had been to worship God in the Temple in Jerusalem. Exile raised important theological questions. How, the Judeans asked, could they worship their God when they were now in a distant land? Was their God still available to them?

Ezekiel speaks to this problem. He first explains that the Judean exile is a punishment for disobedience and he then offers hope to the exiles, suggesting that the exile will be reversed once they return to God.

Unlike their ancestors, who were enslaved and socially marginalized while in exile in Egypt, the Jews of Ezekiel's time were able to become part of the society they found themselves in. They kept their belief in God intact, but they assimilated into Babylonian culture, often being called upon by the Babylonians to complete projects using their skills as artisans. Unlike other enemies, the Babylonians allowed the Jewish people to settle in small groups. While keeping their religious and national identities, many Jews settled comfortably into their new environment.

This growing comfort in Babylon helps to explain why so many Jews decided not to return to their land. Many people would have been born in exile and would know nothing of their old land, so when the opportunity came for them to reclaim the land that was taken from them, many decided not to leave the Babylonian land they knew. This large group of people who decided to stay are known to be the oldest of the Jewish diaspora communities along with the Jews of Persia.

So there you have it -  a little about the history of Ezekiel – and about The Valley of the Dry Bones. I wish you all a continued warm and kosher Pesach and Shabbat Shalom!