Part I - In The Heavens:
The heavenly hall, packed to the brim with souls and angels, was perfectly quiet. It was the morning and the Mighty Hosts, forever at attention, stood ready to sing the morning praise. They had waited for their entire existence for this moment – the chance to launch themselves into praise over the majesty of His Exalted Countenance.
But all was quiet.
The Hosts looked up expectantly at the Ophanim, terrifying and beautiful in their powerful, endless majesty, waiting.
The silence thickened, and the Ophanim looked to Archangel Michael, their leader, standing at the right of the Divine Presence itself, perfectly focused, waiting for Michael’s nod of permission to being thundering in praise for God’s Glory.
Archangel Michael remained silent.
Michael, for all his might and power, was a simple creation. He knew that had not been there in the Beginning and could not justify the rage filling his being.
He knew that before God created the heavens, all that existed was God, ever unchanging. But then, out of pure nothingness, God took White fire and Black fire and created the scaffolding of the universe. Out of the Black and White fire came pouring forth the letters bearing the elements of reality—free will, humanity, joy, life, the heavens, and the earth. But, by divine decree, balance must exist, and so the Black and White fire broke apart, splintering into two books, the Book of Life, pure and beautiful, and the Book of Death, dark and full of judgment.
Michael had not been there in the Beginning, but he had been there when God warned his Chosen People not to stray from the one true Path. Michael had watched with growing terror as God’s children strayed ever further. The heavens had raged. Prophets had been dispatched. Yet the people continued to stray. Dread filled the heavens.
Earlier that year, on the Day of Judgment, pure darkness descended from God’s Throne of Glory, filling the heavens. The pillars supporting the heavenly abode shook as God, ever unchanging, yet full of rage and determination, hurled the Book of Life into the abyss and opened the Book of Death. With shaking hands, the heavenly scribes hastily wrote God’s judgments, sealing the decrees in blood and plaster, utterly irrevocable.
As the days passed, the angels of destruction were released from their darkened cages, eager to wreak havoc and fulfill their function as the Divine Whip.
Archangel Michael knew that the entire hosts of heaven were looking at him, waiting for him to lead the thunderous shout of “Holy Holy Holy.” Michael had never faltered in his duty.
Archangel Michael remained silent. Rage filled his body. He looked down, his eyes piercing the heavens and locking on a small boy, Avkia.
Akiva was sitting, cradled in his mother’s arms, seemingly sleeping. Akiva’s father sat nearby, reciting the teachings of the Sages in a sweet singsong tune. A small empty bed stood in the corner of the bare house.
Archangel Michael looked up, staring directly at the blinding light emanating from the Throne of Glory. The light burned into his eyes, blinding him.
“Is this justice?!” Michael roared to the heavens.
The Ophanim stood in shock. A finite, contingent, and fleeting wisp of air had the audacity to stand in judgment over the Eternal Source of All Reality.
The heavens began shaking. The letters fusing reality together began disassembling. The Divine Eye focused on Archangel Michael in all its power.
“QUIET.”
Archangel Michael’s fury only intensified.
“Zu Torah, Vi’zu Sechorah.” He said.
“CONTINUE TALKING, AND I WILL RETURN REALITY TO NOTHINGNESS.”
God’s anger unleashed, causing Michael to flit in and out of existence. He felt his limbs come apart under the Divine wrath.
Unable to talk, Archangel Michael mustered all his strength, parting the heavens, pointing his finger to the small boy sleeping on his mother's lap.
The winds shifted and slowed. Perfect silence filled the heavens.
Disrobed, the Divine Presence shifted from rage to overwhelming sadness. Sadness so thick, the heavens began crushing under pressure. The divine voice came out, silent and broken.
“Quiet. For this is my decree.”
Part II - On the Earth:
Akiva knew he was dying. His mother stroked his hair, her fingers brittle from extended malnutrition, her nails broken from desperate scavenging in the dirt. Akiva heard his father's voice, confident and melodic, pulling him in and out of consciousness.
“Sha'nayim och'zin ba'talis, zeh omer ani ma'tza'ssiah….”
The rats were long gone, devoured whole by a starving populace. The worms and roaches followed shortly. The summer had presented a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the Zealots would surrender to the Romans. But the Zealots held out, burning the storehouses to ensure compliance by the population. The Romans had surrounded Jerusalem, intent on making an example of a vassal state impudent enough to scorn their masters.
The Romans legions had surrounded the city, crucifying all who tried to escape and leaving the rest of the inhabitants to starve. Summer turned to winter, and the Romans remained firm in their decision to starve the Jews into submission or death.
First Akiva felt the thirst, desperate, ravishing thirst. Akiva distracted himself by reciting Mishnayos in his head, too parched to articulate the words. Then the hunger came, overpowering the thirst—a dead weight in his stomach, a weight that made him eat moss and cat and lizards with abandon, too hungry to cook the food he caught. The hunger was ever-present, filling his mind like a rotting corpse in a sweaty room, its presence permeating all reality.
Akiva remembered his younger sister, Devorah. They had both cuddled for hours in their father's strong arms as the walls of their house shook from the Roman catapults. A lifetime ago, before the siege, when Akiva was a budding scholar and Devorah was a silly girl, Akiva had disliked his sister. She was annoying, with her constant clinginess and childish games. At 11 years old, he was almost an adult, and he had little time for her silly games.
Feeling his mother's hand stroke his hair as he drifted in and out of consciousness, Akiva’s eye wandered towards the empty bed in the room. Oh, how he longed for Devorah and her clinginess and childish games.
Devorah had left earlier in the week, joining mother and father to forage for food. She never returned. Father said that she had collapsed and died. Mother and Father said nothing more. They curled up together, their eyes blank and empty as they sat in silence.
Akiva’s father continued singing, his mesmerizing voice began filling Akiva’s consciousness. Akiva remembered the days when he was younger, sitting on a stoop in his father’s leather stand at the market. They used to sing together, chanting the words of the sages. They would play a memory game, each beginning the words of a legal ruling or ethical saying and waiting for the other to finish the teaching.
Akiva felt his father’s love and pride in the melody. His father had called him a genius, a future sage who would light up the nation with his sharp mind. Akiva felt his eyes became droopy. His mother's fingers were soothing as they brushed through his hair.
They are trying to make me fall asleep, Akiva realized. From the moment Devorah did not return home, Akiva knew deep down that hunger broke his family. Huger ruled everybody like a cruel tyrant, wiping away all mercy and familial attachment. His parents had left that morning with Devorah. If they did not find anything to eat, they would all die. Yet somehow they were still alive. But Devorah had been the sacrifice. Perhaps my parents traded her with a stranger for a meal. Maybe they killed her and ate her themselves, gorging themselves on the small amount of flesh on her bones before returning home.
Now they were alone, mother, father, and Akiva.
Akiva felt his eyes closing.
“Abba, let us play our game,” Avika said.
“Sure, son.”
“Amar Rebbi Meir, Kol ha’hhoreg Nefesh ach’as bi’Yisroel…”
Akiva’s father did not respond. Akiva opened them long enough to see the flash of recognition dart across his father's brow. He knows I know. Akiva’s mother's hand stopped furrowing through her son's hair; her hand remained on his head, heavy. She was holding him down.
Akiva’s father sat down next to his son.
“Come my child, close your eyes; it is time to say the morning Shema.”
Akiva closed his eyes and began reciting Shema. His mother's hand was pressing down on his head, hurting him. Locking his skull in place.
“Shema Yisroel”
Terror began filling his body. Opening his eyes, Akiva saw his father surreptitiously reach for his work mallet. Akiva knew that mallet intimately. From its tired, dull, and hard striking surface to its worn and weathered handle. He remembered the pride that would fill him as a toddler when his father allowed him to carry the mallet as he accompanied him to the marketplace. Akiva would watch in awe as his father would gently wield the mallet, softening and shaping leather into all sorts of extraordinary creations.
“Hashem Elokayno.”
Akiva thought about fighting his parents. His teeth were sharp, and his father had a bad leg. They were all starving, on the verge of collapse. It would not take that much effort to break free and run away. Perhaps sensing his potential resistance, Akiva felt his mother's grip tighten on his head, bearing down on his skull with all her force.
But Akiva wanted to live. Akiva felt some visceral part of him compel him to move, to act. Pushing against his mother, Akiva lunged forward out of his mother’s grip.
But it was too late. His parents had eaten that week, and Akiva was no match for his mother’s grip.
Akiva heard the mallet hit his head. He felt his spine collapse and watched passively as his face slid to the ground. He wanted to tell his parents that he loved them, that he understood, that he forgave them—But all he could think about was Devorah. How he would love to cuddle with her in their father’s strong arms one more time.
Darkness began filling Akiva’s vision. He tried to move his lips, but his jaw would not cooperate. A copper taste filled his mouth. Silently, Akiva mouthed his final words.
“Hashem Echad.”
Postscript - Some Thoughts:
[If you are frum, the following may be triggering. I apologize.]
In his warning screeds to the chosen people, God often terrorizes us with the threat the disobedience will be punished by forcing families to eat each other.
Lev 26:29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.
Deut 28:53 you shall eat your own issue, the flesh of your sons and daughters that YHWH your God has assigned to you, because of the desperate straits to which your enemy shall reduce you.
Every year the Jewish people read Eicha, and we are reminded that God does not make empty threats.
“Alas, women eat their own fruit, Their newborn babes!”
“With their own hands, tenderhearted women Have cooked their children; Such became their fare, In the disaster of my poor people.”
The point I wish to make is simple: Imagine a spectrum of goodness and compassion. On one end is the kindest, most compassionate human you can envision. On the other end of the spectrum is Dr. Mengele experimenting on children in the holocaust. At that end is Hitler, Stalin, serial killers, etc.
Now imagine a person who threatens his loved ones that he will force them to kill and eat their children if they do not obey him. Image further that this person carries out his threat, forcing his loved one to smother and BBQ their children. I imagine most rational people would categorize such a person as insanely evil, right up there with Dr. Mengele.
I submit to you this truism; it is obvious that any entity that threatens parents with the specter of being forced to EAT THEIR CHILDREN is evil. There is no definition of evil that would preclude such an entity from being labeled as such. An entity that threatens such horror is not benevolent or kind or worthy of admiration or worship – they are evil, plain and simple. I further submit to you that this truth is so apparent that if it weren’t for the indoctrination and desensitization that we all underwent in our youth, we would instantly grasp how odious a character the biblical writers have conjured up.
Instead, we hem and haw, we talk about “theodicy,” “the problem of evil,” and “free will,” using fancy words to hide the fact that we are talking about children forced to watch their parents eat their siblings and parents being forced to smash their children’s brains so they may witness another sunrise.
If God could be personified, and you would be standing next to him as he orchestrated the circumstances where a mother and father need to kill their child for food, you would feel nothing but pure hatred and scorn for God.
Imagine you could travel the multiverse and visit a universe run by an actual compassionate deity. In this universe, there would be no death by starvation. Animals would not need to kill each other for food. Earthquakes won't routinely destroy entire cities. Image visiting such a place and trying to explain why your God is also perfectly benevolent. Image the looks of horror on the peoples’ faces as you describe God forcing his creations to eat their offspring, but, as you rush to explain, God is still great and perfectly compassionate and merciful. We just don’t understand him, you see.
My friends, we have been duped. Consider what is more likely, that a benevolent and omnipotent God, who can achieve his ends in any manner possible, chose to create a world where he threatens parents to eat their young. Or, just perhaps, the violence and brutality of the past seeped its way into the imaginations of those who wrote our sacred books. They looked at the suffering and pain all around them and penned God’s violent warnings to make sense of the world around them.