9 Tevet · Yahrzeit

Prophet Nehemiah ben Hachaliah

Nehemiah ben Hachaliah was one of the ministers in the government of Achashverosh. Yahrzeit - 9 Tevet When King Achashverosh II of Persia allowed Ezra ben Serayah HaKohen to leave Babylon for Jerusalem, and to take with him all who wished to go, 1,500 Jews, including women and children, left together with Ezra the redeemer. After four months of an exhausting journey, they reached their destination – the holy city of Jerusalem.

Nehemiah knew that the leaders of the Samaritans, Ammonites, and other peoples would oppose him, so he was very cautious and told no one but his closest friends about his plans. One night, together with a group of trusted associates, Nehemiah went around the city to plan how best to build the defensive wall. Nehemiah's associates accepted his plan, understanding that only a mighty defensive wall could protect the city from raids by hostile neighbors. Nehemiah assigned each of his devoted supporters a strictly defined section of the wall to build. At first, the leaders of the hostile tribes mocked and ridiculed the Jews, not believing in the success of their undertaking, but then, seeing that the wall was steadily growing, they united and swore to destroy the builders. But Nehemiah and his supporters were not afraid. Nehemiah divided his associates into two groups: one engaged in construction, while the other, armed with swords, guarded them. If the builders saw enemies approaching the wall, they blew the shofar, and then the defenders would rush to their aid. Nehemiah and his friends knew neither sleep nor rest until the construction was completed — at night they guarded the city, and by day they built the walls and fortifications. To hinder the construction, apostates from the tribes of Yehudah and Binyamin resorted to a tried-and-true method — slander. They said: "Nehemiah is plotting a rebellion, he wants to overthrow the Persian king and make himself ruler of Judea." The slanderers found like-minded people even among the renegades within Jerusalem itself, but Nehemiah, being a courageous man, did not allow them to hinder the holy work and saw it through to completion. After 52 days, on the 25th of Elul, the construction of the walls of Jerusalem was completed under Nehemiah's leadership, as it is written in Scripture: "So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth of Elul." (Nehemiah 6:15) The city was transformed into a mighty fortress. Nehemiah entrusted the guarding of the city gates to men loyal to him. The danger from the enemies of Israel no longer threatened the Jews, and Nehemiah was now able to turn to the spiritual revival of his people, teaching them Torah. Nehemiah served as governor of Judea for 12 years. When he returned to the court of King Achashverosh, the way of life he had established in Jerusalem fell into decline again. With the king's permission, Nehemiah returned to Judea and discovered that not only the common people, but even the kohanim and levites, had once again strayed from the Torah. Thus, Elyashiv HaKohen dared to give the Ammonite Tuviyah a portion of the Holy Temple. Most of the Jews had stopped observing Shabbat, separating tithes, and continued to intermarry with the surrounding tribes. Their children did not know Hebrew and spoke the local dialects. The first thing Nehemiah did was to cleanse the Temple grounds, throwing out the Ammonite Tuviyah along with all his belongings. Then he expelled from Jerusalem the grandson of Elyashiv HaKohen, who was married to a non-Jewish woman, and ordered the Jews who had entered into mixed marriages to send away their foreign husbands and wives from Jerusalem. As for the sanctity of Shabbat, he took strict measures to ensure the observance of this most important commandment, not only in Jerusalem but throughout all of Judea. Ezra and Nehemiah ultimately succeeded in instilling in the people a reverence for the Torah and its commandments and in getting them to preserve the purity of the Jewish family and to observe the holy Shabbat. These foundations of Jewish life became law for all the Jews living in Judea. (https://chassidus.ru/library/history/auerbach/1/06.htm)

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Yahrzeits of Tzadikim in Tevet and Their Segulot 02.01.2017

Source: https://silatehilim.com/en/events/9-тевета-йорцайт-илула-пророк-нехемия-б/

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