Moshe as editor of the book of Bereishit

Might a humble Tannaitic teaching, almost concealed at the end of the seventh chapter of Tractate Chullin, provide a key insight into how sages of the Mishnah dealt with some of the challenges raised by biblical critics?

The discussion relates to the biblical prohibition against eating Gid Hanashe (sciatic nerve), which a verse in yesterday’s reading tells us is a response to the thigh injury inflicted upon Ya’akov at the conclusion of his angelic wrestling match:

“Therefore, the children of Israel may not eat the displaced tendon, which is on the socket of the hip, until this day, for he touched the socket of Jacob's hip, in the hip sinew.” (Bereshit 32:33)

But does this prohibition apply to all animals – since Ya’akov’s family had not yet been instructed to avoid non-kosher animals? No – reply the sages to Rabbi Yehudah: this law was only commanded later at Sinai. Once it had been taught, however, it was placed back into the book of Bereishit – an editorial gloss that would make readers immediately aware of the reason for this otherwise inexplicable law.

Numerous Midrashim indicate that the earlier sections of the Torah already existed in some form prior to the Sinai revelation. Rashi, in his commentary to Shemot 24:7, cites some of these teachings in order to identify the “Scroll of the Covenant” read out by Moshe at the start of the Sinai ceremony as the earlier portions of the Torah.

Aside from the law of the sciatic nerve, which other verses of the book of Bereishit may have been subsequently edited in by Moshe?

One popular candidate is the phrase “And the Canaanites were then in the Land” (Bereishit 12:6) – words which give the appearance of a subsequent editorial gloss to describe to later readers the nature of the inhabitants of Israel when Avram made his initial journey there. Rather than reflecting post-Mosaic interference with the text, however, as some critics have speculated, the insertion makes perfect sense as an editorial insertion by Moshe to the inchoate opening book of the Torah. With the desert-dwelling Israelites poised to launch a military campaign to invade the Land of Canaan, the episode of the Spies demonstrates that the nation’s faith in God’s promise was often frail. It may have been important, therefore, for the prophetically-inspired Moshe to highlight the fact that God’s initial promise to Avram that his descendants would inherit the Land was delivered (in the following verse) at a time when the Canaanites were already there.

This approach can also shed some light on the peculiar passages at the conclusion of yesterday’s Torah reading. With Ya’akov and Eisav seemingly reconciled, and the Torah’s attention about to switch to recounting the eventful escapades of Ya’akov’s children, we are treated to a lengthy farewell to Eisav and his offspring. Particularly perplexing is a list of subsequent Edomite monarchs “who reigned in the Land of Edom before the reign of any Israelite king”. This list clearly post-dates its placement in the midst of the Patriarchal passages. So who might have inserted this strange subsection?

If we see this in the context of the previous examples of Moshe clenching the editorial quill, it can be suggested that he is demonstrating to the Israelites that the promises and blessings to Eisav have already been fulfilled. Like Yishmael before him, who was the subject of divine promises to Avraham, Eisav departs the Patriarchal family with a description of his clans, kings and conquests. A description with which the Torah draws a line under their minimal merits and turns its attention to the building blocks of the Chosen Nation. These nations, implies Moshe, should no longer be of immediate concern to the Israelites as they prepare to enter the Land.

A further more profound possibility of Moshe’s agenda here may be to contrast Edom’s speedily-gained material and worldly success with that of Yaakov’s descendants who would have to go through 400 painful years of national development in the iron crucible of Egypt before emerging as a chosen nation to bear God’s word to the world.

Ultimately, however, the Israelites’ teachings and light would survive for thousands of years after Edom had ceased to exist. In this way, the respective national fates of Ya’akov and Eisav’s nations can be seen to mirror the foundations set by their founders. Eisav values the instant gratification of lentil soup over the protracted and difficult but ultimately more rewarding spiritual route of bechor and beracha – firstborn and spiritual blessings. While both Eisav and his descendants enjoy initial ascendancy over Ya’akov, however, with a series of Edomite kings reigning before Ya’akov’s nation is properly established, it would be the teachings and values of Ya’akov’s descendants which would prevail in the long run. At the onset of the Messianic era, we are told, Ya’akov’s victorious nation will “ascend Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau”.

It would seem, therefore, that a proper appreciation of the early editorial influence of “M” can shed a great deal of light on a number of passages from the book of Bereishit.

First posted on Facebook 3 December 2023, here.

A time to light? Are we authorised to amend Talmudic law?

Visitors to Jerusalem typically react with equal measures of frustration and endearment at its unique charms and idiosyncrasies. One local custom which pertains specifically to Chanukah relates to the time of lighting; while the majority of the Jewish world lights Chanuka candles at nightfall, many Jerusalemites follow the position of the Gra and therefore start lighting immediately at sunset – approximately half an hour earlier.

As I show in my new Talmud Reclaimed, what might at first glance be regarded as a minor dispute in fact embodies two different legal philosophies and methodologies which separated leading medieval Jewish Halachists.

This dispute regarding the latest time for performing the commandment of lighting the Chanukah lights provides a perfect example of the different approaches taken by the Maimonidean and Tosafist schools to extrapolating Jewish law from Talmudic sources. Chapter 6 of Talmud Reclaimed explores these differences in detail, with Rambam, Rif and the Geonim typically relying on a stricter and more literal reading of Talmudic sources in contrast to the relatively freer approach of the Tosafot who permit themselves to incorporate more of their own rationalisations into the halachic process. The case study below is based upon an accompanying Appendix which explores 30 relevant case studies.

The Talmud (Shabbat 21b) states that the time for lighting is from sunset until the time that people have left the marketplace. Rif and Rambam take the duration of this window of fulfilment of the commandment to be approximately half an hour. Once this time has elapsed, the Talmud tells us, there is no longer an obligation to light (and, as a corollary, any blessing over the lights after this time may be biblically prohibited as a berachah levatalah,a blessing in vain).

Rambam records this Talmudic conclusion into his laws of Chanukah (4:5):

Should one forget, or even if one purposely did not light at sunset, one may light afterwards until there are no longer any passers-by in the marketplace. How long a duration of time is this? Approximately half an hour or slightly more than that. Should this time pass, one should not kindle the lights.

Tosafot however, take a very different approach to this law, assessing how it should apply within the context of the realities of post-Talmudic Jewish life. Since the Jewish people went into exile following the destruction of the Second Temple, the commandment of Chanukah lights has largely been performed indoors for the benefit of the members of the household. Accordingly, Tosafot understand, there is no longer any reason to limit the time of lighting to when passers-by can see them.

Rambam’s strict methodology of recording simple Talmudic conclusions does not permit him to make this innovative alteration to the Talmudic rule, even if he thought it logical to do so. Like Rif before him, Rambam interprets the Talmud’s phrase “until there are no longer passers-by in the marketplace” to represent a specific measure of time after sunset rather than making the time span for fulfilling the commandment practically dependent on the actual presence of passers-by by to witness the lights. In this he is supported by the use of the identical phrase elsewhere in the Talmud (Menachot 36a), regarding the law of wearing tefillin after sunset – a commandment which is wholly unconnected to the publicising of a miracle to passers-by. The Talmud’s specification that the commandment must be fulfilled during the half-hour following sunset may instead be explained as requiring a time that is dark enough for the lights to be noticed, but not so dark that they can be mistaken for regular night-time lights (see Yerei’im and Maharam MiRottenberg).

Talmud Reclaimed argues that the vast contrast in the methodologies and legal philosophy of these schools of medieval scholars is the primary cause of varying halachic practices between Ashkenazim and Sephardim to this very day.

Ironically however when it comes to Chanuka lighting times in Jerusalem, it is the Ashkenaz communities who are most likely to adopt the stricter Talmudic reading of Rambam and Rif to light at the earlier time, while Sephardim follow the more flexible Tosafist approach. This is because Jerusalem custom is in line with the Gra (who was often more Maimonidean in his halachic methodology), while the majority of Sephardim follow the Shulchan Aruch’s ruling which embraces a later time for lighting.

For more information about Talmud Reclaimed: An Ancient Text in the Modern Era visit www.TalmudReclaimed.com.

First posted on Facebook 10 December 2023, here.

A Moreh for the masses? Identifying the intended readership of the Guide

I recently had the pleasure of reviewing A Guide to the Guide – an English synopsis of Rambam’s Guide for the Perplexed by Rabbis Chaim Kohn and Yosef Reinman – for Jewish Action magazine (link to full review at the end). The notion of making the Moreh more widely-accessible to English speakers fascinated me, not just because that was part of the motive of my writing Judaism Reclaimed. Rambam’s teachings in the Guide were not always warmly embraced by readers. To this day it is still quite common to hear his profound ideas being dismissed as “only intended for those confused” – an attempt to depict them as a compromise to the philosophically-enmeshed Andalusians and not truly representative of Rambam’s views.

It is instructive therefore to examine what Rambam himself writes about whom he imagines would read and benefit from his book, and to consider how a 21st century popular-Moreh might fit his agenda.

It is an enduring irony that perhaps the most complex book that has ever been written on Jewish thought was to be defined by the reaction of those who were not its intended readership. One thing that Rambam does appear to make abundantly clear in his introduction is that “its purpose is to give indications to a religious man for whom the validity of our Law has become established in his soul and has become actual in his belief—such a man being perfect in his religion and character, and having studied the science of the philosophers and come to know what they signify.”

Yet the Moreh, together with philosophical chapters of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah legal work, was banned and burned by rabbinic opponents in Christian-dominated France, for whom philosophy was a foreign pursuit. These rabbis were quick to denounce what they perceived to be an unwelcome Aristotelian or rationalist attempt to reconstruct Judaism in its own image. The strong criticism, bans and book burnings of the Moreh in its early years set the tone for an uneasy relationship with the work, which for many religious Jews has continued to this very day.

In the other corner of the ring, Jewish thinkers who had indeed studied the “science of the philosophers” but for whom the validity of our Law had not “become established in their soul” (a requirement Rambam set for readers in his introduction) found that the Moreh fell short of their own Aristotelian-rationalist attempts to interpret Judaism. Samuel ibn Tibbon, who first translated Rambam’s work into Hebrew, criticized what he considered to be its overemphasis on worldly religious activities at the expense of philosophical contemplation. Even rationalist rabbinic sages such as the Ralbag were critical that some of Rambam’s positions were “not implied by any philosophical principles . . . it seems rather that theological considerations have forced him.” These critics deemed Rambam insufficiently rationalist.

Meanwhile, Rambam’s indication that the Moreh contains some deliberate contradictions and concealments opened up the work to interpreters from less traditional quarters to speculate as to what Rambam’s true meaning and agenda had been.

Set against this daunting backdrop, A Guide to the Guide is a bold statement as to the significance—and continuing relevance—of the simple meaning of Rambam’s masterpiece. By providing a clear and concise English summary of each chapter, Rabbis Kohn and Reinman are inescapably taking a position on two questions that are controversial among interpreters of the Moreh.

(1) Value in the Moreh’s plain meaning

For the Moreh’s traditionalists, Rambam’s masterpiece cannot be neatly distilled into easily digestible bite-sized summaries. Such purists draw on Rambam’s own introductory guidance to the Guide, which insists that a careful methodology be employed to plumb the depths of his intricate theological theories:

If you wish to grasp the totality of what this Treatise contains, so that nothing of it will escape you, then you must connect its chapters one with another; and when reading a given chapter, your intention should be not only to understand the totality of the subject of that chapter, but also to grasp each word that occurs in it in the course of the speech, even if the word does not belong to the intent of the chapter.

In fact, Rabbis Kohn and Reinman freely acknowledge in their own introduction that Rambam did not intend the Moreh to be an easy read. Nevertheless, despite recognizing that many of the deeper secrets will remain beyond those who are insufficiently grounded in both Torah and philosophy, Rambam does not deem it to be entirely unhelpful to an uninitiated audience:

I know that, among men generally, every beginner will derive benefit from some of the chapters of this Treatise, though he lacks even an inkling of what is involved in speculation.

(2) The Moreh’s relevance to twenty-first-century Judaism

While Rambam’s own consideration of the benefits that various groups can derive from studying his work is, of course, important, it cannot be ignored that the fields of science and philosophy—which he sought to reconcile with the Torah—have advanced enormously over the past millennium. The long and winding passages that seek to rebut aspects of Aristotelian astronomy or subsets of medieval Islamo-rationalist philosophy will strike the typical modern reader as tedious and unrewarding. Once these chapters have been set aside, however, a modern, educated and religious reader of the Moreh may find some of the challenges that Rambam grappled with to be strikingly similar to some of those that confront twenty-first-century Jewry.

Today’s faithful, who must contend with widely accepted theories of evolution and the age of the universe, can find comfort in the style of techniques and arguments adopted by Rambam to rebut the science of his day or reconcile it with received Torah wisdom. More broadly, recent decades have seen a shift toward viewing mitzvot and other ritual customs as forms of segulot—mystical actions that can manipulate spiritual dynamics in order to achieve desired results. Rambam’s emphasis on the Torah and its commandments as a means to develop a serious intellectual (and thereby providential) relationship with God over the course of a lifetime may be seen by some as a welcome alternative. His approach to prayer as a primary tool for maximizing a meaningful relationship with God, rather than an aggressive storming of the heavens to make demands of the Almighty, may be similarly beneficial.

Such benefits can be enjoyed by modern readers even if they lack a precise sophisticated insight into some of Rambam’s more intricate ideas that are woven subtly into the Moreh. In this regard, A Guide to the Guide is of particular value to today’s perplexed readership who can identify and internalize core components of Rambam’s Judaism and thereby enrich their own relationship with the Torah. They need not, for example, grasp the elusive nuances of the Moreh’s negative theology—Rambam’s solution to the problem of describing God by instead describing what God is not—in order to sense the theological gulf between the human and Divine realms that forms the basis of Rambam’s monotheism and, in the reported words of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, “served as a brake against the deterioration of Kabbalah into idolatry.”

The full review can be read at https://jewishaction.com/books/reviews/a-guide-to-the-guide/

First posted on Facebook 17 December 2023, here.

Tefillin on Chol HaMoed: can the Zohar challenge Talmudic law?

One of the central themes in Talmud Reclaimed (available in the US in the coming days) is a thorough exploration of the status of Talmudic law in the modern era. What does it mean to say that “Ravina and Rav Ashi are sof-hora’ah” [the conclusion of authoritative legal rulings]?

An important case study in this analysis relates to a halachic question with which many Jews are grappling with this week: should Tefillin be worn in the intermediate Chol Hamoed days of a festival?

The Talmudic law on this matter is somewhat ambiguous: while tefillin should not be worn on Shabbat and Yom Tov, it is unclear whether this extends to the less restrictive intermediate days of the festivals. Medieval halachic authorities were divided on the matter; while it was unanimously agreed that tefillinshould be worn on these days, they disputed whether a blessing should be recited since this was a situation of doubt. Rabbi Yosef Karo, however, sought to resolve the matter by introducing a strongly worded kabbalistic prohibition against performing this commandment on Chol Hamoed, adding that:

"… since our Talmud is inconclusive on the matter, who can dare to actively oppose the words of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who prohibits it so powerfully?"

As a result of Rabbi Karo’s reliance upon Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s mystical writings, the custom in Israel—and increasingly also in the rest of the world—is not to wear tefillin at all on these days, even without reciting a blessing.

Not all, however, were satisfied with Rabbi Karo’s conclusion. Rabbi Shlomo Luria, a leading authority in the same era, fought fiercely for the primacy of the Talmud in the process of determining Jewish law. Responding to Rabbi Karo’s embrace of Zoharic sources within the context of legal discussion he stated forcefully that

"even if Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai stood before us in order to change our practice we would not listen to him since in most matters the halachah does not accord with him."

Even for those who fully embraced the authenticity of the Zohar and considered that it represented ancient Jewish traditions, its teachings were predominantly regarded as belonging to the category of non-legal aggadah which is traditionally kept apart from Jewish law. This meant that strong opposition to the use of Kabbalah for the purpose of establishing halachah emerged even among those who accepted its mystical insights.

Prominent authorities such as the Bach, Chatam Sofer and Nodah BiYehudah similarly sought to exclude the input of mystical sources in the halachic process in rulings relating to sending away the mother bird and chalitzah. Nevertheless, popular practice in subsequent generations gradually approved and broadened the Shulchan Aruch’s innovation and, despite the concerns of notable scholars, it has increasingly been regarded as a legitimate source of Jewish law.

Nevertheless, a degree of uncertainty remains as to the level of legal authority which Kabbalah is to be accorded and how, precisely, it should be integrated into the pre-existing corpus of Talmudic teachings and rulings. As Rabbi Karo appeared to recognise, and as the Mishnah Berurah has more recently affirmed, kabbalistic teachings cannot be considered binding where they deviate from Talmudic sources. How strictly this theory is to be applied, however, has been subject to significant disagreement. Rabbi Menachem Azaria (Rama) MiPano, for example, ruled that the Zohar is to be followed even if this requires a stretched reading of the relevant Talmudic source in order to avoid a contradiction. Some of the rulings of Rabbi Karo himself appeared to apply kabbalah in a way that was inconsistent with how the Talmud had previously been understood.

The Vilna Gaon, meanwhile, is recorded as having cryptically asserted that “in no place is the Zohar in conflict with the Talmud”, adding that it is legitimate to base a stringent ruling upon the Zohar even when the Talmud is lenient. The context of the Gaon’s statement concerns whether one must refrain only from passing in front of a person who is praying, as the Talmud requires, or even from passing by in any direction, as the Zohar encourages. While the Gaon is prepared to view this simply as an added stringency rather than as a contradiction, Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein (Aruch HaShulchan) expresses great difficulty in accepting this kabbalistic stringency since it prohibits a practice that the Talmud clearly and unanimously permits.

Notwithstanding Rabbi Epstein’s objection, it is evident that numerous kabbalistic stringencies and customs have become seamlessly integrated into the body of commonly-practiced Jewish law as a result of their inclusion by Rabbi Karo in the Shulchan Aruch. In many circles, laws originating from Kabbalah are now regarded as more authoritative than those of the Talmud, with Rabbi Yosef Chaim from Baghdad (Ben Ish Chai) granting unchallengeable authority to the legal positions of the Arizal on the basis that they were divinely inspired, having been communicated by Eliyahu HaNavi.

The Ben Ish Chai’s position that the Zohar’s supernatural origin rendered its content halachically unassailable is itself vulnerable to challenge. Even if it could be ascertained that the Zohar and writings of the Arizal did originate with Eliyahu, it is still far from clear that they could be relied upon as part of the halachic process. The Talmudic rabbis contemplated the authority that might be accorded to supernatural input of Eliyahu within their debates and rejected the notion that this could influence the outcome to change an accepted practice:

If Eliyahu should come and declare…“chalitzah can be performed with a sandal”, we would not listen to him. [Yevamot 102a]

As Rambam explains, the rabbis of the Talmud were applying a fundamental principle of Jewish law of “it is not in Heaven!” which establishes that any attempt by a prophet to rely upon supernatural sources to determine halachah is invalid. Moreover, any prophet who attempts to do so actually demonstrates that he is a charlatan. In a powerful rejection of the suggestion that mystical sources can claim superior halachic authority over the Talmud on the basis of their supernatural origin, Rav Ovadyah Yosef wrote:

We have concluded “it is not in Heaven!” so what basis is there to set aside the mainstream legal authorities and instead grasp the words of the Arizal as if they were given to Moshe at Sinai?

First posted on Facebook 2 October 2023, here.

"Sacrifice" and the tragedy of Torah translation

One of the reasons for our national fast on the tenth of Tevet, the rabbis teach us, is that the Torah was translated into Greek. Particularly for those of us who have grown up with our favoured English Torah translations, this may be a hard idea to connect to.

There is an old adage, however, that every translation contains elements of interpretation too. In the case of the Torah, we may have so comprehensively internalised the translated meaning that we no longer realise how distant it may be from God’s original intention.

Judaism Reclaimed examines the word “korban”, in this context. Rabbi S. R. Hirsch goes to great pains to point out how the Jewish conception of 'korban' is fundamentally different from pagan ritual. This difference, he explains, is represented by the term 'korban' itself, which is from the root 'lekarev' — to draw near. Common translations of ‘korban’ such as 'offering' or 'sacrifice', do not accurately convey the Hebrew term, and promote the popular misconception that korbanot are intended to appease or placate higher powers.

The (Latin) Vulgate employs the term oblatio an offering, while the (Greek) Septuagint uses doron (a gift or votive offering). Modern western languages follow from these inadequate attempts to translate the Torah, neither of which conveys the fundamental notion of ‘drawing close’. While the term ‘sacrifice’ implies destruction in order to placate, and 'offering' implies a prior need on behalf of the receiver, 'lekarev'focuses upon the need of the 'makriv'—the person bringing the korban — to draw close and dedicate all aspects of that person and his or her personality to God and His Torah.

Rav Hirsch develops this distinction between the Jewish korban and pagan sacrifice further, focusing on their respective procedures for slaughtering the animal. Slaughter, Rav Hirsch writes, is the focal point of idolatrous pagan rituals, with an emphasis on the killing and destruction of a living creature in order to satiate the bloodthirsty lusts of angry and vengeful gods. The Torah takes great care to distance itself from such heathen rites and ideologies by downgrading the significance of shechitah within the korban procedure: a Mishna (Zevachim 32) teaches that shechitah is the only part of the Mikdash service which is valid even when performed by non-kohanim, women, slaves and the ritually impure. Another Gemara (Zevachim 14b) goes so far as to state that shechitah is not really part of the korban process altogether.

An examination of Rav Hirsch's general approach to shechitah reveals a great symbolic depth to its preparatory role with regard to the bringing of korbanot. Rav Hirsch notes that, while humans and animals bear many superficial similarities, the process of shechitah highlights the crucial distinction between the essence and purpose of mankind and that of the animal kingdom. Unlike animals, humans possess both intellect and free will. The challenge facing them is how to control the instincts and urges which arise from their physical nature by means of the intellect and free will with which they are endowed. When consuming meat however, a person is incorporating animal flesh — symbolising unrestrained physical instincts and urges — into his own body. The Torah therefore requires that such eating be preceded and prepared for through the act of shechitah, which represents the mastery and control of the human mind over the realm of animalistic physicality.

This theory, explains Rav Hirsch, can account for many of the detailed laws governing the shechitah process. Shechitah is only valid when it is performed by the gentle movement of a sharp knife across the animal's throat, severing both the oesophagus and the wind-pipe and causing an instant loss of consciousness followed by death. Any involvement of pressure (derisah) or tearing (ikur), these being methods typically employed by animals to kill their prey, instantly invalidates the entire process and renders the animal a "neveilah", fit only for animal consumption ("lakelev tashlichun"). The careful precision required in cutting the animal's vital pipes involves a degree of subtlety and control that is unique to mankind. This teaches a powerful lesson: the animal material that will be absorbed within the human body must be subservient to the free will of the human intellect, no longer governed by the forces of purely physical compulsion.

When one approaches God's Mikdash in order "lekarev", to draw close to Him by bringing a korban, the fact that the process is initiated through shechitah symbolises that one is approaching as a 'human' — but one who seeks to establish and maintain control of his physical urges. This mirrors another fundamental theme in Rav Hirsch's works: that one must "be a mensch — a decent human being, before attempting to be a Jew"; first acquiring humane virtues and only then proceeding to pursue spiritual proximity to God. Avraham, with whom the founding covenant of Judaism was sealed, and Moshe, the great leader and lawgiver, both spent many decades caring for others and championing the cause of the oppressed before receiving their unique revelations and missions. This demonstrates that moral virtue is a fundamental value that must precede and subsequently underpin one's entire relationship with God. Without being an ethical person, as the prophets teach, any attempt at spiritual excellence is futile.

In a similar vein, just as one's social interaction with fellow humans must be perfected before seeking to scale the spiritual heights, so too should 'human' control over one's animalistic urges be seen as a crucial condition to be met before even seeking to draw close to God through a korban. The preparatory status of shechitah within the korban process therefore performs a dual function: it rejects the notion that korbanot are synonymous with pagan appeasement of bloodthirsty gods, while positively signifying that one must first assert control over his physical urges and instincts before approaching the spiritual domain of the Mikdash and its korbanot.

This is a crucial symbolic message and function of korbanot that those who are limited to a translation of the Torah are in danger of missing out on completely.

More about Judaism Reclaimed: Philosophy and Theology in the Torah can be found at www.JudaismReclaimed.com.

First posted on Facebook 26 March 2023, here.

Grappling with explanations for persecution and antisemitism

The chapter of Judaism Reclaimed with which I had the greatest personal struggle is the one for parshat Shemot, which relates yesterday’s Torah reading to the broader subject of anti-Semitism and Jewish suffering. Religion has spent thousands of years contemplating and theologising the existence of evil and how this reality can be reconciled with the notion of a good and loving Creator. Past posts have predominantly focused on this subject as it pertains to individuals. Here we take a look at it on a national level – the unique, unceasing and irrational hatred and persecution which has accompanied the Jewish people throughout their history.

While theodicy on an individual level typically proposes personal benefits which that one may be able to achieve through suffering, sources which relate to the nation explore this on a communal scale. Hatred for the Jews in some rabbinic sources is attributed to our having accepted the Torah at Sinai, thereby embracing the role as bearer of God’s moral and spiritual message to the world (Shabbat 89a). While history has on occasion demonstrated supported for this teaching, yesterday’s Torah reading shows that the senseless hatred may even have started before this time.

Yosef and his wider family had saved Egypt from famine and accumulated great economic and political strength for the country in the process. Yet in words which seem to foreshadow the attitude of so many of our host countries through the years they remain concerned about the Jews’ loyalty – maybe we are fifth columnists who will align with our enemies and drive us out of their land?

In his Beit Halevi essay on Shemot, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik is initially startled by a verse from Tehillim (105:25) which includes the Egyptian hatred and oppression among the acts of kindness that God performed for the Jewish people. He then notes midrashim that connect the start of the oppression to the Jews' attempts to conceal their circumcision and Jewish identity. His great-grandson and namesake Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik appears to endorse this idea, that a history of persecution and martyrdom has the effect of hardening attitudes towards any form of assimilation which could challenge the distinct identity and values of the Jewish people.

The key to understanding both the suffering in Egypt and continued anti-Semitism through the ages, according to this, is to view it not as a punishment, but rather as God's tool to ensure that His promise to Avraham at the Berit Bein Habetarim covenant would be preserved. It is only as a result of unabated anti-Semitism, particularly severe at times of heightened assimilation, that the Jews have survived as the Chosen Nation, retaining the ability to carry out their holy and extremely challenging mission. This idea is given full expression in Radak’s commentary to a passage in Yechezkel (20:32), in which the prophet addresses God’s refusal to countenance Jewish attempts to assimilate among the nations:

“But when they disobey My commands, I will strengthen the nations against them…Israel, whom I took out from the house of slavery to be my treasured nation etc, and I to them a God, My eyes will be constantly on them for good and bad, as it states in the prophecy of Amos (3:2) “Only you have I known from all of the families of the world, therefore I will be attentive to all of your sins”. And if you wish to depart from My worship, I will not grant permission for this. Even though you will be many years in exile, you will never cease to be a nation before me…and with force I will reign over you, and I will purify you …”.

Reports that I’ve seen from across the Jewish world have confirmed that the atrocities and persecution that our nation has been experiencing recently have indeed strengthened Jewish identities. Jewish students no longer feeling welcome on campuses outside Jewish societies, non-observant soldiers seeking out tsitsit and tefillin – in my own family a mostly assimilated cousin who had married out lit a Menorah for the first time and appears to be taking more pride in his Jewish identity.

Another factor which is raised in theological analysis of national Jewish providence is the dynamic of unity and internal strife. Rabbinic sources contrast the apparent unity of Achav’s evil generation with the in-fighting at the time of King David, suggesting that this can explain Achav’s greater success on the battlefield. In our generation, the awful events of October 7 can be seen to have brought back Israeli society from an abyss and verging on civil war (a societal split that some have claimed prompted Hamas to launch their attack when the did). The way in which soldiers and civilians from different groups and levels of religious belief have drawn together to meet this crisis has been an enormous source of inspiration.

Yet, all these explanations and justifications nevertheless seem to fall short. Our minds may be able to comprehend them on some kind of detached theological and philosophical level when we study them in books. But such attempts to justify and make sense of the appalling tragedies and evil inflicted upon innocents just seem wholly insufficient when I listen to survivor accounts or sit at Shiva houses looking into the eyes of parents who have lost their children in the worst possible circumstances.

Therefore, while being broadly aware of the existence of such ideas in our prophetic and rabbinic writings, we sometimes need to fall back on other sources within our prophetic and rabbinic traditions which cry out in anguish and protest over the inexplicable suffering which our brethren have been subjected to. Rabbi Sacks in some of his writings quoted several prophetic protests of this type, from Yirmiyah to Habbakuk, with the book of Job appearing to reject a whole series of theodicies confidently presented by Job’s friends as inadequate. Ultimately the message appeared to be that we lack the knowledge and understanding required to comprehend God’s ways; our role according to Rabbi Sacks is not to accept the evil, however, but to utilise the teachings of the Torah to combat and minimise its consequences.

“Why do You ignore us eternally, forsake us for so long? Bring us back to You, Hashem, and we shall return, renew our days as of old. For even if You had utterly rejected us, You have already raged sufficiently against us.” [Eicha 5:20-22]

First posted to Facebook 7 January 2024, here.