The latest round of warfare in Israel, coupled with obsessive worldwide media coverage, has aggravated rising anti-Semitic trends in many countries. Shocking attacks and threats against Jews have shaken many in America and the UK. As community leaders weigh up the most appropriate ways to safeguard their members, many religious Jews may find themselves searching for a theological perspective on the world’s oldest hatred.
Judaism Reclaimed examines anti-Semitism in the context of the covenant between God and Avraham at the brit bein habetarim. In the conversation that takes place at the time of the covenant, Avraham asks God "Bemah eida?": how can I know that my descendants will be worthy of inheriting the Land of Israel? That they will fulfil the daunting task of standing apart from the other nations of the world as a leading light? God responds that Avraham's descendants will be enslaved in a strange land. The clear implication is that this suffering would hold the key to their ability to succeed as the Chosen Nation.
This may be the meaning of the "kur habarzel" — the iron crucible which the Torah later uses to describe the formative aspect of the Israel’s suffering in Egypt. It also accounts for the midrashic emphasis on the manner in which the Jews guarded their names, language, food and clothing. These being classic indicators of the shared expression of cultural identity that the years of slavery had been intended to cultivate, we can understand why the Midrash considers that it was in the merit of these attributes that the redemption from Egypt was earned.
In his Beit Halevi book of essays on the Torah, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik draws upon some of these ideas as part of his analysis of anti-Semitism, a seemingly illogical phenomenon which has accompanied Jews around the world throughout the centuries. Initially, he is startled by a verse from the Book of Psalms (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 R’ Joseph B. Soloveitchik appears to endorse this idea, describing how a history of persecution and martyrdom has hardened attitudes towards any form of assimilation and reinforced 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 may be to view them not as a punishment, but rather as God's tool to ensure that His promise to Avraham at the Covenant would be observed. According to this argument, 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 Ezekiel (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 …”
First posted to Facebook 2 June 2021, here.
