Holy nation and biblical interpretation

The episode of Korach’s insurrection against Moshe and his authority provides a platform for Rabbi S. R. Hirsch to analyse the concept of the Israelites as a “holy nation” – a point emphasised by Korach:

"the entire congregation are all holy and have God in their midst, and why have you elevated yourself over the community of God?"

Rav Hirsch suggests that it was an unwillingness to submit to the authority of Moshe and his hierarchical structure that lay at the heart of Korach’s rebellion. Korach’s error was to confuse destiny with reality. The Jewish people had certainly been spoken of as “anshei kodesh” – a holy nation, but this meant only that they had been set aside for a holy purpose, to aspire and raise themselves towards holiness by dedicating themselves to God and His Torah. In this light it is important that the Torah writes “anshei kodesh tiheyun li” and kedoshim tiheyu – you shall be holy rather than are (kedoshim atem). Judaism represents a mission and instruction to use the tools which we have been granted to become holy rather than being a statement of fact that we are automatically and inherently superior.

As well as the implications of this teaching for the question of how the Torah views the differential between Jews and non-Jews (a topic I plan to return to next week), the claim that the entire nation is equally qualified as holy represented a serious threat. Midrashim hint to this by depicting Korach as challenging Moshe on details of commandments such as tsitsit and mezuzah:

Korach sprang forth and said to Moshe: ‘if a garment is entirely colored with sky-blue tekhelet dye, is it or is it not exempt from the obligation of tzitzit?’ Said Moshe: ‘it is nevertheless obligated in tzitzit!’ Korach then retorted: ‘if a garment that is colored entirely with sky-blue tekhelet dye cannot exempt itself, shall four small threads then exempt it?!’

As I point out in Judaism Reclaimed, the sort of details chosen by the Midrash are those which do not appear in the simple peshat reading of the passage. Moshe has already been promised at Sinai that “they will believe you forever” so it is unlikely that Korach is challenging the authenticity of the basic laws taught by Moshe.

Rather they belong to the second, interpretative layer based on logic of the interpreter and hermeneutic tools. The sort of details that, as Rambam teaches in his introduction to the Mishneh, were delegated to the sages of each generation to legislate through the Sanhedrin. What Korach is challenging according to this approach is the fundamental question of authority over the oral tradition and legal interpretation of the Torah – a claim which was repeated in different form by the Sadducees centuries later. Asked what would become of the Torah if the Sanhedrin and its sages are destroyed, the Sadducee responds: “‘it is rolled up and lying in the corner: whoever wishes to study. Let him go and study!’” [Kiddushin 66a]

What the author of the midrash may be conveying is that, if Korach were to have his way and the entire congregation viewed as equally holy, this would mean that they are all uniformly entitled to interpret the written Torah to produce laws as they see fit. In this view, Korach’s assertions drew an emphatic response from God: a miraculous phenomenon to demonstrate unambiguously that his claims were unfounded and that, in the words of Moshe “the one chosen by God - "he is the holy one".

First posted on Facebook 26 June 2022, here.

Chosen models and model societies

The notion of chosenness – that God selected one preferred nation from the entire humanity – is a central theme that runs through the Torah. Taking a step back this is not a simple concept to understand: why would God have sought only one nation to be the bearers of His word?

Judaism Reclaimed tackles this topic in several of its chapters, starting with parashat Noach. The sin of Adam and Eve, understood in various ways by the classic commentators, impacted humanity and its ability to perceive and relate to God. Midrashim indicate that the role of the Torah was to guide mankind back to its previously idyllic state in the Garden of Eden. This, however, would be no quick fix.

In order for humanity to succeed in this new stage, it needed to form and maintain a viable society which could allow it to receive and transmit these laws and teachings which God wished to reveal. The formation of such a community, which could become loyal to God, is of particular importance in the approach to religion taken in the Kuzari and Rabbi S. R. Hirsch; both emphasise the vital importance of collectively experienced revelation in the process of establishing a reliable tradition of knowledge of God.

Parashat Noach proceeds to record the initial failed efforts to accommodate this new mission, first in Noach’s generation and then many centuries later at the Tower of Babel, failures which would lead to a further restructuring of the divine plan for humanity. Noach lived in the tenth generation after the Creation, halfway between Adam and Eve, who had squandered the opportunities initially afforded by their privileged status, and Avraham who sought and rediscovered God.

In the first chapter of the Kuzari, R’ Yehudah Halevi relates that, in the 20 generations between Adam and Avraham, there was a steady supply of righteous individuals who taught this new mission with which humanity had been charged. However, these individuals were unable to influence the world around them by spreading this message and building a society based upon its values.

Rav Hirsch understands parashat Noach to be describing the first attempts of mankind to develop a universal cohesive community which could potentially have fulfilled this function of collectively receiving and reliably transmitting God’s word. Noach's generation failed as a society because of the selfishness of individuals. A midrashdescribes how people deviously stole amounts that were so trivially small that they would be beneath the lower limit for invoking the jurisdiction of the courts. This is the kind of underhanded greed that erodes societal cohesion, nullifying the benefits conferred by the community.

The attempt of the generation of the Tower of Babel to build a community, by contrast, suffered from the opposite problem, placing an over-emphasis on the interests of the community at the expense of the individual. Another midrash depicts vividly how this apparently unified and caring society was more concerned with the loss of building materials than by the death of any of its individual members. Rav Hirsch derives from a close reading of the Torah’s text the notion that the Tower of Babel was intended as a monument to the absolute importance of the community. But this was a community which crushed rather than enhanced the potential of its individuals in a manner which may remind the modern reader of the 20th century societies that sought to enforce the collective principles of Communism.

These failures to construct a society which could advance humanity's mission resulted, writes Rav Hirsch, in the fragmentation of the world's population into a multiplicity of nations, each with its own language and culture.

In an ideal world, mankind would have served God collectively as a single unified society. After the failure of the generation of the flood, however, and God’s assurance that mankind would never again face annihilation, the world's population had to be dispersed and then kept apart, thereby removing its potential to deserve a second collective fate. God therefore fortified his promise to Noach by introducing a significant change of nature, as the world splintered into distinct countries, climates and continents. As R’ Hirsch eloquently put it:

“Never again does God want to destroy mankind. Rather, He wants to educate humanity through its experiences, to self-knowledge and knowledge of God. Nevermore will mankind as a whole be allowed to sink to the ultimate depths of degradation reached by the generation that had perished. Therefore, mankind must be dispersed, lest the human species, gradually spreading over the earth, constitute but one single family, in which corruption festering at one end would quickly infect the whole… In order for this educational plan to be possible, the earth emerged from its devastation in a different form, diversified in climate and soil, intersected by a web of seas and rivers, mountains and deserts.”

This disintegration of the previously united world community was completed by the split of languages and cultures following the failure at the Tower of Babel. Following this geophysical and cultural realignment, fulfilment of man’s mission would now necessarily be reassigned to one specific group, and the Avot succeeded in forging the only nation that was both sufficiently interested and suited to this task.

The dispersion of human civilisation across a wide range of places and cultures may have prevented a repeat of the flood’s devastation, but it also correspondingly lowered mankind’s potential for perfection. Rambam describes in numerous places how peace and justice are prerequisites if people are to be able to focus on developing their character and intellect to achieve the restoration of Gan Eden’s ‘ultimate perfection’. The natural consequence of this fragmentation, however, was to create rivalry and warfare, which would inevitably disrupt the efforts of any single society to fulfil mankind’s mission.

First posted to Facebook 23 October 2022, here.

Israel alone and isolated -- unique and blessed

The front cover image of the latest edition of The Economist accurately reflects the reality for Israel in the world at this time. The United Nations, whose organisations and employees have been complicit in Jew hatred and genocide, argue only over which words to use to condemn the Jewish state and its attempts to make its borders safe for its traumatized citizens.

It is vital that we remember at these difficult times that standing alone should not be seen as a threat to Jews. It is something that we have come to expect –even as a point of pride prophetically predicted by our great biblical adversary Bilaam (and echoed later by Haman):

“it is a nation that will dwell alone, and will not be reckoned among the nations.” [Bemidbar 23:9]

Israel is seen as separate and apart whether in exile among the nations or dwelling in its homeland. Amos Oz famously commented that:

“When my father was a young man in Vilna, every wall in Europe said, "Jews go home to Palestine." Fifty years later, when he went back to Europe on a visit, the walls all screamed, "Jews get out of Palestine.”

A resounding message which emerges from the tense discussion between Mordechai and Esther at the darkest moments of the Purim story is that God has a covenant with us – revach vehatzalah (divine salvation) will always arise from somewhere. We may not know where or how it will be achieved but we have relied upon God’s promise for thousands of years. Our strength has not come from being popular or great in number:

“Not because you are more numerous than any people did God delight in you and choose you, for you are the least of all the peoples. But because of God’s love for you…” [Devarim 7:7]

This is the message we must recall as we seek to secure our borders after the brutal unprovoked attacks of October 7. As we are lectured by human rights luminaries such as Russia, China and the Arab world – Nations United in their horror of seeing Jews defend themselves as the West did during the Second World War against Nazi Germany. The ideology of Amalek – those who delight in targeting and brutalizing the weak and innocent – must be utterly destroyed from our borders. If we must stand alone in the moral clarity of defeating evil then so be it. Lo Tishkach.

It is poignant when reading in the Megillah of past efforts to destroy the Jewish people to bear in mind the words of Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to America, last week:

“When I was Israel's Ambassador to Washington, I must have met more than 160 other Ambassadors. I never met the Ambassador of Babylon, never met the Ambassador of Imperial Rome and I didn't meet the Ambassador of the 1,000-Year Reich. But there is an Ambassador of Israel. We will survive this enemy.”

First posted to Facebook 24 March 2024, here.