Tag Archives: Yeshayahu Leibowitz

Jewish Homeland or Homeland for the Jews?

parshat eikev, deuteronomy 8 – 10

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. Moses links the rights the Israelites have to occupy their homeland with the radically contingent nature of those rights. We marvel at how Jews in Modern-Day Israel and in the West see Israel so differenlty and have such selective hearing.

Sefaria Source Sheet:

Jewish Homeland or Homeland for the Jews? | Sefaria

Parshat Eikev – Moses links the rights the Israelites have to conquer and occupy their homeland with the radically conditional and contingent nature of those rights. We marvel at how Jews in Modern Day Israel and in the West have such selective hearing.

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik.  My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition.  Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This week’s parsha is Ekev. Moses links the rights the Israelites have to occupy their homeland with the radically contingent nature of those rights. We marvel at how when asked what is the most important concept in the Torah, Israelis almost always answer ‘am segulah’ … a Chosen People, or the like and the Americans almost always answer ‘tikkun olam’ or the like. So, join us as we attempt to unravel this riddle: A Jewish Homeland or a Homeland for the Jews?

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Great to have you Rabbi, You are in the holy city of Jerusalem and I am in Long Island and we just finished catching up as to what’s happening on the streets literally, of Israel and Jerusalem in particular, the demonstrations are still going on. And we Jews are still struggling with what it means to be a Jew what it means to have a homeland. So about two, three weeks ago, I saw a thread in Facebook from a young Jewish scholar who I love dearly. I invited on to the podcast but he’s doing a seminar tonight. His name is Joe Schwartz. He has a law degree he has smicha. He made aliyah to Israel, and he works for the Jewish Agency. And he out of the blue wrote the following post he wrote: It seems to me that if you ask Jewish Israelis how, on one leg, they understand the basic message of Torah, the overwhelming majority would answer: That God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people. (This would surely not be the Haredi response, of course, though I think it would be the Hiloni view, even if they think the Torah is irrelevant.) This is a reading of Torah under the influence of what Chaim Gans calls “propriety Zionism,” which Gans believes represents the Israeli-in-the-street.  That Torah might stand for a different proposition — that it could stand for concern for the most vulnerable, or religious tolerance, or freedom of conscience — seems almost completely foreign to Israeli discourse. It’s for this reason, for example, that at the weekly protests one barely sees any signs quoting any Jewish text. “We are faithful to the Declaration of Independence” is a common slogan — since in the popular understanding it is that document, and not Torah, that guarantees liberal civil rights. Torah doesn’t have an ethical character of any relevance to the protests.  This may be obvious, but in the American Jewish setting — even among most traditional Jews — I think the assumptions are quite different. Even as conservatives rail against “tikkun olam Judaism” and complain that liberal Jews read Torah as no more or less than the platform of the Democratic Party, they generally assume that Torah is a source of ethical values and has a liberal character that is relevant to a just political order. So it’s really striking to me how illiberal the prevailing understanding of Torah is in Israel, and how little liberals look to it as a source of authority.    The way I’m seeing it now is that the way we read Scripture is largely shaped by the larger ideological context in which we find ourselves. Americans are broadly liberal in their ideological commitments; and so Torah becomes in that context a liberal document. Israelis are largely “proprietary Zionists.” And so Torah becomes read in that light here. I don’t want to be fatalistic about that. I would hope that Torah itself could exert some pressure on the larger ideological commitments of the society. But I don’t know how that counter-ideological reading of Torah emerges in the first place, and what factors will account for its gaining ground. I think it is undeniable that Torah’s “core message” is that the Jews are entrusted with upholding a high ethical standard; for as long as we do, we are permitted to live in the land; when we do not, we are expelled from the land. The land is therefore not ours, not even conditionally. It is God’s, to dispose of how He sees fit. And yet, it is exceedingly rare for me to meet *anyone* in Israel who shares that basic understanding of Torah. Religious Zionists seem to simply ignore the conditionality of our tenancy.  And he had one comment. Shoshana Cohen who wrote: As I’ve probably shared, I’ve ask this question point blank (what is the most important verse or concept in the Torah) to groups of young Israelis and groups of young Americans. The Israelis almost always answer ‘am segulah’ or the like and the Americans almost always answer ‘tikkun olam’ or the like.  So, Rabbi, I was reading this week’s parsha. And I felt that it actually combines so many of these thoughts, it talks about the fact that we are privileged to have the land of Israel. And in the same breath, it talks about how contingent that is. It talks about both ethical and religious requirements that we have, that I really thought it was a case study, maybe not how to answer the question, but certainly to have the discussion about these two kinds of conflicting views of Torah. But first, let me ask you, do you do you experience the same type of I wouldn’t call it polarization but polarity in the way, Israelis, whether religious or not religious, or Americans, same….  view, the Torah and its message.   Adam Mintz  06:29 It’s such a great topic you bring up, I will go so far as to say that if I were to go now, after our clubhouse and go on a walk on Emek Rafai’im Street and say to an Israeli, what is Tikkun Olam? I mean, they would look at me like, what are you talking about? Like, what does Tikkun Olam mean? It’s a Hebrew phrase, but it’s only a phrase used by Americans. They don’t talk that way. Obviously, part of the reason is, because Israel is Israel, it’s a Jewish state. So they don’t think in terms of tikkun olam. They want to make sure that their state is solid, they’re not worried about saving the world, we have a different attitude.   Geoffrey Stern  07:10 On the most personal level, I remember my grandfather in-law would be sitting in the afternoon reading TANACH without a kippah. And I remember once I had the privilege of meeting, you know, people like Moshe Dayan, who was extremely knowledgeable in the Torah, and many times they saw the Torah, almost as a tour guide of the land, they could walk the length and width of Israel, and point out where biblical battles happened, where miracles happened. I’m not making a highly charged ideological statement. I’m just seeing it as a fact, very few Americans would look at the Bible as a travelogue. So, we are looking at two different Bibles, if you will. And I think Joe Schwartz really raises a fascinating, fascinating question. But I think we all can look at the Torah itself, and see how it weighs in. And I think our parsha, or I should say, Moses’ sermon today, in Parshat, Eikev really tries to thread that needle, and have exactly the right ,I think, emphasis on all of these different variations. I mean, even the title of the podcast is Jewish homeland, or homeland for the Jews. And at one level, you could say Jewish homeland is like it’s a homeland that is spiritual, that is driven by Jewish values. And homeland for the Jews is more like a refuge, an Er Miklat.. But the alternative reading that is Jewish homeland is this land that was given to the Jewish people as an am Segulah. It’s ours. It’s based on theology and Torah, and homeland for the Jews is a more secular approach, where it’s just for us to live in. Even the way we read those two sides of the equation. Is polarized. So let’s just jump in. It’s Deuteronomy 8: 1 and it says You shall faithfully observe all the Instruction that I enjoin upon you today, that you may thrive and increase and be able to possess the land that ה’ promised on oath to your fathers.  Now the English says possess the land. And I in the introduction even referred to occupying the land, which is a heavily loaded political way of referring to it and I’ll get to that later because I think I have a leg to stand on. But possess the land is probably a bad translation of the Hebrew וִֽירִשְׁתֶּ֣ם אֶת־הָאָ֔רֶץ  because Yirashtem comes from the word inherit, and that literally means that you have a claim to this land as opposed to possess the land, which could mean Germanic tribes are coming into Brittany and, and putting up their flag. So even in the translation, it’s kind of loaded, it goes on, therefore keep the commandments so you get the therefore already. There’s no question. This is not a possession that comes without strings attached. Therefore keep the commandments of your God. Walk in God’s ways and show reverence for your God is bringing you into a good land a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill, a land of wheat and barley of vine figs and pomegranates a land of olive trees and Honey, I’ve said this before, it’s almost like a travelogue. It’s a commercial for this amazing land. For people who clearly did not know anything about it. A land where you may eat food without stint where you will lack nothing a land whose rocks so iron, and from whose hills you can mine copper, when you have eaten, your fill give thanks to your God for the good land given to you. So here we have וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙ אֶת־ה. Here’s a string attached, you have to say Birkat HaMazon, you have to thank God before you eat, and after you eat, take care, lest you forget your God and fail to keep the divine commandments rules and laws that I enjoin upon you today. So we already have this tension between something that is a Yirusha, an entitlement, I think would be the best way to translate that. And then these requirements, these obligations that you have. Striking, isn’t it?   Adam Mintz  12:05 It really is striking. That first speech in this week’s parsha is one of my favorite speeches in the entire Torah.   Geoffrey Stern  12:13 Now we get into the warning part of it. Beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget your God who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage, who fed you in the wilderness with Manna which your ancestors had never known in order to test you by hardships, only to benefit you in the end. And you say to yourselves, my own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me. כֹּחִי֙ וְעֹ֣צֶם יָדִ֔י עָ֥שָׂה לִ֖י אֶת־הַחַ֥יִל הַזֶּֽה . So on the one hand, it starts by almost talking like a Jewish mama, who’s saying just remember all the socks that I darned for you and the food that I cooked for you. And but then it has a warning, don’t ever say it is because of me. Now, typically, that would be almost a taunt against the secular Israeli general who thinks that it’s because of his ingenuity that he won the battle. But I think we will see that it’s just as much against the righteous Jew who says because of his righteousness, he is entitled to this. Do you think that there’s both those messages there?   Adam Mintz  13:31 Yeah, there’s no question. There’s both those messages. They’re, they’re interesting about the you know, the righteousness. What it’s basically telling you is that there are two reasons that people fail in life. One is a you know, an obsession with materialism. The other is thinking that we’re more righteous than the next person. Those are very different things aren’t they?   Geoffrey Stern  13:55 Absolutely, you know, I saw one quote, It was by putting into the mouth of a Palestinian, whose town was destroyed in the 50s by the Israelis. You know that there’s this joke that we always say that the synagogue or the God that secular Israelis don’t believe in is Orthodox, this Palestinian said that the soldiers are taking our land based on a God, they don’t believe it. So, it gets back to what Joe Schwartz was saying, which is even the most secular Israeli if you ask them what the takeaway message of the Bible they don’t believe in, they would say that this land is our land. So, let’s continue. Remember that it is your God who gives you the power to get wealth in fulfillment of the covenant made on oath with your fathers as is still the case. If you do forget your God and follow other gods to serve them or bow down to them. I want you this day that you shall certainly perish like the nations that God will cause to perish before you, so shall you perish because you did not heed your God. So, I want to parse this a little bit, it would have been enough to say, if you don’t follow my commandments and keep my rules, you will lose this land. But it goes a little bit further. And it says you will lose this land, just like the people who you are attacking today who have been blessed with a generation or five or 10 on this land are losing it today. It really is focused on the conditionality of living in this much disputed land. Or maybe you could make the argument on anywhere on Earth. Only by the grace of God. are you the current owner? I think it’s coming through clearly from the verses themselves.   Adam Mintz  15:59 I think that’s right. That’s why this is such a striking speech because it says it so clearly right, so explicitly,   Geoffrey Stern  16:06 and we’re going to see this is a strong Midrash. But I am going to make the argument that it’s not based on the Midrash it’s based on these pesukim.   Adam Mintz  16:15 It’s based on the verses themselves, right?   Geoffrey Stern  16:18 It really is. Hear O’ Israel. You’re about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and more populous than you great cities with walls sky high. People great and tall. The Anakites of whom you have knowledge for you have heard who can stand. Know this day, that none other than your God is crossing at your head a devouring fire subduing it. And when your God has thrust them from your path say not to yourselves, God has enabled us to possess this land because of our virtues. So here’s the I said it was intimated before when it said כֹּחִי֙ וְעֹ֣צֶם יָדִ֔י  . But here it says it, as we say, in the Yeshiva, B’Ferush. God has enabled us to possess this land because of our virtues. No, it is rather because of the wickedness of those nations that Hashem does possess them before you. It is not because of your virtues and your rectitude that you will be able to possess their country, but it’s because of their wickedness that your God is dispossessing these nations before you and in order to fulfill the oath that God made to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, know then that it is not for any virtue of yours, that your God is giving you this good land to possess, you are a stiff-necked people remember, never forget how you provoked your god to anger in the wilderness from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you reach this place. You have continued defiant towards God, מַמְרִ֥ים הֱיִיתֶ֖ם עִם־ה . So really, it is a very humbling remark. But more importantly, it has claws on it. Moses is making the case that your connection to this land is very tenuous. And be very careful when you state your claims, and base those claims based on your righteousness. It’s fascinating,   Adam Mintz  18:25 It really is fascinating. It might be that this is the only time in the Torah itself, where the Torah actually warns against. Right self righteous, right. That’s something that were familiar with, but you don’t see it in the Torah.   Geoffrey Stern  18:40 I love that point. Because normally, we would say, you know, holier than thou, and we would quote from (Wisdom Literature) Mishlei proverbs or Psalms (or Ecclesiastes אַל־תְּהִ֤י צַדִּיק֙ הַרְבֵּ֔ה וְאַל־תִּתְחַכַּ֖ם יוֹתֵ֑ר לָ֖מָּה תִּשּׁוֹמֵֽם: (קהלת פרק ז פסוק טז).) But this is right here. And I want to go back to Deuteronomy 6, because I don’t want to pass up the nuance of what I was saying before when I quoted the verses, and it said that these are high walled cities and stuff like that. This is really not a bunch of immigrants (settlers) coming in and staking a claim to the (wild) west, the Great West, going out and putting down their mark and saying, I am going to build up this barren land. You know, there’s the saying, that the Zionists said That “Israel was a land without a people for people without land”. And of course, that was not true because there were people living in Palestine when they came. Listen to what it says in Deuteronomy 6: 10. When your God brings you into the land that was sworn to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be assigned to you. It says לָ֣תֶת לָ֑ךְ  great and flourishing cities that you did not build houses full of all good things that you did not fill here. own systems that you did not hue, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant and you will eat your fill. So I don’t want to get into an argument about colonialism and attacking another country we’re talking 2000 years ago, you know, wake up, that’s how things we’re, the argument that’s being made here is much stronger than that. It is an argument that saying, You are literally getting to take over somebody else’s creativity, buildings, urbanity all of that stuff. And with that comes not only a great responsibility, but there should come also a great level of humility. I mean, it really just comes through the verses, it would have been very easy to say you’re coming to a land without a people. But it’s not saying that.   Adam Mintz  20:53 It’s not saying that I love this, I think this is just absolutely fantastic. Again, for all the reasons that you say. Now, I think the important point about this go back to my self-righteousness point, is of course the fact that God is not making this speech. This speech is being made by Moshe and Moshe can say that, you know, you can’t be self righteous, that’s okay for Moshe to say, God saying it is a little tricky, because God probably wants people to be as righteous as they can be. I don’t want to hear God telling me not to be self righteous, I need another person to tell me not to be self righteous.   Geoffrey Stern  21:35 So now we get to Deuteronomy 10: 12. And this is the end of today’s sermon from Moses. And it says, And now Israel, what does your god demand of you? Only this to revere your God to work only in divine paths to love and to serve your God with all your heart and soul? keeping God’s commandments and laws which I enjoin upon you today for your good. Mark the heavens to their uttermost reaches. Because they belong to your God, the earth and all that is on it.  הֵ֚ן לַה’ אֱלֹקֶ֔יךָ הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וּשְׁמֵ֣י הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם הָאָ֖רֶץ וְכׇל־אֲשֶׁר־בָּֽהּ . This is critical. God is almost saying, I created the world. And I get to decide who lives where and how long they live (there). Yet it was to your ancestors that I was drawn out of love for them, so that you their lineal descendants were chosen from among all peoples as it is now the case cut away therefore the thickening about your hearts and stiffen your necks no more for your God is God supreme and Lord supreme god. כִּ֚י ה’ אֱלֹֽקֵיכֶ֔ם ה֚וּא אֱלֹקֵ֣י הָֽאֱלֹקִ֔ים . So it’s really making the case that this radical contingency, this radical nature of your ability to be promised and to live in this land is being given to you by the Creator of all things. And that is, I think, a key point. And then it goes on to finish and this is the end and the punch line. And it’s the tikkun olam part of this speech. And it says as follows. That God is beyond the men who sit atop the social hierarchies of rank and gender, the great the mighty and the awesome God who shows no favorite and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow and befriends the stranger providing food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You must revere Hashem only your God said you worship to God shall you hold fast. And by God’s name, shall you swear. I mean this I’ve said this in past podcasts. This is like the parting message. The end of a book of Micha, which is what this guy demand of you will need to walk humbly with your God. This is the punch line. And this is why I said it has it all. It ends up with this stranger with the tikkun olam with the liberalism. Rabbi, before we get to the famous, the first Rashi in all of Humash, it really is a truly a beautiful sermon, is it not?   Adam Mintz  24:35 It’s an absolutely beautiful sermon. You know, there was no speaker like Moshe, you put you Geoffrey had a great met Midrash, two weeks ago, and the Midrash it was a Tanchumah I think. It said that Ela Devarim.. The book begins. “These are the words” and Moshe when he was chosen by God, he doesn’t want to take the position Should because he’s a stutter. And the phrase he uses is Lo Ish Devaraim Anochi, the same word Devarim the man who couldn’t speak gives the most beautiful sermon of all times. Isn’t that ironic? Moshe Rabbeinu. When I said it in shul I use that Midrash in Shul, I said in Shul and my wife didn’t like it. But I’ll tell you what I said, I’ll say what my wife didn’t like. What I said was that it’s sad that Moshe only found his voice when it was too late when he was already punished. And that, you know, and therefore, he wasn’t going to enter the land. And my wife said that wasn’t fair that Moshe Rabbeinu found his voice and we’re still studying that voice in Devarim, you know in 2023. That’s valuable. I shouldn’t look at it as being sad. I should appreciate it for what it was. So I accept my wife’s comment.   Geoffrey Stern  25:53 Maybe Moshe’s Rebetzin didn’t critique his sermons as much as yours and, and that’s why you had to wait so long, but I love it. I love it. So here’s, here’s where I want to finish. The literally the first Rashi on the whole Humash has actually become kind of controversial, and it’s on the catchword. In the beginning. Rabbi Isaac said, quotes Rashi. The Torah which is the law book of Israel should have commenced with the verse in Exodus, which is the first commandment this month shall be unto you the first of months. What is the reason then that it commences with the account of creation. Because of the thought expressed in the text in Psalms, he declared to his people the strength of his works, he gave an account of the work of creation, in order that he might give them the heritage of nations. Here is a verse in Psalms that connects creating the world with giving to his favorite nation, a land. For should the people of the world, say to Israel, you are robbers because you took by force to land of the seven nations of Canaan, Israel may reply to them, all the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He, He created it and gave it to whom he pleased, when he will, he gave it to them. And when he willed, He took it from them and gave it to us. And in the source notes, which are attached to today’s clubhouse, and will be attached to the podcast. I have a YouTube video of a great but very controversial scholar in Israel, named Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who was the brother of Nechama Leibowitz. And he is talking, oh, in the 60s, maybe early 70s to a bunch of B’nai Akiva, (settler) yeshiva students, and they are literally arguing with him about this Rashi. They are saying it says it was promised to the people and Yeshayahu Leibowitz says No!, you’re Misreading it, it says it was taken away from them and given to you which means that it can be taken away from you and given to the next person. And what he quotes is Ezekiel. And he quotes this verse by heart, Ezekiel 33, (24) O mortal, those who live in these ruins in the land of Israel argue, “Abraham was but one man, yet he was granted possession of the land. We are many; surely, the land has been given as a possession to us.”  (25) Therefore say to them: Thus said the Sovereign GOD: You eat with the blood, you raise your eyes to your fetishes, and you shed blood—yet you expect to possess the land!  (26) You men have relied on your sword, you have committed abominations, you have defiled one another’s wives—yet you expect to possess the land!  So Leibowitz’s main argument. And in the notes, you can see a picture of a demonstrator that I took. He’s a secular demonstrator. He is wearing a picture of Yeshayahu Leibowitz with a big black kippah on his head. And it says underneath Emarti Lachem “I told you so” and Yeshayahu Leibowitz felt that the possession the occupation of the Palestinian lands after the 67 War was a cancer and it would spread to all facets of Jewish life. The point that he made though, was really I believe that it goes back to our parsha as much as to any verse in Psalms in our parsha in the fifth book of the Bible, you already has this connection that we read Mark the heavens, Deuteronomy 10: 14. God created the world, he can give it, and he can take it. And we are there only by the grace of God. And we have to make sure that we live by a high standard. And I just think that in this one compact sermon from Moses, we really have the harmonization we have both the dialectic and possibly the resolution, that both are equally important that you have to understand that you were given this land, that it came from Abraham and Isaac that it is a Urusha. But unlike other inheritances, it is contingent, and you can be disowned at a moment’s notice. It’s all there isn’t the rabbi?   Adam Mintz  31:00 It’s all there. And that’s such a great story about Yeshayahu Leibowitz. And it’s also you know, the fact that Yeshayahu Leibowitz said I told you, so and you know, that’s an interesting way to end. So, thank you so much, Geoffrey, as always, this topic is really timely. I feel it in Jerusalem, I’ll be thinking about it and Sharon and I will talk about it over Shabbat. Shabbat shalom, enjoy Easthampton. Next week, we’ll be back in our regular location. Shabbat shalom, everybody.   Geoffrey Stern  31:28 Loren, you’ve been patiently waiting with a muted mic, I’d love to coax you to turn your mic on and say hello. Before we pack up our bags, how are you Loren?   Loren Davis  31:41 Hi, Geoffrey, nice to hear it was a wonderful presentation today. This is kind of an answering parsha for me in terms of trying to evaluate the meaning of what the Israelis say is the guidebook for our religion and our identity as Jews.  Having lived in Israel for a year. There’s a big difference between living in Israel and existing there and living in the diaspora. I think that the if then conditions that are mentioned in this parsha are interpreted in the diaspora, maybe they’re interpreted with a bit more of a theocracy in terms of their meaning and their impact. But in Israel, after my opinion is that the Israelites fulfilled a lot of the preconditions that had been established for them in the Torah, or as the modern Israelites call it their guidebook before they ever got into Canaan. And when they got into that land, it became an issue of survival. And if they didn’t survive, if they didn’t treat each other, and their lands in a manner that were consistent with the ability to flourish and to grow, then they wouldn’t exist. And I think that’s the way they look at it today. I think their ethic, I think there, their preface of living with ethical standards, and maybe even survival standards, you know, you get into so much imagery, it mentions water, it mentions a number of befriending strangers, we were strangers at one point. So, they identified a lot of the things that they had to do before they got there to create and to flourish in the land of Canaan and they’ve done it and I think if they stopped doing those things, if they turn the ethical nature of how they have what’s going on right now, if the if they turn it on themselves, turn it into themselves, I think that’s when they become threatened. And I’m not so sure it’s an if then edict from God, or maybe and if then reality of where they’re living and how they’re living in the State of Israel.   Geoffrey Stern  34:19 Yeah, I love your contemporizing it totally. I mean, you know, I think it’s very easy to fall into the rut and talk about losing our land and catastrophe. And I would I would rather talk about it in terms of losing our mojo losing the spirit that was used to create this land. It is a land as stated elsewhere in the Bible that can eat up its inhabitants. There was no question when something happens in Israel, it gets to the front page a lot quicker than elsewhere I mean, they are living out 1,000s of years of history and destiny. But I think what comes across clearly in our parsha, it has both the sense of you are not occupying a land. And I use that word because that’s what the word that Yeshayahu Leibowitz uses. In other words, once you accept the premise, that God who created the world gives it to this one and gives it to that one, aren’t we all occupants? Aren’t we all tenants? And, you know, to say that we are liberating the land or that we are, it’s there to it has the word Yerusha, which is inheritance, but it’s full of other nuances. That I think what it does more than give us answers necessarily, is it shows that all of the questions can be written in the same sentence can be written in the same parsha can be written in the same Torah. And that Dare us, Dare us to answer just tikkun olam or to answer this, this name, this land has a special place for this nation. There’s only one country in the world that the Jews call a homeland. So, I just think it’s it’s a fascinating document to read, given the conversations that are going on, and the issues that you raised that are part of the contemporary conversation.   Loren Davis  36:42 I think that the tikkun Olam discussion, maybe is, as you suggested, more of a concept, outside of Israel than it is within Israel, at least it says that’s the way it’s identified. I think that the issue probably is defined similarly. But I think the motivation and the context is a little different in in Israel than it is in the diaspora. But that’s just a an opinion. I think this is a beautifully written parsha. And it offers a lot of answers.   Geoffrey Stern  37:18 Well, thanks so much. Thank you, Loren. Thank you, Matt. Thank you Friday for joining us. We’ll see you all next week’s Shabbat Shalom and thank you so much for being part of the journey.

Sefaria Source Sheet:

Jewish Homeland or Homeland for the Jews? | Sefaria

Parshat Eikev – Moses links the rights the Israelites have to conquer and occupy their homeland with the radically conditional and contingent nature of those rights. We marvel at how Jews in Modern Day Israel and in the West have such selective hearing.

Listen to last year’s episode: Attitude is Everything

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Liberation Theology – for Jews

parshat shemot – shemot 1 -3

Join Geoffrey Stern broadcasting live from Jerusalem and recorded on Clubhouse on January 12th 2023. The Exodus from Egypt is not simply an episode in the script of the Jewish People; it is The refrain. The fact that it represents the essence of the Jewish people is captured in every commandment that is זֵכֶר לִיצִיאַת מִצְרָיִם to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt. Modern liberation movements have taken their inspiration from the exodus as a paradigm so we what does the Exodus Liberation paradigm look like for Jews and for Israel?

Sefairia Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/458913

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik.  My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition.  We host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This week’s Torah portion is Shemot. The Exodus from Egypt is not simply an episode in the script of the Jewish People; it is The refrain. The fact that it represents the essence of the Jewish people is captured in every commandment that is זֵכֶר לִיצִיאַת מִצְרָיִם to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt. Modern liberation movements have taken their inspiration from the exodus as a paradigm so what does the Exodus Liberation paradigm look like for Jews and for Israel? Liberation Theology – for Jews

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Well, welcome to Madlik. Rabbi Adam Mintz is actually traveling today, and I am broadcasting live from Yerushalayim, the holy city of Jerusalem, I’m actually looking out of my hotel window right now, and seeing the hills of Jerusalem. So as I said in the introduction, this is the beginning of the book of Exodus; of Shemot. And Exodus is the refrain of the Jewish people. It’s not simply another episode, you never say zaycher l’akedah, …. You don’t say when you do a commandment in remembrance of creation, in remembrance of the binding of Isaac even in remembrance of the giving of the Torah or the entering into the land. But in terms of zecher l’tziyat Mitzrayim. We all know it from the Haggadah, which obviously, commemorates the Exodus from Egypt, but we have in mechilta d’Rabbi YishmaeliIt says that tefillin is zecher L’tziot mitzrayim to the outstretched arm. We have in Midrash Lech Tov  מלמד שאף הסוכה זכר ליציאת מצרים. That even building and living in the sukkah is in remembrance of leaving the land of Egypt. Couldn’t say it better than Midrash lekach Tov שהרי כל המועדים על שום יציאת מצרים all of our iconic Jewish holidays, and many commandments are for remembrance of the leaving of Egypt, which leads us to ask the question, what is in fact, the message of leaving Egypt. And it also should not surprise us that we are not the only ones to recognize in the leaving of Egypt, something that becomes iconic to the Jewish people, and frankly, something that becomes almost a legacy, a gift to the world. I called the name of today’s episode liberation theology for Jews. The term liberation theology, as we shall learn shortly, was coined by the Catholic and Protestant churches of South America in their struggle to depose the ruling powers and to lead an uprising of the poor and the dispossessed. And clearly, they got their model from leaving Egypt. So, I think we stand on solid ground. When we say, what is this theology of the Exodus? What is this liberation theology? If we look in our parsha, it begins talking about God seeing hearing, feeling the suffering of his people, and even in there we start to see that this is not only a national story, but it is a universal story. In Exodus 2: 23, he says, God heard their moaning and God remembered the covenant. In Exodus 3: 7-10 It says God says, I am mindful of their suffering. He says, I have heard my people in Egypt and I’ve heard their outcry, because of their taskmasters I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land flowing with milk and honey. Now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, moreover I have seen how the Egyptians oppress them, Come, therefore, I will send you (speaking to Moses), to Pharaoh, and you shall free my people, the Israelites from Egypt. And I think just based on these two passages, we can kind of see that on the one hand, the Exodus certainly has to do with a covenant that God had with a particular people. But there is also this universal “I heard there moaning”, וַיִּשְׁמַ֥ע אֱלֹקִ֖ים אֶת־נַאֲקָתָ֑ם. And I think that is very much the basis of what makes this a universal story and a universal paradigm for liberation and revolution. Michael Walzer is a world-famous political scientist, and he wrote a whole book called Exodus and Revolution, saying how of all of the myths of all of the origin stories of a new nation, it is the Exodus story, whether for the African American, the black slaves, and Martin Luther King’s metaphor of I’ve been to the mountaintop, or, as I’ve mentioned before, the liberation theology of the South American peasants who uprose. The Exodus story, because it contains words as see the oppression, heard, the suffering is so universal. In Exodus 3; 16-18, it says, I will take you out of the misery of Egypt, to the land of the Canaanites and Hittites to a land flowing with milk and honey. So, it is not only seeing and hearing the oppression and the pain, it is also a redemption story. It is a repatriation story. It is a story of God working through history, to help the dispossessed and the alienated. He says, they will listen to you, meaning the people of Israel, and you shall go to the elders of Israel. And you shall say to them, God; the God of the Hebrews, became manifest to us now therefore, let us go a distance of three days into the wilderness, to sacrifice to our God. So really in these three or four different paragraphs that are in our parsha, you get all of the ingredients that would make this such a powerful image, a powerful paradigm, and therefore easily understandable that Exodus and revolution have been so intertwined. So what exactly is this liberation theology? It is, in the words of its creators, and you’ll hear as I read some of them how really they nail to a large degree, what the Exodus means to us Jewish people. So I’m reading one, and Enrique Dussel, Exodus as a Paradigm in Liberation Theology The Exodus was the experience which created the consciousness of the people of Israel. The people formed in the structuring centre which determined its way of organizing time and space. Note that I am not saying simply that the Exodus is part of the contents of the consciousness of the people of Israel. If that were the case, the Exodus would be one item of information among others. More than an item of information, it is its structuring centre, in that it determines the integrating logic, the principle of organisation and interpretation of historical experience. That is why the Exodus does not persist as a secondary experience … It has come to be the paradigm for the interpretation of all space and all time. So truly this understanding where we begin Shemot just as we finish Bereshit by saying this was the formation of a nation. The Hebrew word for the book of Exodus is Shemot, which means names and what that means is we’re seeing the metamorphosis of names and tribes and individuals into a corporate whole, in that, too, is the story of the Exodus that is the paradigm of the Exodus, quoting another, Revd. Mathew N. Musyoki “the exodus is central within the Old Testament…the key to Israel’s understanding of both God and itself. It is repeatedly re-interpreted throughout the Bible,‟ making the hermeneutical possibilities of the exodus unique for liberation theology. Thus, its actual historical happening leaves serves liberationists as a model, done with a reading of the texts on the basis of present reality. Similarly, The Exodus…became the founding event not only for the course of Israelite history, but also, through its kerygmatic appropriation, for other oppressed communities. Hence, its foundational character is continually being reinforced through so many re-readings, a sure sign of its richness as a source. Hence this source is eminent to liberationists as a contact point.  Even when there is no reasonable ground exegetically it seems liberationists continue following this model. For instance, Croatto seems insistence by asserting that, “The creative and varied re-expression of the Exodus theme within the Bible indicates the pre-eminence of the meaning of the Exodus over the event, and this in return becomes a norm of interpretation for us.‟ Thus, Exodus can be imported to a given context, e.g. the poor, the sick and the oppressed.” So again, what we see is the fact that the exodus is referenced so many times, not only within our liturgy, but much more importantly, within our Bible itself, almost leads it to beg for interpretation, beg for reimagining. And that is what these theologians said, we are going to encounter some thinkers who felt that they maybe took too much of a license in exporting the Exodus paradigm to their own moments of repression, and revolt. But I think you can at this point, agree with these theologians, that the fact that the exodus was used and referenced so much throughout our Bible, it almost gives you that permission to do so. And in fact, one of the questions that we are going to explore today is, with all that saturation of messaging, what actually does the Exodus then become for the Jewish people and for the people of Israel. But let’s continue a little more in the history of liberation theology, as it surfaced, in the 20th century, in South America, it was involved with, with the Castro revolution, Castro compares himself to a Moses. In fact, some liberation theologians like Segundo Galilea actually prefer Moses as a model of the political leader over Jesus. So Moses is then taken to be this leader, who goes down and faces truth to power. And of course, this brings back that image of Martin Luther King Jr. and his speech of I’ve been to the mountaintop. And it’s important that it’s not one of pride in terms of his comparison to Moses or arrogance, he is comparing himself to that aspect of Moses, who doesn’t make it, who suffers with his people who is beaten up and scarred by the liberation. So really, you can understand that we, as readers of the Hebrew Bible can benefit from how other peoples have read it as well. So here’s where the story gets a little bit interesting. After the revolutions in South America, and they had a very strong Marxist bend to them, what happened was, in many cases, the people that took over were the new Pharaohs of the day. And when, in 1985, the Poles began their own exercise in self-determination. And as a very strongly Catholic country, they read their Old Testament as well. And they had a real problem because while they believed in the message and the relevance of the Exodus paradigm and story to theirs, they couldn’t help but note that they were trying to exercise themselves from the same Marxist forces that coined the term liberation theology. So they stopped using the word liberation, a fascinating insight into the history of ideas where the liberation which you could make a case was something that the theologians kind of took a little bit of liberty with, and projected on to the whole story of the Exodus, which was really, at its core, a story of redemption, if you want to look into a theological perspective, or one of being able to leave oppression, they, they took it to mean and overthrow and to re-build a society. So, the Poles came back and they started calling it redemption. And the church has followed suit, it made an interesting turn, it says this, and this is coming from the papal instructions in 1984, that started to deal with a Polish Pope, with the Pole’s revolution, and it says that is why the liberation of the Exodus cannot be reduced to a liberation, which is principally or exclusively political in nature, moreover it is significant that the term freedom is often replaced in Scripture, by the very closely related term redemption. So, in an interesting turn, in order to explain that, the, the secular antagonistically, atheistic Marxist regime that had promised happiness to everyone, and forced everyone to be “happy”. Now, their liberation became a someone else’s oppression. Now, the liberation theology started to take a little bit of a modification, in that it became a liberation to a redemption to and the focus was on the sense of maybe a spiritual redemption, maybe something more related to religious. And before we get into what the Jewish commentators, will say, we cannot if we are talking about liberation theology, not mentioned the struggle and successful fight for Soviet Jewry, where the banner was let my people go. So here it was the Jews themselves that stood up to the USSR to Mother Russia. And clearly, using the story of the Exodus, as a story of liberation, turned to Brezhnev and the Soviet regime, and said, Let my people go. So, it is a powerful political paradigm, that we as Jews, as readers of the Hebrew Bible, can only be proud of in terms of the solace and in terms of the motivation, and that light at the end of the tunnel that it has given and it will continue to give to people who are subjugated, to people who are alienated to people who are disenfranchised. But when you go to the Jewish commentaries, and I will start with, we’ve come across John D. Levinson, before profound thinker, an academician at Yale. And he has a monograph on Exodus and liberation. And he goes through all the texts, and while he certainly gives much, much respect, and enthusiasm for the way that our Exodus story has been used, he also tries to bring it back to its source. And of course, the key theme of Exodus is this sense of from slavery to freedom. The story of the Exodus, at the end of the day, is the story of emancipation of slaves. And what Levinson argues is that the truth be told that there are provisions within the Bible after Exodus after Sinai that provide for having slaves. He brings and I certainly suggest that you take a look at the Sefaria notes on today’s podcast. Because in his article, he shows how the exodus was used by both the abolitionists and by the slave-owners. To prove their case, the abolitionists would say that clearly the Bible is trying to limit slavery, you have to free your slaves after a certain amount of time, during the sabbatical year, you can’t work your slave. When you release your slave, you have to make sure that your slave has payment for the work that they have done. If a slave works hard, he can buy off his freedom. And so those that bring these arguments will say that it condones the institution of slavery as it was. But it is showing a direction in terms of where it should be, and severely limiting it. And of course, the slave-owners would say, yes, but don’t sleight-of-hand, pass over the fact that it condones slavery, it has jurisprudence for slavery the same way it has jurisprudence for marriage. And for other institutions, that means it recognizes it. So Levinson wishes to argue if you want to be really honest to the texts, you can say that the story is simply about freeing the slaves. And the direction that he goes is based on the key line that starts to appear in our parsha and gets developed more and more as the story progresses. And that is, in Exodus 3: 16 How God says, Now therefore, let us go a distance of three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to our God. And you can say that their being diplomatic or strategic. They’re saying to Pharaoh, that they simply want to go into the desert to worship their god, they don’t want their freedom. Later, it says, In Exodus 5: 1, Let my people go that they may celebrate a festival for me in the wilderness. Maybe this is why we have so many references to the Haggim; the festivals and Yetziat Mitzraim. And then it gets to the punch line in Exodus 9: 1 and there it says, And God said to Moses, go to Pharaoh and say to him, Thus said God, the God of the Hebrews, Let my people go to worship me. שַׁלַּ֥ח אֶת־עַמִּ֖י וְיַֽעַבְדֻֽנִי  And, of course, the important thing of the word וְיַֽעַבְדֻֽנִי. And worship me is that EVeD, slave, and worship (serve), or in this case, do the holy service is the same word. And so John Levinson makes the argument that if you really want to be true to the text, you have to admit that we’re not talking about pure freedom, we are talking about taking away Pharaoh, an evil taskmaster, an evil slave owner, and replacing him with the ultimate Master, which is God. But it is not a freedom if you want to be true to the texts. You who could make the case. And I think that this is a case that if you want to make a larger message out of this, you can say, the term :This idea of liberation through a change of masters shows how misleading it is to summarize the exodus through the popular slogan, “Let My people go.” The full form of the challenge is actually sallab ‘et-‘ammi w[ya’abd3ni, “Let My people go that they may serve Me.”  The term “liberty,” therefore, can indeed describe the result of redemption of the sort typified by the exodus, but only if some crucial semantic distinctions are maintained.’ One of the several meanings of “liberty” in Western thought is government by law rather than by a tyrant. If this is what we identify as the result of the exodus for Israel, then “liberty” and the process that produces it, “liberation,” are appropriate terms for the biblical process.” So as you can see, Levinson severely limits the extent of what this liberation is, but in doing so, he does make a profound case that I think because he is an academic scholar that you can really say is serious. And that is that whether the Jews were freed, or the Israelites were freed from Pharaoh, an evil, slave master, to serve God, the ultimate master, but ultimately, how do they serve that God, they serve that God by keeping His law. And at the end of the day, it is the laws, the book of laws of the Hebrew Bible. That is what ultimately provides the liberation in the Jewish mind. And I think he brings one kind of interesting example. And that example is, again, from law. If you remember, I mentioned a little bit earlier, that one of the things that he promised the Jewish people is that when you leave, Exodus 3: 21 says, and I will dispose the Egyptians favorably toward this people, so that when you go, you will not go away empty handed. Each woman shall borrow from her neighbor, and the lodger in her house objects of silver and gold, and clothing, and you shall put these on your sons and daughters, thus stripping the Egyptians. This occurs at least five times in the biblical narrative. And one wonders, what is the meaning of this? They were getting their freedom? Why is it so important that they were given the wealth of Egypt and what Levinson does, following a great theologian named David Daube, is saying here they are following the law of freeing a slave, when one frees a slave, as I said a little bit before one is required to provision that slave. So here, too, this fits very neatly into Levinson’s concept, that redemption and liberation in the Jewish sense of the Hebrew Bible is much more, I would say, pedestrian, much more limited, but nonetheless profound, and that is it is the law. And to give an example of that, we are saying to Pharaoh, you had to release these slaves, you had to follow the laws of the Hebrew Bible, and you did not. And therefore God is releasing them, taking them to worship Him וְיַֽעַבְדֻֽנִי, and he is provisioning them. This serves as an amazing segue into the thinker that I want to finish with and leave you with. And that is a thinker whose liberation theology if you will, is, as as fascinating today as it’s ever been. The name of the thinker was Yeshayahu Leibowitz, you might have heard of his sister Nechama Leibowitz, who are taught Old, Old Testament studies at the Hebrew University. But Yeshayahu Leibowitz was known as being a firebrand; a thinker, who shocked a who loved to shock. And he was a firebrand, a maverick who marched to his own drumbeat.  And he was particularly struck by the Six Day War. And he was particularly struck by the fact that the in a sense, the people of Israel were making of the victory of the Six Day War into something that was miraculous, and something that was eschatological, was messianic, and he felt that by doing that we’re actually engaging in idol worship. And he issued a bunch of articles. The first one was published (prior to Passover 1971) in Jeshurun, which is a synagogue in Jerusalem, which had the intelligentsia of the religious Zionist movement there. And he wrote a number of articles. One of them was actually called the Dis-Kotel. He said, When we have a Kotel, we will make it into a Diss-Kotel. He was very much against this celebration and worship of place. He thought that was very un-Jewish. And what he wrote about was that in fact, the Passover was an incomplete redemption first and foremost. And along with Levinson, he says that the key to the Redemption was to keep the law (to accept the Ol Malchut Shamayim… the yoke of God’s kingship) everything in Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s philosophy of Judaism was that we are a legal community, and that we achieve perfection and we worship God by keeping his laws, the dalet amot of Halacha, the four cubits of the Law. And that is ultimately along with Levinson What Let my people go to serve Thee is all about. And he said that all of those commentators and thinkers, whether they are Rav Kook, or whoever, who were trying to imbibe both the war and the victory of the Six Day the occupation of our territories to make that into this grand scheme of redemption. We’re not reading history and a God into our history. But we’re actually repudiating the whole message of the Exodus. And he too brings an example from the law. His holiday was Hanukkah, because on Hanukkah, we, the Jewish people stood up for their keeping of the Law. And he says, and this is built out in the law that says on Passover, you can only read half of the Hallel prayer, whereas on Hanukkah, you read the full Hallel. So again, it’s a trivial example. But both him and Levinson are looking at Jewish thinkers who see the book of the Torah as a book of rules, and use those rules to limit these theological flourishes. And these messianic tendencies, which they see more as idolatry than the true religion that was a given to us by Moses, and experienced with the Exodus. So it’s a fascinating read on what the message of the exodus is. And I think one that deserves further study.  I’ve listened to some podcasts written recently with the election of the new government in Israel. And one of the most interesting thinkers to listen to is someone named Yossi Klein Halevi, who is at the Shalem Center, and he’s a very open-minded liberal thinker, but he used to be a student of Maer Kahana. And he says, If you want to understand this new government, you should read a book called 40 Years by Maer Kahana. And I encourage all of you to do it. And you’ll see literally that he is saying everything that this new government is saying and what I would like to suggest today is, if you would like to see the flip side of what alternative philosophy; a Jewish philosophy would be, to that which is being espoused by what Yeshayahu Leibowitz would be calling these religious Zionists who have lost their way. is Yeshayahu Leibowitz. And maybe we will have an opportunity to explore more of his writings and to learn from him at least, who really wrote them at the time of the Six Day War, but literally was able to prophesize a time when land, occupation and Messianism  were more important. So with that, I wish you all a Shabbat Shalom. And we’ll see you all next week with Rabbi Adam Mintz back. Thank you so much.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/458913

Listen to last year’s Shemot episode: Moses – Reluctant Magician

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