The Eternity of the Jewish People
INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA
PARASHAT HAAZINU
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In memory of our beloved father and grandfather
Mr. Berel Weiner (Dov Ber ben Aharon z"l).
May the learning of these shiurim provide an aliya for his neshama.
Steven Weiner, Lisa Wise, Michael & Joshua
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Dedicated with respect and love
In memory of Rabbi Abraham Halbfinger, zl and
In memory of Bracha Halfbinger Tal, zl
By Marcy and Tsvi Lieber
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The Eternity of the Jewish People
By Rabbi Michael Hattin
Introduction
In a departure from the rest
of Sefer Devarim, Parashat Haazinu is composed as a song. It is Moshe's last exhortation to the
people of Israel, and with it he concludes his review and explanation of the
mitzvot. The song of Haazinu
contains no mention of commandments, no clarification of God's laws, no
expressions of warning or promises of reward.
It is instead a testimonial document, describing in moving and sometimes
obscure verse the broad sweep of Jewish history.
The dominant theme of the song is the singular relationship between God
and the people of Israel, and Moshe traces that unique bond from the beginning
of human history until its eschatological conclusion.
In terse and measured words, Moshe details the pivotal events in the life of the
nation of Israel. He describes their
election as God's special people, His providential care of them in the
wilderness after the Exodus, and their entry and successful settlement of the
land. Moshe goes on to spell out the
people's subsequent downfall, as they fall prey to a lethal combination of the
land's material plenty, the Canaanites' spiritual deficiency and a resultant
estrangement from God. Setback
follows, in the guise of enemy domination, conquest, exile and near
extermination. God stands aloof and
remote, as His once-cherished people call out to their false gods for salvation,
but to no avail. Finally, He
intervenes, crushing their enemies in order to vindicate the ideals for which
Israel once stood. At the end, the
land, for so long desolate and deserted, achieves 'atonement' as the people of
Israel return to it.
Without a doubt, in this song Moshe invokes the 'prophetic' tense of
time. Although the people have yet
to cross the Jordan, in his mind's eye Moshe can already see far into their
future. Their successful
establishment in the land and eventual infidelity are writ large before him. His dire predictions, so often
intimated during the course of Sefer Devarim, are here spelled out as seemingly
inevitable destiny. In the Song of
Haazinu, the distinctions between past, present and future blur and fade away,
as the story of Israel's history is presented as a single continuum along a line
that has but one underlying truth: the people of Israel can never cast off the
onerous mantle of responsibility with which God has cloaked them. They are His special people and,
while in a unique position to enjoy the distinction of that appointment, they
must also embrace its demands.
Idolatry and Exile
This week, we shall examine the implications of this startling fact,
especially as they find expression in the eloquent words of the Ramban (13th
century, Spain). The context of his
comments is the critical passage that describes the dire aftermath of Israel's
forgetfulness of the God who 'gave birth to them': "God saw and was incensed by
the infuriating conduct of his sons and daughters. He said: 'I will hide My face from
them and see their end, for they are a rebellious generation, children of no
faith. They have angered Me with
false gods and have enraged Me with their vanities; I will discomfit them at the
hands of an infamous nation and a barbaric people. For a fire burns in My nostrils and
engulfs even the netherworld, it consumes the land and its produce, igniting the
foundations of the mountains'
I said: 'I will scatter them far and wide, and
cause their memory to cease from among humanity.
But for My fear of the enemy, lest their tormentors turn to their false
gods, lest they say that 'our hand is raised upright, and God has not done all
of these deeds
' (Devarim 32:19-27).
These ominous verses, as does the rest of the Song, contain phrases whose
meaning is doubtful and whose wording is unclear.
As a result, the commentaries offer a wide a variety of possible
interpretations. Nevertheless, there
seems to exist a rough consensus concerning the broad outline: Israel will
forget God and turn instead to idol worship and to its related system of corrupt
values. The Divine response, here
anthropomorphically termed 'anger', will be a removal of Providential care and a
distancing from their resultant plight.
Israel will be attacked by a foreign power for whom compassion and
kindness are anathema, and they will be cruelly exiled. God's 'desire', to scatter Israel to
every corner of the globe and to bring about their demise, will be prevented,
however, by the paradoxical exercise of His self-restraint. As Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra (12th
century, Spain) understands it, God will be 'afraid' to completely destroy the
Jewish people, for to do so would only play into the hands of the nation's
mistaken beliefs, who would erroneously ascribe their victory over Israel to
their own strength and to the efficacious intervention of their false gods.
A Nation vs. A Religion
The Ramban elaborates on these ideas at length: "the expression that 'I will
cause their memory to cease from among humanity' refers to our current state of
exile. We, the remnants of the
tribes of Binyamin and Yehuda, have no renown among the peoples, and are not
considered to be a people or a nation at all.
The verses here declare that according to the strict attribute of
justice, we ought to remain in exile forever, were it not for the 'anger' of the
enemy. This indicates that in our
present exile, the merit of our ancestors has been exhausted. Our only hope of preservation and
salvation from the hands of the nations is for God to act on behalf of His great
Name. So too says the Prophet
Yechezkel, when God proclaims that 'I will gather you from the lands into which
you have been scattered, and I will be sanctified through you in the eyes of the
nations
and you shall know that I am God when I act with you for the sake of My
name, and not in accordance with your evil ways and corrupt deeds, O House of
Israel!' (commentary of Ramban to Devarim 32:26, quoting Yechezkel/Ezekiel
20:41-44).
As the Ramban explains, the verses of the Song that spell out exile and its
torments, are a description of the state of the Jews after the destruction of
the Second Temple up until the contemporary period. Scattered and few in number, the
Jewish people of Judea, already only a remnant of the former tribes, utterly
lost their status as a nation as a consequence of being forcibly removed from
their land. No nation or populace
exists without a land, and so the Jews became a 'religion', settled as small and
powerless faith communities in often-hostile surroundings. The respect and self-respect
associated with nationhood was denied the Jewish people, who were henceforth
subject exclusively to the whims of their host nations.
Willful Forgetfulness and Divine Response
And so it should have remained forever, for as the Ramban describes, the merit
of our ancestors, the accrued reward of their trust and steadfastness in God,
was insufficient to effect the redemption of their children from exile. It seems that the People of Israel
did not deserve eventual redemption on their own merits, while their ancestors'
accumulated good deeds were already spent.
For the Ramban, the verses in Yechezkel are instructive. In context, the Prophet addresses his
harsh words to the People of Israel who dwelt comfortably in Babylonian exile
and became completely oblivious to the eternally relevant mission of the Jewish
people. Instead, these expatriates
forcefully voiced their desire to
'be like the other nations, the families of other lands, to embrace their gods
of wood and stone!' (Yechezkel/Ezekiel 20:32).
The Torah, the word of God, the mission of the Jews to be a 'kingdom of
priests and a holy nation' was rejected, as the people overcame the trauma of
exile and quickly accepted their new status as a landless ethnic community. For the Ramban, Yechezkel addresses
not only the Jews of Babylon in the year 500 BCE, but also the
thirteenth-century Jews of Spain, as well as every other exilic community in
between, that severed their ties to the hope of one day being re-established as
God's nation in the Land of Israel.
Under such circumstances, there is only one prospect for redemption: that God
acts not for the sake of his people, but rather for the sake of His 'name'.
The Ramban continues: "Omnipotent God could care less about showing His power to
the nations, who are regarded as frail and feeble in His sight. Rather, God had created humanity with
the hope that man would recognize his Creator and acknowledge Him. He gave man the exclusive ability to
choose good or evil. When all of
them willfully transgressed and denied Him, only one nation remained associated
with His name. Through them, God
indicated by signs and wonders that He was indeed the Supreme God and the
Ultimate Sovereign, and so He became known to all of the nations. If God then acts to destroy the
people of Israel, then the nations will forget His signs and deeds and will
never recount them, and any historical success of the Jews will be regarded as
passing fortune. Thus, the purpose
of creation and of man will be negated, for none will remain to acknowledge
their Creator, but only to anger Him!
Therefore, it becomes necessary for God to preserve the people of Israel
forever, for they are the closest people to Him, who acknowledge Him more than
any other nation. This is the
meaning of the concluding verses: 'God will judge His people and reconsider His
conduct to His loyal servants
' (Devarim 32:36), for then He will compassionately remember that they
have been His people from time immemorial.
He will remember their loyalty, for during the course of their exile,
they suffered much oppression and torment on His behalf, as the verse says 'they
are My people and loyal children
' (Yeshayahu/Isaiah 63:8).
God's Name and the Jewish People
What is God's 'name' that seems to so preoccupy Yechezkel and the Ramban alike? Without presenting the issue at great
length and in great detail, it is nevertheless possible to suggest that the
so-called 'Name' is an expression for God's essence, for His reputation as it is
revealed in human history. It is the
sum set of acts and deeds by which He is known, it is the attributes of His
involvement in the affairs of men.
The 'Name' of God is associated with a particular people, those who first
introduced it to a non-receptive world almost thirty-seven centuries ago. Before the advent of the people of
Israel, there was no concept of a Single, Incorporeal God, of a united humanity
descended from a lone set of parents who bore the imprimatur of His image, of an
Absolute moral code that obligated and held liable tyrant and serf alike and
sought to elevate them both, of a world that could be the product of free,
autonomous human will and loving, Divine concern rather than the impersonal
playground of mercurial fates, and of the exalted conception that human life is
invested with inestimable worth and infinite meaning. These were new, revolutionary ideas
that are still little appreciated in many corners of the globe.
Our ancestors, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs whose lives of struggle and trust
in this God achieved for them great spiritual growth and concomitant reward for
their descendents, embraced these ideas with enthusiasm and accepted the
responsibilities that they entailed.
So God's name became associated with a family, a tribe, and finally a nation. As the rest of humanity continued on
its destructive path of relativism, slavery, and warfare in its embrace of
polytheism and idolatry, Israel went down to Egypt. In Egypt, Israel the nation was born
and the Exodus was therefore its pivotal moment in history. It was in many ways God's pivotal
moment as well, for it revealed His presence in the world as an Omnipotent,
Omniscient, and Omnipresent Being with a particular interest in human spiritual
development and moral progress.
Henceforward His 'name' or perceived involvement was to be exclusively
associated with the destiny of the people of Israel.
The Jewish People and their Association with the Name
According to the Torah, man has a mission.
That mission is to acknowledge God and thus to utilize his free choice to
build a better world, a world that must be predicated upon moral and ethical
conduct and recognition of higher meaning, if it is to survive. The Jewish people, as the bearers of
that truth, are therefore instrumental in this unfolding of human history. Curiously however, the Jewish people
remain bound up with the revolutionary and noble ideas of their founding even
when they forget or willfully reject them.
Having become coupled with the concept of God, they cannot easily or ever
cast off their elemental identity to instead embrace the numerous false gods
that litter the path of human advancement and social progress. Thus, even when the people of Israel
stray far from their course, inviting Divine indifference to their plight and
the scourge of exile, God cannot abandon them completely and allow them to be
destroyed for their infidelity. To
do so would spell not only the end of Israel, but also the end of the God idea
in the world.
Of course, other concepts of this God might remain in the absence of the Jewish
people, since Judaism has since given rise to newer 'great monotheistic faiths'. No one was more aware of this than
the Ramban who lived in a medieval Spain torn asunder by religious wars between
Christianity and Islam. But the
UNIQUE conception of God the Creator as well as the Liberator, supremely
transcendent and incorporeal but nevertheless near and immediate, Who champions
an exalted belief and trust in Him but also demands a noble and all-encompassing
code of behavior, Who nowhere requires the conversion of the uninitiated or else
their slaughter as infidels, Who wins over the adamant human heart by reason and
kindness and not by the tip of the sword, such a conception of God, the God of
Israel, would perish with the demise of the Jews.
The Eternity of Israel
Thus, God, so to speak, has no choice but to preserve us, until such a day as He
glorifies His Name by redeeming His people, returning them to their land, and
inspiring them anew to follow His commands.
In the meantime, as long as Jews survive, so will God. As long as Jews suffer for their
association with God's Name, though some of them may strive mightily to deny
that ancient but never archaic identity, God's Torah will not be forgotten.
In some ways, Ramban's perceptive words go far towards explaining the always
troubling (at least for the Jews) and uncomfortable reality of Anti-Semitism. Of course, the less pleasant but more
accurate term of Jew-hatred, repackaged for modern consumption as anti-Zionism,
is almost as old as the Jews themselves.
This is because, as Jewish tradition realized early on, hatred of the
Jews has little to do with their wealth/poverty, power/weakness,
influence/helplessness, education/ignorance, or any of the other myriad often
mutually exclusive causes frequently advanced to explain it. Hatred of the Jews is a function of
something much more sinister, yet at the same time more elusive. As our Sages concisely put it:
"
whosoever arises against Israel, it is as if they arise against the Holy One
Blessed be He
" (Mechilta, Chapter 6).
In other words, the oft-stated goal of the dictator, the tyrant, or the
chairman, to dispense with the Jews forever, is by any other name the
subconscious hope to finally extinguish their idea of God so that His incessant
demands for universal freedom, fairness, justice, goodness, and human kindness
can be buried and forgotten for evermore.
In a world or region rid of Jews, repressive, undemocratic and
totalitarian regimes can all sleep easier, unperturbed by their masses' stifled
stirrings for liberty, equality, fairness and decency. Those of us who have studied the Song
of Haazinu, however, know better.
Israel will survive because it must, not only for our sake but also for God's
sake. Redemption will be completed
and Israel will be restored, to at last complete its remarkable task. Let us hope and pray that this New
Year brings us, and all of humanity, peace, blessing and deliverance.
Shabbat Shalom