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The Israeli Elections Demand Our Honesty & Rage
Priest and Prophet alike, they all act falsely… saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. – Jeremiah 8:10-11
“What I wish I could have done for the readers of this book,” writes Indian activist and author Arundhati Roy in the introduction to My Seditious Heart,
is to recreate the prevailing atmosphere in which I published each essay. They were written when a certain political space closed down, when a false consensus was being broadcast, when I could no longer endure the relentless propaganda… mostly I wrote because it became easier to do that than to put up with the angry, persistent hum of my own silence. I also wrote to reclaim language.
It is the banality of the violence here and the wan, false hope of those who refuse to confront the reality of what is happening here that makes me want to write in this moment.
Rebbe Nachman teaches again and again that it is forbidden to despair; equally, I think it is forbidden to lead anyone else to a place of despair. But hope borne of ignorance, particularly willful ignorance, is itself a form of despair; real hope can only come from honestly facing the world as it is – without excuses, without a veil.
Intellectually, I didn’t have any illusions about the outcome of the Israeli election yesterday – that the absolute best-case scenario was a deadlock that would lead to yet another round of elections. I suppose there was also a small chance of another cobbled-together right/center/center-left coalition, but it’s hard to imagine that such a coalition wouldn’t have ended exactly as the current one did.
This morning, though, I felt the grief and rage of knowing that the number of openly Kahanist MKs alone will quite possibly be greater than the number of center-left/left wing MKs, that the next coalition will likely be Israel’s most right-wing, and that the majority of Israelis have voted for parties – Likud, Religious Zionism, Shas, and UTJ – support endless occupation and dispossession. The same could also probably be said of the National Unity Party, though it will likely be in the opposition and its leader, Benny Gantz, has recently paid lip-service to a two-state solution.
It was strange to walk the streets of Jerusalem today. The city leans significantly to the right, and I knew that most of the people I passed had voted for right-wing and far-right candidates, and that, in particular, many of the people I saw wearing kippot likely voted for Kahanism. It was strange to wear a kippah today and realize that many of the people passing me by probably made the same assumption about me, and that many of them likely approved.
I wanted there to be some sort of public melancholy; I wanted to yell at passersby. But the day was largely normal, with the exception of a group of 60 or so bubbly teens who walked by me on the street sporting stickers with the face of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the front man for Israeli Kahanism and the second-in-command of the Religious Zionist party.
There is a truism that a government is not the same as a people. But as a friend of mine pointed out, this is much truer in a dictatorship than in a representative democracy. Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu represent a plurality, if not the outright majority, of Israeli society: right-wing, racist, and opposed to democracy. The percentages are obviously even worse if you only consider the Jewish population.
The only way in which Israel’s incoming government doesn’t represent a determinative portion of the civilians living under that government’s control is, of course, if one counts the millions of Palestinians in the West Bank (and – yes – in Gaza, too, though from a distance) who are not allowed to vote for the military that dominates their lives. But barring that caveat, this incoming Knesset is Israel, and it will only get worse. Israeli youth are more right-wing than earlier generations, and Haredi youth in particular are beginning to be attracted to the Kahanist right. The right controls a vast array of institutions, many of them part of or attached to the state, and is therefore capable of producing and reproducing more and more people who share its ideological stance.
But what about Israel’s previous coalition? Wasn’t it a combination of right, center, and left Jewish parties, as well as a Palestinian party? Isn’t that Israel, too?
I suppose so, but not in the way that it’s been represented. What the outgoing coalition demonstrates is that the only alternative to a far-right government in Israel is a Frankenstein-esque assemblage of political parties who share no concrete values except an opposition to Netanyahu, alternately run by someone who just a decade ago was considered right-wing beyond bounds (Naftali Bennett) and a centrist without any discernable political agenda (Yair Lapid), along with a defense minister whose initial campaign advertisements boasted of how he had “taken Gaza back to the stone age” (Benny Gantz).
That same government continued to support the “creeping annexation” of the West Bank – more settlement growth, the continued demolition of Palestinian homes in Area C, and the renewal of the regulations that ensure a different legal system for Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank. The last of those projects – the renewal of those regulations – was carried out with the consent of the ostensibly left-wing Meretz because if those regulations had failed to be renewed, the coalition would have collapsed (as it eventually did), leading to a far-right government (as it soon will). In other words, even a government that was not far-right could only survive by continuing to support the occupation. And, in the end, Meretz’s decision to so completely compromise its values only delayed the inevitable resurgence of an even more right-wing government and may have cost Meretz enough votes to prevent it from being part of the current Knesset.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t inspiring movements for justice happening here, too. The Joint List and Balad both presented powerful visions for what a democratic Israel would look like, but neither garnered much support. Omdim Beyachad, a joint Palestinian-Jewish social movement, has in the past managed to turn out significant numbers of Israelis for progressive causes. And, of course, there is a courageous network of Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations. But even taken all together, they represent a small fraction of Israeli society.
There are, then, only two major political camps in Israel: a coherent, far-right nationalist one that openly embraces the occupation and an incoherent, “politically diverse” one that propels the occupation along at a slower rate with less nationalist and perhaps more embarrassed rhetoric.
That second camp may yet eke out a pyrrhic victory in the form of yet another round of elections, though this seems increasingly unlikely. Even if it does, though, such a victory would yet again be a delay of the inevitable. Should Netanyahu somehow fail to build a coalition, he will be ousted as the head of Likud, which will allow voters who share his politics but dislike him personally to return to the traditional strongholds of the right.
In the meantime, pro-Israel advocacy trainings, Birthright trips, programs about Israeli culture, and the Israel day parade will continue unabated, perhaps with a scattering of furtive glances now and again when the cognitive dissonance becomes, for a moment, unbearable. The federations, shuls, camps, teen programs, and Hillel chapters that have stationed themselves aboard the ship that is Israel will continue (Israeli) dancing on its decks as it sails itself into an iceberg of nationalism and fascism. Within the next few days or weeks, that the vast majority of American Jews and Jewish institutions will find ways to shrug the election off, ignore it, or wring their hands.
Though a few major Jewish organizations offered muted critiques of Ben-Gvir when he first began to come to power in 2019, a recent JTA article noted:
At least four of the major Jewish groups that spoke out in 2019 say they will not get involved this time around: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. The latter two represent a broad array of national and Jewish groups
As Peter Beinart recently argued, these and other institutions’ refusal to offer a serious moral critique of the Israeli elections is simply the logical consequence of their longtime refusal to confront the reality of the occupation:
[I]f you are not willing to stand on principle against threats to democracy early on, you ultimately find yourself in a quicksand in which you were willing to accept even the most horrific violations of human rights and human dignity. And Itamar Ben-Gvir is the latest example of the fact that the American Jewish establishment is willing to do just that.
For decades, American Jewish institutions have denied the systematic oppression of Palestinians by Israel. They have denied the occupation and its thousands of mundane indignities and shocking acts of violence: home demolitions, the violent suppression of protest, collective punishments, city closures, massive settler violence, the incarceration of children, night raids (though the army claims to have recently ceased these), and the denial of due process, access to resources, and the right to vote.
Lest anyone say that Palestinians can, in fact, vote, since they can vote for the Palestinian Authority (or would, if the PA would allow elections), make no mistake: whatever autonomy the Palestinian Authority has, it is still under Israeli military control. Israel governs who goes in and out of the West Bank, determines how resources are allocated, and exercises military control over the entirety of the territory. If anything, the Palestinian Authority often functions as a “subcontractor” for the occupation.
Ultimately, there is no moral way to deny another people of their rights. If Israel will not leave the West Bank, end the siege of Gaza, and allow an autonomous, full-fledged Palestinian state – and given continued settlement expansion and the forced displacement of Palestinians from Area C, this seems quite unlikely – then it cannot continue to deny Palestinians the right to vote in elections for the government that ultimately governs them. Hopes for, promises of, and vague rhetorical commitments to a two-state solution that Israel has for decades rendered increasingly impossible cannot be used as justification for endlessly deferring alternate solutions. As Beinart states in “Yavneh: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine,”
The painful truth is that the project to which liberal Zionists like myself have devoted ourselves for decades—a state for Palestinians separated from a state for Jews—has failed. The traditional two-state solution no longer offers a compelling alternative to Israel’s current path. It risks becoming, instead, a way of camouflaging and enabling that path. It is time for liberal Zionists to abandon the goal of Jewish–Palestinian separation and embrace the goal of Jewish–Palestinian equality.
In 2015, similarly, Ha’aretz columnist Gideon Levy wrote, “Israel is already a binational state. There’s no other way to describe it: a state that governs two nations is binational.” In the absence of a two-state solution, the choice is between the undemocratic binationalism Israel already has or a democratic binationalism – whether as a single state, a confederation (not to be confused with the Federation Plan, which proposes a federal model as a way of maintaining Jewish hegemony over the entirety of Israel/Palestine), or some other configuration.
Beinart goes on to argue,
The essence of Zionism is not a Jewish state in the land of Israel; it is a Jewish home in the land of Israel, a thriving Jewish society that both offers Jews refuge and enriches the entire Jewish world. It’s time to explore other ways to achieve that goal—from confederation to a democratic binational state—that don’t require subjugating another people. It’s time to envision a Jewish home that is a Palestinian home, too.
For some, Beinart’s reinterpretation of Zionism might offer a way of committing to a just vision for Israel/Palestine without giving up a deeply and long held ideology; for others, the historical baggage of the term might seem superfluous. Either way, though, his vision of an Israel/Palestine that is a home for Jews and Palestinians, and allows both peoples to flourish – an idea, incidentally, that a significant number of Palestinians and some Israeli Jews have long advocated for – offers a compelling vision for a future beyond occupation and oppression.
It is on us to call upon our communal institutions, big and small, speak out. To insist that instead of unquestioningly supporting, endorsing, and defending the Israeli government, they support the Palestinian and Israeli activists and organizers on the ground fighting for a just, democratic future, even if the majority of Israeli Jewish society continues to vote for, endorse, and tacitly accept the occupation.
No matter how scary, frustrating, or futile it might seem, it’s our obligation to demand that our shuls, federations, youth groups, and other institutions that make any sort of claim to moral seriousness take a stand – because if they don’t now, they likely never will. But if they will not lead our community to a just future, then it is our obligation to be the leaders our community deserves.
In “Democracy: Who Is She When She’s at Home,” Arundhati Roy concludes her critique of Hindu ethnonationalism in India by stating:
Fascism itself can only be turned away if all those who are outraged by it show a commitment to social justice that equals the intensity of their indignation. Are we ready to get off our starting blocks?… If not, then years from now… [w]e too will find ourselves unable to look our own children in the eye, for the shame of what we did and didn’t do. For the shame of what we allowed to happen.
It is forbidden to despair. But the first step towards hope is honesty. May our honesty bring us heartbreak, and may that heartbreak bring us the fury necessary for the struggle ahead.
“A time that was not-time that never was…”
Why does the Jewish year begin with Rosh Hashanah? At first glance, the question appears nonsensical. Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the Jewish year – how else could it start?
When we look at the Torah’s description of Rosh Hashanah, though, we realize that the answer isn’t so clear:
In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial t’ruah, a holy convocation. You shall do no manner of servile work; and you shall bring an offering made by fire to the LORD. (Lev. 23:24)
In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. You shall have a day of t’ruah. You shall present a burnt offering of pleasing odor to the LORD: one bull of the herd, one ram, and seven yearling lambs, without blemish. The meal offering with them—choice flour with oil mixed in—shall be: three-tenths of a measure for a bull, two-tenths for a ram, and one-tenth for each of the seven lambs. And there shall be one goat for a sin offering, to make expiation in your behalf — in addition to the burnt offering of the new moon with its meal offering and the regular burnt offering with its meal offering, each with its libation as prescribed, offerings by fire of pleasing odor to the LORD. (Num. 29:1-6)
The most obvious issue is that Rosh Hashanah is actually not the beginning of the year; it’s the first day of the seventh month. Now, perhaps if there were something truly important and significant about Rosh Hashanah, we might be justified in rearranging the calendar so that it was the first day of the year, but the Torah actually offers no explanation as to Rosh Hashanah’s purpose. Why should a day without any clear significance get set as the start of the calendar?
As Rav Avraham Yehuda Chein writes in his essay, Hayamim Hanora’im, “[Rosh Hashanah is] not a remembrance of the exodus from Egypt, like Pesach, or a remembrance of the great and terrible wilderness like Sukkot… Nor [is it] a remembrance of Sinai, like Shavuot” (BeMalkhut HaYehadut, 136). Though Yom Kippur also doesn’t commemorate a particular event, its function is far less mysterious than Rosh Hashanah’s: “It is a day of kippurim. There is a beautiful and glorious service of the High Priest. His entrance into the holy of holies, the place closed and sealed off from every creation” (Ibid.). By contrast, “Rosh Hashanah – it alone not only has no reason for its fixed date but also has no reason as to its essence, no hint as to its purpose” (137).
Compounding its mystery is the peculiarity of the sounding of the shofar. “Not words, not song, not even musical instruments but rather – a simple voice… above speech and deeper than music” (137). “The day is a mystery,” he concludes, “and its essence is mystery.” (Ibid).
We have, then, four peculiarities (among others) regarding Rosh HaShanah:
- It is not tied to a particular event.
- It is unclear why it falls on the specific date that it does (especially since, according to the Biblical calendar, it falls on the first of the seventh month and not the first month).
- It has no stated purpose.
- The shofar is itself a peculiar instrument.
Is there a pattern to these peculiarities? And might that pattern help us understand the purpose of the day?
The answer lies, perhaps, in the ambiguous nature of a “beginning.” All beginnings are ultimately arbitrary: any event is influenced by uncountable (or, rather, all) prior events, and to designate a particular time as a “beginning” is to ignore the summed effect of all the incidents that brought it into being. As Alasdair Macintyre writes in After Virtue, “The characters [of a story] of course never start literally ab initio; they plunge in medias res, the beginnings of their story already made for them by what and who has gone before.” (215).
This helps us understand why Rosh Hashanah is both the first of the seventh month and the first of the first month: each year begins in media res, and any supposed beginning is already the seventh (or second, fifth, tenth, etc.) month of processes and stories that began before it. This is why Rosh Hashanah needs no justification or reason for its particular date: any day could be chosen as the beginning of the calendar.
The impossibility of ever non-arbitrarily defining a beginning is underscored by the opening to Mishnah Rosh HaShanah:
There are four [days that mark] New Years [roshei shanim]: On the first of Nissan, there is a rosh hashanah for kings and festivals. On the first of Elul, there is a rosh hashanah for animal tithes. Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon say on the first of Tishrei. On the first of Tishrei, there is a rosh hashanah for years, shmitah cycles, jubilee cycles, planting, and [tithing] vegetables. On the first of Shevat, there is a rosh hashanah for trees – these are the words of Beit Shammai. And Beit Hillel says, on the fifteenth. (M. Rosh Hashanah 1:1)
Without going into the specifics of what is signified by each “rosh hashanah,” it seems clear that the opening of the Mishnah is designed to play with – or undermine – our understanding of time. There isn’t a single, unified calendar – four calendars operate at once, and two of them are the subject of dispute.
But for all our discussion of the subjectivity of beginnings, the tradition does seem to argue that there was at least one definitive beginning: creation itself. But even actually look at the Torah’s account of creation, we do not find a “final” beginning. The Torah states:
When God began to create heaven and earth—
the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—
God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Gen. 1:1-3)
God, obviously, “was”before creation. Creation may be the beginning of corporeal being and time, but it is preceded by Being and timelessness. This is echoed in the targum, which translates “in the beginning” as “with wisdom,” preventing its readers from mistakenly thinking that Genesis constitutes a definitive beginning. The midrash, too, proposes an earlier beginning to the beginning, stating that God used the Torah as a blueprint for creation (Genesis Rabbah 1:1). In an even more radical reading, the Zohar interprets the first sentence of the Torah as referring to an intermediate stage in the process of God’s self-emanation (1:1b), implicitly claiming that the Torah makes no attempt to describe the more supernal realms of God’s being.
That creation isn’t the beginning is affirmed by those sources that try to determine on “what day” creation happened. At first glance, these traditions do appear to argue that there really was a beginning; upon further reflection, though, we see how each helps us appreciate the limits of our relationship to and perception of time.
In the Talmud, the two possibilities given are the first of Tishrei and the first of Nissan (see b. Rosh Hashanah 10b-11a). In the midrash, the 25th of Elul is proposed (Lev. Rabbah 29:1), a position affirmed by later authorities.
All of these proposals are paradoxical. Saying that existence was created on a particular date is like saying that the big bang happened in a place. Time only “begins” within creation; it doesn’t precede it. As Rabbi Moshe Cordovero states in Sefer Alimah, creation emerged from God’s divine infinitude at “a time that is no-time that never was” (quoted in R’ Aharon HaLevi’s Shaarei HaYichud veHaEmunah, Introduction).
Rather than reading these traditions as making literal claims about what “day” things began on, perhaps we can instead read them as making claims about Rosh Hashanah’s relationship to time.
According to the first position, Rosh Hashanah was on the first day of creation. If so, Rosh Hashanah marks the transition from non-temporality to temporality; it points directly toward the void from which we are drawn but, like the Torah, does not presume to describe that realm that exists beyond time and space.
According to the final position, Rosh Hashanah was the 6th day of creation (Elul is the month before Tishrei, so if creation began on the 25th of Elul, the 6th day would fall on Rosh Hashanah). If so, Rosh Hashanah marks the evolution of sentient beings who can perceive the flow of temporality. According to this position, it is not that Rosh Hashanah commemorates the sixth day of creation but rather that it was “created” as part of it. Within this framework, Rosh Hashanah does not fall on the sixth day of creation because existence was created on the 25th of Elul; rather, because Rosh Hashanah had to be on the sixth day, we say that creation “began” on the 25th of Elul.
And according to the middle position, the first Rosh Hashanah “was” several months after creation. In this case, Rosh Hashanah has no special relationship to time until it’s set as the beginning of the calendar. If so, Rosh Hashanah specifically relates to the human demarcation of time.
Each of these possibilities about what relationship to time Rosh Hashanah gestures towards – temporality itself, our perception of it, or our ability to mark and measure it – brings us to a recognition of the limits of our temporal consciousness. We cannot really conceptualize the vastness of time, let alone imagine reality without it. Time is a light shown in a dark forest; it illuminates what lies within its sphere but makes us equally cognizant of that which falls beyond its range.
When we celebrate Rosh Hashanah, we remind ourselves that our true beginning lies before the calendar, our experience of time and time itself. Before everything, there was… Even the word “was” misconstrues the nature of pre-creation, since “was” implies a sense of time and space. On Rosh Hashanah, we realize the contingency of all of our attempts to locate a “true” beginning and we come to understand that all of being comes from a source with no beginning or end. Time lies within God, but God does not lie within time.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi teaches that in order for a universe bounded by time and space to exist within a God unbounded by time and space, God must continually and repeatedly renew creation:
If the letters [that undergird existence and through which God created the world] were to disappear for a moment, God forbid, and return to their source, all of the heavens would become null and nothingness, and it would be as if nothing were at all… and so too with all of the creations in all of the upper and lower worlds, and even this corporeal earth… everything would be null and nothingness as it was before the six days of creation. (Tanya, Sha’ar YaYichud veHaEmunah, Ch. 1)
At all moments, God brings forth existence from “no-time” and no-space and Nothing. Perhaps this is why we say “Today is the birth of the world” specifically on a day whose very arbitrariness undermines our understanding of time. Rosh Hashanah is the birth of the world because each day and each moment is the birth of the world.
This, perhaps, offers us a hint as to the role of the shofar. On Rosh Hashanah, with an awareness of the infinitude that lies beyond us, we come to the limits of our abilities of expression. Language cannot capture that which precedes differentiation. The shofar offers us a pure, singular sound, unencumbered by the constraints of language.
But even the shofar does not fully capture the expanse we seek to describe. The shofar is still a sound, and how could any sound articulate that which is beyond time and space? And so it is the silence after the shofar blasts that comes closest to expressing the infinitude of God.
The movement from language to sound to silence actualized by the shofar is an inversion of the process of creation as described in the Torah, in which words emerge from the void. In returning to the silence that precedes the word, we seek an encounter with the One who precedes the beginning.
It is strange that precisely on a day that gestures to the endless expanse of existence, we mark a new year of earthly living and pray for health and success. At the same time that we contemplate the infinite, we attend to the mundane. In the contrast, we encounter what Thomas Nagel terms “the absurd”:
We cannot live human lives without energy and attention, nor without making choices which show that we take some things more seriously than others. Yet we have always available a point of view outside the particular form of our lives, from which the seriousness appears gratuitous. These two inescapable viewpoints collide in us, and that is what makes life absurd. It is absurd because we ignore the doubts that we know cannot be settled, continuing to live with nearly undiminished seriousness in spite of them. (“The Absurd,” Journal of Philosophy 68:20 (October 1971):719)
How can we seek to return to God’s infinitude and, at the same time, care about our earthly concerns? More importantly, why does the Day require us to do both when the contrast it engenders brings us face to face with the absurdity of our lives?
Disputing those who see such absurdity as a problem and seek either an escape from it or means of confronting it, Nagel writes,
Our absurdity warrants neither that much distress nor that much defiance. At the risk of falling into romanticism by a different route, I would argue that absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics… it is possible only because we possess a certain kind of insight-the capacity to transcend ourselves in thought… [and] it results from the ability to understand our human limitation. (726-727)
Would we really want to live less absurd lives? We could only do so by forfeiting either the wonder, love, heartbreak, awe, grief, joy, pain, and serenity of our day-to-day lives or our curiosity about the vastness of the universe and what lies beyond it.
Rosh Hashanah affirms the importance of both. In spite of that vastness, our small, quirky lives, loves and losses have meaning; and in spite of how big our lives seem to us, there is something far bigger beyond them. The details are endless, and there is an endlessness beyond the possibility of detail. All of it is part of God: chopping garlic, the big bang, cutting toenails, Andromeda, blueberries, black holes, blessings.
Bekhukotai: “There is no despair”
Our parshah, Bekhukotai, begins with God’s promise of blessings if we follow the Torah. Among those blessings is a passage that may be familiar from the “Prayer for Peace” we say after the Torah reading:
I will grant peace to the land and you shall lie down and no one will terrify you. I will rid the land of vicious beasts and no sword shall pass through your land. (Lev. 26:6)
Reading this passage again and again this week, it’s been hard for me to imagine ever living in such a world.
It’s hard to imagine peace after two more horrific mass shootings, and it’s hard to imagine that NRA-backed politicians will ever allow even the most moderate changes to our gun control laws.
It’s hard to imagine peace as the Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds on, and as Russia takes steps to cut off Ukrainian food supplies.
Sometimes it feels better to just resign ourselves to believing that things will always be the way they are; at least that way we won’t be painfully disappointed.
Perhaps, then, it’s better not to imagine peace; maybe it’s better to set our sights low and trudge along.
This temptation to reconcile ourselves to the world-as-it-is is expressed in a Talmudic debate in Tractate Shabbat (63a) about just how different the age of the Messiah will be from our current time.
According to Shmuel, an important rabbinic authority, “There will be no difference between the days of the Messiah and this world except the oppression of [the Jewish] exile.”
Shmuel is what we might call a “realist.” In his eyes, the world is the way it is. Even in the messianic age –even in the best version of this world – there will still be war, famine, and suffering. The only thing that will change is that the Jews will return to the land of Israel and therefore no longer be any worse off than anyone else
If that’s the only difference, we may basically be living in Shmuel’s version of the messianic age, and it leaves quite a bit to be desired.[1]
In contrast to Shmuel, the majority opinion of the Rabbis is what we might call “utopian.” According to them, the age of the Messiah will be radically different from our own.[2] The Rabbis cite the famous passage from Isaiah, which states, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares. No longer shall nation lift up sword against nation, and they shall learn war no more” (Isaiah 2:4). This means, the Rabbis say, that there will be no weapons in the age of the Messiah – it will be a time of world peace and radical transformation.
Shmuel’s realism has its allure; in a bizarre way, it’s comforting to be told not to get our hopes up – if things are the way they’ll always be, we don’t need to feel angry that the world isn’t better than it is. We can just accept it, maybe with some despair or numbness, but without the heartbreak that comes from yearning for a redemption that has yet to arrive.
The Rabbis’ vision is compelling – the notion that the world can be changed, that things don’t have to be the way they are, that there might be a utopia at the end of the road that will justify all of the suffering along the way. In the words of Hegel, some final purpose “[t]o [whose] end all the sacrifices have been offered on the vast altar of the earth throughout the long lapse of ages” (General Introduction to the Philosophy of History).
But the rabbis’ vision of redemption carries its own source of despair: they articulated their hopes almost 2,000 years ago, and we seem farther away from realizing those hopes than ever, with no clear idea about how we might begin to fix things.
How do we navigate between a utopianism that seem unachievable and a realism that doesn’t hope to achieve much of anything?
The Rambam, the great 12th century philosopher and halakhist, offers a synthesis of Shmuel and the Rabbis’ positions that on first glance seems contradictory, but upon deeper reflection offers a powerful path to redemption.
In his description of the Messianic age, he begins by quoting Shmuel’s insistence that there will be no difference between our world and that of the Messiah except the Jewish exile (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings, 12:2).[3]
He then concludes, though, with this:
At that time there will be no famines and no wars, no envy and no competition. For the Good will be very pervasive… The world will only be engaged in knowing God… They will then achieve knowledge of the Creator to as high a degree as humanly possible, as it says, “For the Earth shall be filled of knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9) (Laws of Kings, 12:5)
How can the Rambam say, on the one hand, that there will be “no difference” between our world and the age of the Messiah except the Jewish exile, and at the same time say that in the age of the Messiah, everything will be different: “there will be no famines and no wars, no envy and no competition” and everyone will know God?
The key to understanding that apparent contradiction is in the Rambam’s apparent interpretation of the phrase “no difference between our world and the age of the Messiah.” Whereas Shmuel originally seems to have meant that our world will still be pretty bad in the time of the Messiah, the Rambam seems to reinterpret it to mean that there will be no supernatural difference between our world and that of the Messiah. God will not change the laws of nature in order to bring about redemption (Ibid., 12:1): redemption will, instead, be a human endeavor (see 11:4).
So, how does the Rambam think that we’ll achieve that redemption?
Shmuel believed that the end of the Jewish exile is the only thing that distinguishes our world from that of the Messiah but for the Rambam, that’s only the first step. In the land of Israel, he says, Jews will finally have time to study Torah, and they will thereby be able to exert a moral influence on the world (Ibid., 12:3-4). Though it’s not totally clear from the Rambam’s writing how exactly the world will change, it seems that he believes Jewish moral influence will be significant enough to eventually turn the entire world away from war and competition and towards peaceful contemplation of God.
In sum, the Rambam has taken Shmuel’s pessimism– the world won’t be any different in the age of the Messiah – and turned it into a challenge – the world won’t be any different unless we make it different. And he has taken the Rabbis’ vision – a peaceful, redeemed world – that seemed impossible and tried to come up with a plan for how to get there.[4]
Now, the Rambam’s vision might also strike us as somewhat impractical. But we can still appreciate that what he’s trying to do is make the utopian realistic – not by compromising on the audacity of utopia, but by imagining how we might make it possible. In the words of Israeli theologian Rav Shagar, “What excites the Rambam is the fact that redemption is not a miracle. Specifically for this reason, it becomes a realistic option” (Briti Shalom, “On Messianism, the Right, and the Left”).
My point isn’t that right now, we need to be coming up with plans. Rather, it’s that if we assume from the outset that the world can’t be changed, we’ll certainly never be able to change it. But if we begin from the assumption that radical change is possible, we might be surprised by our own creativity about how to achieve it.
So how, in the midst of the world as it is, can we maintain the imagination and hope necessary to change it?
Last year, a dear friend introduced me to the work of abolitionist activist and scholar Mariame Kaba and her insistence that “hope is a discipline.” In an interview last year, Kaba explained what that phrase meant to her:
“Hope is a discipline.” It’s less about “how you feel,” and more about the practice of making a decision every day that you’re still gonna put one foot in front of the other…
It’s work to be hopeful. It’s not like a fuzzy feeling… But it matters to have it, to believe that it’s possible to change the world… [W]e don’t live in a predetermined, predestined world where like nothing we do has an impact… We’re constantly changing. We’re constantly transforming. It doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily good or bad. It just is. That’s always the case. And so… we have an opportunity at every moment to push in a direction…towards more justice.
It’s hard to stay hopeful in a broken world. But if we want the world to change, we can’t wait for proof that our hope is justified. We have to commit to hope, and that very belief will help us bring about that which we hope for.[5] And even if it feels sometimes like keeping our hopes muted is a way to protect ourselves, the only thing it really protects is the status quo and those who benefit from it.
The Hasidic sage Rebbe Nachman, we are told, would repeat again and again, “There is no despair,” drawing out the words: “There – is – no – despair” (see Likutei Moharan II:78).
There is no despair, not because there is no reason for despair, but because we are never beyond hope.
Even if the world we are dreaming of – a world without violence, antisemitism, racism, economic exploitation, climate disaster – exists only in our dreams, by dreaming it we have begun to make it real.
[1] The Tosafot argue that Shmuel doesn’t really mean that this will be the “only” change and that he also believes the Temple will be rebuilt.
[2] In the Talmud, the Rabbis’ position is stated first. I have inverted the order for clarity.
[3] The Migdal Oz states that the Rambam is referring not to the passage in b. Shabbat 63a, but rather to a parallel passage in b. Brachot 34b, presumably because it comes earlier in the Talmud. That latter passage, though, focuses on individual redemption rather than national or universal redemption. See other parallels in b. Sanhedrin 99a and b. Pesachim 68a. The Rambam, of course, does not say which passage he is referring to.
[4] The Rambam offers a slightly more explicit reinterpretation of Shmuel’s position in his introduction to the tenth chapter of Mishnah Sanhedrin, Perek Chelek. As per the previous note, it is not clear that the Rambam is drawing on the specific messianic vision presented by the Rabbis in b. Shabbat 63a as opposed to more general messianic claims in the tradition.
[5] Even if this isn’t how he meant it, perhaps this is how we can read the twelfth of the Rambam’s thirteen principles of faith, also stated in the introduction to Perek Chelek: “The twelfth principle of faith… is to believe and to confirm that the Messiah is coming.” (Introduction to Mishnah Sanhedrin, ch. 10).
Metzora: “Hallelujah to the ache”
This week’s Torah portion, Metzorah, offers us valuable insight for navigating the challenges and joys of living in bodies prone to breaking down.
Metzorah forms a unit with its predecessor, Tazria. Like much of VaYikra, both parshiot discuss sources of impurity.[1] The sources of impurity these particular parshiot deal with are largely ones related to the body, with a particular focus on skin disease, called tzara’at.[2]
I am certainly not advocating that we understand disease as the Torah does. Rather, I hope that by understanding how the Torah conceptualizes bodily vulnerability, we might gain some insight into how to live with the uncertainty of our own vulnerable bodies.
At first glance, the text might appear offensive. Why should tzara’at make someone “impure”? Shouldn’t people suffering from illness be cared for?
Some of us may be familiar with the rabbinic tradition, which conceptualizes tzara’at as a punishment for lashon harah, slander.[3] Many of us, particularly those of us who have experienced various illnesses, would rebel against the notion that illness is in any way a form of divine punishment.
Unlike the later tradition, though, VaYikra itself does not appear to think that those suffering tzara’at should be castigated or that tzara’at constitutes any sort of punishment.
The Jewish Study Bible clarifies that when VaYikra uses the term “impure,” it does not connote anything
demonic… [n]either is it the same as modern notions of dirt or filth, or of infection. Rather, [impurity] is a simple fact of life, a part of nature… These phenomena are not necessarily bad… there is nothing sinful about [them]… and there is no evil in [them]. (Opening note to Chs. 12-15)
If tzara’at is a natural part of life and not evil, then why does VaYikra consider it “impure”?
As the Jewish Study Bible clarifies, VaYikra considers tzara’at “impure” because it sees it as a
manifestation of the gradual escape of life… [with] death itself having begun to consume the body… [It is] [t]his “leakage” of life… that creates impurity” (Opening note to v. 13:1-14:57.).
Impurity, in this case, is morally neutral and simply generated by proximity to death. But if the impurity of tzara’at is simply the morally neutral result of proximity to death, why does the text care about that impurity at all?
For the book of VaYikra, impurity is a quasi-physical substance that gets “attracted” to the Tabernacle. Regardless of its origin, should enough of it accumulate, God will no longer be able to reside within the Israelite camp.
Accordingly, tzara’at requires a set of rituals – which constitute the opening passages of our Torah portion – for purifying both the person in question as well as the Tabernacle.
Again, this purification has no moral valence, and has no relationship to sin or repentance; it is simply the process through which the impurity generated by an encounter with death is rectified.
Though the primary function of the cleansing is to prevent that buildup of impurity, we can also imagine these rituals as ways of moving through the intermittent confrontations with vulnerability, illness, mortality, and death that weave in and out of our lives.
The Torah knows that we brush up against death time and again; rather than ignoring such encounters, it provides guidance for how to navigate them.
Even if we don’t subscribe to the Torah’s understanding of the connection between illness, death, and impurity, I think that there is something refreshing about these chapters’ concern with mortality.
We live in a society and culture that does its best to forget that we are vulnerable – an endless array of supplements, diet and exercise programs, and lifestyle books encourage us to believe that if we can just do everything right, we’ll be safe. Covid, of course, has upended that a little bit – we know well that in spite of our best efforts, we can still get sick – but even still, we constantly crave the surety of knowing that we’re fully protected against whatever is coming and often feel ashamed when we become ill.
Clearly, we should take precautions, especially with Covid! But like the Israelites, we also need a way of acknowledging and confronting the fact that in spite of our best laid plans, we’ll all come face to face with illness, vulnerability, and mortality. In the words of disability activist Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, “[M]ost of us will move in and out of disability in our lifetimes, whether we do so through illness, an injury or merely the process of aging” (“Becoming Disabled,” The New York Times).
It’s certainly tempting to imagine that ignoring our vulnerabilities might make us happier. Having experienced a range of physical injuries over the last decade, I’ve spent a lot of time perfecting the art of pretending that my body’s challenges don’t exist. Often, I assumed that if I just acted as if my body were OK, I’d feel better about it. But more often than not, ignoring my pains, aches, strains, and pops not only made my injuries worse, but also made me feel emotionally worse: I was pretending that I had a different body – a perfect, unblemished, unbroken body – which I could only do by ignoring the body that I actually did have.
What’s the alternative? What does it look like to acknowledge – or even embrace – our vulnerability, and what benefits might there be to doing so?
In Midrash Aseret HaDibrot, a small 10th century midrash on the Ten Commandments, the angels speak to the Torah itself, and tell the Torah that instead of being given to people, the Torah should be given to angels. People, after all, are fallible, but angels are divine beings. In response, the Torah mocks the angels, saying,
Why do you need Torah? Did you leave Egypt? Were you enslaved to Pharoah? Do you eat and drink? Do you have impurity? Why do you want the Torah? You have no need for the Torah! (Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Aseret HaDibrot 1:18)
The Torah isn’t given to people in spite of our humanness. Rather, it’s because we’re human – because we eat and drink, because we experience hardship, that we encounter death – that we get to have the Torah, a book that is just as concerned with spirituality as it is with the muck and mire of the body. Or, to put it more accurately, a book that believes that the muck and mire of the body is one of the most critical spiritual arenas.
A similar midrash makes an additional argument as to why humans are better candidates than angels for receiving the Torah: because angels do no physical labor, they have no need of Shabbat (Ein Yaakov 9:15).[4] Commenting on that midrash, Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, a popular 20th century mystic and theologian, explains that unlike angels,
Humans, through their creative talents, complete and perfect existence… as partners with God in the creation of the world. This human ability to create… is expressed… through humans’ bodily actions. (Ein Ayah on Ein Yaakov 9:15; ch. 9. pp. 100)
Angels might be perfect and divine – they may never get sick, never die, never suffer, never deal with the thousand humiliations of having a body that will sooner or later fall apart – but that means that they also cannot participate in the gritty, embodied work of repairing the world.
It is through our bodies – our artful, achy, beautiful, broken, capable, constricted, divine, and depleted bodies – that we partner with God in building a redeemed existence.
In the poem “I Sing the Body Electric; Especially When My Power Is Out,”[5] Andrea Gibson celebrates the body’s susceptibility:
This is my body
My exhaustion pipe will never pass inspection
And still my lungs know how to breathe
Like a burning map…
Say this is my body
It is no ones but mine
This is my nervous system
My wanting blood
My half-tamed addictions…
Hallelujah to the ache
To the pull
To the fall
To the pain
Hallelujah To the grace
And the body
and every cell of us all.
Like Gibson, we all experience our pulls, falls, pains, and half-tamed addictions, but they are precisely what make us holy and make each of us worthy of a thousand hallelujahs.
In Shabbat shacharit, we tell God,
The limbs you appointed for us… and the tongue You have set in our mouth will thank, bless, [and] praise… You… all hearts will be in awe of you, and all innards and kidneys will sing your name, as it is written, ‘All my bones will say: God – who is like you?’ (Ps. 35:10)” (Nishmat Kol Chai).
May we and all the people of the earth merit the wisdom to perceive how all our sinews and stitches, our bones and bruises, are themselves the holiest prayers we can offer.
[1] I am grateful to my friend Talia Kaplan for her helpful comments on the first draft of this d’var.
[2] Tzara’at can also affect inanimate objects (e.g. clothes, buildings), but it is its form as a skin disease that is most relevant for this discussion.
[3] See, for instance, b. Arachin 15b
[4] The midrash in Ein Yaakov is based on b. Shabbat 88b. I have cited the former because it is the material R’ Kook on which R’ Kook is directly commenting.
[5] Content warning: the full version of this poem includes discussions of violence and self-harm.
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