When the Tabernacle is to set out, the Levites shall take it down,

troop by troop, each man with this division and each under his standard.

(Bemidbar 1:51-53)

Another story is told of a gentile who was passing behind the Beth

Midrash and overheard the voice of a scribe reciting "These are the

garments which they shall make: the Choshen and the Ephod." He said:

"To whom were these instructions given?" They answered him: "To

the High Priest." Said the gentile: "I shall go and convert myself so

that they appoint me High Priest."

He came before Shammai. He said to him: Convert me on condition that you

appoint me High Priest." He pushed him away with the builder's cubit he

was holding.

He came before Hillel, who converted him. Said Hillel to him: Is it not

so that only one acquainted with the conventions of monarchy is appointed

king?" The convert went and studied. When he reached the passage "And

the stranger who comes near shall die" he asked: "To whom does

this passage refer?" He replied: " Even to David, King of

Israel."

The gentile analyzed his situation with a kal va'chomer. "If

Israel, who are called Sons of the Omnipresent, and because of His love for

them he called them "Israel, My firstborn son", yet they are subject

to "And the stranger who comes near shall die" – a convert who

comes but with his stick and pack, all the more so!"

He came before Shammai: He said to him: "In your estimation, am I

worthy of being a High Priest? Does it not say in the Torah: "And the

stranger who comes near shall die?"

He came before Hillel.

He said to him: "Hillel the humble, may blessings be heaped upon your

head, for you brought me beneath the wings of the Divine Presence."

One day, the three of them happened to meet. The convert said:

"Shammai's strictness sought to drive us from the world; Hillel's humility

gathered us under the wings of the Holy Presence."

 (Shabbat 31a)

"YOUR

FOLLOWING ME IN THE DESERT"

THE

FORMATIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF ISRAEL'S

DEVELOPMENT

IN THE DESERT

Gili

Zivan

The Parasha of Bemidbar, which opens the

Book of Bemidbar, provides a propitious pretext for examining the

significance which various thinkers assigned to the story of Israel's formation

in the desert. What is the meaning of forty years of wanderings in the desert

prior to the entry into an inhabited land? Desert is the antithesis of an

inhabited land, the opposite of civilization. It is a place where man is

dependant upon God's beneficence, no less than upon man's favors. Is it a place

of freedom, or a place of fear?

Shulamit Hareven masterfully described the

atmosphere of that desert experience, capturing something of the feelings of

the Hebrews fleeing their Egyptian masters into the great desert:

Tremendous freedom, vast, larger than the

measure of man, stood in the air. There was no scheduled order of the day, it

seemed as there was no longer any order in the world… there was neither master

nor slave. There was unthreatening desert, and crevices… the silence could be

felt. Infinite skies…

There were no sounds. A few bleats of a

flock, a few human voices in a crevice and by the water… here and there the

sharp screech of a desert bird. Their ears were cleansed of all sounds of a

settled land, of the shouts of the taskmasters .

(From the trilogy "Thirst" – "The Hater of Miracles")

     What

is the function of the desert? Freedom from the sounds of Egypt? From the

voices of the master and the slave? From the noises of the Nile and its

magicians? What is the import of the fact that that the first moments of

Israel's formation were not in its own land?

     We

shall examine this problem through the eyes of three modern thinkers: Erich

Fromm, Franz Rozenzweig, and Yeshaayahu Leibowitz. But I should like preface

this journey through commentary with a Midrash. The Darshan in the Tanhuma

explains the extended wanderings in the desert as an educational necessity. The

people had to undergo a radical metamorphosis, to change habits and

conceptions; they needed forty years in the desert in order to free themselves

from earlier conceptions:

He led them

around in the desert for forty years. Said The Holy One, Blessed Be He: If I

lead them on the short route, every man will take hold of his field and his

vineyard, and will not engage in Torah. Instead I will lead them through the

desert, and they will eat the manna and they will drink the water of the well,

and the Torah will settle in their bodies. (Midrash

Tanhuma, Beshalach, chap. 1)

This idea is elaborated upon at length by the

psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm (b. 1900), who saw in the

wanderings of Israel in the dawn of Jewish history evidence of Judaism's

struggle against the god of acquisitiveness. The forty years of desert

wanderings are forty years of being, of

human existence which does not seek to define itself through ownership. This is

the period during which the slaves of yesterday become aware of the development

of a different sort of relations, human relations which are not founded upon

relations of ownership and acquisitiveness. The desert is the most important

symbol of liberation from the definition of 'self' by property.

The desert is not a home. There are no

cities. There is no property. It is the place of nomads who have that which

they need, and all that they need is life's essentials, not belongings… life

in the desert as preparation for a life of freedom. (Erich From, Ownership or Self-Realization, p. 59, emphasis mine

– G. Z.)

Even when God acquiesces to the Children of

Israel's demands for the pot of flesh in Egypt, He attaches an important

reservation: "They gathered as much as they needed to eat" (Shemot 16:18), the Children of Israel were not

allowed to hoard food. According to Fromm , this command is related to the

fight against acquisitiveness:

Here, for the first time, is a formulation of

the principle promulgated by Marx: "Each according to his needs." The

right to receive food is determined without limit… the second command is

against hoarding, covetousness, and acquisitiveness. The Children of Israel are

forbidden to hoard anything until morning. (Fromm,

ibid., p. 60)

The

struggle against acquisitiveness , then, is expressed through the restriction

against gathering on the Shabbat and by the command to gather a double portion

on the Sixth Day, for the Sixth Day and for the Shabbat. According to Fromm,

the Sabbath is not only a day of rest; it is an expression of life without

acquisitiveness, without transfer of objects from domain to domain, without

purchase or giving over of property, without transfer of ownership.

On the Sabbath Day, one lives as though he

possesses nothing, he is engaged in simply being, that is to say, in

expression of his essential abilities; praying, study, eating, drinking,

singing, and loving. (Fromm, ibid., p.61,

emphasis in the original – G. Z.)

This basic element of the Shabbat was

emphasized by the philosopher and theologian, Avraham Yehoshua Heschel, in

his book "The Sabbath – Its Meaning for Man Today". In his view, the

Shabbat is a kind of freeze of the race for the materiel, it is the

"Sanctuary in time" which is erected not by aggregation of that which

is, but by enrichment of being. "Not everyone who increases possessions

increases individuality. (Avraham Yehoshua

Heschel, The Sabbath, p. 11, emphasis in the original – G. Z.)

The wanderings in the desert, like the

Shabbat, are an unusual way of life, devoid of possessions and ownership of

land. Their goal is the internalization of the idea that man is defined not

only by his possessions; in the words of Fromm, man is what he is, not

what he has.

Did the nation of slaves succeed in shedding

their attitudes towards ownership and acquisitiveness in the desert? It seems

that "the Children of Israel cannot live without ownership" (Fromm, ibid., p. 62, emphasis in the original G. Z.) Fromm

notes the failure of the revolution, in the light of the behavior of the tribes

entering Eretz Yisrael, and in light of the development of Israeli monarchy. In

contrast, the prophets and the sages of the Talmud, in his opinion, continue

the struggle against the sanctification of place and property. It was this

struggle which saved the Jewish nation from total oblivion after the collapse

of its political dependence and the destruction of its Temple.

The story of the wanderings of the Jewish

People in the desert and their unceasing longing for additional sources of

food, for hoarding, for the Egyptian fleshpot, for the golden calf, are but the

essence of the story of one who observes humanity. The ability to share and to

give, and not only to amass, is – in Fromm's view – the great mission of people

living in societies of consumption and affluence.

A different approach to the significance of

Israel's formation in the deserts of Sinai is offered by the Jewish philosopher

Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929), author of "Star of Redemption".

Rosenzweig develops a unique historiosophy in his attempt to understand the

uniqueness of the Jewish nation in relation to the rest of the world: the

Jewish people is distinct from the nations in that "blood kinship"

suffices, it does not need land, earth, in order to express its eternal

message. The Jewish nation's religious peculiarity obliges it to rise above

settlement of land, because, although "it nourishes… it also

chains." The Jewish people, which lives in "eternity", not in

"history", must overcome the nationalist, enslaving, chains, and to

give itself over to the life of eternal monotheism.

The peoples of the world, in contrast to the

Jewish people, strike roots in the soil, so as not to disappear from the world:

The nations of the world… they sink their

roots into the night of the earth, which is in itself dead but life-giving, and

from its long existence, they draw guarantees of their own longevity. (Rosenzweig, Star of Redemption, p.324).

It seems that the great danger lies where

"a nation loves its homeland more than it loves its life"; "If

nine times this love saves the homeland from the hand of the enemy… on the

the nation itself will come to an end" (ibid.,

emphasis mine – G. Z.)., When the nation cleaves to its earth more than

to its uniqueness and its mission, the earth, as it were, betrays its mission.

This devotion, argues Rosenzweig, is liable to bring about the nation's end.

It seems that two stories provide the

background for Rosenzweig's harsh vision of the land shackling its defenders to

death, to the oblivion of the nation: the story of German nationalism and its

victims, as was revealed to soldier Franz Rosenzweig, the young German-Jewish

stationed in the Balkans during the First World War, and in contrast, the

Biblical story of the birth of the Jewish people, a story with a totally different

message.

The story of the Jewish people begins with

the father of the nation, Avraham, who came from afar in obedience to the

divine order to leave his land and birthplace for a land which the Lord was to

show him. Further on in the story, we meet for the first time the Jewish

nation, departing Egypt for the great desert. These narratives of our genesis

express, according to Rosenzweig, Israel's non-dependence upon territory, the

a-historical message and the non-nationalistic character of this people.

It is made into a nation… in exile, first

in Egypt, and later in Babylon… It always preserves the non-dependence of a

traveling knight, and as he roams in faraway places… and longs for the native

land which he left behind, he is more loyal to his land than he was when he

dwelt in it. (Ibid, p. 324)

In

order to understand Rosenzweig's position, one should note his attitude to

modern nationalism, specifically to Zionism and to Eretz Yisrael in the light

of his general conception of the mission and status of the Jewish nation.

Rosenzweig, in "Star of Redemption", compares Judaism with

Christianity, and claims that Judaism has already reached the eternal, in

contrast to Christianity which is charged with the mission of spreading the

truth.

Judaism is comparable to self-feeding fire,

whereas Christianity is comparable to the ray of light which "gives light

to the world" ("Star of

Redemption", p. 356). Therefore Christianity struggles, battles,

and conquers – in other words – lives in history. Judaism, on the other hand,

having already reached the eternal, realizes itself by its very existence.

Christianity is the path of the eternal; Judaism is the life of

the eternal.

Zionism

is conceived by Rosenzweig to be a dangerous striving for normalization. An

abnormal nation cannot solve its problems in a normal fashion (i.e., with the

aid of territory). The Jewish nation must build Jewish spiritual organizations,

and not a Jewish state.

The last thinker, whose views on the

formation of Israel in the desert I wish to mention, is Yeshaayahu

Leibowitz. He, too, notes that "the Torah was not given in the land of

its mission". (Yeshaayahu Leibowitz, Seven

Years of Discussions on the Weekly Parasha, p. 291) The observance

of the Torah is not dependent upon a specific land. The Torah, in the words of

the Midrash, was given "in public domain", a place not subject to

private ownership, a place belonging to all. "Whoever wishes to take, let

him come and take." Or, in the words of another Midrash: "Just as the

desert is ownerless property [hefker], so are the words of

Torah hefker, free for all to take." The aim of the Midrash, says

Leibowitz, is:

To dissuade those who think that the worship

of God is contingent upon Eretz Yisrael… The Torah was given to man as man,

and not to a native of Eretz Yisrael or any other place. Eretz Yisrael is the

framework determined for the existence of the Jewish people… but in no way

are the mitzvoth and the validity of Torah tied to territory… This must be

stated in sharpest terms in opposition to all those many good Jews, who, in

their innocence, invest effort to transform the nation of God ["Am

HaShem"] into the nation of the Land ["Am HaAretz"]. (Ibid, p. 291-292, emphasis in the original).

In his acute style, Leibowitz, the Zionist,

living in the sovereign Jewish State, points out the danger latent in

sanctification of the land. It seems that, even without adopting Rosenzweig's

existential-mystical conception of the Jewish people, he echoes the fear of

transforming territory from means to an end.

If, despite the historical distance of

Rosenzweig's words (who knows? Would he have revised his approach had he lived

until the Shoah?) and their naivete, their implied warning for a nation which

has long forgotten the desert experience remains valid: The warning not to

sanctify dead earth to the point of the extinction of those who dwell upon it.

In Israel's desert development, Leibowitz –

who fought all his life against the sanctification of anything which is not God

(e. i., the State, the army, Eretz Yisrael, etc.) – saw an echo of Judaism's

struggle against idolatry in all its forms. "The giving of the Torah took

place outside of Eretz Yisrael, and there is no doubt that this fact contains a

most import message, to teach us that the matter of receiving the yoke of

matter." (Leibowitz, ibid., pp. 291-292, emphasis mine – G. Z.)

Fromm's warning also takes on significance

with our taking root in the land, becoming a society with possessions and

acquisition. Every affluent society is liable to fall into the jaws of the

golden calf. Definition of 'self' or 'the other' by means of property and

ownership is a natural tendency for a human consumer society, but in the desert

narrative – as in the concept of Shabbat – lies latent the challenge of a

different self-definition.

In conclusion, I wish to mention another

midrash in the spirit of Fromm's words, one which sees the desert as a

spiritual state, one emptied of self-esteem, a state of total attention to the

voice of the 'other' (the transcendental, or the one who is nearby).

"And God said to Moshe in the Desert

Sinai" – Whoever does not make himself as an ownerless desert, cannot

acquire wisdom and Torah, therefore those it say "In the Desert

Sinai." (Bemidbar Rabba Parasha 1)

Only one capable of making himself 'as a

desert' to listen to others and to the wisdom of 'the other' can – as did

Moshe – hear the voice of God speaking to him at the Desert of Sinai: "And

the Lord spoke to Moshe in the Desert Sinai…"

YERUSHALAYIM

OF GOLD… AND IN ITS HEART, A WALL

THOUGHTS OF INTROSPECTION AND HOPE

On Independence Day, 5727, 35 years ago, a young singer

named Shuli Natan climbed onto the stage. She sang the first performance of

"Yerushalayim Shel Zahav", which Naomi Shemer had composed a short

while earlier.

Like

other songs, this song entered history, because, among other reasons, it

touched a number of emotional and nostalgic motifs. There is no way of knowing

what might have been the fate of this song, had not the Six Day War broken out

a short time later, or if the war would have been waged only on Israel's

northern or southern border.

I

recall a meeting with an elderly Jew, a landsman of my mother z"l,

a long-time resident of this country, shortly after the war. He maintained that

it was wrong to add the stanza which was appended after the war, that it would

have been better to leave the song as an authentic song of aspiration and

longing. At the time, I listened to his words, but I was not certain that I

understood what he was saying.

Today,

35 years after that war, after all the Jewish people in Israel and abroad were

emotionally stirred by Rabbi Goren's sounding of the shofar and Motta Gur's

proclamation "The Temple Mount is in our hands!" it is possible to

admit that that senior citizen, rich in experience, knew what he was saying. If

we have to chose between the two versions of the song, which will we choose?

Have we really returned to the wells? And what about the market place?

The

phrase "and in its heart, a wall" is interesting and

thought-arousing; there is a physical wall which marks the boundaries of the

Old City, and because of it we read the Megilla on the 15^th of Adar,

as in Shushan, "So that Eretz Yisrael will have a remembrance of this

miracle" (Rambam,

Laws of Megilla) but it seems

that Naomi Shemer was referring also – and perhaps mainly – to a different

wall; the complete line is: "The city which sits lonely and in its

midst a wall," a sentence which brings us back to the Book of

Lamentations: "Alas! Lonely sits the city once great with people!"

The

wall, then, is found in the heart of the city which sits

"lonely". Is the heart of the city divided because of the wall?

The

heart is traditionally the source of human feeling, but it is also the source

of understanding; with regard to the Mishkan it is written "In the

heart of each with wise heart I gave wisdom", and the Rambam (Guide I, 39) uses the concept 'heart' in the sense of

"thought" or "opinion".

The

city sits lonely with a torn heart and with opposing opinions, divided by a

wall; all of us – or most of us – thought that the city was united 35 years

ago, and that the physical wall would become a promenade, a point where

different parts of the city connect. It seems that in this respect we were

wrong. It appears that walls of a city cannot be felled by war alone. Perhaps

there are other ways to speak about the heart of a city and about the hearts of

its inhabitants and to unite in true unity. Perhaps, in these days, this seems

like a dream; perhaps today the city, in the words of Naomi Shemer, is

"imprisoned in her dream", but this is not adequate reason to stop

dreaming, to give up hope for the unification of the city, regardless of

whatever political or municipal solution will be found. We pray that in our

times we be privileged to see "A city joined together – a city

which brings all its inhabitants together."

                                                                                    Pinhas Leiser, Editor

Editorial

Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak

Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation:

Kadish Goldberg

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