AND LATER GENERATIONS WILL ASK – THE CHILDREN WHO WILL SUCCEED YOU, AND

FOREIGNERS WHO COME FROM DISTANT LANDS AND SEE THE PLAGUES AND DISEASES THAT

THE LORDS HAS INFLICTED ON THAT LAND. ALL ITS SOIL DEVASTATED BY SULFUR AND

SALT, BEYOND SOWING AND PRODUCING, NO GRASS GROWING IN IT, JUST

LIKE THE UPHEAVAL OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH, ADMAH AND ZEVOIIM,

WHICH THE LORD OVERTHREW IN HIS FIERCE ANGER.

(Devarim

29:18-25)

Had not the Lord of Hosts left us some

survivors, we should have been like Sodom, another Gomorrah.

(Isaiah 1:9)

Had not the Lord of Hosts left us some

survivors – of His own initiative and by His own mercy, and not due to our righteousness. We should have been like Sodom – we would have all been destroyed.

(Rashi

ad loc)

just

like the upheaval of Sodom

and Gomorrah – He compared their

punishment with that of Sodom because their sin

was comparable to that of the people of Sodom.

(Rabbi Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio on Devarim 29:22)

…according to our Rabbis (see Sanhedrin 109a) the people of Sodom bore all the bad

attributes, but they were punished for the crime of not supporting the poor and

impoverished. This was because they committed that sin more consistently than

the others, and also because all peoples treat their neighbors and their poor

charitably; none of the nations was as cruel as Sodom.

Know that the judgment of Sodom was due to the

superiority of the Land of Israel since Sodom is part of the

inheritance of the Eternal (II Samuel 20:19), and it does not

suffer men of abominations. And just as it later vomited out a whole nation on

account of their abominations, so it now anticipated and saw that this entire

people behaved worse than all nations towards Heaven and mankind. It thus laid

waste heaven and earth for them, and the land was destroyed forever, never to be

restored, since they became haughty on account of the beneficence that was

bestowed on them. The Holy One, blessed be He, thus made Sodom a token

against the rebellious children (Bamidbar

17:25),

that is, against the children of Israel who were destined to inherit it, even

as He warned them: all its soil devastated by sulfur and salt… just like

the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His fierce anger (Devarim 29:22). For there have been among nations those who

were evil and exceedingly sinful, and yet He did not do to them as He did to Sodom. However, it was all

on account of the superiority of this land for there is the temple of the Eternal

(Jeremiah 7:4).

(RaMBaN

on Bereishit 1:7, based on Chavel

translation)

In

Praise of Galutiyut – and against Normalcy

Ronen Ahituv

The doctrine known

today as "The Negation of the Galut [Diaspora]"

developed in the first half of the twentieth century in the context of the

Zionist movement's struggle to win the heart of the nation. Zionism used this

doctrine to justify itself as the opposite of the Galut

and as an alternative to it. In their writings, the fathers of secular Zionism

described the Galut as an unfortunate mishap, and as

a disease that had afflicted the Jewish People; Zionism, they said, was to be

its cure. They claimed that life in the Galut had

been responsible for a whole list of defects of Jewish existence, including

economic, social, class, moral and even psychological failings. They said that

life in the Land of Israel would foster the creation of a society cured of all

these problems – a new rooted generation of Hebrews would arise, healthy of

mind and body, untouched by the Galut's infirmities.

According to this

doctrine the Galut bears significance that goes

beyond its physical aspect of life outside the Land of Israel; it involves an entire way of life and

world-view. As its opposite, Zionism also goes beyond mere geography and is

founded upon a rejection of all the characteristics of the Galut.

Some of the Zionist ideologues thought that the Jewish religion, the halakhah, and the life of Torah-study were also Galut phenomena that must be discarded.

Some opponents to

Zionism claimed that the Jewish People was meant to be active within other

nations; they praised the Galut as a situation

offering contact with a variety of cultures that serves to fertilize and

cultivate the Jewish People's special strengths. The ideological voice of Galut-supporters was almost silenced following the

Holocaust, and the educational system in the Land of Israel continued and furthered strengthened the

ideology of the negation of the Galut. The opening

passage of Israel's Declaration of Independence is typical of this Zionist

line, claiming that, "The Jewish People came into existence in the Land of Israel", etc., in contradiction to the

Torah's testimony that the Jewish People came into existence in Egypt. These days, the term galuti

which competing sectors of Israeli society attack each other.

Now we shall

investigate the Torah's position regarding the Galut,

deriving from it several positive aspects of the Galut

– not as an historical concept, but as an existential outlook. In this way we

shall be able to integrate the advantages of the Galut

into a Zionist world-view. The parshiyot of Netzavim and Va'Yelekh emphasize

a phenomenon found throughout the book of Devarim,

which presents life in the Land of Israel as a challenge that it almost unsustainable in

the long run. True, the entry into the Land of Israel is guaranteed, but no more so than is exile. Pained,

Moses says, for I know that, when I am dead, you will act wickedly and turn

vexed Him by your deeds (31:29).

These verses are not

unusual. The surprising thing is that throughout the Torah, the People Israel

is represented as a nation without a homeland. Starting with Abraham, who left

his homeland in order to live in Canaan – a land strange to him (when he sends

his servant to bring his son a bride from Haran, he sends him to my land and my homeland [Bereishit 24:4]), on through Jacob and Joseph, who spent the

best years of their lives outside the Land of Israel, the creation of the

People Israel during the exodus from Egypt and the reception of the Torah in

the desert, and ending with the representative figure of Moses, whose life

ended in trans-Jordan.

Scriptural halakhah also emphasizes the notion that the Land of Israel is not the people's natural homeland. The laws of

the Shemittah and Jubilee years impress us with the

idea that the Land

of Israel is not the natural place of settlement of the

People Israel, but rather a yearned-for goal and challenge. The Torah describes

the Jewish People as a nation that is not tied to a homeland, but rather one

which tries to conquer it for itself and keep possession of it as long as it

can, and to the extent allowed by God. The curse of life in the Galut thus winds-up serving as the national default state

rather than as an unusual situation. This picture reappears in the prophets as

well; they repeatedly foretell the exile and the miraculous return to the land.

The biblical position

that the life and existence of the People Israel are not dependent upon the Land of Israel is also expressed in our actual history. The

People Israel spent most of the years of its existence outside of its land. For

the most part it did not enjoy territorial sovereignty during those centuries

that it did dwell in its own land, but rather lived under the foreign

domination of the Philistines, Babylonians, Persians, Seleucids and Romans.

The "normality"

of life in the Land which Zionism attempts cultivate, stands opposed to all of

these messages. However, the anti-Zionist view, which prefers life in the Galut over life in the Land is

equally contradicted by them.

It would seem that the

Book of Devarim presents the Galut

as a threat meant to make us observe the Torah while we are in the Land, but

the suggestion that the Galut serves as the

foundation of Jewish existence directs us towards finding a positive evaluation

for the Galut phenomenon.

What is the

significance of the notion that the People Israel is an inherently diasporic nation? Can this characterization offer us any

moral message that is relevant to our lives as Israelis? It is difficult to

find an explicit answer to this in Scripture, so this will be the place to

suggest some hypotheses.

In Pesahim

87b, R. Eliezer states: "The Holy One blessed be

He only exiled Israel among the nations in order that they take on converts." It would

seem that according to R. Eliezer, the exile was

intended to spread the Jewish faith, to increase Jewish numbers in demographic

terms. In the long term, it appears that during the course of the Galut the Jewish people gained fewer people through

conversion than it lost to assimilation. In that case, a demographic

explanation cannot serve as a reasonable answer; in any event, it has no

bearing upon our life in the Land.

R. Eliezer's

statement might be interpreted along different lines: life in the Galut, which involve a loss of national power and

authority, allow the individual Galut Jew freedom

from national cultural coercion. The Galut Jew can – and

must – autonomously choose his own way; he is not subject to political

decisions that determine his identity. In the Galut,

the decision to be Jewish becomes significant, since every Jew is free to

choose his own identity. There is no great difference between him and a convert,

since both of them decide to be Jewish not as a matter of fate, but as a chosen

destiny.

In contrast, when

living in a stable and homogenous cultural environment our freedom of choice is

limited and we are forced to adopt the identity determined by our social

environment. Life in a normal homeland determines ideological and existential normativity.

The significance of

life in the Land within a Galut consciousness of being

strangers and residents is one of free choice, even here in the Holy Land. The cultural openness and the freedom of every

person to choose his own religious and existential identity from amongst the

array of sub-cultures within the Israeli (and world) society, are a blessing

that deepens the significance of our choice. In this way an Israeli Zionist who

believes in the importance of a homeland can also benefit from diasporic consciousness.

Dr. Ronen Ahituv lives in Mitzpe Netufa and teaches at the Oranim, Kinneret, and Western Galilee colleges.

It is not in the heavens

In the Torah it is

written that It is not in the heavens nor across the sea – It is not in the heavens – it is not

found in the arrogant; nor across the sea – not among those who journey

across the sea. And so the Sages said: "Not everyone who does a lot of

trading becomes wise," and they commanded: "Spend little time on

business and be involved with Torah." The words of the Torah are compared

to water, for it is said, O, all who thirsty come to the water, to tell

you that just as water does not gather on a slope, but rather flows of its own

accord into the low places, so too the words of the Torah are not found among

the arrogant and not among those of prideful heart, but rather among the humble

and modest who cling to the dust of the feet of the sages, who remove all

desire for temporal pleasures from their hearts, working each day to subsist if

they have nothing to eat, spending the rest of the day and night on Torah.

And anyone who decides

to busy himself with Torah and to desist from work, living off of charity – he

has desecrated the Name, and degraded the Torah, and extinguished the light of

religion, and caused himself evil, and removes his life from the world – for it

is prohibited to gain advantage from the words of Torah in this world. The

Sages said: "Anyone who benefits from words of Torah removes his life from

this world," and they further commanded, saying: "Do not make them a

crown to aggrandize yourself with, nor a spade to sustain yourself with"

and they further commanded saying, "Love labor and detest lordship" "and

all Torah that is

wake. At the end of the day, this person will rob people.

(Tur Yoreh De'ah

246)

It is not in the heavens – The understandings and the actions to which it refers are not in the

realm of the superhuman, the celestial; all the divine revelations necessary

for its understanding and observance have already been given in full, and

nothing remains of them in the heavens. Therefore you cannot say: "Where

can be found that man with superhuman spirit who will penetrate for us the

secrets of heaven, or will bring down from heaven a new revelation which will

complete our comprehension…?"

For near to you is the word, exceedingly – The subject and the substance of Torah is very

close to you; it is closer to you than anything else, for you yourself are the

subject of Torah, and your worldly life is its substance. If you wish to

understand the two, delve deep into your inner heart and see with open eyes

your worldly-human relations…

These three words, lo ba-shamayim hee (it is not in heaven), are the most

effective means of protection against anyone who makes a pretentious claim to

supernatural enlightenment or Divine revelation in order to influence the Law

and Teachings in Israel. Only hokhmah (wisdom)

– not prophecy – only erudition, scholarship derived from the text and

tradition, not some higher inspiration or prompting can lay claim to any

validity regarding the teachings and keeping the commandments of the Torah

since its completion by Moses.

(Rabbi

Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, Devarim

30:12-14)

Prideful

Leadership Leads To War

R. Yehuda said to Rav: When Moses, our teacher, was about to pass on to the

Garden of Eden, he said to Joshua: "Ask me all things of which you are in

doubt." He replied, "Rabbi, did I ever leave you for an hour to go

elsewhere? Did you not write about me, But his attendant, Joshua

son of Nun, a youth, would not stir out of the tent (Shemot 33)!?" Immediately Joshua

became weak, and he forgot 300 laws, and 700 doubts arose, and all Israel

rose up to kill him. The Holy One, blessed be He said

to him: "It is impossible to tell you everything; go and keep them busy

with war," as is written (Joshua

1): After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord…

(Temura 16a)

You were rebellious against God… until

this day

He said this day in order to

hint that he had only that day left to be with them; the plain meaning of the

text is until this day. And it is written you were

in the past tense, for they may have contemplated repentance in their

hearts at that moment. This is similar to the law stating that if someone

betroths a woman on condition that he is completely righteous, even though it

may be discovered that he is totally wicked, we rule that she is betrothed,

because he may have contemplated repentance at that very moment. (Kiddushin 49b).

(Or

HaHayyim, Devarim 31:27)

Even Moses, our Teacher, was justified only

in telling Israel You were rebellious – in past

tense – with the implication being until this day. In his great

despair and sadness, Moses foresaw that also after his death, the people would

persist in their insubordination to God; yet despite this, he did not permit himself

to tell them that they were rebellious at the time of his last words, because

there is only One who is capable of reading man's

innermost thoughts. From this we learn a great lesson in the subject of

repentance, which is dependent upon man himself – at all times, without

limitations of time or place.

(Y.

Leibowitz: Sheva Shanim shel Sihot

al Parashat ha'Shavu'a,

p. 919)

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