WHEN THE LORD SAW THAT HE HAD TURNED ASIDE TO LOOK, GOD CALLED TO HIM OUT OF THE BUSH, AND SAID: "MOSES! MOSES!" HE ANSWERED: "HERE I AM." AND HE SAID, "DO NOT COME CLOSER. REMOVE YOUR SANDALS FROM YOUR FEET, FOR THE PLACE ON WHICH YOU STAND IS HOLY GROUND.

(Shemot 3:3-5)

 

Remove your sandals from your feet - While the verse should be understood literally - the wearing of footwear is prohibited in any place where the Divine Presence reveals itself, just as it is in the Temple - in any event there is a wonderful figurative meaning here as well, as all material matters allude to spiritual matters. It is made clear in the Book of Devarim in connection with the removal of the yabam's shoe in the halitzah ceremony that the removal of shoes refers to the shedding of materiality, i.e., that one should not follow human nature and will at all, but rather be completely given over to heaven, as is the way of the excellent person [adam] whose name is essentially adam... he who wants to come near to the Divine Presence must remove his shoes, i.e. his "garment" of nature.

for the place on which you stand - The word hamakom - the place - is to be understood figuratively, its point being that Moshe's value was very high, as is written, Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord, and who will rise in His holy place? One of clean hands and pure heart...

is holy ground - This means figuratively that even before becoming abstinent he was sanctified in the womb and created for greatness. That is why it was easy for him to begin sanctifying himself and abstaining from the world and all that is in it. It is doubtless that our Rabbi Moses took this upon himself happily, and removed his sandals, both literally and figuratively, and prepared himself for prophecy.

(Ha'Amek Davar ad loc)

 

When they ask me for his name, what shall I tell them?

Ya'akov Bing

Every time the word segulah appears in the Torah, Onkelos translates it as haviv [beloved]. Am segulah, for example, is translated as am haviv [beloved nation]. Thus, when Seforno explains the verse af hovev amim [indeed, a lover of peoples] (Devarim 33:3), he writes, "With this the Lord announces that all of the human race is a segulah for Him." In this way, Seforno took an exegetical stand regarding our treatment of gentiles. The status of gentiles has become an especially important issue following the horrors of the Shoah, which sprung from a racist ideology. Seforno's interpretation can help us grapple with the tremendously destructive phenomenon of racism. He finds a basis for the notion that all the human race is segulah, i.e., beloved of God, in the teaching of Rabbi Akiva that appears in Pirkei Avot (3:14):

Beloved is man, for he was created in the [Divine] image. He is especially beloved, having been informed that he was created in the [Divine] image, for it is said He made man in the image of God (Bereishit 9:6). Beloved are Israel, for they were called "children of the Omnipresent." They are especially beloved, having been informed that they were called "children of the Omnipresent," for it is said you are children of the Lord your God (Devarim 14:1). Beloved are Israel, for they were given a desirable instrument [the Torah] with which the world was created, as it is said: For I gave you good instruction; do not forsake my Torah (Proverbs 4:2).

Some commentators thought that the first sentence, "Beloved is man," relates to Israel alone, and not to the Noahides in general. In addition to Seforno, a good number of the great classical commentaries on the Mishnah oppose this view. Of them, I shall only mention Tosafot Yom Tov and Tiferet Yisrael.

According to Tiferet Yisrael, our mishnah refers to three classes of human beings: the human race as a whole (as Seforno would put it or as the Sages would say, "all of the Noahides"), Israel, and the Torah scholars [talmidei hahakhamim].

Tosafot Yom Tov points out that the verse used as a proof text by R. Akiva, He made man in the image of God (Bereishit 9:6) tells Noahides not to murder any human being. Tiferet Yisrael adds that "the righteous gentiles have a share in the world to come, and even if the holy mouth of the Sages had not informed us of this, we would have known it through the exercise of our own intelligence, since the Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all His works. We observe some righteous gentiles who not only recognize the Creator and perform deeds of kindness [including deeds that help] Israel, but who have even greatly benefited all humanity..." According to Tiferet Yisrael, some of today's nations are civilized and contain many righteous gentiles. We should add that many righteous gentiles risked their lives during the Shoah while trying to save Jews. Some of them were arrested, tortured and killed for their efforts.

We are confronted with two polar extremes: one approach views all human beings as beloved of God, while the other reserves this honor for Jews alone. The choice between these exegetical alternatives leads to different attitudes towards the gentiles. It seems to me that after the Shoah, the option of discriminating between people on the basis of their origins is closed to us, and we are forced to choose the interpretation that sees all humanity as beloved of God. Did we not learn from the Shoah that discrimination between people can lead to the very worst injustice and suffering?

One asks to what extent historical events can influence our understanding of the Torah. Harav Amital once related to the lessons of the Shoah in a different context. A book about him (Moshe Maya's A World Built, Destroyed, and Rebuilt: Rav Yehudah Amital's Confrontation with the Memory of the Holocaust) describes the turn in the Rav's thought. At first, as a student of Harav Kook, Rav Amital thought that it was possible to give historical events, such as the creation of the State of Israel, a religious interpretation, i.e., that we may learn what God's intention in history is from such events. Later, however, Rav Amital came to recognize that it is impossible to give the Shoah a religious interpretation and that no transgression [on the Jews' part] can explain it. From there he reached the broader view that it is impossible for us to interpret any historical event; that is to say that we are unable to know why any event occurred. Despite the impossibility of determining the significance of an event and of understanding events from a religious standpoint, Rav Amital came to philosophical conclusions on the basis of historical lessons. We see from this that it is possible to derive philosophical and normative conclusions from an historical event, even though it is impossible to fathom the ways of history.

This distinction is of essential importance. Lessons concerning Torah study and ethical behavior may be learned from the Shoah. However, we are not able to understand the course of history and predict the future. Thus it seems legitimate to me to say that the commentators who removed gentiles from the category of the "beloved" did not see the Shoah and the destructive consequences that can derive from such ideas, while we must choose the interpretation that says that all of humanity is beloved by God.

Tifferet Yisrael, which was written about a hundred years before the Shoah, goes even farther. He believes that both the civilized nations of the world and the Jewish People posses certain advantages over each other. When Israel was in Egypt, neither they nor the Egyptians knew the Lord; they were all idolaters. Pharaoh said: I do not know the Lord (Shemot 5:2), and referring to the Jews, Moses asked God: What shall I tell them when they ask me, "What is His name?" (Shemot 3:3). The midrash claims that they even had their idols with them at the Red Sea. God gave the Torah at Sinai so that the descendants of His servant Abraham would become as priests and teachers to all of humanity. The civilized nations of the world achieved their moral standing through their own efforts on the basis of slow progress drawn out across history - both through intellectual effort and by studying the Torah of Israel - and that is their great merit. In contrast, the Israelites received the Torah and their high level stems from the revelation at Sinai and the giving of the Torah and not from their own intellectual effort. Israel's advantage is that the Torah includes matters that the nations have yet to recognize and which they will discover only in Messianic times.

The Shoah is an event of tremendous significance for us. The main conclusions of the above analysis are that there is room to base interpretive and normative decisions on those tragic events, even though we do not understand their meaning. We must struggle against any form of discrimination on the basis of origin, and in this framework we must prefer the interpretation which claims that all human beings are beloved of God.

 

Readers Respond

I read Shlomo Fuchs's article (from the Miketz-Hanukah issue) carefully, and arrived at a conclusion opposite to his own.

Jewish morality is the paradoxical product of two opposing directions of thought. On the one hand, there is an absolute prohibition against the shedding of human blood, even that of the enemy, and even in war time. On the other hand, there is an absolute obligation to defend oneself from murderers. The prohibition is derived (for instance) from the prohibition against using iron [tools] in the construction of the altar (as explained in Rashi's famous comments on Shemot 20:22). It is more strongly indicated by the idea that Abraham sinned by killing people in a justified defensive war (Bereishit 15:1). On the other hand, there is not a drop of "pacifism" - a Christian notion - in the Jewish tradition. Rashi's classic instruction, "If someone comes to kill you, kill him first" (Shemot 22:1) is the paradoxical result of this contradiction. We also find this in his amazing comment on the phrase Jacob was greatly afraid, and he was anxious (Bereishit 32:7): "greatly afraid - that he might be killed; anxious - that he might kill the others.

However, in contrast to Shlomo Fuch's position, the Yom Kippur War, the Oslo Agreements, and the "disengagement" are not at all the results of a turn towards "the path of peace." Rather, they are a catastrophe which befell us when we lost the Jewish tradition found in Rashi's comments above.

The Jews created nearly the strongest army in the world, but lost the will power to use it in order to survive. They agreed to return to the situation so well described by Fuchs's quote from Bialik's Im Yesh et Nafshekha la'Da'at ("If You Want to Know"): "Go forth joyfully towards death, to stretch their necks to every polished knife." Since the Hanukiyah symbolizes spirit, it would be appropriate for us not to light it at all this Hanukah, because an anti miracle has occurred for us - we have lost our spirit. This pessimistic assessment has not been lost upon several important periodicals in the U.S.A., and today they do not give the Zionist state more than forty years to live.

Sorrowfully,

Amnon Shapira

Dr. Amnon Shapira teaches Bible in the Ariel College, and is a member of Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi

 

Shlomo Fuchs, author of the article, responds

Hanukah, which celebrates the Maccabian victory, is quickly followed by the fast of the tenth of Tevet, which marks the beginning of the siege on Jerusalem in the end of the First Temple Period. By the yearly juxtaposition of these two commemorations, the Hebrew calendar calls upon us to return to the words of the prophet Jeremiah, and take them to heart: I will make this House like Shiloh (Jeremiah 26:6), or, if you would prefer an alternative reality, the prophet says: And now, improve your ways and listen to the voice of the Lord your God that the Lord might renounce the evil that he has spoken to inflict upon you (2:13). There is no reason to read important American newspapers; the words have been said, and we must internalize them.

Once, in Jerusalem, an educator told me an important drash on the title of Herzl's book Altneuland. It does not only mean Old-New Land but also Al-tnai Land a Hebrew play on words that can mean either An Unconditional Land or A Land on Condition that...

I think that there are those who believe that the land and the state were given to us unconditionally, while others believe that our behavior must fulfill certain conditions.

I am not calling for pacifism, and the army is not losing its spirit. Rather there is an understanding that the blessing you shall live by your sword is not Jacob's blessing. It is Esau's blessing, and we must devote ourselves to "seeking the way of spirit."

The call for peace is learned from Moses in his war with Sihon (Devarim 2:16, in contrast to the commandment of Devarim 2:24). According to the midrash, the Holy One blessed be He added the command if you draw near a city to do battle against it, call to it for peace (Devarim 20:10) resulted from Moses' own behavior (Devarim Rabbah 5:13), and the midrash adds that Joshua followed suit in the conquest of the land (op cit 5:14).

You make reference to the altar. It was prohibited to use hewn stones in the construction of the altar because iron desecrates, but animals were slaughtered on that altar with knives; in one terrible case one priest stabbed another for the sake of the holy rite (Yoma 23a). The distinction between the permitted and the prohibited was not always clear. Regarding that incident, Rabbi Tzadok stood up and asked: Who was responsible for the murder, for the misunderstanding?

You cite Rashi's commentary and I shall recall what Rashi wrote, following the Pesikta DeRav Kahana (3): Remember what [Amalek] did to you - If you deceived with measurements and weights, take care of the enemy's provocation, for it is said: False scales are an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 11:1), and later, when arrogance appears, disgrace follows (11:2).

The midrash upon which Rashi bases his comments interprets the juxtaposition of the passage regarding Amalek (Devarim 25:17-19) with that preceding it (25:13-1).

The juxtaposition of the passages teaches us that the commandment to remember Amalek, the war with them, really calls for an investigation of the underlying cause; why did the enemy-Amalek come against us?

It seems that Rashi understands that the enemy - Amalek - points to our own internal corruption. This explanation suggests that the true enemy lie within us. Therefore, we must improve Israeli society before we bunker-down in the war against an imagined enemy!

The prophet Jeremiah calls to the Jewish People in a similar fashion to improve its ways, and does not blame the Babylonians.

In that case, "If someone comes to kill you (from within), kill him first"! Better sooner than later!

Shlomo Fuchs

 

Editor's comment:

I think that the genuine and important debate for us is not about determining which solution might promote peace in our time or whether there is a chance to achieve peace with the Arab world in our generation. That matter depends upon various political developments and differing estimations of the situation and of the balance of power. For religious Zionism, the essential debate involves the order of priorities of religious and moral values, and requires us to ask ourselves impartially: does "love that confuses the order" sometimes cause us to disregard important Torah values? In our zealousness to hasten redemption, do we notice the heavy price we pay for having power over another people?

 

 

 

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