In this week’s Parsha[1], Toldot, we hear the story of Jacob and Esau. Isaac marries Rebecca and they are incapable of having children for ten years. Isaac prays to G-d for her to conceive but once she does, her pregnancy is incredibly painful. She prays to G-d to tell her what’s going on. G-d responds: “’Two nations are in your womb, and two kingdoms will separate from your innards, and one kingdom will become mightier than the other kingdom…’” (Gen.25:23).
It thus appears that the story of Jacob and Esau seeks to introduce a larger political discussion; one that shows politics (and Judaism) as a zero-sum game. Only one of these two children (or nations) can be strong and they get their strength at the expense of the other (which we see when Jacob steals his brother’s birthright). In his commentary, Rashi cites Ezek. 26:2: “’I shall become full from the destroyed city.’” Tyre became full [gained power] only from the destruction of Jerusalem. — [From Meg. 6a, Pes. 42b].” This theme is also discussed in Echa (lamentations read on Tisha B’av[2]) where it says, “For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed” (1:16). In both situations, the Jewish people fail and despair at the expense of the success of another nation.
This is an apparent theme throughout Jewish history and the opposite is true as well (although there are fewer examples of this); Jews only conquer and win at the expense of the other power (think of the Chanukah story where the Judaism conquers Hellenism—at least in Jerusalem).
We know that since Judaism is still around today that Judaism was never actually conquered but to what extent has Judaism continued at the expense of these other nations? Historically speaking, Judaism has actually adopted aspects of the different cultures that conquered it and who it conquered. One example: A Rabbi was telling me the other day that those black lines you see on a tallit[3] were actually adopted from the Roman tradition where Senators wore purple lines on their robes. During that time, tallit looked like different than they do today; they looked almost like the garments Roman senators would wear so Jews started putting blue lines on their tallit (which then became black after the Romans banned the dye to make the blue stripes).
While it may be easy to see how physical traditions took hold a slightly harder questions to answer are: to what extent does Jewish theology evolve? And to what extent is that evolution influenced by surrounding cultures and idea? To take this one step further: As a Jew, how do you reconcile between Torah and philosophy?
Jewish theology is not Greek philosophy and it is not modern Liberalism. To study Torah properly, you can’t read it as a Liberal or as a person who truly believes in Western philosophy. This hard for me personally because I was brought up learning about Western Philosophy and applying Judaism to the secular ideas I learned. This, I believe, is the wrong approach but I have not successfully changed my lenses—I still view Judaism as a Liberal (Lockean Liberal who believes every person deserves fundamental rights of life, liberty and property and everything that comes with it).
To elaborate further, I think a short explanation on the (basic and simplified) premise of Judaism is necessary: man is imperfect and he is incapable of reaching perfection through human means (as opposed to the Greek philosophers who believe that the highest state of existence is reached through logos). Therefore, G-d, who is perfect, gives man a set of laws (Mitzvot) to follow so that he can be a better person, work to fix the world, and be holy (the intricacies of this premise can be addressed at another time).
Liberalism and all other reason based philosophies therefore seem incompatible with Judaism. However, it is hard for me to believe that entirely.
There’s a Midrash about Rabbi Akiva and Moses that speaks to this issue. It goes something like this: Moses is talking to G-d on Sinai and asks G-d why He is putting drawing taggim (the crowns over some of the letters in the scroll), G-d answers that it is because generations later, a man named Rabbi Akiva will find significance in interpreting them. Moses wants to meet this Rabbi Akiva and is transferred to his classroom in the first century CE. Moses sits at the back of the classroom and proceeds to listen to a lesson about a particular law that Moses had never heard of before. When a student asks Rabbi Akiva where this law came from, he replied that it came from Moses.
What this Midrash appears to be saying is that Torah has grown and evolved. And since discussion and debate about Torah cannot exist in a vacuum, great Jewish scholars must have been influenced by philosophers and thinkers of their time and little bits of philosophy must have trickled into Jewish theology. One example can be seen in the works of Maimonides who takes Aristotle’s principle of the mean and attributes Jewish teachings to it.
There is some teaching (and I’ll find the source as soon as possible) that says something like: the further we get from Sinai, the closer we get to the Messiah. I guess that’s obvious if you view this as a timeline (depending on your belief obviously) but I think the idea is slightly more powerful. Yes, as time goes on, we slowly loose principles from Sinai as they were given at Sinai, however, the more we are capable of using our reason to allow Torah to evolve, the closer we get to the Mashiach[4] (and peace).
This is a huge struggle, how do you balance between complete submission to the law (i.e. I have no ability to use my own logos) and complete rejection of the law (my logos is more important than the law)? The real answer exists somewhere in the middle which means that Judaism cannot be a zero-sum game.
Mashiach (and again dear readers, interpret this as esoterically as you’d like) will not come as soon as Jews follow the letter of the law entirely. One of the explanations given for the destruction of the Temple was that Jews lost the spirit of the law to the letter of the law. Ultimately, Mashiach will arrive because Jews will be able to balance submission to Jewish law with reason. Until women are not forced to walk on the other side of the street during religious holidays or not forced to sit in the back of the bus when traveling to certain places because they will recognized as equals; and until it is accepted that parts of the West Bank have to be given away to create a sovereign Palestinian state and that peace should be more important than fulfilling the Mitzvah of “settling the land,” there will be no peace and there will be no Mashiach.
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