I won't sully this Substack by using the words l'd like to use to describe the "happy campers" of America's universities. These demonstrations are in no way comparable to the anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s. Most of them the demonstrators were against a war they thought was unjust. They may have been mistaken but they were not evil. (Mistaken in the sense that objectively, they ended up supporting a Communist regime. It's more complicated than that, but this is another story for another day.) The point is: they weren't evil.
That's not the case here. If you hold up a placard in front of a group of Jewish counterdemonstrators that says, "Al Qassam's next targets" (spelled with a "Q" indicating she knew the proper transliteration), you are evil.
Again: please use your imagination as to what words I'd use to describe this she-devil.
But.... once our blood stops boiling, we have to realize that stamping this out isn't a matter of sending in the National Guard, as tempting as that is.
I'm absolutely not defending them or saying that they have 1A rights to occupy campus space - they do not. Trespassing is trespassing, intimidation is intimidation. There have been some examples of good campus leadership (Dartmouth, U Chicago) -- this is the way to go. But in most cases the admins have been craven. That's as much of the problem as this generation of Ivy League juvenile delinquents.
Speaking of the unequivocally evil, I think it's just a question of time before campus leftists completely retcon the Nazis into the good guys: Lebensraum from the river to the sea!
Question, re, Exodus: I sometimes see writers refer to the "Reed" Sea. What is up with that? Also, for what it's worth, I've long thought that the crossing of the Red Sea and subsequent inundation of Pharaoh's army sounds a lot like a description of a tsunami. No less miraculous for that . . .
The hebrew “suf” as in yam suf-yam means sea- literally means reed sea.
Today’s Red Sea may or
May not be the Bible’s yam suf.
could have been a tzunami or strong winds combined with low and high tide. Some rabbis say the divine miracle was the timing and the “splitting” of the sea was natural.
We will never know but there so much to learn from the story and Moses's song afterwards.
My brother led me to Leon Kass’s book on Exodus. Have not read it yet but apparently excellent.
Moses led the people of Israel to freedom "according to tradition." That makes it sound as if maybe it really happened and maybe it didn't. I believe that what is recorded about those events in the book of שְׁמֹות (Exodus) are historically factual narratives, that God did work those miracles, and did destroy Pharaoh's army and reveal himself to Moses as written.
I would not like to think that the state of Israel was founded on mythology.
Of course, the modern scientific worldview objects, but the modern scientific worldview is wrong, and our society is wrong, as is evident from the pitiful state of our finest universities.
I have to confess I am not familiar with the various aspects of Jewish tradition. In liberal Protestantism at any rate, speaking of "traditions" does have such a connotation, at least when it comes to biblical narratives. There are of course traditions that are just that, human creations and nothing more. But I didn't mean to imply anything about your personal convictions.
Speaking as an outsider and as a Christian, I would place what you call the "many legends (midrashim) in Jewish tradition" on a completely different plane from the biblical narratives.
But apart from some doubt about the meaning of "tradition" I thought it was an excellent article, and agree fully with your comments here:
"There are few events in history that are black and white. The Holocaust was one such event. Pol Pot’s genocide was another. The Rwandan massacre and the Maoist and Stalinist slaughters were others.
"The Hamas attack against Jews on October 7 was the latest.
"The behavior of some of America’s youth is proof enough that their parent’s, teachers and religious leaders have failed miserably in their moral education. These children are the personification of evil as they, like their pagan ancestors of old celebrate and encourage cruelty for the sake of cruelty, using a cause they don’t and can’t understand, as an excuse.
"The youth that celebrate cruelty at America’s elite universities are evil. There is no good in them. There is no 'idealism' in them. There is no 'other' side to the argument. The President of the United States and all too many other politicians, let alone University faculty and administrators are participants in this evil. Their condemnations, if they come at all, are conditional. But fighting evil is not conditional."
And I also agree with "The same goes for those who are willing to let Hamas live and rule whether those people are in Israel, the United States, Europe or elsewhere. They are participants in this evil and the use of Gazan children or Israeli hostages as an excuse not to eradicate Hamas is cowardice and surrender to evil, plain and simple."
Anyone who is really concerned about peace in the Middle East and the well being of the Palestinian people and of the state of Israel should support the complete destruction of Hamas and the elimination of Iranian influence.
Parenthetically, I would wager that - apart from those with Islamic beliefs - the vast majority of the university protestors against Israel deny the divine creation of the universe; believe that life is the result of merely accidental forces; that we evolved from the primates; and that there is no higher moral law in the universe.
Traditional-Orthodox Judaism does not read the Bible literally. Rather, the justification for everything Jewish, be it legal-Halakhic or theological-philosophical-Midrashic comes from an unbroken chain of oral teachings.
From a Jewish religious perspective the right of the Jews to the Land of Israel is based on a promise from God to the patriarchs. The "truth" of each detail of individual historical events has no relevance to that. The Torah is not a book of history, to Jews.
Of course, there are many religious and orthodox Jews who don't agree with me on that and would take a stand closer to yours.
When it comes to the historicity of both the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures, I suppose that the general perspectives are the same: the books are all mythology (maybe with some kernel of history); the books are a lot of mythology (or human invention) with a greater historical core (the Israelites really were in captivity in Egypt and got out somehow, and David and Solomon were historical figures); the books are religiously true, with profound spiritual messages, but historically inaccurate; the books are divinely inspired, true both literally and spiritually.
That’s obvious enough, but I am puzzled by the tendency of Rabbinic Judaism to not read the Bible literally, and even to subordinate it to the Oral Law. I am not a scholar, but it seems to me comparable in a way to the Roman Catholic tendency to subordinate Scripture to church teachings as necessary guides, without which the Bible cannot be rightly interpreted.
It says in Nehemiah that “And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.”
Admittedly, there are some difficult things to understand, but much of the historical narrative and spiritual teachings are accessible.
Saying that the truth of individual historical events is not relevant to the basic message is comprehensible, but I find it surprising that the historicity of the narratives of Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon should not be accepted at face value at least by religious Jews.
I make no pretension to scholarship in this area, but I looked up “Maimonides Moses” on the internet and read that “Maimonides was inspired by Moses, who he saw as being closest to a perfect man, having both revelation and knowledge.” Maimonides must have thought the narrative was true and accessible to some extent.
I think I gave you the wrong impression as to the views of religious/Orthodox Jews regarding the truth and historicity of the Bible. I don't think you will find a rabbi who ever believed that the patriarchs and David and Solomon did not exist.
My point is that the truth of every "historical" detail of the Bible has no bearing on:
1. Israel's right to the Land of Israel
2. The ultimate truth of the Bible.
As for the oral law and interpretations of the Bible, be they Rabbinic or Christian-Catholic, that is a statement that the Divine Word cannot be assumed to be so easily understood.
If there can be difficulties in interpreting great literature, how much more so when interpreting Divine literature?
What is important in halakhic Judaism is the unbroken chain in the Tradition. Historians will agree that this tradition dates from somewhere in the Second Temple Era and traditionalists will claim it comes from God's revelation at Sinai.
That is why orthodox rabbis who have struggled with the challenges of modernity (like Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik for example) never really dealt with biblical criticism - it was much less important than the tradition that is the oral law.
The significance of the historical truth of the Bible relative to the ultimate truth is also debated among Christians (forgive me if I state the obvious). Neo-Orthodox Protestants (like Karl Barth) will say that the Bible is spiritually true, and the historical details don’t matter (some people say that neo-Orthodox means not-Orthodox). But the Fundamentalists and conservative Evangelicals will argue that without historical accuracy the credibility of the whole Bible is lost.
To me, it is not hard to believe that the events recorded in Exodus (שְׁמוֹת) occurred as described, and are just as real historically as the battle of Gettysburg. Of course if there is no God at all, then the Bible is no more than an interesting cultural artifact, with some wise sayings. But, given a God who created the universe by his spoken word alone, which is taught not only in Genesis but also in the New Testament book of Hebrews, then all of the miracles and manifestations of the divine are by no means impossible, and secular humanist objections are irrelevant.
About the historical accuracy of the Bible, religious/Orthodox Jews may accept the historicity of David and Solomon and the patriarchs, but what about a literal appearance of the Creator to Moses on Mount Sinai, and the miracles of the Exodus? Is there not some reluctance in some religious Jewish circles to affirm that directly, but rather to say, in effect, that “Something happened but we are not sure what”? There are liberal Protestants who accept the Israelites were delivered from captivity in Egypt somehow, but claim the events in the Bible were written down centuries later and are largely mythological. All Christian Fundamentalists and the great majority of Evangelicals would say the biblical record is literal historical fact.
I and many others believe that for the sake of divine truth and authority a literal Bible is necessary – and scientific objections are irrelevant as God’s power goes far beyond them. Scientific laws are of course valid for our ordinary existence, but are no constraint upon God, though miracles are rare.
So there is a lot of similarity between various Protestant/Catholic and Jewish approaches.
About the historicity of the Bible and the right of the Jews to the land, obviously many Jews have felt a call and a right to the land without relying on a historically accurate Bible, and centuries of historical possession is a weighty and valid claim in and of itself. Also relevant is that the Jews actually built a state and reclaimed the land as a coherent nation in a way that the Arabs never did. But, if God is literally at work, and did what is recorded in the Bible, and is still active now in completion of his purposes for Israel, that adds an entirely different dimension to the situation.
We read in the historical books that God raised up enemies against Israel in his anger – and why may he not do the same in our own time?
I do wonder though whether religious/Orthodox Jews approach the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon, and Job and the prophets directly as devotional books that may be taken at face value without the need of rabbinic interpretation. Many Christians read the Psalms and the Writings directly as devotional guides. Commentaries may be consulted for extra details but are by no means essential. Does the Oral Law extend to the wisdom and poetical books and the prophets also?
About the need for scholarly and learned interpretations, whether Rabbinic or Christian, most would not dispute there is a place for scholarly interpretation and explanation. I have benefitted from learned explanations by Matthew Henry and others.
The basic message can be understood by anyone to whom God has given faith: that God exists (I don’t know how important the use of G-d is to you); that he created us; that we have laws from the Divine Word we need to obey; that there will be a day of judgment, a resurrection from the dead and heaven and hell (as in Daniel chapter 12) – these and many other teachings and facts of God are clear and plain to all with spiritual insight.
Not all of the Divine Word is easily understood, but much of it is, at least to those with understanding. And there is the belief also that God today gives wisdom and guidance to those who sincerely seek him – yet in spite of that we still have the Christian / Jewish divide in discussing key teachings and prophecies.
About the unbroken chain of tradition, I read sometime ago about the Karaites and their denial of the Oral Law. Looking that up again, I find that they still exist. I suppose if one can be an atheist and still be a Jew, one can deny the Oral Law as well.
I looked up the Rabbi Soloveitchik and put one of his books – The Lonely Man of Faith – in my Amazon shopping cart. The Amazon description says he uses the story of Adam and Eve as a springboard to integrating Western philosophy with Genesis to provide moral guidance – but surely the understanding of the creation story as literal truth or moral allegory must affect our understanding of it.
One Christian commentator I read on Genesis said that, humanly speaking, the story of woman having been made from a rib taken out of Adam seems unbelievable, but we believe it under the authority of Scripture, and fallen human reason is not an adequate judge of such extraordinary things beyond our daily experience. It says in Isaiah,
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
I won't sully this Substack by using the words l'd like to use to describe the "happy campers" of America's universities. These demonstrations are in no way comparable to the anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s. Most of them the demonstrators were against a war they thought was unjust. They may have been mistaken but they were not evil. (Mistaken in the sense that objectively, they ended up supporting a Communist regime. It's more complicated than that, but this is another story for another day.) The point is: they weren't evil.
That's not the case here. If you hold up a placard in front of a group of Jewish counterdemonstrators that says, "Al Qassam's next targets" (spelled with a "Q" indicating she knew the proper transliteration), you are evil.
Again: please use your imagination as to what words I'd use to describe this she-devil.
But.... once our blood stops boiling, we have to realize that stamping this out isn't a matter of sending in the National Guard, as tempting as that is.
I'm absolutely not defending them or saying that they have 1A rights to occupy campus space - they do not. Trespassing is trespassing, intimidation is intimidation. There have been some examples of good campus leadership (Dartmouth, U Chicago) -- this is the way to go. But in most cases the admins have been craven. That's as much of the problem as this generation of Ivy League juvenile delinquents.
Speaking of the unequivocally evil, I think it's just a question of time before campus leftists completely retcon the Nazis into the good guys: Lebensraum from the river to the sea!
Question, re, Exodus: I sometimes see writers refer to the "Reed" Sea. What is up with that? Also, for what it's worth, I've long thought that the crossing of the Red Sea and subsequent inundation of Pharaoh's army sounds a lot like a description of a tsunami. No less miraculous for that . . .
The hebrew “suf” as in yam suf-yam means sea- literally means reed sea.
Today’s Red Sea may or
May not be the Bible’s yam suf.
could have been a tzunami or strong winds combined with low and high tide. Some rabbis say the divine miracle was the timing and the “splitting” of the sea was natural.
We will never know but there so much to learn from the story and Moses's song afterwards.
My brother led me to Leon Kass’s book on Exodus. Have not read it yet but apparently excellent.
I signed up for Kass's online seminar on Exodus. Haven't begun yet, but hopefully soon.
Moses led the people of Israel to freedom "according to tradition." That makes it sound as if maybe it really happened and maybe it didn't. I believe that what is recorded about those events in the book of שְׁמֹות (Exodus) are historically factual narratives, that God did work those miracles, and did destroy Pharaoh's army and reveal himself to Moses as written.
I would not like to think that the state of Israel was founded on mythology.
Of course, the modern scientific worldview objects, but the modern scientific worldview is wrong, and our society is wrong, as is evident from the pitiful state of our finest universities.
I meant to emphasize "tradition" and not de-emphasize "truth".
I have to confess I am not familiar with the various aspects of Jewish tradition. In liberal Protestantism at any rate, speaking of "traditions" does have such a connotation, at least when it comes to biblical narratives. There are of course traditions that are just that, human creations and nothing more. But I didn't mean to imply anything about your personal convictions.
Speaking as an outsider and as a Christian, I would place what you call the "many legends (midrashim) in Jewish tradition" on a completely different plane from the biblical narratives.
But apart from some doubt about the meaning of "tradition" I thought it was an excellent article, and agree fully with your comments here:
"There are few events in history that are black and white. The Holocaust was one such event. Pol Pot’s genocide was another. The Rwandan massacre and the Maoist and Stalinist slaughters were others.
"The Hamas attack against Jews on October 7 was the latest.
"The behavior of some of America’s youth is proof enough that their parent’s, teachers and religious leaders have failed miserably in their moral education. These children are the personification of evil as they, like their pagan ancestors of old celebrate and encourage cruelty for the sake of cruelty, using a cause they don’t and can’t understand, as an excuse.
"The youth that celebrate cruelty at America’s elite universities are evil. There is no good in them. There is no 'idealism' in them. There is no 'other' side to the argument. The President of the United States and all too many other politicians, let alone University faculty and administrators are participants in this evil. Their condemnations, if they come at all, are conditional. But fighting evil is not conditional."
And I also agree with "The same goes for those who are willing to let Hamas live and rule whether those people are in Israel, the United States, Europe or elsewhere. They are participants in this evil and the use of Gazan children or Israeli hostages as an excuse not to eradicate Hamas is cowardice and surrender to evil, plain and simple."
Anyone who is really concerned about peace in the Middle East and the well being of the Palestinian people and of the state of Israel should support the complete destruction of Hamas and the elimination of Iranian influence.
Parenthetically, I would wager that - apart from those with Islamic beliefs - the vast majority of the university protestors against Israel deny the divine creation of the universe; believe that life is the result of merely accidental forces; that we evolved from the primates; and that there is no higher moral law in the universe.
Traditional-Orthodox Judaism does not read the Bible literally. Rather, the justification for everything Jewish, be it legal-Halakhic or theological-philosophical-Midrashic comes from an unbroken chain of oral teachings.
From a Jewish religious perspective the right of the Jews to the Land of Israel is based on a promise from God to the patriarchs. The "truth" of each detail of individual historical events has no relevance to that. The Torah is not a book of history, to Jews.
Of course, there are many religious and orthodox Jews who don't agree with me on that and would take a stand closer to yours.
When it comes to the historicity of both the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures, I suppose that the general perspectives are the same: the books are all mythology (maybe with some kernel of history); the books are a lot of mythology (or human invention) with a greater historical core (the Israelites really were in captivity in Egypt and got out somehow, and David and Solomon were historical figures); the books are religiously true, with profound spiritual messages, but historically inaccurate; the books are divinely inspired, true both literally and spiritually.
That’s obvious enough, but I am puzzled by the tendency of Rabbinic Judaism to not read the Bible literally, and even to subordinate it to the Oral Law. I am not a scholar, but it seems to me comparable in a way to the Roman Catholic tendency to subordinate Scripture to church teachings as necessary guides, without which the Bible cannot be rightly interpreted.
It says in Nehemiah that “And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.”
Admittedly, there are some difficult things to understand, but much of the historical narrative and spiritual teachings are accessible.
Saying that the truth of individual historical events is not relevant to the basic message is comprehensible, but I find it surprising that the historicity of the narratives of Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon should not be accepted at face value at least by religious Jews.
I make no pretension to scholarship in this area, but I looked up “Maimonides Moses” on the internet and read that “Maimonides was inspired by Moses, who he saw as being closest to a perfect man, having both revelation and knowledge.” Maimonides must have thought the narrative was true and accessible to some extent.
I think I gave you the wrong impression as to the views of religious/Orthodox Jews regarding the truth and historicity of the Bible. I don't think you will find a rabbi who ever believed that the patriarchs and David and Solomon did not exist.
My point is that the truth of every "historical" detail of the Bible has no bearing on:
1. Israel's right to the Land of Israel
2. The ultimate truth of the Bible.
As for the oral law and interpretations of the Bible, be they Rabbinic or Christian-Catholic, that is a statement that the Divine Word cannot be assumed to be so easily understood.
If there can be difficulties in interpreting great literature, how much more so when interpreting Divine literature?
What is important in halakhic Judaism is the unbroken chain in the Tradition. Historians will agree that this tradition dates from somewhere in the Second Temple Era and traditionalists will claim it comes from God's revelation at Sinai.
That is why orthodox rabbis who have struggled with the challenges of modernity (like Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik for example) never really dealt with biblical criticism - it was much less important than the tradition that is the oral law.
The significance of the historical truth of the Bible relative to the ultimate truth is also debated among Christians (forgive me if I state the obvious). Neo-Orthodox Protestants (like Karl Barth) will say that the Bible is spiritually true, and the historical details don’t matter (some people say that neo-Orthodox means not-Orthodox). But the Fundamentalists and conservative Evangelicals will argue that without historical accuracy the credibility of the whole Bible is lost.
To me, it is not hard to believe that the events recorded in Exodus (שְׁמוֹת) occurred as described, and are just as real historically as the battle of Gettysburg. Of course if there is no God at all, then the Bible is no more than an interesting cultural artifact, with some wise sayings. But, given a God who created the universe by his spoken word alone, which is taught not only in Genesis but also in the New Testament book of Hebrews, then all of the miracles and manifestations of the divine are by no means impossible, and secular humanist objections are irrelevant.
About the historical accuracy of the Bible, religious/Orthodox Jews may accept the historicity of David and Solomon and the patriarchs, but what about a literal appearance of the Creator to Moses on Mount Sinai, and the miracles of the Exodus? Is there not some reluctance in some religious Jewish circles to affirm that directly, but rather to say, in effect, that “Something happened but we are not sure what”? There are liberal Protestants who accept the Israelites were delivered from captivity in Egypt somehow, but claim the events in the Bible were written down centuries later and are largely mythological. All Christian Fundamentalists and the great majority of Evangelicals would say the biblical record is literal historical fact.
I and many others believe that for the sake of divine truth and authority a literal Bible is necessary – and scientific objections are irrelevant as God’s power goes far beyond them. Scientific laws are of course valid for our ordinary existence, but are no constraint upon God, though miracles are rare.
So there is a lot of similarity between various Protestant/Catholic and Jewish approaches.
About the historicity of the Bible and the right of the Jews to the land, obviously many Jews have felt a call and a right to the land without relying on a historically accurate Bible, and centuries of historical possession is a weighty and valid claim in and of itself. Also relevant is that the Jews actually built a state and reclaimed the land as a coherent nation in a way that the Arabs never did. But, if God is literally at work, and did what is recorded in the Bible, and is still active now in completion of his purposes for Israel, that adds an entirely different dimension to the situation.
We read in the historical books that God raised up enemies against Israel in his anger – and why may he not do the same in our own time?
I do wonder though whether religious/Orthodox Jews approach the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon, and Job and the prophets directly as devotional books that may be taken at face value without the need of rabbinic interpretation. Many Christians read the Psalms and the Writings directly as devotional guides. Commentaries may be consulted for extra details but are by no means essential. Does the Oral Law extend to the wisdom and poetical books and the prophets also?
About the need for scholarly and learned interpretations, whether Rabbinic or Christian, most would not dispute there is a place for scholarly interpretation and explanation. I have benefitted from learned explanations by Matthew Henry and others.
The basic message can be understood by anyone to whom God has given faith: that God exists (I don’t know how important the use of G-d is to you); that he created us; that we have laws from the Divine Word we need to obey; that there will be a day of judgment, a resurrection from the dead and heaven and hell (as in Daniel chapter 12) – these and many other teachings and facts of God are clear and plain to all with spiritual insight.
Not all of the Divine Word is easily understood, but much of it is, at least to those with understanding. And there is the belief also that God today gives wisdom and guidance to those who sincerely seek him – yet in spite of that we still have the Christian / Jewish divide in discussing key teachings and prophecies.
About the unbroken chain of tradition, I read sometime ago about the Karaites and their denial of the Oral Law. Looking that up again, I find that they still exist. I suppose if one can be an atheist and still be a Jew, one can deny the Oral Law as well.
I looked up the Rabbi Soloveitchik and put one of his books – The Lonely Man of Faith – in my Amazon shopping cart. The Amazon description says he uses the story of Adam and Eve as a springboard to integrating Western philosophy with Genesis to provide moral guidance – but surely the understanding of the creation story as literal truth or moral allegory must affect our understanding of it.
One Christian commentator I read on Genesis said that, humanly speaking, the story of woman having been made from a rib taken out of Adam seems unbelievable, but we believe it under the authority of Scripture, and fallen human reason is not an adequate judge of such extraordinary things beyond our daily experience. It says in Isaiah,
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Our tradition teaches us not to rejoice in the fall of our enemies. Now, more than ever, we need to heed the wisdom of the ages.
Being kind to the cruel inevitably leads to being cruel to the kind, but rejoicing in their downfall is something we don’t do.
And yet there are exceptions to that rule - we are also commanded to wipe out Amalek.
Under current circumstances I would say that if military victory demands less compassion to our enemies, we need to take victory.
Compassion can come later.