-Andrew Fretwell-
An Observation on the term, Jewish People: while what being“Jewish” has been anything but stable since its inception so many thousands of years ago, the transcendence of the “People” part has remained a constant. The Peoplehood of Israel) is as entrenched in Judaism as any other tenet, if not much more. It permeates the Torah, the Jewish Calendar, Jewish Prayer, the Mitzvot, Lifecycle events, etc.
I will be posting here to briefly examine the role of Peoplehood in all these aspects of Judaism and Jewish heritage. For this post, I will be looking at the issue of Peoplehood in the Torah by looking at the Torah in three sections, Pre-Mitzraim, Mitzraim and Sinai.
Pre-Mitzraim
So much of B’reisheet is about the discord of man. Mankind at large is totally divided: People are deceived specifically through separation: the serpent finds Eve by herself and takes advantage and Eve makes a fairly momentous decision without consulting Adam. Adam himself doesn’t exactly take one for the team when he tries to pass of the blame of his transgression on Eve. I guess disunity and infighting runs in the family because sure enough Cane and Able aren’t exactly Bert and Ernie; enough said. There is one fleeting moment of human unity: the Tower of Babel , but man’s harmony cannot be achieved without unchecked ambition and pride, challenging the transcendence of God with human ingenuity. The next narrative in B’reisheet is that of Noah, where God quite famously picks and chooses Noah among all men, certainly not an all or nothing approach. Further down the line Abraham’s sons and descendents don’t provide any real change to this. We recall Jacob and Essau’s rivalry and of course Joseph’s fraternal tension that brings him to Mitzraim (Egypt ).
Mitzraim
This is the baggage the Israelites carry with them as they make their way into the desert from Mitzraim: discord, jealousy and quarreling. However, Mitzraim is where the transition into Peoplehood begins. In Mitzraim, Joseph and his brothers embrace, bury the hatchet and bequeath a life of tranquility and serenity to Jews forever more...well not completely. However, it is their discovered brotherhood is a blessing that will eventually lead to their descendants’ liberation from Bondage.
Bondage takes the foundation of brotherhood and begins a serious transformation into People. With bondage comes now not just a tribal loyalty, but a shared defining experience that includes a shared suffering (we all had our feet in the mortar and felt the whip) and an antagonist people with their tyrant leader, so that we can distinguish ourselves (we know who we are by saying we’re not “them.”)
Clearly, after serious bondage the Torah changes its language with God’s words, as transmitted by Moses: Let my PEOPLE go! For the rest of the Tanach, the Jewish People share a destiny and are rewarded and punished together and are addressed singularly. In fact, it is their solidarity and collective effor that begins their passage from suffering. When God remembered his pact with Abraham, it wasn’t because of one person’s cry, it was the collective siren of the Jewish People. The collective call to action is what propels the story of the Exodus. You might say it’s the first united effort and communal achievement of the Jewish People: Getting God’s attention. You might connect some theoretical dots between the requirement of a community to get God’s attention and the idea of a Minyan; I’m also doing it. I know that Abraham’s negotiation with God regarding Sodom and Gamorrah is the a commonly accepted explanation for the requirement of 10 men to make Minyan, but I think this also makes sense on a more conceptual level.
Sinai and Everything After
The trend of emerging Peoplehood continues when the newly forged Jewish People land at Sinai. God decides when it’s time to reveal himself that he ought not to do it through any intermediary, but to appear to the People in its entirety. However, God overestimates the capacity of the Israelites and has to relegate his revelation to Moses.
The trend of emerging Peoplehood continues when the newly forged Jewish People land at Sinai. God decides when it’s time to reveal himself that he ought not to do it through any intermediary, but to appear to the People in its entirety. However, God overestimates the capacity of the Israelites and has to relegate his revelation to Moses.
Even the most central person in the Torah, Moses, is subject to his usefulness in serving the People of Israel. Why does Moses hitting the rock warrant his ban from entering the Land of Israel ? Is it because his temporary loss of patience infuriates God? Maybe, however there are other explanations that I find more interesting and compelling. One of which comes from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who is the Chief Rabbi of the UK . His explanation is fairly simple: Moses strikes the rock because he only knows how to lead slaves and how do you lead slaves? Just ask the taskmaster; you strike them, hard. But you can’t do that with a FREE PEOPLE, such as the one that has now emerged over the course of the forty years of wandering in the Desert. That is why God tells Moses to talk to the rock, the way one would talk to and use persuasion with a free person. However, Moses just can’t do it and so it’s made clear that Moses can no longer lead the Jewish People and therefore cannot impede the Jewish People’s progress by crossing the Jordan . Even Moshe Rabbeinu must bow to the good of the Jewish People.
The entire last book of the Torah, Dvarim, is a recap of the journey of the Jewish People’s journey from Mitzraim to their impending entrance to Canaan . Cleary, if there are only 5 Books of the Torah, the centerpiece of the Jewish Universe, and 1 of them is just repeating, repetition must serve a greater purpose? One of those purposes is reinforcing our collective memory. No Idiot’s Guide recap of the 613 mitzvot. No revisitation of the Covenant God made with Noah. No repetition of the Patriarchs’ or Matriarchs’ actions. No rehashing of anything, in fact, that happens before Mitzraim. It’s all treated like it’s just the prelude and dressing to the narrative that forged us together as a People. In choosing this emphasis the Torah seems to say, “Peoplehood did and still can deliver you from dire straits.”
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