Reflections on Identity: The Jewish Case 9781618115355

Citation preview

Reflections on Identity The Jewish Case

E m u n ot : J E w i s h P h i lo s o P h y

and

Kabbalah

S e r i e s Ed i to r : D ov S c hwa r t z ( B a r - I l a n U n i ve r s i t y, R a m at G a n ) Ed i to r i a l B o a rd Ad a R a p o p o r t Al b e r t ( U n i ve r s i t y Co l l e g e, Lo n d o n ) G a d Fre u d e nt h a l (C N R S , Pa r i s ) G i d e o n Fre u d e nt h a l ( Te l Av i v U n i ve r s i t y, R a m at Av i v ) M o s h e I d e l ( H e b re w U n i ve r s i t y, J e ru s a l e m ) R a p h a e l J o s p e ( B a r - I l a n U n i ve r s i t y, R a m at G a n ) Ep h ra i m Ka n a r f o g e l ( Ye s h i va U n i ve r s i t y, N e w Yo r k ) M e n a c h e m Ke l l n e r ( H a i f a U n i ve r s i t y, H a i f a ) Da n i e l La s ke r ( B e n - G u r i o n U n i ve r s i t y, B e e r S h e va )

Reflections on Identity The Jewish Case

Avi Sagi Translated by Batya Stein

Boston 2016

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sagi, Abraham, author. | Stein, Batya, translator. Title: Reflections on identity : the Jewish case / Avi Sagi ; translated by Batya Stein. Description: Brighton, MA : Academic Studies Press, [2016] Series: Emunot: Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016037749 (print) LCCN 2016038646 (ebook) ISBN 978-1-61811-534-8 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-61811-535-5 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Jews—Identity—Philosophy. Classification: LCC DS143 .S1385 2016 (print) LCC DS143 (ebook) DDC 305.892/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037749 ISBN 978-1-61811-534-8 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-61811-535-5 (electronic) ©Academic Studies Press, 2016 Cover design by Inbal Pinto Book design by Kryon Publishing, www.kryonpublishing.com Published by Academic Studies Press 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

Contents

Acknowledgments

vi

Preface

vii

Part One

1

Chapter 1:

From an Essentialist to a Multicultural Identity

Chapter 2:

A Critique of the Jewish Identity Discourse

32

Chapter 3:

Primordial Identity: The Jewish Case

59

Part Two

2

88

Chapter 4:

Between a Rights Discourse and an Identity Discourse

91

Chapter 5:

“Religion and State”: A Critical Analysis

111

Chapter 6:

On Exile, Strangers, and Sovereignty: Identity in the Biblical Tradition

136

Bibliography

197

Sources

209

Index

210

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to my two professional homes in recent decades—the Department of Philosophy and the Graduate Program of Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies at Bar-Ilan University and the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. In the fruitful encounter between them I have found space for my personal growth and for the questions that I grapple with. I have shared many thoughts on the complex issues raised in this book with Donniel Hartman, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, who has been unfailing in his support and encouragement. I deeply appreciate our longstanding friendship and his untiring efforts in pursuit of the Institute’s development. Special thanks to Laura Gilinsky, the Institute’s PR officer, for her contribution to the publication of this book. Thanks to colleagues whose comments on earlier versions of the chapters of this book contributed to its final form: Shraga Bar-On, Yakir Englander, Menachem Fisch, Eliezer Goldman z”l, Pini Ifargan, David Kurzweil, Charles Liebman z”l, Hanan Mandel, Menachem Mautner, Daniel Statman, Yedidia Stern, and Dror Yinon. Special thanks to my assistant, Roni Barlev. I dedicate this book with thanks and deep appreciation to my friend Batya Stein, who, for close to thirty years, has translated all my work from Hebrew to English. Batya is not only a translator but a serious partner to the thinking about my texts, who successfully presents their optimal possibilities. Her friendship, her commitment, and her exceptional professionalism have all been a source of inspiration to me.

Preface

The identity of individuals, as manifest in their lifestyles, practices, myths, memory, and hopes, is not a “natural” datum found “somewhere” in the world. Identity is a signifier denoting the complex story of human existence, and requires a cultural web that both concretizes it and constitutes it. The classic traditional discussion on the question of identity, which had dealt with the relationship between the one and the many, focused on one question: what is the essential element that determines differences and enables the distinction between one and the other? This classic approach, a legacy of Aristotelian thought, has been subject to serious criticism in general and in its application to humans in particular. This book focuses on the identity of real people who, rather than in some atopical realm, live in a specific place with historical, cultural, and political features. These particular features are constitutive of the individual’s identity, not mere additions to a “pure” abstract and universal subject. If this subject indeed exists at all beyond its function as a theoretical hypothesis, it expresses only one dimension of the actual self that is not interchangeable with the person. Descartes’ “thinking self ” is thus but one possibility of the individual’s existence as a concrete being, who emerges through a process involving an ongoing dialogue with others, with history, and with culture. This book aims to expose this process and describe its various aspects and implications. My concern is with manifestations of concrete identity and I have chosen to focus on the identity of people who are Jews, though Jewish identity serves here as a case study for a discussion of identity in general. The book is divided into two parts. Part One provides the conceptual framework. Chapter One deals with alternative definitions of identity, and Chapters Two and Three gradually shift from the general construct to the actual context of Jewish identity, including an analysis of the traditional identity discourse represented by Hegelian tradition. Chapters Four to Six in Part Two focus on Israel, reflecting various dimensions of its tense identity discourse—the conflict resulting from

viii

Pre f a ce

the blurred distinction between a discourse of identity and a discourse of rights in Chapter Four, and from the displacement of the identity discourse to the political terms of the religion and state relationship in Chapter Five. Chapter Six focuses on the meaning of the politicalgeographic realm in the constitution of Jewish identity and, specifically, on the role of the Land of Israel as it plays out in biblical tradition.

Ch a p te r 1

From an EssEntialist to a multicultural idEntity

My concern here is the discourse on identity. This chapter is thus a reflective, critical account of the prevalent modes of thinking about identity, specifically in the philosophical literature, mapping out the field of discourse with an emphasis on its poles. On one pole is the essentialist discourse, which views identity as “something” found “there” in reality and independent of people as historical-cultural creatures. Identity is already given and people must find it. The identity discourse, then, follows in the wake of the past and returns to it. On the other pole is the approach that views identity as a cultural project of self-molding and self-creativity. Identity emerges through a complex historical, cultural, and political process, shaped more by the future than by the past, and the field of the identity discourse is realized along the time axis. Whereas the essentialist conception of identity is ancient, the other was born during modernity. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola lived in the fifteenth century and was among the first to suggest that the essence of being human is to be undefined, emphasizing that God, through direct speech, imposes on humans the duty of self-creation: We have given you, Adam, no fixed seat or form of your own, no talent peculiar to you alone. This we have done so that whatever seat, whatever form, whatever talent you may judge desirable, these same may you have and possess according to your desire and judgment . . . . We have made you neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that you may, as the free and extraordinary shaper of yourself, fashion yourself in whatever form you prefer.1

Pico della Mirandolla’s stance sharply conveys the transition between the old and the new. He speaks in the old language of essences, but argues that the human essence is defined by its emptiness. Rather than being a finished creature whose identity merely awaits discovery, humans find their dignity in being “chameleons,”2 meaning creatures who often change and 1 2

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man: A New Translation and Commentary, ed. Francesco Borghesi, Michael Papio, and Massimo Riva (Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 2012), 117. Ibid., 225.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

thereby create themselves. Pico assigns to humans a divine rank—God creates the world and humans create themselves. This emphasis on selfmolding, however, is still very far from the contemporary view of identity as a product of culture and history. Pico’s hero is the individual that gives rise to the human individual ex nihilo. The essence of human dignity lies in the capacity to create, not in the resulting specific product and certainly not in the context of one’s life as a cultural historical entity. Humans transcend the modes of their identities’ realization, which are merely potential manifestations of their identity as creative creatures. Therefore, Pico’s stance marks the transition between the classic essentialist view and the new one, though neither of the two, as will be shown, has disappeared from the identity discourse and all are still present in it in one way or another. In this chapter, I adopt a critical perspective to trace the idea of identity from a philosophical rather than a historical angle, following the inner movement of the identity discourse from the essentialist to the cultural.

identity and identification One of the most significant distinctions in the analysis of the identity discourse is that between “identity” and “identification.” As Peter Strawson argued, the act of identification unfolds through names, descriptions, characteristics, and so forth.3 This act enables a discourse on a specific object through its individuation and distinction from others, and all it requires is to ensure that the participants in the discourse know what is at stake. Through the act of identification, all perceive the object spoken about as the same thing—a stable, defined entity that can be discussed.4 The act of identification, however, does not answer the question of identity and the object does not play an active role in its own identification, which is imposed by the speakers about it “from outside.” The element through which the object was identified may play a role in its identity, but this function is not a necessary condition for the identification act. The act of identification may fixate the identity of the object being spoken about, but this will only be its identity as perceived by the speakers about it. The object could eventually endorse this perspective of others on itself and adopt its identity from outside, as Jonathan Friedman noted: “By 3 4

Peter F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Methuen, 1959), 15-30. Cora Diamond, “Sahibs and Jews,” in Jewish Identity, ed. David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 95; Michael Krausz, “On Being Jewish,” in ibid., 264.

3

4

C h a p te r 1

speaking [of] him, or for him, we ultimately force him to speak through our categories.”5 But even if the external identification does become identity, even if the original identity is erased and replaced by an identification imposed from outside, the personality’s basic outline cannot be wiped out. Humans interpret themselves and, thereby, ceaselessly shape themselves anew. Humans, then, are capable of directing their own wishes.6 And yet, precisely on these grounds, an act of external identification may override the original identity, because people can easily endorse a perspective imposed from outside and turn it into the constitutive element of their will and self-interpretation. Contrary to the identification imposed from outside, people can choose to identify with the feelings, consciousness, values, or practices of a particular group. Ostensibly, this act is a necessary and sufficient condition to be included in that group and express its identity. Indeed, for those who were not born within a specific culture and tradition and voluntarily join it, self-identification emerges as a necessary condition for adopting an identity, since it triggers a process of internalization and self-molding based on elements drawn from the object with which they identify. This identification triggers a change in people’s identity and draws them closer to the members of the given culture. Yet, individuals can identify with others, their world, and their values without undergoing a fundamental identity transformation.7 At least three elements are required for identification to generate the process of constituting or changing one’s identity: a formal element—fundamentally one of consciousness, that is, a genuine will to be a member of the group with which one identifies; a substantive element—adopting the group’s identity as the group itself explains it, that is, endorsing the meaning of the group’s practices, including their historical, cultural, and social contexts; and a practical element—actually adopting the practices of the group with which one identifies. Thematic knowledge, however, is not a necessary condition for absorbing the identity of a given group, neither for its members nor for those who 5 6

7

Jonathan Friedman, Cultural Identity and Global Process (London: Sage, 1994), 168. See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), especially 32-33; Harry G. Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971): 5-20; Charles Taylor, Human Agency and Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 45-76; 97-114. Diamond, “Sahibs and Jews,” 100.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

wish to join it. The group’s members are not necessarily aware of the thematic contexts underlying the practices that constitute identity. A culture is not a conceptual analysis but a way of life perceived as obvious, a platform constituting the basic patterns of perception, knowledge, and orientation in the world. And given the primacy of practices in the constitution of identity and their nature as day-to-day familiar expressions, reflecting on them may not be easy. Indeed, it is precisely this absence of thematic reflection that conveys the obviousness of identity, its nature as the a priori, constitutive element of being.8 As Martin Heidegger shows, practices are thematized when disrupted, interrupted, or delayed.9 People act when the consciousness accompanying their activity is pre-reflective or pre-thematic. Full reflection on practices or on identity occurs only at times of crisis, when the continuity and the duration typical of action are disturbed.10 The identification of group members with the practices constitutive of their identity, then, does not necessarily imply reflective thematization of the historical-cultural contexts that endow their identity with meaning. Seemingly, this conclusion applies only to the members of a culture but not to those seeking to join it. For outsiders involved in a process of identity transformation, to whom the historical-cultural contexts of the practices constitutive of identity are not obvious, thematic and reflective identification are needed for this process to be meaningful. A process of identity change is thus a conscious decision to identify with the identity of a given group. It is not, however, necessarily accompanied by thematic reflection about the cultural-historical contexts related to this identity. Identification is not the act of a critical philosopher but of individuals encountering practices that seem meaningful to them. The encounter is horizontal rather than vertical, synchronic rather than diachronic. People encounter the practices as they emerge, without their historical-cultural contexts. They are not prevented from reflecting on them, but their doing so is a concrete biographical matter, specific to some of the individuals who adopt the identity or are born into it. The conclusion of this analysis is that, even if adopting a given identity does not require thematic reflection about its constitutive contexts, it does assume these contexts, at least implicitly, as an existing foundation. Adopting an identity thus means adopting an existing context of 8 9 10

Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 47. Heidegger, Being and Time, 102-107. Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), 53.

5

6

C h a p te r 1

meaning rather than introducing practices into new contexts that are entirely alien to the circumstances of these practices’ creation. We can pour existing practices into new and strange contexts that disregard their historical-cultural depth, but the result is the creation of an entirely new identity rather than the adoption of an existing one. In sum, adopting an identity means adopting the history and the culture that were at its roots, though without implying that this process is tantamount to entering a “closed box,” a given objective framework. A cultural tradition is not a closed datum, as Hans Georg Gadamer excelled at describing, but a constantly ongoing dialogue between present and past. Identity, therefore— seemingly the entry to this dialogue—is dynamic and constantly undergoing restructuring and reorganization, but the restructuring process relates to an existing datum. Jean Améry experienced identity rift as a constitutive element of his being, and offered a clear formulation of this view: “One can reestablish the link with a tradition that one has lost, but one cannot freely invent it for oneself, that is the problem.”11 Primo Levi, who grapples with Améry in Chapter Six of The Drowned and the Saved, reiterates this stance in relation to Jewish identity: “Whoever is not born within the Jewish tradition is not a Jew, and cannot easily become one: by definition, a tradition is inherited; it is the product of centuries, it cannot be fabricated a posteriori.”12 The analysis of the identity discourse that follows will refine these determinations.

The Identity Problem: Between Philosophical Subject and Concrete Personality Identity has been a recurring problem since the dawn of philosophy, and it is thus no wonder that attemps to contend with it tend to endorse a philosophical perspective. This perspective, however, often blurs and dims the problem. In philosophical terms, the identity problem of the human subject is part of the identity problem of objects in general. The self is not essentially different from other objects in the world, meaning it is a kind of object to which various characteristics, different from those of other objects, are ascribed.13 The essential characteristic present in the human self and 11 12 13

Jean Améry, At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor of Auschwitz and Its Realities, trans. Sidney Rosenfeld and Stella P. Rosenfeld (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1980), 84. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal (London: Michael Joseph, 1989), 103. Taylor, Human Agency and Language, 98.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

missing from other objects is consciousness. In this approach, the self as such is the subject of these characteristics, above all that of consciousness. Two contrary views on this issue feature in the history of philosophy. One, which culminated in Edmund Husserl’s thought, argued for the existence of a human subject that can be fully described and analyzed. The other approach, which culminated in David Hume’s thought, cast doubt on the very concept of a human subject and argued that it is merely an imaginary construct. A more suitable description of the human self, it claimed, is that suggested by the phenomenalist approach, which renounces altogether the assumption of a subject bearing characteristics.14 Despite the difference between these two approaches, Michael Luntley’s formulation makes it possible to view both of them as partners in the modernist project— both seek the self outside the real historicalcultural context of human existence and describe it as an abstract being.15 The Husserlian trend holds that human knowledge can explain this self and, since it succeeds in pointing out a way of knowing it, declares that it exists. The Humean trend accepts the basic premises of the former one—it assumes that, if there is a self, it is a subject bearing characteristics—but shows that its existence cannot be demonstrated and, therefore, it is more appropriate to describe it as lacking a center, as phenomenal. Phenomenalism is thus an inverse image of the former approach. The philosophical discussion, however, does not take into account the fact that the human being is not only a subject bearing characteristics. The human self is also a choosing self, judging and evaluating, planning its life through goals it sets itself. In Heidegger’s terms, the self is a being that cares for its existence and reshapes its world and its life according to the values and conceptions it adopts.16 Classic philosophical analysis, however, related to the self as static and assumed that its identity is given or should have been given, without taking into account that it is a self-interpreting being constituted in the course of real life.17 Against the classic philosophical approaches, Søren Kierkegaard presented another model of the self as a relationship between three elements. 14 15 16 17

See Rom Harré, “Persons and Selves,” in Persons and Personality: A Contemporary Inquiry, ed. Arthur R. Peacocke and Grant Gillet (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 100. Michael Luntley, Reason, Truth and Self: The Postmodern Reconditioned (London: Routledge, 1995), 151-172. Heidegger, Being and Time, 32-35. Taylor, Human Agency and Language, chap. 2 and 4; David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz, “Introduction: The Culture of Identity,” in Jewish Identity, 1-2; Bernard Berofsky, “The Identity of Cultural and Personal Identity,” in ibid, 41-48.

7

8

C h a p te r 1

For Kierkegaard, the basic datum of human life is the tension between finitude and infinity. The finitude pole denotes the range of the factual data within which we find ourselves: the physiological structure, the environment, the concrete circumstances of our birth, and so forth—the self ’s past in its broad meaning. The infinity pole denotes the human ability to transcend this givenness. This pole, which is constituted by imagination, enables us to imagine situations and possibilities beyond our modes of concrete givenness and, therefore, denotes our freedom and our future. These two poles alone, however, are not yet a self. Kierkegaard’s central claim is: “A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite . . . of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two. Considered in this way, a human being is still not a self.”18 The third element that constitutes and shapes the self is its attitude toward the two constitutive poles of finitude and infinity. The self, then, is made up of three elements—its two constitutive poles and the attitude toward them. The first two denote what is, while the third denotes the how.19 This new view of the self points to its temporal-historical character. The self, then, rather than a given datum found within real history, is constituted within history—it is essentially historical. Its time is not the Aristotelian time that measures the course of an object in space. Time— and in existentialist terminology, temporality—is constitutive to the self that, by definition, assumes its shape in the course of its concrete life. The existentialist approach dismisses the philosophical concept of the subject altogether. According to this view, the problem is not whether we can recognize the self as a subject, since, even if we can, the real self is not a subject. The subject is an abstraction, and the real self is existence, a being that assumes form within reality. The existentialist view assumes that identity is concrete and historical, attained in the course of real existence—a lifetime project. This view represents a major turning point in the analysis of the self and in bringing philosophical reflection closer to real life. Its problem, however, is that it locates history and culture in one pole of the self ’s structure—finite givenness—while the actual shaping of the individual occurs outside this givenness through the third element, which balances and mediates between its two poles—the attitude toward, or consciousness of, the self. This attitude 18 19

Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 13. Ibid., 13-14. For a detailed analysis of Kierkegaard’s position, see Avi Sagi, Kierkegaard, Religion, and Existence: The Voyage of the Self, trans. Batya Stein (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000).

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

conveys an element that transcends history and culture, is rooted in the person’s absolute freedom, and exceeds the two poles that determine concrete existence. History and culture do play a central role, but, since they are located in the pole of the self ’s finitude, the key element in the constitution of the self is beyond them. Ultimately, the attitude toward the self is a spontaneous, a priori, and individual element. The question of human identity is therefore always a question of the individual enclosed within his or her own individuality, whereas Kierkegaardian selfhood is fundamentally closed and “windowless,” even if its materials can be known. The existentialist model, which began as a shift from the classic approach toward a historical-cultural view of the self, returns to an essentialist, extracultural perception of human identity that emerges as extremely close to its classic philosophical cradle. In the end, this model replaced the classic subject with the attitude of the self, as a free creature, toward its own existence.

Human Identity between Essentialism and Constructionism Classic philosophy, then, and to some extent existentialism as well, suggest an essentialist view of the self. The essentialist approach assumes the existence of a self that is neither conditioned by, nor dependent on, historical, social, and cultural contexts. Luntley claims that this approach, which is the modernist view of the self, does acknowledge political or cultural “characteristics” such as gender, religion, and so forth, but not that the self is constituted by them. In Luntley’s concise wording: From the perspective of modernity we are citizens not of the here and now; our true selves are not subjects of the historically real and contingent conditions of real culture and society. From the perspective of modernity, we are subjects of an abstract ahistorical realm from which we must then select our culture, our morals, politics and social institutions. Central of all the characteristics of the modern self is its individualism. In the first instance, the modern self stands alone.20

The perception of the self as outside any context isolates it not only from real history and culture but also from the other, and the modernist view does not view the attitude toward the other as constitutive of the self ’s identity.21 The mainstream ethos of authenticity excels at articulating this matter. 20 21

Luntley, Reason, Truth and Self, 152-153. Ibid., 153.

9

10

C h a p te r 1

From Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Kierkegaard up to Heidegger and JeanPaul Sartre, the other is perceived as diverting the self from its selfhood, while authenticity is construed as related to a selfhood isolated and detached from any connection to the other. The other is “the mass,” “Das Man” that threatens authenticity. Heidegger’s claim that “being with the other” is a basic construct of human existence22 seemingly deviates from the isolated authenticity approach, but it actually reiterates it. Readers of Being and Time cannot but notice that the discussion about the modes of “being with the other” is mostly devoted to an analysis of inauthentic reality, wherein the other threatens the isolated self. Heidegger refers to it as “falling,”23 that is, as a reality wherein people fail in the transparent realization of their existence. The connection with the other is authentic only in the other’s role as a conscience that awakens us to return to our individual selfhood.24 For Heidegger too, then, authentic human existence is individual existence, and we return to it with profound anxiety.25 As Paul Ricoeur notes,26 the understanding of the self in Heidegger’s thought develops in relation of being in the world rather than in the relation with the other. Ricoeur shows that, thematically, Heidegger’s discussion takes place in the context of a person’s relationship with the objects in the world,27 that is, in the context of “being-in-the-world” rather than “being-with another.” In Ricoeur’s terms: “The question of the world takes the place of the question of the other.”28 Thereby Heidegger, like the existentialists who preceded him, is a partner to the modernist ethos. This essentialist view of human identity applies to cultures and peoples as well, and not only to individuals. As Stuart Hall notes: There are at least two different ways of thinking about “cultural identity.” The first position defines “cultural identity” in terms of one, shared culture, a sort of collective “one true self,” hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed “selves,” which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common. Within the terms of this definition, our cultural identities reflect the common 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Heidegger, Being and Time, 149-224. Ibid., 219-224. Ibid., 158, 344. Ibid., 232, 235. Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation, trans. John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 55-56. Heidegger, Being and Time, 188-190. Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, 56.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide us, as “one people,” with stable, unchanging and continuous frames of reference and meaning, beneath the shifting divisions and vicissitudes of our actual history.29

This approach raises two questions: what is the essence of a specific culture, and what are its basic values? In the essentialist view, identifying a member of a social or cultural community is not a serious problem—those who bear the essential characteristics of this specific community are members, and those who do not, are not. The essentialist perception of cultural identity views the synchronic discourse with the other, the stranger or the atypical, as redundant. The other plays no role in structuring the cultural identity, which is not constituted in an open historical, social, and cultural process. Instead, this identity is found “there,” in the historical world, and is therefore disclosed by drawing “inward,” into the given culture. The essentialist view approaches the rituals, the myths, or the ethos of a particular culture as similar, if not identical, to natural elements. The epistemological and ontological language that the essentialist discourse uses to talk about culture is the one used to talk about objects in the world. Hence, just as the essence of an object is not contingent on the other and remains stable and unchanging, the same is true of cultural identity. The antithesis of this essentialist position is the constructionist approach.30 The constructionist view holds that thinking about identity as if it were a natural object is flawed because identity is shaped and created within historical, social, and cultural contexts. Whereas the essentialist view highlights the complete, harmonious, and static nature of identity, the constructionist one emphasizes its fragmentary, dialectic, and contradictory character and views identity as a lifetime project. The essentialist approach seeks to transcend the concrete human story, while the constructionist one holds that the identity of individuals is the story they tell themselves in the historical-cultural contexts of their lives. This story, like any story, weaves facts into a web of imagination and invention. Rather than returning to a beginning beyond its borders, this story remains within them and invents its past. One striking example of this aspect is the opening sentence 29 30

Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990), 223. Craig Calhoun, “Social Theory and the Politics of Identity,” in Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 13-27.

11

12

C h a p te r 1

of Edward Said’s autobiography: “All families invent their parents and children, give each of them a story, character, fate, and even a language.”31 It is in the nature of a story that it is retold or, at the very least, can be retold in many diverse ways. People are more than one story. They are a cluster of different stories that may be more or less related to one another, as Bronwyn Davies and Rom Harré point out: An individual emerges through the processes of social interaction, not as a relatively fixed end product but as one who is constituted and reconstituted through the various discursive practices in which they participate. Accordingly, who one is is always an open question with a shifting answer depending upon the positions made available within one’s own and others’ discursive practices and within those practices, the stories through which we make sense of our own and others’ lives. Stories are located within a number of different discourses, and thus vary dramatically.32

The constructionist view applies not only to individuals but to cultural communities and to nations. Hall describes cultural identity as follows: Cultural identity . . . is a matter of “becoming” as well as of “being.” It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past, they are subject to the continuous “play” of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in a mere “recovery” of the past, which is waiting to be found . . . identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past.33

The constructionist view answers the identity question in two ways. According to the first, which I will call “strong constructionism,” the traditional concept of identity collapses altogether. No connection ties the various cultural contexts of people’s lives. They tell themselves different stories at different times and in different situations, without a basic core 31 32

33

Edward W. Said, Out of Place: A Memoir (London: Granta Books, 1999), 9. Bronwyn Davies and Rom Harré, “Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20 (1990): 46. See also Krausz, “On Being Jewish,” 264-267; Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 5; Wolfram Fischer-Rosenthal, “From Identity to Biography,” in A Quest for Identity: Post War Jewish Biographies, ed. Yitzhak Kashti et al. (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1996), 9-20. Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” 225. See also Stuart Z. Charmé, “Varieties of Authenticity in Contemporary Identity,” Jewish Social Studies 6 (2000): 144.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

that organizes these contexts into one coherent framework of meaning. The alternative is a “moderate constructionism,” which assumes that, even if no self is assumed to exist beyond culture, history, and society, the self ’s absolute collapse is not a required premise. In the moderate constructionist approach, identity retains continuity and unity but is not static and complete. Although individuals and societies do undergo change processes, these processes are highly coherent and enable us to relate to the individual or to the society as continuous. In extreme situations, coherence may disappear and identity can then be determined to have collapsed. But the disintegration of identity, rather than the primary or even the standard option, is only one possible way of acknowledging the constitutive role of culture, history, and society.34

On the Sources of the Essentialist Approach What are the sources of the essentialist view of identity? It is in the context of constructionist approaches, which assume that culture is the constitutive context of identity, that this question arises. An extensive discussion of this issue is beyond the scope of this chapter, and my comments will be limited to a few preliminary remarks. The first answer to this question claims that the essentialist approach is a product of Western culture. The dichotomous assumption of classic tradition—the existence of a subject or the collapse of the self into a series of unrelated moments—originates in the metaphor of the self in Western culture: . . . the person has often been imagined as a machine—most recently as a computer—that carries its basic operating instructions on the inside, that controls behavior, and that functions the same way no matter where it is located or what it stores. But other understandings of the person are possible. For example, in many Asian contexts, the self is metaphorized not as a machine, but as something from nature, like a plant. In this view, the soil (or the culture) is essential for the plant’s development, nourishment, and cultivation. The plant metaphor suggests that a person is porous and open, rather than bounded, and it blurs the inside-outside, self-society, and person-environment distinctions that are deeply embedded in European-American understandings.35 34 35

Luntley, Reason, Truth and Self, 184-189. Hazel Rose Markus, Patricia R. Mullally, and Shinobu Kitayama, “Selfways: Diversity in Modes of Cultural Participation,” in The Conceptual Self in Context: Culture, Experience, Self-Understanding, ed. Ulric Neisser and David A. Jopling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 16-17.

13

14

C h a p te r 1

This is a constitutive metaphor of the identity discourse, which recurrently raises the essentialist perception of the self while actually reflecting the opposite—the collapse of the self. In other words: either the self is the subject, the entity, or the essence bearing manifest characteristics, or—when consciousness despairs of finding this self, as Hume showed—the self is broken down into a series of entirely unrelated moments. The more fundamental question, however, still remains unanswered: what led Western culture to create this metaphor? Several thinkers have related to this issue, particularly Friedrich Nietzsche and his followers, but dealing with it exceeds my present concern. Another explanation of the essentialist approach is related to the status of the self in the modern era, when the self turned into a reflective project.36 The reflective discourse on the self locates it as an object within consciousness, strengthening the temptation to characterize it through features suited to objects. Whereas the former explanation had claimed that it was the culture that had created the metaphor of the self, the latter directs attention to the reflective discourse. Be that as it may, it was only the growing recognition of the significance of culture in the creation of identity and the emergence of constructionist approaches that replaced the essentialist view that succeeded in toning down the essentialist temptation. The most important manifestation of the constructionist approach is the multiculturalist conception, which is at the center of the discussion in this chapter.

on identity and culture People have a culture just as they have a face. Culture is not merely an addition to their existence—without it, they are not human beings. People are born into a culture, which establishes their identity as concrete entities, their language, and most of the mechanisms through which they experience existence. It provides both the materials of memory and its conscious parameters and plays an important role in shaping their hopes and their future. These statements, which are borne out by our life experience, are counterfactual to classic rationalist philosophies as well as to romantic conceptions, where the hero is the self-fulfilling autarchic individual who does not depend on social and cultural variables. Only in the eighteenth 36

Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 32.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

and nineteenth centuries, in the wake of Giambattista Vico and Johann Gottfried Herder,37 do echoes of a new consciousness rejecting this view begin to resonate. Gradually, and mainly within Hegelian38 and existentialist thinking, an approach began to emerge claiming that the concept of the “human being” is a mere abstraction, which fails to capture the fullness of human existence. Human existence is unsustainable without concrete socio-historical contexts. Human beings differ, and they organize their lives in varied forms rather than merely limiting themselves to the implementation of rational, universal consciousness. It gradually became clear that human diversity is the most profound expression of human uniqueness and human dignity. Whereas classic rationalism had held that, ontologically, concrete diversity is “accidental,” the “accident” now came to be perceived as an accurate portrayal of reality. John Stuart Mill, influenced also by the Romanticism that had been important in mediating the transition from a universal-rationalist consciousness to the acknowledgment of human diversity,39 elegantly conveys this view: It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth . . . that individuals become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating.40

In the new approach, the discourse no longer hinged on the “person” as a metaphysical entity but on the personality, namely, on the person as an anthropological entity living in different societies and cultures, and thus developing in different ways.41 Whether explicitly or implicitly, this new approach assumes that human life is shaped as a cultural reality through two basic contexts, one diachronic and the other synchronic. From a diachronic perspective, people are modeled by the culture and the tradition within which they are placed and which they interpret. The diachronic context, then, recognizes the person as a “traditional” creature, namely, engaged in a sustained relationship with the tradition. 37 38 39 40 41

Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas (London: J. Murray, 1990), 49-90. On Hegel’s views on culture and society, see, in particular, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 294-320. Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and The Politics of Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 30, note 7. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), 127. See Avishai Margalit and Moshe Halbertal, “Liberalism and the Right to Culture,” Social Research 61 (1994): 491-510.

15

16

C h a p te r 1

From a synchronic perspective, people build their identities through their links with the individuals or the groups to which they are directly or indirectly connected. Some of these links they create intentionally, others they find themselves within.42 These two contexts, however, are not detached from one another. The diachronic perspective is usually mediated through practices, texts, ethos, and norms adopted by living persons while the synchronic context, too, reflects tradition, and when we meet individuals or groups, we meet traditions through them. These two contexts, then, are mutually related and, together, capture the essence of the person as a cultural being. The synchronic perspective is the one that provides the most basic description of the person as a multicultural creature by pointing to a web of personal attachments and by showing that people are nurtured by more than one culture. People engage in a dialogue with others and with other cultures through all their life practices, absorbing or rejecting different aspects of the others’ world. In the diachronic context, where tradition and the legacy of culture appear as given, stable elements, the multicultural perspective is not immediately apparent but is still visible in two dimensions. First, tradition itself is often shaped through a dialogue with other cultures. What appears to us as the “inner” culture is frequently merely the end result of an intercultural dialogue. Thus, for instance, Maimonides’ philosophical tradition sums up the dialogue that he and his circle conducted with another culture. Awareness of this dialogical consciousness is not always evident in the written, final product, and authors often tend to conceal multicultural dimensions as part of a process involving the assimilation of the “outside” (and I delve into this below). Lack of awareness, however, cannot blur the fact that the contents denote that an encounter did take place. Second, rather than coerced, tradition is absorbed and reinterpreted by people in their various settings. What people call tradition is often their own reshaping of it, reflecting the new set of contexts through which they encountered and accepted it. Identifying something as “tradition” is itself an act of detraditionalization, to use Zygmunt Bauman’s fitting term for the 42

Taylor stressed the dialogical and synchronic dimension, whereas Hans Georg Gadamer (Truth and Method [New York: Crossroad, 1988]) emphasized the diachronic dimension. I argue that both are right. See also Menahem Mautner, Avi Sagi and Ronen Shamir, “Reflections on Multiculturalism in Israel,” in Multiculturalism in a Democratic and Jewish State, ed. Menahem Mautner, Avi Sagi, and Ronen Shamir (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1998), 70-75 [Heb].

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

freedom evident in the process of interpreting, molding, and sometimes fixating tradition.43

on two concepts of multiculturalism The concept of multiculturalism can now be refined in light of the preceding preliminary discussion. As Will Kymlicka indicated, this concept is used in several modes and in a variety of contexts. It may denote a multinational state, or a society comprising individuals or collectives belonging to several ethnic groups. It may also be used to denote attitudes toward groups or individuals whose normative behavior differs from that prevalent in the society. Thus, for instance, it is sometimes argued that a multicultural society should protect the rights of homosexuals, or of minorities, and so forth.44 The most formal definition of “multiculturalism” denotes a state of affairs in which many cultures in a given society engage in a mutually meaningful relationship.45 This broad definition covers most uses of the concept. It suggests that a multicultural reality emerges when people from different cultural worlds live within a given social framework. In other words, multiculturalism emerges within a given social reality constituted by two dialectic elements. On the one hand, multiculturalism involves closeness and associations between groups or individuals living in one society. On the other, it also involves significant variations between these individuals or groups, variations highly important to them as expressions of their uniqueness. The concept of multiculturalism can be used in both political and existential contexts. In the political context, multiculturalism points to groups with different cultures living together side by side, inhabiting one contiguous geographical space. Geographical proximity per se, however, does not create links between cultures, and these links can only be assumed when the geographical setting of this multicultural reality belongs to one political unit, as is the case, for instance, in Canada. The political multicultural discourse reflects an acknowledgment by different 43 44 45

See Zygmunt Bauman, “Morality in the Age of Contingency,” in Detraditionalization, ed. Paul Heelas, Scott Lash, and Paul Morris (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 49-58. See Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 1-26. Amy Gutmann, “The Challenge of Multiculturalism in Political Ethics,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993): 172 n. 1.

17

18

C h a p te r 1

cultures that they need to regulate the relationships between them. This discourse deals with questions of rights, resource allocation, the distribution of social and economic goods, majority-minority relationships, and so forth. This is the concept of multiculturalism embraced by the liberal communitarian outlook, which acknowledges the rights of cultural communities to realize and articulate their views in the public arena. Given that the concept of political multiculturalism is concerned with the relationship between cultures, every culture involved in such a relationship may be described, at least from a theoretical perspective, as closed and self-contained. Unlike the view of multiculturalism as a concept describing the relationship between given units, the existentialist context portrays a complex reality where individuals themselves are multicultural—“not only societies but people are multicultural.”46 For the existentialist context, then, the meaning of human existence is cultural. This approach rests on the views described above, suggesting that people shape themselves as part of their attachment to other individuals and cultures, and their multicultural experience surfaces within the specific culture they consider inmost and genuine. The claim that humans are multicultural creatures is factual rather than normative and depicts human reality as it is, although people may not always be aware of this—modes of cultural existence versus their descriptions often reflect cognitive dissonance.

multiculturalism, commitment, and loyalty Acknowledging a multicultural reality in its political and existential contexts entails opportunities as well as pitfalls. It may indeed lead to a culture of openness, acceptance, and concern for the other,47 because the other is part of my culture and my modes of life rather than merely a society or a culture “out there.” In this chapter, however, I grapple with the pitfalls of existential multiculturalism. Existential multiculturalism poses hard challenges to notions of commitment and loyalty—what will a person be loyal to when shaped by various traditions and cultures? Can such a person be committed to any position at all, or does multiculturalism lead to the relativization of all values? Second, what is the personal and social identity of 46 47

Ibid., 183. Walter Feinberg, “Liberalism and the Aims of Liberal Education,” in Democratic Education in a Multicultural State, ed. Yael Tamir (London: Blackwell, 1995), 58.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

people who acknowledge that they are multicultural creatures? Does not existential multiculturalism undermine the continuity of the self, spreading it over the various modes toward which the self is now open? Both questions can be summed up as follows: To what, if anything, can multicultural creatures remain loyal? These questions are a challenge to the existential version of multiculturalism, but not necessarily to the political one. Communities supporting political multiculturalism can sustain the identity of their own frameworks. Political multiculturalism, as one of the products of communitarian liberalism, relies on the recognition of people’s right to realize their own culture.48 When we acknowledge the right to cultural self-realization, however, we are not required to recognize the intrinsic value of another culture or to accept this culture as an integral part of our own world. The recognition of this right is based on the perception that another culture is valuable to its bearers, but not necessarily to the person accepting their right to self-realization or charged with its implementation. Acknowledging the interest of others in their own culture is a sufficient reason to develop a certain type of political relationship with them, mediated by concepts of rights.49 Political multiculturalism per se, then, does not necessarily threaten the commitment, loyalty, and identity of persons who are partners to the multicultural political discourse. Cultural communities coexisting within one political framework may indeed engage in a type of dialogue that will eventually undermine the closed identity of each one of them, but this is not an inevitable consequence. Often, the processes that unfold within a multicultural political framework are in fact the opposite—the various communities close up and forge an identity that highlights their own uniqueness, largely established through the negation of open discourse and the rejection of the other. By contrast, existential multiculturalism would appear to erode notions of commitment, loyalty, and identity because, on the surface, it suggests that people live in a fragmented world and the distinction between “inside” and “outside” is either blurred or non-existent. What, then, are the possible and desirable strategies for grappling with the meaning of commitment in the context of existential multiculturalism?

48 49

See Margalit and Halbertal, “Liberalism and the Right to Culture,” 99. My use of the concept of rights relies on Joseph Raz, “On the Nature of Rights,” Mind 93 (1984): 194-214.

19

20

C h a p te r 1

In this chapter, I explore some of the main models for dealing with these questions.

The Cosmopolitan Model Jeremy Waldron offers one of the more interesting and provocative responses to these issues when he questions the basic assumptions of concepts such as commitment and identity. In his view, a person living in a multicultural reality has a share in various contexts of meaning: he may live in San Francisco, like Chinese food, wear clothes manufactured in Korea, listen to Verdi arias, and participate in Buddhist meditations.50 Postmodern reality is such that individual lives move in a “kaleidoscopic tension,”51 oscillating between a range of options that, by definition, are cosmopolitan. Waldron agrees with Kymlicka’s communitarian assumption that, in order to have options for choice, individuals require a culture. He argues, however, that it is mistaken to conclude from the need for culture that only one cultural framework can endow the person’s choice with meaning. As selecting beings, we need meaningful cultural contexts from which to choose, but we do not need a homogeneous cultural framework as the only one in which the self will find relevant contexts of meaning.52 A person’s identity is determined by a broad spectrum of cultural contexts rather than by any specific one. The cosmopolitan self, then, does not have one center of gravity and is better defined as a “multiple self.” How does this self conduct its life? What is its identity? Waldron is aware of the problematic entailed by this question and answers as follows: “Maybe the person is nothing but a set of commitments and involvements, and maybe the governance of the self is just the more or less comfortable (or at times more or less chaotic) coexistence of these elements.”53 Waldron claims that the cosmopolitan self is the correct response to the modern life of open markets, high mobility, and interconnected economies, practices, and cultures. According to this approach, a multicultural existence challenges the traditional perception of identity, namely, the centralist perception assuming that the self has a basic core and a series of primary contexts used to 50 51 52 53

Jeremy Waldron, “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative,” in The Rights of Minority Cultures, ed. Will Kymlicka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 95. Ibid., 94. Ibid., 106-108. Ibid., 112.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

organize the complex of experiences. Waldron therefore identifies multiculturalism with cosmopolitanism. In fact, the cosmopolitan self is a cultural version of the phenomenological self in the philosophical tradition of empiricism, which culminated in Hume’s thinking: I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions . . . and are in a perpetual flux and movement . . . . The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, in an infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in [a] different [time].54

Just as Hume held that identity is a fictitious concept in metaphysical terms, Waldron holds that, in cultural terms, the assumption that the identity of the self is stable and linked to one cultural context is mistaken. Beyond the differences in the contexts surrounding the development of these two theories, their shared assumption is the rejection of metaphysical discourse. Whereas Hume, in the convention of his time, opted for an epistemological language, Waldron chose a cultural one. What is the concept of commitment allowed by a cosmopolitan perception of the self? Given the deconstruction of the uniform self and the specific communitarian context, to the extent that this approach leaves any room at all for commitment, its meaning will clearly be very limited. Cosmopolitan commitment is fragmented and local, changing according to the various contexts constituting the self. The concept of commitment does not necessarily convey a stable link between the self and the object of its commitment, since the object changes periodically. The cosmopolitan person is the classic “wanderer,” the aesthete who fluctuates between several contexts.55 The concept of cosmopolitan commitment lacks the characteristic pathos of loyalty, because the very possibility of ceaseless change leaves no room for it. The perception of the cosmopolitan self involves several basic problems, following from the difficulties that this theory faces when attempting to explain human judgments and human evaluations. The first 54 55

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, sec. 6 (Pelican Books, 1969), 301 (emphasis in the original). Sagi, Kierkegaard, Religion, and Existence, chap. 5; James Glass, Shattered Selves (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 5.

21

22

C h a p te r 1

is the problem of the observing subject or the observing self, which a return to the comparison between Waldron and Hume may help to clarify. The actual feasibility of individual consciousness is a crucial issue in Hume’s epistemology. In John Passmore’s formulation: This is pure Mythology . . . there is no possible way in which this series of itself could generate the fiction of personal identity . . . . Both the original fiction and the discovery that it is a fiction are possible only if there is something which is at first misled by, and then, after reconsideration, can discover that it was misled by a series of perceptions.56

Passmore points out that Hume’s claim that the self ’s consciousness is phenomenological compels, rather paradoxically, a centralist perception of the self. Waldron faces a similar problem. The materials making up the cosmopolitan self may change and vary, but their absorption is not a completely random act. Rather, it reflects the activity of a self that observes, judges, and estimates the value of these materials as well as their relevance. According to the cosmopolitan model, however, who is evaluating? Where do evaluation criteria originate? If the self is nothing more than the materials, how does selection take place? The second problem concerns the evaluation of the contents. The materials of the culture may be cosmopolitan and drawn from a variety of contexts, but the self does not thereby become cosmopolitan unless all materials are assumed to be of equal significance. But is the Chinese food an American citizen eats in San Francisco as important to her as the American constitutional tradition? A cultural fabric may be rich and open, without implying that all its parts are equally important. The identity of the self is thus a necessary assumption not only for estimating what the self will “digest,” but for assessing the exact value of various materials.57 The third problem concerns the interpretation of the materials. To understand this problem, let us return to the leading figure in Waldron’s article, Salman Rushdie. The article opens with an extended quotation from Rushdie, who describes himself as cosmopolitan because of his upbringing in cosmopolitan Bombay, a city influenced by Hindi myths and perceptions, as well as by Islam and secularism.58 The Indian case, however, is itself evidence that the cosmopolitan type is a problematic notion. No in-depth 56 57 58

John Passmore, Hume’s Intentions (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1968), 82-83. I have discussed this point at length with Menahem Mautner, who developed his critique independently. Waldron, “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative,” 93, 113.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

study is needed to point out the differences between Islam in India and, for instance, Saudi Arabia. On the surface, we have a “pure” element—Islam— that, according to Waldron and Rushdie’s cosmopolitan theory, struck roots in India too. Islam in India, however, was absorbed and interpreted according to the patterns of Indian culture, just as in Saudi Arabia it was interpreted according to the patterns of that culture. Most cosmopolitan elements absorbed at any given time and place, then, go through a process of interpretation and modification based on a previous cultural sediment. In Gadamer’s terms, the encounter with various materials is a “fusion of horizons” between the people approaching the encounter with their own identity and fullness and the materials they encountered.59 In sum, cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism are not synonymous. Multiculturalism acknowledges that individuals and societies have links to a rich matrix of contexts, but does not eliminate cultural identity. The rich matrix is what actually allows us to distinguish between various modes of absorption and evaluation, pointing to a core identity that directs absorption as well as its modes.

The Negation of the Other The cosmopolitan model is characterized by the deconstruction of the self, whereas this model is characterized by a negation of the other and a return to the traditional patterns of a stable identity, controlled “from the inside.” From a multicultural perspective, the former model deconstructs the concept of multiculturalism and replaces it with the concept of cosmopolitanism, whereas the latter returns to the notion of cultural confrontation. Typically, the negation of the other takes place in one of three ways: by adopting the theory of compartmentalization, by internalizing the other within a given culture, or by endorsing the view that one culture is preferable to another and totally negating the other.

a) Compartmentalization The theory of compartmentalization draws a clear distinction between various contexts of meaning constitutive of human life, claiming that these contexts are distinct and separate and that the “language games” they shape are not mutually dependent. As a social phenomenon, compartmentalization is a 59

Gadamer, Truth and Method, particularly 341, 360.

23

24

C h a p te r 1

characteristic feature of many aspects of social life—a family is not managed along the same lines as the economy and cultures draw distinctions between sacred and secular realms. Compartmentalization, then, is not a response specific to multiculturalism, though it recurs frequently in cultural clashes. Compartmentalization between the sacred and secular realms, a typical response to religion’s meeting with modern beliefs and practices, is particularly interesting. According to Wittgensteinian tradition, religious language and religious life enact a totally independent realm of meaning. Rush Rhees, Wittgenstein’s colleague and disciple, described religious language as “expressive and confessional.”60 Religious language is thus a “language game” that cannot be understood and explicated from the outside. Hence, at least in principle, religious language and the religious realm in general are, purportedly, neither influenced nor nurtured by other contexts. This description of human life assumes the possibility that individuals will play two different language games, which will never be integrated. Peter Winch indeed claims that individuals can sometimes participate in contradictory language games, such as Darwinism and the story of Genesis.61 Among contemporary Jewish philosophers, Yeshayahu Leibowitz devoted considerable efforts to the attempt to compartmentalize science, morality, and religion as modes of experience established through independent languages and autonomous contexts of meaning.62 According to the compartmentalization theory, the concept of multiculturalism has no existential meaning because people do not shape their lives through the dialogue between various contexts of meaning. Rather, each of these contexts creates a closed, sealed world, precluding any possibility of dialogue between them. For this theory, then, multiculturalism merely denotes the banal fact that people play different language games. By juxtaposing autonomous contexts of meaning, this theory enables the preservation of such concepts as commitment and loyalty, as well as the traditional concept of identity. Per se, however, the autonomy of these contexts does not imply that, for any given individual or society, all of them are equal. Individuals or societies may view a particular context of meaning as more important because it expresses the core of their authentic existence, and preferences become evident when people are required to choose a 60 61 62

Rhees Rush, Without Answers (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 6. Peter Winch, Trying to Make Sense (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 138. See Avi Sagi, Tradition vs. Traditionalism, Contemporary Perspectives in Jewish Thought, trans. Batya Stein (New York: Rodopi, 2008), 43-60.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

dominant context for their commitment, their allocation of time or resources, and so forth. The basic problem with the compartmentalization theory is that, like the cosmopolitan model, it assumes that human beings live their lives without any unity or continuity, almost as a complex of split experiences. This description negates both people’s actual practice and implicit consciousness, as well as empirical observation. People organize the practices that guide their lives within general frameworks that bestow integrated meaning on their ways of life and their beliefs. They do not always explicitly conceptualize these frameworks, but to conclude on these grounds that these frameworks do not exist is mistaken. In sum, the concept of identity is incompatible with the compartmentalization theory, which is committed to the notion of a deconstructed self that does not include the person’s entire life.

b) Internalizing the Other According to this approach, everything that a culture absorbs from the culture of the other is merely an element essential to its own inner world. It thereby submerges the other, making the “outside inside.” Supporters of this view, perhaps aware that elements found within their own world are also found outside it, account for this phenomenon in various ways. Explanations range from the minimalist claim that whatever is “outside” is also “inside,” up to the maximal claim that the “outside” is not the true and faithful representation of the element that, in its pure form, is only found “inside.” The minimalist claim, then, is confined to a statement about the thickness of one particular culture but without denying the other, whereas the maximalist claim denies the other any cultural thickness and premises a clear hierarchy whereby one culture is preferable to the other. In other words, this approach may cover a broad spectrum, ranging from preference to total denial. Rather than representing a multicultural approach, however, these views in fact entail a retreat to the model of a closed culture.63 Traditional or elitist cultures often develop a type of consciousness that submerges the other within the “we,” blurring the reality in which the other is not merely a representation of what is already found “inside.” Even when the distinction between “inside” and “outside” is maintained, the precise relationship 63

Cf. Susan Mendus, “Toleration and Recognition: Education in a Multicultural Society,” in Democratic Education in a Multicultural State, ed. Yael Tamir (London: Blackwell, 1995), 38.

25

26

C h a p te r 1

between them can only evolve in the course of a real dialogue between cultures, whose true role must be consistently reinterpreted in a multicultural context.

c) The Total Denial of the Other This reaction is typical of individuals or cultures that view multiculturalism as an ominous threat to the deep core of their identity. The total denial of the other implies that individuals or societies barricade themselves even more deeply behind their familiar patterns. In extreme cases, in a reaffirmation of the old identity, they brand the other as a demon and as absolute evil.64 But this absolute denial of the other ultimately reaffirms the multicultural essence of personal identity because, following the encounter with the other, the individual or the society are required to reinterpret the ethos and myths of their existence. The encounter with another culture could thus transform fundamental meanings of old myths and practices, when the basic identity is reinterpreted in light of the perceived threat. A prominent example of this course is the new Jewish identity forged by the ultra-Orthodox, projecting the Jewish collective as a confession. Traditionally, the Jewish collective had perceived its identity in ethnic rather than confessional terms. Primary kinship ties are constitutive of Jewish identity, and even the stranger joining the Jewish collective through a conversion procedure is now “born” as part of the Jewish ethnic group.65 The encounter with a threatening secular world led the ultra-Orthodox to reframe Jewish identity in terms enabling them to withstand the winds of change. The confessional approach rests on certain elements that are indeed found in Jewish tradition, but turns them into the constitutive condition for the very meaning of Jewish identity. At the same time, the menacing other, the bearer of the other culture, is perceived in extremely negative terms and at times as a demon. This analysis points to the gap that often prevails between actual events and our consciousness of them. Traditional cultures facing a menacing cultural encounter that forces their radical redeployment often develop an extremely conservative consciousness that distorts their reading of reality. Identity is perceived as constituted from the inside, in pure form, while a 64 65

See, for instance, Stephen J. Pfohl, Images of Deviance and Social Control (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985), chap. 2. For an extensive discussion of this question, see Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar, Transforming Identity—The Ritual Transition from Gentile to Jew: Structure and Meaning (London-New York: Continuum, 2007). See also idem, Circles Of Jewish Identity: A Study in Halakhic Literature (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2000) [Heb].

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

deeper analysis exposes the “inside” as merely a new reconstruction that followed the encounter with the “outside.”

Multicultural Identity: Homo Hermeneuticus The two responses discussed so far are essentially different. Whereas the cosmopolitan approach deconstructs the traditional concept of identity, the approach advocating the denial of the other adheres to the traditional concept of identity, which views the self as a closed unit constituted from the inside. And yet, both share a common structure in their choice of a polar, one-dimensional strategy. The multicultural identity pattern is unlike either of them in its view of the person as a historical, cultural, and social creature, not merely as a random fact but as the constitutive core of the person’s very being. In other words, people shape their identity within social processes and through links with certain cultural and historical contexts. This approach, as noted, has its roots in Hegel and in the existentialist and hermeneutical traditions, and it is uniquely represented by such thinkers as Gadamer and Charles Taylor. The existentialist and hermeneutic tradition preceding Gadamer and Taylor had emphasized that people shape themselves vis-á-vis historical reality and vis-á-vis tradition. The self is not a “clean,” hollow entity forging itself out of itself and creating itself ex nihilo, but one whose constitutive contexts, biological and cultural, are forced upon it. In Heidegger’s terms, the person is “thrown” into the world. Although Taylor had endorsed this claim in one of his earlier works,66 in later writings he pointed to the dialogue with “significant others” as the most important dimension of identity.67 People, then, shape their world and their being in the course of a dialogue with others. This dialogue need not express agreement with the other and, indeed, may often be a form of confrontation and rejection. The linchpin of this approach, however, is that identity is established in the course of a dynamic relationship with the other. Gadamer, too, stresses that individuals mold themselves in a dialogical process, but whereas Taylor highlights the synchronic encounter, Gadamer emphasizes the diachronic one—the encounter with tradition, 66 67

Charles Taylor, Hegel and Modern Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 47-52; cf. Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 47-52. See Taylor, Multiculturalism and The Politics of Recognition, 32.

27

28

C h a p te r 1

with the past.68 Both of them concur in the understanding that identity is not a finished product. People do not “find” their identity but shape it and establish it through an ongoing dialogue in the course of their lives. A multicultural identity includes elements from both cosmopolitan and classic identity. It is close to the cosmopolitan approach in the very assumption that individual identity and a world of meaning are not narcissistically established from the inside. It is close to the classic approach, however, when it acknowledges the existence of an identity core shaping the fundamental parameters of meaning, relevance, and judgment, through which we meet the other.69 The multicultural view of identity is thus at a midway point, but the relationship between the poles requires further analysis. A multicultural identity transcends the self while also affirming the existence of a basic core of actual and potential practices available to an individual or a society, which determines their basic attitude toward the world. The open and dialogical character of the identity nevertheless allows the individual or the society to transcend its given components to encounter new contexts of meaning. Some of these contexts are rejected, and others are easily absorbed. Thus, for instance, a man who discovers special Chinese food may make it part of his diet without any dramatic changes. Some, however, may challenge the basic nature of an individual or a society in interesting and significant ways. The common denominator of these contexts is that they hit at the heart of the present commitment and undermine the status quo, but they are also perceived as precious and as expressing values that cannot be dismissed merely because they threaten the core identity. Unlike the approach denying the other and thereby dismissing the value or values detrimental to the core identity, this type of conflict creates a unique opportunity from a multicultural perspective. A conflict between values that are irreducible and intrinsically precious results in a persistent situation of contradictory commitments. A person can experience contradiction in passing, but turning conflict into the organizing principle makes life extremely difficult. Certain philosophies, such as that of Kierkegaard,70 extol the principle of contradiction, but it is hard to sustain it over time. One of the most fruitful ways of 68 69 70

Gadamer describes this approach in detail in Truth and Method, 250, 261-262. See Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 31-41. Avi Sagi, “The Suspension of the Ethical and the Religious Meaning of Ethics in Kierkegaard’s Thought,” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 32 (1992): 83-103.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

bridging contradictory contexts is to reinterpret them so as to harmonize them, a process leading to changes either at the core of the basic identity or in the material absorbed, and a multicultural identity will therefore change according to the interpretive dynamic. This change is not necessarily a onetime event. The dynamic of interpretation affects the core identity so that what was once “outside” is now part of the “inside,” setting new horizons for the encounter with the other, in turn leading to changes setting new horizons, and so forth. The multicultural approach preserves the identity that, as noted, will probably be dynamic and will also shape new versions of commitment and loyalty. In classic concepts of loyalty and commitment, we cling to the given, and multiculturalism preserves this type of loyalty but with a clear modification. Loyalty is no longer manifest in the denial of the other or in the assumption that the one absolute truth can only be found in the contents of this specific commitment. Commitment and loyalty are embodied in the very attachment to the primary contexts that the dynamic interpretation process only serves to reaffirm— why reinterpret at all if no basic commitment is present? Interpretation mediates various contexts of meaning and allows for openness and innovation, but also reaffirms the original commitment. Multicultural commitment is closely similar to pluralism. Like pluralism, multiculturalism cannot reject other approaches as meaningless but, although neither allows the denial of the other,71 the world of the other is more important in multiculturalism than in pluralism. While assigning intrinsic value to the other, a pluralistic perspective may still assume a static perception of identity, drawing clear distinctions between self and other. By contrast, multiculturalism assumes that all identities are dynamic, since they are built through dialogue and through the various contexts experienced by the individual and by society. Multiculturalism assumes that, in any given situation, identity is merely a historical and cultural configuration linked to various groups by ties of association and similarity. Hence, even when multiculturalism negates certain contexts of meaning as inappropriate and despicable, contexts representing the “meaningful other” cannot be denied since they are constitutive to the dynamic identity of the self or the society. 71

On pluralism and its variations, see Avi Sagi, Jewish Religion after Theology, trans. Batya Stein (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2009), 1-42.

29

30

C h a p te r 1

The traditional approach deals with normative commitments as it deals with ontological statements, namely, as statements reflecting the structure of reality. An ontological statement is always true or false, so that a statement considered true necessarily implies that another one is false. From this perspective, both pluralistic and multicultural perspectives become absurd and untenable because they do not view commitment as based on the denial of the other’s world as false. But normative commitments are not ontological statements. A more plausible view of normative loyalty approaches it as a kind of inner relationship between loyal persons and their values. People loyal to their values are ready to live by them, but they could have chosen other values. The presence of other options, not necessarily all negative, confirms the loyalty of “loyal” persons to their values, which they have favored over other possibilities. Loyalty, therefore, is a characteristic of individuals willing to organize their lives according to their values, with all that this implies. The test of loyalty is thus internal—to what extent are the values of the “loyal” person consistent? Rather than a cognitive acknowledgment about the truth of a normative system, loyalty is primarily a sign of integrity.72 Isaiah Berlin formulates this view of loyalty in his conclusion to “Two Concepts of Liberty”: Principles are no less sacred because their duration cannot be guaranteed. Indeed, the very desire for guarantees that our values are eternal and secure in some objective heaven is perhaps only a craving for the certainties of childhood or the absolute values of our primitive past. “To realize the relative validity of our convictions,” said an admirable writer of our time, “and yet stand for them unflinchingly, is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian.” To demand more than this is perhaps a deep and incurable metaphysical need, but to allow it to determine one’s practice is a symptom of an equally deep, and more dangerous, moral and political immaturity.73

Is the conscious implementation of these processes a necessary condition for developing a multicultural identity? Probably not. A multicultural identity is a concept that describes individuals or societies in many periods of human history, regardless of their own awareness of it. Consciousness may identify the evolvement of these processes, but does not trigger them; they unfold as part of our daily experience. This experience is unconscious, in 72 73

See Peter Winch, Ethics and Action (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), 193-209. Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 172.

From a n E s s e nti a l i s t to a M u l ti cu lt ural Ident it y

Ricoeur’s reading of this concept. Our everyday life experience is not the object of our conscious activity. We act in the world, but we do not necessarily turn this activity into an object of consciousness. Classic theories of identity failed because they did not describe correctly the concrete modes of human existence in the world, since they did not take into account multicultural and existentialist features. The main advantage of the multicultural view of identity is thus its explicit formulation of our real life experience. This approach ensures a more comprehensive interpretation of the diachronic and synchronic contexts through which individuals constitute themselves as cultural beings. A multicultural perception of identity is, primarily, an adequate description of reality, although it may also provide a new key for contending with the complexities of life in postmodernity. Increased awareness of the multicultural dimension may lead to significant changes in the relationships between individuals and between cultures. It may bring back the multicolored human “face” into our discourse. It may remove the “veil of ignorance,” that blessed banner of liberalism and the ideal civil society that forced upon us separation and alienation from the other. We have no assurance that this process will indeed take place, but awareness could provide the necessary condition for the turnabout. Is multiculturalism doomed to remain merely an academic notion without posing a true existential challenge? My answer is no. The next chapter, focusing on a critique of the Jewish identity discourse, shows the impact of the multicultural approach. I chose the Jewish identity discourse precisely because of its immanent tendency to develop essentialist approaches about “Judaism” or “the Jew.”

31

Ch a p te r 2

a critiquE oF thE JEwish idEntity discoursE

The question of Jewish identity is among the oldest in the history of Jewish culture. There are numerous statements on this issue, even if not all necessarily systematic. Explicit concern with this topic is evident whenever Jewish culture and Jewish tradition need to trace the borders of the Jewish collective and determine who is included in it and who is not, and for what purpose.1 Given the weight of this legacy, the puzzling question is whether anything new remains to be said on this matter. Returning to a discussion of what is Jewish identity thus seems pointless and, instead, I have chosen to examine the discourse on Jewish identity. Rather than questions such as “who is a Jew?” or “what is Judaism?,” my concern will be the semantic field applied to the discussion of Jewish identity. The distinction between the classic discussion and the one suggested here is thus one between a discourse on Jewish identity and a critical analysis of it. This critical analysis includes both theoretical and normative aspects. Theoretically, this analysis enables an explication of the modes of consciousness involved in the identity discourse. Normatively, conscious reflection makes it possible to develop a new perspective that could broaden the scope of the discussion on identity in general, and sharpen critical approaches toward Jewish identity in particular. The position of spectator enabled by reflection relocates the observer, and whatever had so far been perceived as necessary in a discourse on identity can now be reevaluated and viewed as only one of the possibilities deriving from it. This new perspective leads to a different attitude toward the other, whom the observer comes to perceive as a different identity option rather than as a threat, and consequently also to a different attitude toward the self. Identity may henceforth come to be 1

See, for example, Simha Assaf, Beoholei Ya‘akov: Essays on the Cultural Life of the Jews in the Middle Ages (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1965), 165-180 [Heb]; Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 40-84; Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar, Circles of Jewish Identity: A Study of Halakhic Literature (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad and Shalom Hartman Institute, 2000), mainly chap. 11 [Heb]; idem, Transforming Identity: The Ritual Transformation from Gentile to Jew—Structure and Meaning (London: Continuum, 2007).

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

perceived as the expression of a possible cultural web rather than of an imposed order. In this sense, analyzing the semantic field of the identity discourse could be a liberating process that amends and changes the obvious.

the jewish identity discourse—between identification and essentialism The Jewish identity discourse epitomizes the importance of the distinction between “identification” and “identity” discussed in Chapter One. Most of the public discourse in Israel and in the Diaspora, today and in the past, blurs the difference between them and at times uses them interchangeably. The vagueness and substitution have led to excessive concern with the identification question because the public discourse focuses on the question of how to identify a Jew and how to ascertain who is included in the Jewish group and who is not. The question of “who is a Jew?,” which surfaces repeatedly in the Israeli discourse, is a classic instance of the replacement of the identity question with the one of identification. The attempt to determine Judaism through a specific description or a recognizable characteristic is confined to the issue of identification that, as noted, is not necessarily connected to the issue of identity.2 Even if some specific criterion were declared to be an identification principle, it does not follow that it is relevant to the determination of identity. This excessive focus on the identification question often sparks the opposite reaction: the substitution of the identity question with that of self-identification. Whereas identification takes place through some “objective” characteristic, self-identification highlights the subjective dimension. Their common denominator is the renunciation of the historical, cultural, and social contexts constitutive of identity. These contexts tie together the diachronic and synchronic dimensions to make up a complex aggregate that, in a discourse centering on identification or on self-identification, disappears altogether. But the sources of the identification or the self-identification discourse can hardly be ignored. In truth, both share one source: the crisis of Jewish identity. In an era of identity crisis and of crumbling social-cultural frameworks, the experience of these events urges greater concern with the 2

The distinction between “religious,” “secular,” and “traditional” Jews conveys the substitution of the identity question with the one of identification in the public discourse.

33

34

C h a p te r 2

boundaries of identity. Setting a boundary and marking all that is beyond it as “outside” implicitly reaffirms, as it were, the separate identity, because by defining the “outside” we define the “inside.”3 Generally, this is the motivation behind the identification discourse in general and, unquestionably, the one behind the Jewish identification discourse in particular. Setting the boundaries of the identification discourse does not necessarily imply the restriction of the specific identity group and the expansion of the “outside.” At times, identification enables us to include in the identity group those who, seemingly, have been dismissed from it. Thus, for example, using an ethnic criterion for identifying “Jews” enables us to expand the boundaries and include those who “deviate” from the members’ identity.4 At times, identification enables us to expand the identity group to include those who had neither seen themselves as part of it nor had ever been viewed as such, as evident in recent immigration waves to Israel. The self-identification discourse, as the antithesis of the identification one, is common to those “outside” and to some of those “inside”—both challenge the boundaries erected when Jewish identity confronted the collapse of its unity and continuity. As opposed to a rigid identification, they set up a subjective self-identification that enables the expansion of the identity group. Both the identification and the self-identification discourses could develop into an identity discourse if, instead of cleaving to formal elements— external objective identification or an internal subjective act—they were to shift away from questions of boundaries. The Jewish discourse today, however, is generally characterized by a transition from identification or self-identification to an essentialist course characterized by a dichotomy: Jewish identity is either A or B. The starting assumption of this discourse is that Judaism or Jewish identity is something to be clarified, and controversies hinge on this clarification. This essentialism is sometimes viewed as specific to Orthodox circles but often prevails among people far removed from Orthodoxy, such as George Steiner, who describes his father’s Judaism as follows: “High holidays, notably the Day of Atonement, were observed not for prescriptive or theological motives, but as yearly summons to 3 4

Kai T. Erikson, Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance (New York: J. Wiley, 1966), 12-13; Sagi and Zohar, Circles of Jewish Identity, 199-200. Jacob Katz demonstrated this matter in regard to apostates and conversos. See Jacob Katz, Halakhah and Kabbalah: Studies in the History of Jewish Religion, Its Various Aspects and Social Relevance (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984), 265-267 [Heb].

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

identity, to a homeland in millennial time.”5 “Jewish identity” according to Steiner (and many others) is imagined as an object to be found somewhere in the Jews’ biographical-metaphysical space—even after moving away from it, they are bound to return to it. Given that the essentialist identity metaphor is ultimately cultural—a determination that, as shown below, applies to Jewish tradition as well— why does the discourse on Jewish identity turn into an essentialist pursuit that overlooks this cultural nature? The answer I suggested regarding the rise of the essentialist identity discourse in general probably applies to the Jewish identity discourse as well. Nevertheless, we can point to two further reasons for the rise of an essentialist identity discourse in a Jewish context. The first is related to halakhic tradition and its influence up to this day. In halakhic terms, the Judaism of someone who was born a Jew is unalterable: “Though he has sinned, he remains a Jew.”6 The practices of an individual, and even of Jewish groups, may change, but their membership in the Jewish collective will not. This determination becomes even more important in light of an alternative halakhic tradition endorsed by the geonim, claiming that apostates are no longer part of the Jewish collective.7 According to this approach, the identity of a Jew is contingent on adherence to actual Jewish practice, that is, commitment to the Torah and the commandments. Jews who convert to another religion lose their Jewish identity. This approach reemerges in halakhic tradition in two contexts. One is the attitude toward a Jew who has desecrated the Sabbath. According to one view, this transgression excludes the sinner from membership in the Jewish collective.8 The other concerns the absorption of a stranger into the Jewish collective through conversion. In the view of an approach that first appeared in the nineteenth century, joining the Jewish collective means adopting religious practice and, therefore, one who fails to observe this practice does not become a Jew.9 This is not the mainstream approach and Jewish tradition, as noted, adopted the opposite view, stating that Jewishness is determined objectively on the basis of

5 6 7

8 9

George Steiner, Errata: An Examined Life (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1997), 9. See TB Sanhedrin 44a. See also R. Shlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi), Responsa, #171. Oded Irshai, “The Apostate as an Inheritor in Geonic Responsa: Basics of Decision Making and Parallels in Gentile Law,” Shenaton ha-Mishpat ha-Ivri: Annual of the Institute for Research in Jewish Law 11/12 (1984-1986): 435-462. [Heb]. Sagi and Zohar, Circles of Jewish Identity, 68-70, 105, 121-124. Sagi and Zohar, Transforming Identity, 233-251.

35

36

C h a p te r 2

ethnic extraction—either by being born as a Jew or by being born into the Jewish collective if a person becomes a Jew as an adult.10 Halakhic objectivism would appear to be perfectly suited to the essentialist view. Just as the essentialist view had distinguished the empirical self from the self as such, so halakhic objectivism distinguishes the actual modes of expressing Jewish existence from Jewishness as such. And just as the essentialist approach had not viewed concrete empirical aspects as decisive in its characterization of the self, Jewish objectivism does not view as decisive the practice aspect of the Jew’s life. Neither of these approaches takes into account cultural, historical, and social aspects in the constitution of identity and, consequently, both of them ignore its transformations, claiming that the identity of the Jew (like that of the self) is to be found in the world as is, whatever the concrete reality.11 The second reason for the essentialist terms adopted by the Jewish identity discourse is its special character as constituted by mutual negation processes. Until recent centuries, Jewish identity had one stable meaning: life was structured around halakhic practice, which endorsed the diachronic and synchronic contexts of meaning typical of this practice. Even if they differed in many significant ways, then, Jews shaped their identity relying on identical myths and an identical ethos. This system of meaning determined their orientation toward the world, their attitude toward themselves, their fate, and the other. Later, and particularly since the nineteenth century, the traditional mode of Jewish existence has been disrupted. Several alternatives emerged, whose supporters came into confrontation over the core of Jewish identity— members of each group affirmed their own choice and negated all others, labeling them as inauthentic modes of Jewish existence. Ostensibly, this characterization applies only to various modes of Orthodoxy. Its adherents have shaped their own identity, emphasizing the other’s negation by relying on mechanisms that run the gamut from paternalism up to the perception of the other as a demon. Paternalism is typical of religious-Zionist circles from Rav Kook’s school. They consistently endeavored to interpret the secular stance as the dialectic expression of a hidden Judaism that, although secular Jews themselves are unaware of it, will eventually be revealed. The basic assumption of this approach is that, when secular Jews yearn for Judaism, they are expressing a basic wish to join “authentic” religious Judaism.12 10 11 12

Ibid., 265-296. Berofsky, “The Identity of Cultural and Personal Identity,” 38-39. Avi Sagi, Jewish Religion after Theology, trans. Batya Stein (Boston: Academic Press, 2009), 3-33.

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

The perception of the other as a demon characterizes the attitude of Orthodox circles toward secular Jews and secularism. Rather than a hidden yearning to return to authentic Jewish existence, they interpret secular Judaism as a threat to their own world, a perception that at times lead them to demonize secular Jews. Thus, for example, R. Elhanan Wasserman, a prominent Eastern European leader before the Second World War, viewed all secular political associations as an expression of the Amalekite spirit. In his view, when the Jewish people had been ruled by the Torah, the war against Amalek had been a war against “the seed of Amalek in the nations of the world.” Now, however, Amalek is identified with secular and Zionist political parties in the Diaspora: “On both these and these the Holy One, blessed be He, swore that his name and his throne will not be at ease until they are erased from the world . . . and as for the holy land, it is clear the land will expel them.”13 Often, however, non-Orthodox approaches also shaped Jewish identity through a conscious negation of Orthodox views or traditional religion. For example, the significant texts constitutive of secular Zionist identity, as well as its range of myths and heroes, clearly point to negation processes. The preference of secular Judaism for Scripture over rabbinic literature is the fruit of a value decision. The mythical heroes that shaped secular Jewish identity were biblical and, together with the Hasmoneans and such figures as Bar Kokhba, they replaced the heroes of traditional halakhic Judaism— talmudic sages, distinguished halakhists, and outstanding religious personalities. Even when cultural heroes were drawn from a common source—the Bible—different traditions attached different meanings to them. The secular approach, inspired by biblical reality and by the romantic overtones so significant in the creation of the secular identity, colored biblical heroes in dazzling hues far removed from their perception in religious circles. This skipping of the tradition heightened the negation of Jewish religion and the alienation from it. Whatever was identified as post-biblical Jewish religion was perceived as exilic, meaningless, and often mistaken. Instead of reinterpreting Jewish tradition as a whole in cultural and historical terms, secular Judaism opted for the romantic course of skipping tradition altogether and returning to a “clean” beginning. One of the most powerful expressions of this trend is “The Sermon,” a story by Hayyim Hazaz. Yudka, the protagonist, rejects Jewish history, claiming, “we really 13

Elhanan Wasserman, Collected Articles (Jerusalem: Judah Press, 1963), 92-93 [Heb]. For an analysis of his position, see Mendel Piekarz, Ideological Trends of Hasidism in Poland during the Interwar Period and the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1990), 335-338 [Heb].

37

38

C h a p te r 2

don’t have a history at all.”14 And he proceeds to explain: “What is it about? . . . Persecutions, massacres, martyrdoms and pogroms.”15 For Yudka, exile, the messiah, and religious redemption are merely an escape from real history and he therefore concludes: “Zionism and Judaism are not the same thing at all but two entirely different things, perhaps even two contradictory things . . . . A man becomes a Zionist when he can’t be a Jew any more.”16 Ahad Ha-Am, who was sensitive to the historical-cultural character of Jewish identity and culture and sought to shape a Jewish identity that does not rest on the negation of an alternative version, ended up doing so as well. His philosophical endeavor was meant to show that Jewish religion is only one historical-cultural expression of the national spirit—the basic element is the national spirit, and Jewish religion is constituted by it.17 He thus developed a conception of Jewish fullness built on the denial of Orthodoxy’s self-interpretation. In sum, the Jewish identity discourse was generally conducted through a symmetry of mutual negation. Every Jewish alternative pretended to express Jewish “authenticity,” perceiving the others as fakes and as blurred or incomplete versions of it. Like any discourse striving for “authenticity,” the Jewish identity discourse unfolds within the parameters of an essentialist conception, which assumes that authenticity is the correct representation of what exists in reality. The objectivist tradition of Halakhah and the modern identity discourse have, jointly, shaped a basically essentialist framework, and it is thus no wonder that this is the context of the Jewish identity discourse. Considered from a critical perspective, however, the essentialist course has proved self-destructive and Jewish identity must abandon it and return to a dialogical cultural path.

on the rejection of the essentialist jewish identity discourse Does Jewish tradition indeed offer an objective perception of identity? What is the nature of this objectivity? Is objective Jewish identity a substance in the world or is it perhaps a cultural product? The obvious starting 14 15 16 17

Hayyim Hazaz, The Sermon and Other Stories (New Milford, CT: Toby Press, 2005), 236. Ibid., 237. Ibid., 245. Rina Hevlin, Coping with Jewish Identity: A Study of Ahad Ha-Am’s Thought (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2001), especially 116-118 [Heb].

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

assumption is that Jewish identity is an objective datum, unconditioned by individuals or by the practice they implement in their lives. But even if these determinations are correct, the objectivism of Jewish identity does not indicate that it is outside a cultural context, as a substance in the world. Instead, Jewish objectivism is a clear expression of cultural contexts of meaning. This determination will become clearer through the analysis of the ethnic conception underlying Jewish objectivism. According to this view, a Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother (or born to the Jewish people in the case of a convert).18 This determination is itself a cultural-sociological statement, since “Jewish mother” is not the name of a substance found in nature but a fact that is constituted through the halakhic normative framework. In John Searle’s terms, “Jewish mother” is a statement about an “institutional fact” rather than a “brute fact.” A brute fact is one unconditioned by human institutions, such as the physical or mental facts known to us from the natural sciences through empirical observation.19 By contrast, an institutional fact “presupposes the existence of certain human institutions.”20 Such facts have meaning only in the context of the institutions underlying them. Thus, for example, the determination “John is married” is factual, but meaningful only in the context of the institution of marriage, which is a human creation. In this light, the determination “Jewish mother” is clearly a fact only within the context of halakhic norms and not in any other. One trend within halakhic tradition does view halakhic determinations as expressions of reality,21 but this trend is merely one specific and restricted interpretation of halakhic practice. Although extremely significant for the halakhists that relied on it, this interpretation cannot refute the analysis of halakhic practice showing that halakhic facts exist only in the context of halakhic institutions. The normative halakhic context, like any normative context, is an expression of a particular culture—in this case halakhic culture. Halakhic objectivism, therefore, is nothing more than cultural objectivism. 18 19 20 21

See Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar, Transforming Identity—The Ritual Transition from Gentile to Jew: Structure and Meaning (London-New York: Continuum, 2007), 265-267. John R. Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 50. Ibid., 51. Yohanan Silman, “Halakhic Determinations of a Nominalistic and Realistic Nature: Legal and Philosophical Considerations,” Diné Israel 12 (1985): 75-98 [Heb]; idem, “Commandments and Transgressions: Matters of Obedience or Intrinsic Quality,” Diné Israel 16 (1991-1992): 183-201 [Heb]; Avi Sagi, The Open Canon: On the Meaning of Halakhic Discourse, trans. Batya Stein (London: Continuum, 2007), 32-35.

39

40

C h a p te r 2

Thus, Jews who shed their Jewish identity, or are perhaps entirely unaware of it, will still be perceived as Jews in a halakhic context. This institutional fact has nothing to do with the real identity of the person in question. Halakhic objectivism simply functions as a means of identifying a specific person as a Jew and, as noted, without any necessary connection to Jewish identity in its cultural or constructionist sense. The notion of an objectivist Jewish identity as essentialist objectivism rather than as an expression of halakhic culture is thereby entirely refuted. Moreover, only those who endorse Halakhah as conveying the fullness of their identity may come to view the ethnic dimension as an expression of identity rather than merely a means of identification. Even then, however, the question of Jewish identity for the individual or the community living within a context of halakhic practice is not fully answered, given that an objectivist identity provides only the universal element of Jewish identity that, according to Halakhah, is common to all Jews. It does not, however, provide the particularistic element that singles out individuals and communities at different times and in specific places, weaving together the fullness of their existence and the practice that realizes it as identity. This aspect of identity, as Craig Calhoun accurately noted, “is always [a] project, not settled accomplishment.”22 For Calhoun, the classic illustration of this claim is Jewish existence: “being Jewish is always a project (or an occasion for resistance) for every modern Jewish individual and community, even if stereotypes about how to be Jewish are maintained or presented as fixed by anti-Semites or the ultra-Orthodox.”23 In the wake of a well-known sociological tradition, Calhoun draws a distinction between modern and pre-modern life. Modern life is characterized by reflectiveness, a critical perspective, and above all, a sense of freedom and autonomy, contrary to pre-modern life. These generalizations are also widespread among the sociologists and theoreticians who focus on Jewish society and culture. Even if this description of pre-modern existence may be challenged, Jewish identity in the present is unquestionably a decision touching on the very affirmation of Judaism and on a choice among available Jewish alternatives. The two antithetical approaches that Calhoun pointed out—antiSemitism and ultra-Orthodoxy—lend further credence to this claim. Both 22 23

Craig Calhoun, “Social Theory and the Politics of Identity,” in Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 27. Ibid.

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

of them fixate Jewish identity through some form of labeling that denies the fullness, the dynamism, and the particularism of Jewish identity. Common to both these approaches is an essentialist characterization of Jewish identity, which denies its protean cultural-historical-social features. Jews are dispersed among different cultures, nationalities, languages, and social frameworks. Jewish existence has always been multicultural, and the characteristic that has now been added is the critical awareness of this diversity. The range of contexts leading to differences between Jews does not reflect essentialist aspects of identity. Instead, the prominent feature of these differences is their constructionist, and thus contingent and local, character. In an essentialist discourse of Jewish identity, the multiculturalism of Jewish existence—perceived in constructionist terms—is in tension with Jewish identity—perceived in essentialist terms. This tension seemingly reaffirms essentialist Jewish identity, since its only stable and common element is neither affected nor determined by cultural contexts, that is, the essential Jewish element transcends cultural, social, and historical diversity. And indeed, supporters of the essentialist discourse argue that it is due to this essentialism that Jews have retained their mutual ties and perceive themselves as a collective, their cultural-social differences notwithstanding. Without the essentialist core, the Jewish collective would have disintegrated. On closer scrutiny, however, and given its multiculturalism, an essentialist Jewish identity is problematic. First, what is the essential Jewish element that transcends cultural, social, and historical contexts? If Jewish identity is essentialist, its semiotic is metaphysical. But a concrete, historical-cultural identity is hard to explicate in metaphysical terms, given the claim that the essential element transcends real history. The tie between real Jewish history and culture on the one hand and Jewish essentialism on the other remains unexplained, and the tension between Jewish multiculturalism and the Jewish essence does not help to clarify it. Second, if the constitutive element of Jewish identity is indeed essentialist, the obvious conclusion is that this element is neither dynamic nor influenced by other cultural and social contexts. Jewish multiculturalism, however, is itself evidence of the dynamism and diversity of this element, which changes and even disappears in various cultural contexts and, therefore, should be seen as only one component of identity within cultural constructionism. In different Jewish collectives, and even among individuals, the weight and significance of this element varies. Clearly, then, the tension

41

42

C h a p te r 2

between Jewish multiculturalism and Jewish identity cannot be mediated through an essentialist approach.

a constructionist discourse of jewish identity The following account of Jewish identity is confined to the moderate constructionist view, which appears more plausible than strong constructionism. The central claim of this approach, as noted, is that identity does not collapse into atomic moments. The real person is not composed of monadic “windowless” units of experience. Instead, the strands of the various experiences are mutually interwoven and shape an identity web. A constructionist identity discourse takes place in two basic contexts that shape human reality—one diachronic and one synchronic. Diachronically, people are shaped by the culture and tradition they were born into, wherein they find themselves and which they ceaselessly interpret. Synchronically, people build their identity through their association with individuals or groups with whom they are in direct or indirect contact. In the constructionist approach, then, contrary to the essentialist view, the other plays a significant role. For many postmodernist thinkers, the other is the medium through which we constitute ourselves. In radical articulations of this view, the identity of the self is merely a product of the confrontation with the other,24 but this claim is a contradiction in terms in two regards. First, it ascribes to the other what it negates in the self—the other is perceived as a being that is already constituted, whereas the self is not, but why assume this essential difference between self and other? Second, if the self is constituted only through the other, who is the self that performs the critical process of constitution? The self ’s attitude toward the other assumes that the self is somehow already constituted, in a way that will shape its attitude toward the other. A more plausible claim, therefore, is that the relationship between self and other is dialectical—as the self transcends itself, it relates to itself through the connection to the other. This extreme perception of the other’s role could lead to the conclusion that, in the process of constituting itself, the self overwhelms and denies the other. In Jacques Derrida’s formulation, “the rapport of self-identity 24

Lawrence J. Silberstein, “Others Within and Others Without: Rethinking Jewish Identity and Culture,” in The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity, ed. Lawrence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn (New York: New York University Press, 1994), 1-34.

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

is itself always a rapport of violence with the other.”25 According to the more moderate view that I endorse here, however, the attitude toward the other is dialogical and does not deny its otherness. It may convey agreement or rejection, but invariably conveys openness. Individuals or groups may deliberately create some of these interfaces with the other or may find themselves within them, and the dialogue takes place synchronically and diachronically, without separation. This framework sets the parameters of the Jewish identity discourse in clear terms: the entry to this discourse cannot be manifest solely in subjective identification with Jewish identity. It implies entry into a cultural-historicalsocial context and, therefore, requires participation in the diachronic Jewish discourse in all its manifestations. Current Jewish identity thus begins with the present but is not exhausted through it, since the Jewish element of this identity has a history. Indeed, this history is the only real manifestation of this element, which does not exist outside it. This claim applies not only to the Jewish identity discourse, as Berel Lang noted: “Identity in the present . . . requires the conditions of the past; an ‘immaculate’ self without some such ground hardly can be imagined.”26 Yet, in the Jewish context, this claim is even more significant because, despite the Jewish multiculturalism noted above, the historical-cultural context is what actually constituted the various Jewish collectives as Jewish. Entering the Jewish identity discourse while ignoring the diachronic dimension of identity is thus to enter a space that is not Jewish at all. Access to the diachronic context of Jewish history and culture, however, does not imply entry to a stable and static corpus, for two reasons: the first is the historical-cultural character of the “Judaism” we enter, and the second is that the access to the diachronic discourse is via the present. Diachronic Jewish identity rests on a web of texts, practices, and myths of unique standing. Jewish collectives can interpret this web in different ways, changing one or another aspect of it, while still remaining partners to the discourse. A distinction is thus required between the formal standing of these texts, practices, and myths and their interpretation and implementation in the present. Some collectives ascribe religious holiness to this web and others view it as a cultural expression; some adopt a conservative 25 26

Jacques Derrida, “Deconstruction and the Other,” in Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers: The Phenomenological Heritage, ed. Richard Kearney (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 117. Berel Lang, “The Phenomenal-Noumenal Jew,” in Jewish Identity, ed. David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 288.

43

44

C h a p te r 2

and closed interpretation of its contents and others a more open and dynamic one. This analysis shows that entering the diachronic discourse of Jewish identity invariably involves a vague, open, and changing dimension, since historical-cultural “Judaism” is interpreted within it. “Judaism” is not somewhere “there,” in a fixed history and culture, but gradually determined within the diachronic discourse. Despite its vagueness and openness, however, the Jewish past is not an invention of the present, as two elements of this discourse make clear. The first is its dialogical structure, based on what Gadamer called the “fusion of horizons” between past and present. In this process, past and present turn toward one another. Inventing the past implies a negation of the discourse with it because, in an invention process, only the present where the invention occurs exists and the past is merely its manipulative product. The second element is that the horizon of the present is largely shaped by the past because people in the present, as creatures shaping themselves within history and culture, have already been molded by the past.27 A constructionist discourse of Jewish identity, however, needs a synchronic dimension as well, for two reasons. First, the presence of various Jewish alternatives in the present means that there are several options for conducting the diachronic identity discourse, given that the present is loaded with the past and shapes itself vis-à-vis the past. The synchronic discourse, then, serves as a mirror to the diachronic one underlying it and enables a re-examination of it by pointing out possible alternatives. In that sense, the synchronic discourse enables individuals or groups to develop a critical perspective on the diachronic one, heightening their awareness of its various modes and serving to reaffirm their stance or decide to opt for other modes of it. Second, people live not only vis-à-vis their cultural past but also, and some mainly, vis-à-vis the present, where they meet Jews who live differently from them. The discourse on Jewish identity must therefore take place in a synchronic context as well. In light of this analysis, the diachronic discourse can be said to be the foundation and the platform of the identity discourse. Without it, the materials that constitute the synchronic discourse would simply not exist. Individuals or groups engaging in a dialogue in the present are historicalcultural creatures “thrown” into a past, which they bear as the foundation of their identity. As John Thompson noted, “the process of identity formation 27

Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Crossroad, 1988), 273.

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

can never start from scratch; it always builds upon a pre-existing set of symbolic materials which form the bedrock of identity.”28 The perception of the diachronic discourse as the foundation of the identity discourse is corroborated by the fact that materials from the diachronic discourse, which may at some stage be on the margins of the synchronic one, may return to its center. Despite the centrality of the diachronic discourse, however, the neutralization of the synchronic discourse implies the negation of all forms of alternative Jewish existence in the present. This negation is culturally possible and is indeed endorsed by some Jews, both Orthodox and liberal, for whom negation is a constitutive principle of their identity. The Jewish-Israeli identity discourse in particular excels at these negation processes, at whose center is the will to deny the Jewish other his or her human or Jewish fullness. Human existence, however, reaches its culmination in dialogue: individuals become conscious creatures who examine themselves and opt for what they already are or for other available alternatives only through a dialogue with the other. Hence, Jewish identity— or, more precisely, Jewish identities—reaches maturity in the synchronic discourse, when Jews talk to one another about their Jewish identity and, through the Jewish alternatives, criticize themselves and explicate to themselves what they already are and what they can be. A constructionist identity discourse, in both its dimensions, renounces the attempt to make a final determination about Jewish identity. It assumes it as it is, open and diversified and yet not disintegrating. Essentialist approaches have tried to view Jewish diversity as different modes of the same thing and, therefore, have ceaselessly grappled with the problem of hierarchy, seeking to rank these various modes according to their success in conveying the very same thing—Jewish identity. By contrast, the constructionist discourse of Jewish identity speaks of Jewish identities that are similar or, in Wittgenstein’s terms, bear a “family resemblance” in various elements of the diachronic and even the synchronic discourses.29 This approach cannot pre-empt the development of Jewish identities so different from one another that they no longer bear a family resemblance, indeed a real possibility because both the diachronic and the synchronic dialogues are free. The extent of family resemblance between the 28 29

John B. Thompson, “Tradition and Self in a Mediated World,” in Detraditionalization: Critical Reflections on Authority and Identity, ed. Paul Heelas, Scott Lash, and Paul Morris (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 93. Eliezer Ben Rafael, Jewish Identities: Fifty Intellectuals Answer Ben-Gurion (Leiden: Brill, 2002), xxv, 110.

45

46

C h a p te r 2

various options will determine the boundaries of membership in the “same” Jewish identity, and some of these options may no longer be part of it. This matter, however, is to be decided in concrete historical and cultural processes rather than through abstract criteria assumed a priori, which are used to set these boundaries. In any event, a family resemblance ensures a continuity of identity rather than absolute uniformity, and in order to speak of belongingness to “the same identity,” this continuity is a sufficient condition.30 The undefined boundaries of the field of Jewish identities, however, may be assumed to be determined by the diachronic discourse itself. An identity ceases to be Jewish if it negates the Jewish diachronic discourse, that is, if it negates the turn to the past as its source. Negating the diachronic discourse is not merely refusing to engage in it since, as noted, developing a conscious diachronic discourse is not a necessary condition for membership in Jewish identity. Negating this discourse is denying its value and its significance in the constitution of the Jewish identity. Various Jewish identities do reject one or another aspect of the tradition, but if this rejection is part of the Jewish identity discourse, it actually recognizes the vitality of the diachronic dimension as one of the wellsprings of this identity’s authenticity. Between an absolute negation that suspends the family resemblance, and an absolute and thus impossible affirmation of the fullness of the diachronic Jewish discourse, is a broad field allowing various Jewish identities to emerge. Ephraim Shmueli conveyed this type of argument in slightly extreme terms when he stated: Judaism is a great, broad world because it contains various “palaces” or what I have called “cultures” and has room for holders of all views and beliefs in the Torahs of Israel, so long as they see themselves as links in the creativity chain of the generations, as a voice in a choir that knows there are many and very different voices beside it.31

Shmueli suggests two conditions for constituting the field of Jewish “cultures” or identities. The first is to recognize the connection with the past, that is, the vitality of the diachronic discourse, and the second is to recognize the plurality of this discourse. The former condition, as I argued, is indeed one 30 31

See also Leon J. Goldstein, “Thoughts on Jewish Identity,” in Jewish Identity, ed. David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 93. Ephraim Shmueli, Seven Jewish Cultures: A Reinterpretation of Jewish History and Thought (Tel Aviv: Yahdav, 1980), 430. [Heb]

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

that determines the family of Jewish identities, but the latter is not—individuals or groups can conduct a diachronic Jewish discourse while holding an exclusivist perception of it. For a cultural pluralist, conducting an exclusivist diachronic discourse is not a suitable option. Unsuitability, however, does not remove one who conducts the identity discourse in this fashion from the family of Jewish identities. The resemblance between this and the other Jewish diachronic discourse, which the exclusivist denies, still remains. The antithesis of recognizing a cluster of Jewish identities bearing a family resemblance is not an approach that assumes one Jewish “essence,” but one that assumes the absolute collapse of the family of Jewish identities— strong Jewish constructionism. Shmueli describes it as follows: The reverse is the antithesis of this idea: no common denominator exists at all. Judaism cannot be defined because the contradictions within it cannot be sustained and reconciled within one system . . . Jewish history is a series of changes without any significant or recognizable continuity, innovative transformations that uproot every permanence.32

This approach, as noted, does not grant proper weight to phenomenological data pointing to similarities and even connections between Jewish cultures and identities involved in a diachronic discourse that affirms Jewish givenness, even if the shaping of these cultures and identities is open and dynamic. The analysis so far enables us to dispel a certain vagueness that is widespread in discussions on Jewish identity. Often, the question of Jewish identity is replaced by that of the identity of Jews. The question of Jewish identity assumes the existence of a social-cultural context that the issue of identity is part of, manifest in the Jewish collective or in various Jewish collectives. By contrast, the question of the identity of Jews assumes that “Judaism” is a characteristic of Jews as individuals, which it seeks to explicate. As Leon Goldstein aptly noted, at the basis of this question is a “radical empiricism” relying solely on sensory data—in this context the data are individual Jews. 33 According to this view, the Jewish collective (or collectives) is made up of individuals, and the answer to the question of Jewish identity will therefore be found in the analysis of these individuals’ identity characteristics. This approach, however, is a contradiction in terms because the “characteristic” of Judaism, as a feature of individuals, is a cultural-social category, 32 33

Ibid. Goldstein, “Thoughts on Jewish Identity,” 85.

47

48

C h a p te r 2

with all that this implies. As a cultural “characteristic,” it is premised on an entire web of constitutive contexts, both diachronic and synchronic: memory, practice, dispositions, and so forth. The Judaism characteristic, then, is meaningless without a cultural-social context that precedes its being a feature of individuals. Furthermore, what is explicitly conveyed is not the Judaism “characteristic,” since its concrete manifestation is ultimately contingent on the perceptions and the wishes of those individuals called Jews. The judgment and evaluation of the Judaism “characteristic” is inherent in it, and is also constituted through the cultural contexts that affect the judgments and wishes of individuals. The Judaism “characteristic,” therefore, constantly reaffirms its cultural-social nature. The misconception regarding the question of Jewish identity lies in the identification of Judaism as a kind of characteristic resembling those of objects in the world. But this approach is mistaken, both because a discourse about people using a language of objects is unsuitable to their existence as creatures who constitute and interpret themselves, as noted, and also because we should not deal with cultural contexts as we deal with the characteristics of objects. This analysis warrants two conclusions. First, cultural contexts cannot be approached as characteristics, and second, if individuals are located within cultural contexts and constitute themselves by interpreting these contexts, reducing social-cultural existence to the monadic individual (enclosed in his or her own world) is mistaken—individuals configure their lives on the basis of a collective foundation.34 In sum, to enter a Jewish identity discourse is to enter a collective discourse that entails synchronic and diachronic dimensions.

authenticity and a constructionist jewish identity discourse “Authenticity,” as noted, is an important term in the essentialist identity discourse. It denotes a return to the sources and the uncovering of the essence that had been blurred or concealed; it is intended to set boundaries and distinguish a specific version of cultural identity from other manifestations of it that are perceived as false.35 34

35

Ibid., 87; idem, “Reflections on Conceptual Openness and Conceptual Tension,” in Freedom and Rationality: Essays in Honor of John Watkins from His Colleagues and Friends, ed. Fred D’Agostino and I. C. Jarvie (Dordrecht: Klewer, 1989), 105-107. Jonathan Cohen, “’If Rabbi Akiba Were Alive Today’ . . . or the Authenticity Argument,” Judaism 37 (1988): 136; Deborah Kapchan, “Hybridization and the Marketplace: Emerging Paradigms in Folkloristics,” Western Folklore 52

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

The cultural investment in the “search” for the authentic identity can be viewed in two different ways. The first view sees it as a defensive move by a culture faced with alternatives to itself. When the other is no longer the absolute stranger but the independently appealing other within, a need arises to strengthen the walls separating this other from what is perceived as the identity’s core. Hence, together with the negative characterization of the other as deviant and of his cultural world as aberrant, false, or misleading, a positive complementary characterization develops, stating that only a specific manifestation of the culture is its authentic expression and all others are deviant or blurred expressions of it. The second view on the rise of the authenticity concept is related to the self-structuring project of a culture, society, or nationality. Authenticity then conveys the imagined return to a pure past and a pure origin. An authentic culture perceives itself as a continuation of this past rather than as new. The concept of authenticity is not required here as protection from the other but as part of developing a consciousness of traditional continuity vis-à-vis the new project.36 These two uses of the authenticity concept convey the attempt to find stability, order, and structure within a changing and dynamic reality. In this sense, the search for an authentic “Judaism” is an expression of the crisis in Jewish existence: “The confusion of views that has spread in recent generations concerning the essence of Judaism and the essence of the Jew, the people and the individual, can be avoided by adopting one definition of Judaism and Jewishness.”37 Authenticity is a return to a fixed, “pure reality” while rejecting the changing and dynamic one. Furthermore, authenticity conveys the return to the self, which is constituted from inside. Authenticity thus conveys the victory over self-alienation, that is, over an untrue perception of the self.38 This romantic notion of authenticity, originating in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Gottfried Herder,39 is a temptation ever-present in the processes of identity shaping. In the history of the Jewish identity

36 37 38

39

(1993): 307; Regina Bendix, In Search of Authenticity: The Formation of Folklore Studies (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 9. See also Avi Sagi, A Challenge: Returning to Tradition (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Shalom Hartman Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2003), 162-215 [Heb]. For the translation of this idea in folklore, see Bendix, In Search of Authenticity. Shmueli, Seven Jewish Cultures, 9, and 425, 428. See also Stuart Z. Charmé, “Varieties of Authenticity in Contemporary Identity,” Jewish Social Studies 6 (2000): 138. Cf. Yael Tamir, “Some Thoughts Concerning the Phrase: A Quest for Identity,” in A Quest for Identity: Post War Jewish Biographies, ed. Yitzhak Kashti et al. (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1996), 41-44; Jonathan Webber, “Modern Jewish Identities,” in Jewish Identities in the New Europe (London: Littman Library, 1994), 79-90. Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 28-29; Bendix, In Search of Authenticity, 33-44.

49

50

C h a p te r 2

discourse, spokespersons for different groups making up the Jewish collective repeatedly allude to it. Romantic authenticity is evident, for example, in the worldview of religious-Zionism formulated by Simon Federbusch: Religious-Zionism in our time is, fundamentally, an extension of the Jewish people’s ancient yearning for Zion . . . . The aspiration to establish a national homeland in the Land of Israel is closely tied to the Torah’s vision of creating a holy people, who faithfully believe in the eternity of Israel and the morality of its Torah. Secular Jewish nationalism is inadvertently imitating the new national direction of the nations of the world that have shed the yoke of religion, deviating from the course that Jewish thought has followed for generations. Religious-Zionism seeks to bring back the original conception of the redemption of Israel. Henceforth say: religious-Zionism is the ancestral Torah-Zionism.40

This text explicates the mechanism typical of romantic authenticity as a quest for liberation from any consciousness of novelty in the search for the true reality. Federbusch, who, like many religious-Zionist thinkers, knows the history of nationalism in general and that of the Jewish national renaissance movement in particular, does not hesitate to define “secular Zionism” as a deviation from the tradition and as unwittingly imitating modern nationalism. He dismisses outright the meaning of the historical-sociological processes that affected the Jewish people and led to the rise of religious-Zionism as well. Peter Berger characterized this kind of cleaving to the tradition as a “deductive” approach, which ignores modernity and vigorously reaffirms tradition.41 The ultra-Orthodox response to Zionism will help to clarify that this authenticity is the expression of a groundbreaking project protecting itself from innovation. Ultra-Orthodox Jews excelled at understanding that Zionism was a true revolution in the life of the Jewish people, and therefore rejected it. In this sense, they presented a supremely realistic position. Religious-Zionism, which opened up to Zionism and to the modernity it entailed, was forced to defend itself by shaping a consciousness of this revolution as a restoration of the tradition and by denying its novelty. This mechanism provided protection against the two forces threatening 40 41

Simon Federbusch, “The Foundations of Torah Zionism,” in The Vision of Torah and Zion (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1960), 7 [Heb]. Peter L. Berger, The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1979), chap. 3.

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

it—secularism and ultra-Orthodoxy. Against secularism, religiousZionism claimed to be the genuine bearer of Jewish nationalism. Against ultra-Orthodoxy, it claimed to represent the continuity of true Judaism. This example, an expression of romantic authenticity, is well-illustrated in Carl Dahlhaus’ claim that authenticity “is a reflexive term; its nature is to be deceptive about its nature.”42 Should the constructionist identity discourse renounce the concept of authenticity as misleading? The answer is no. Stuart Charmé rightfully draws a distinction between two different meanings of the concept of authenticity: essentialist authenticity and existential authenticity.43 Essentialist authenticity, with sources in German Romanticism, claims a basic truth in the individual or the nation that is found and expressed in real life. Authenticity is not something invented or created. Quite the contrary, it exists as a stable and unchanging element, whether it is realized or not. Many held that this romantic view of authenticity was a suitable response to the modernist challenges posed by the collapse of all that had been perceived as fixed and unconditioned by real history and by social contexts: the social and cultural institutions, the ethos, the myths, and above all, the identity of the individual or of the people. Essentialist authenticity enabled the restoration of their power, granting them the stability and permanence they had lost. The translation of essentialist authenticity into Jewish life means assuming the existence of a static Judaism or Jewishness, which the individual or the community is supposed to realize. This authenticity, as noted, restores all the cultural-social-historical elements of Jewish identity, fixating them as unalterable. The critique aimed at the essentialist discourse applies to the concept of essentialist authenticity as well, justifying its removal from the identity discourse in general and from the discourse on Jewish identity in particular. This critique, however, does not extend to existential authenticity. This authenticity is not identified with a specific content that is perceived as a truth to be realized. Above all, it conveys a clear recognition of human existence as resting on two contradictory poles: the pole of “thrownness” (geworfenheit in Heidegger’s terminology and délaissement in Sartre’s terms), referring to the physical, social, and historical conditions that people do not choose but are born into, and the pole of freedom and possibilities. An authentic choice is one that freely returns to the thrownness, thereby 42 43

Cited in Bendix, In Search of Authenticity, 3. Charmé, “Varieties of Authenticity,” 134-144.

51

52

C h a p te r 2

turning the coerced datum into a free choice. Through this decision, people expand their responsibility for the totality of their existence. According to this view that, as noted, originates in Kierkegaard’s thought, authenticity does not denote a given “content” but the conscious and practical position that people assume vis-à-vis their existence. Authentic individuals do not evade their existence but embrace it and shape it as free beings. Sartre offers an interesting formulation of this view, which he articulates when confronted with the question of Jewish existence: To be a Jew is to be thrown into—to be abandoned to—the situation of a Jew; and at the same time it is to be responsible in and through one’s own person for the destiny and the very nature of the Jewish people . . . authenticity for him [for the Jew] is to live to the full[est] his condition as Jew; inauthenticity is to deny it or to attempt to escape from it.44 Jewish authenticity consists in choosing oneself as Jew—that is, in realizing one’s Jewish condition . . . he is what he makes himself, that is all that can be said.45

The specific authentic Jewish identity cannot be predetermined, since it is open by nature. Endorsing Jewish thrownness is not the end but rather the beginning of the story. An authentic Jewish identity is a lifetime project. Existentialist Jewish authenticity is embodied in active involvement, where individuals combine their freedom with their modes of givenness, the present and the past. According to Charmé, an authentic Jewish identity is expressed in narratives that position us in relation to the past, but these narratives are open to change . . . . Narratives constructed in different historical periods differ, as do narratives at different moments in an individual’s life. An authentic identity, therefore, is never an entity or substance that we possess but rather a project situated in time and space.46

The question of identity is the question of the source. To ask “who am I?” is to ask “where did I come from?” “What is the background that can explicate my existence as a historical creature?”47 An authentic diachronic discourse of identity exposes the person’s historical-cultural existence, but authenticity does not end there. As Charles Taylor showed at length, an 44 45 46 47

Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate, trans. George J. Becker (New York: Schocken, 1976), 64-65. Ibid., 98-99. Charmé, “Varieties of Authenticity,” 143. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 34.

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

adequate expression of human authenticity must be based on the character of human life.48 A conscious, free human life takes shape in the context of a dialogue with the other. Rather than a random presence in the self ’s autarchic horizon, the other is the one against whom and through whom the self molds its identity. The dialogical discourse thus plays a dual role. According to one possibility, it is against the other that the self discovers its uniqueness and makes it explicit. In this context, the other plays a decisive role in the constitution of the self ’s consciousness, but none in the shaping of actual life. According to the other possibility, through the dialogical discourse, the self may choose new options represented by the other and turn them into a significant component of its identity. According to the former possibility, the other plays a role in clarifying the factuality of the self—be it individual or collective; according to the latter, the other plays a decisive role in determining the horizons of the self ’s potentiality. In other words, the synchronic identity discourse is authentic if it reflects the existence of the individual or the group as constituted vis-à-vis the other. The two aspects of the diachronic and the synchronic discourse coalesce to stress the two constitutive poles of human existence—past and present. As Eliezer Schweid tersely argues: “At all times, man is what he will be. His future is in his present. In sum: the question of identity is the question of the relationship to the past and to the future.”49 In order for the constructionist identity discourse to be an authentic discourse that reflects human existence, it must be released from romantic overtones. Concepts such as “true Judaism,” “Judaism says,” and so forth, must therefore be dismissed from the identity discourse. The use of truth claims in cultural contexts does indeed appear strange. The claim that a certain culture is true means assuming a state of affairs outside it, which this culture is perceived as adequately conveying. But there is no extra-cultural context that a culture conveys; a culture cannot rest on an extra-cultural foundation. Furthermore, given that culture is by nature dynamic and does not resemble an object or a state of affairs in the world, the term “true” to describe this situation does not suit the cultural reality. The term “true” does appear in the languages of culture but, rather than denoting an external act of judgment, it signifies the members’ measure of inner certainty about their cultural world.50 48 49 50

Ibid., 29-47. Eliezer Schweid, The Lonely Jew and Judaism (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1974), 32 [Heb]. For a critical discussion of the relationship between truth and culture, see Pascal Boyer, Tradition as Truth and Communication: A Cognitive Description of Traditional Discourse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

53

54

C h a p te r 2

Stating that a particular cultural form is the correct or authentic version of Judaism requires a criterion for determining its measure of authenticity. But finding this criterion is problematic since two options are possible— one internal and one external to the culture. If the criterion is internal, how can it be applied to another culture or to another cultural mold that does not accept it and determine, on its basis, their suitability to “Judaism”? An internal criterion applied to another culture a priori assumes the preference of the culture from which it is taken. If believers view Judaism as “the word of God” and this perception serves as a criterion for determining the hierarchy of Jewish cultural molds, it is no wonder that other molds will be perceived as inferior. But why assume that other cultural versions must meet this criterion? An internal criterion, then, is inapplicable to intercultural comparisons. An external criterion, however, is irrelevant. First, an external criterion is not necessarily acceptable to the members of a given culture. In their view, even if the external criterion is rational, it may fail to capture what they think is important and valuable. Second, if the criterion is indeed external and does not include the culture’s constitutive contexts of meaning—how can it serve to evaluate it? By definition, external criteria neither do nor can take into account the inner meaning of cultural practices for the members of the culture. The obvious conclusion is that cultures cannot be ranked hierarchically.51 This argument is correct not only for cultures that are absolutely different. Even cultures bearing a family resemblance, such as the family of Jewish identities, cannot be ranked hierarchically precisely for the same reasons. If there is no “Judaism” as a substance outside its historical-cultural-social forms, the relationship between the various forms of Judaism is as that between different cultures. The Judaism of the different forms is contingent, as noted, on the family resemblance rather than on a shared essence outside them.52 A constructionist-authentic identity discourse must therefore give up truth claims and the desire to take charge of other Jewish cultures to locate them in some hierarchical order. A constructionist identity discourse—if it is indeed authentic—is pluralistic, meaning it acknowledges the internal and irreducible value of all the various Jewish forms.53 51

52 53

This argument elaborates on that of William P. Alston, “Religious Diversity and Perceptual Knowledge of God,” Faith and Philosophy 5 (1988): 440; idem, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 268-275; John Kekes, The Morality of Pluralism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), chap. 4; Avi Sagi, “Justifying Interreligious Pluralism,” in Jewish Theology and World Religions, ed. Alon Goshen-Gottstein and Eugene Korn (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2012), 61-86. See also Shmueli, Seven Jewish Cultures, particularly chap. 1. Sagi, Jewish Religion after Theology, 3-33.

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

Pluralism, as I have shown,54 is not a stance that could challenge the commitment and loyalty of individuals or groups to their practices unless we—unnecessarily—assume that loyalty and commitment compel the negation of the other. If the other is indeed negated and his world is perceived as meaningless, he will lose his role as significant other in the constructionist identity discourse, since a discourse with someone whose world has no value would be senseless. The dialogue, once the other and his world have vanished, turns into the speaker’s monologue. The constructionist-authentic discourse of Jewish identity is, by nature, dynamic and open. As Lionel Trilling notes, the term “authentic,” of Greek origin, also means creativity and self-development.55 The constructionist identity discourse may thus be a vehicle for the individual or the community to develop themselves, even if the connection with the other is the mechanism through which people identify what they already are or how they differ from the other. Even though the identity discourse here is oriented to the past, it is not a return to the past itself but a conscious affirmation of the past from the perspective of the present—the past is henceforth an element in the structuring of identity in the present. Furthermore, in this discourse too, which is fundamentally one of consciousness, the individual or the community have recourse to future possibilities as well, since we are not only what we are but also what we could be. Thus, even if the future possibilities are now marginal, they could become relevant at other times and in other circumstances. In sum, a constructionist identity discourse is the conscious recognition that, for individuals shaping themselves, the past and the future are both available options. An authentic Jewish identity, then, does not denote a specific construct. There are different versions of authentic Jewish identities, none more valuable than the other.56

reconsidering identification and the jewish identity discourse Does a constructionist discourse of identity require that we give up the identification of its participants? Identification, as noted, is not necessarily related to identity. At times, identification changes the identity of 54 55 56

Ibid. See also Sagi, “Justifying Interreligious Pluralism.” Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 115. Charmé, “Varieties of Authenticity,” 144.

55

56

C h a p te r 2

individuals and groups and imprisons them in an external “gaze” that overtakes them, detracts from their fullness, and locates them in contexts of meaning beyond themselves. In this sense, identification disturbs the identity discourse. But a constructionist identity discourse, as both diachronic and synchronic, allows for a different perception of identification. If an identity discourse implies entry into a historical-cultural-social context, then identification too should be related to that context.57 Since the constructionist discourse is changing and dynamic, the identification of participants in this discourse cannot be based on a single potential manifestation of it. Thus, identifying someone as a Jew cannot be based on this person’s observance of the commandments, for example, since this characterization relates solely to one option of Jewish identity—the religious one. Nor can identification deny the identity discourse altogether and, therefore, cannot be based on the individual’s subjective consciousness. The constructionist identification of a person as a Jew, then, must keep away from any particularistic manifestation of Jewish identity while also allowing it. Identification, then, must draw on the general dimensions of the identity discourse, which express the family resemblance between Jewish identities. This identification must therefore be related to the actual entry into the Jewish identity discourse and must express, at least symbolically, the historical-cultural aspects on the one hand, and the collective aspect bearing the culture and the history on the other. Within these parameters, the use of the classic Jewish ethnic identification seems extremely plausible because it symbolizes the return to the culture-bearing kernel—the family. The family is the origin and the source and, for the individual, constitutes “his beginning . . . in both the physical and the mental-spiritual sense.”58 Whatever the meaning of the culture it bears, the family is the core of the culture, the bearer of the legacy. It is not only a biological cell that serves as a platform for growth but the means for transmitting the language, the tradition, and the practice. The family is thus the primary element of identification, conveying membership in a cultural-historical collective. Ethnic membership in a Jewish family is thus a cultural rather than a biological ascription. Converts to Judaism, then, do not simply join a religious faith or a set of practices that they identify with. Rather, by undergoing a conversion 57 58

Cf. Ben Rafael, Jewish Identities, xxvi. Schweid, The Lonely Jew and Judaism, 35.

A C r i ti q u e o f th e Je w i s h Id e nti t y Disco ur se

ritual they are “born” into the ethnic Jewish collective, which is a broader bearer of culture than the family cell: “one who has become a proselyte is like a child newly born.”59 Proselytes are not born to a specific Jewish family but to the Jewish collective. They therefore have no Jewish kin and are directly attached to the collective.60 This identification is not supposed to replace or fixate the identity discourse. Identification is no more than the symbolic expression of the recognition of Jewish identity as constituted through attachment to the Jewish collective in all its historical-cultural manifestations. This perception of Jewish identification takes it further than the halakhic version. Justice Moshe Silberg’s decision in what became known as the “Brother Daniel” case, involving Daniel Oswald Rufeisen, offers an insightful approach to the meaning of Jewish identification that will help to clarify my analysis. Brother Daniel, who was born a Jew and converted to Catholicism, risked his life during the Second World War to save Jews. After the war, he immigrated to Israel and asked to be recognized as a Jew. Justice Silberg knew that, halakhically, Brother Daniel’s status was clear— whoever is born a Jew is a Jew, “though he has sinned, he remains a Jew.”61 He therefore sums up: If I thought that the term “Jew” in the Law of Return and the term “Jew” in the Law on the Jurisdiction of the Rabbinic Courts are one and the same—meaning that a Jew is a Jew according to Halakhah—I would agree with the petitioner and make this rule absolute.62

Yet, argues Justice Silberg, a person’s identification as a Jew should not rely on halakhic criteria but on the widespread perceptions of the term “Jew” within the Jewish community. In the terms used here, a person’s identification as a Jew must rest on the basic framework of the Jewish identity discourse. In the context of this discourse, the halakhic criterion is insufficient and, therefore, Brother Daniel cannot be considered a Jew. Justice Silberg concisely formulated this view in a few poetic sentences: I do not come to preach religiosity and I do not represent any specific approach on the most desirable course for the future development of the Jewish people . . . . But one common denominator to all the Jews 59 60 61 62

TB Yevamoth 22a and parallel versions. See also Sagi and Zohar, Transforming Identity, 265-296. Ibid. Moshe Silberg, In Inner Harmony: Essays and Articles (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981), 382-387 [Heb]. Ibid., 387.

57

58

C h a p te r 2

living in Israel (except for very few) is that we do not cut ourselves off from our historical past and we do not deny our ancestral heritage . . . . Brother Daniel will love the people of Israel, he has proved that, and I do not doubt that. But this brother will love from outside—“a far off brother”—will not take part and will not have a true relationship with the world of Judaism. His integration in Israeli Jewish society, and his sincere affection for it, will not replace the internal identification that is missing.63

Justice Silberg’s central claim, then, is that a person’s identification as a Jew is contingent on his or her entry into the Jewish diachronic discourse. A person can identify subjectively with the Jewish collective but will not be identified as a Jew, meaning he or she will not thereby become part of it.64 The precise symbolic expressions of the identification may obviously be challenged and reconsidered. The critical view of the historical-cultural tradition suggested here, however, is significant: Jewish ethnicity is a shared identifying foundation in the family of Jewish identities in the past and present.65 In sum, an essentialist discourse of Jewish identity that shows no respect for all the manifestations of Jewish life weakens solidarity between various Jewish groups. Those who are perceived as not living a full Jewish life, those whose world is perceived as inferior in Jewish terms, may feel estranged and alienated from those who locate them on the margins of Jewish existence. A constructionist discourse, by contrast, serves to strengthen closeness and cohesion. The transition from an essentialist to a constructionist identity discourse is not a trivial matter, and requires a fundamental change in the dispositions of individuals and groups toward themselves and toward the other. The preceding discussion pointed to the considerations that could lead to a change of dispositions and may thereby contribute to a change in the Jewish social web.

63 64 65

Ibid., 388. See also ibid., 406, dealing with Silberg’s verdict in the Shalit case. See Webber, “Modern Jewish Identities,” 80.

Ch a p te r 3

Primordial idEntity: thE JEwish casE

preliminary outline: from cultural to primordial identity The description of the identity construct as one created by the intersection of the synchronic and diachronic axes raises the question of the subject: who is the subject that, at this intersection, creates a specific and unique mix? Cultural phenomenalism seeks to elude this question by arguing that the concept of a subject separate from a real cultural-historical-social context is a linguistic fiction. People are what they are only within their culture and within real life contexts. But, as noted in Chapter One, this stance does not seem plausible given the presence of a pre-cultural, pre-historical, and pre-social subject, whose existence emerges in three key modes. The first is as a self that “observes” the cultural-social contexts, transcends them, and locates itself outside them. The second mode derives from the first: the stance of reflective observation enables the individual or the society to evaluate various cultural contexts and rank them hierarchically based on a primal stance that is not constituted by the culture, which is the object of the judgment. The third is the hermeneutical mode. Hermeneutical mechanisms mediate the adoption of cultural contexts by adapting them to components considered primordial. This active absorption process also leads to changes in what is considered the core of the identity. Jews who are committed to Jewish religion and are open to Western culture will interpret their religion differently from Jews who do not experience the Western context as dominant. According to the moderate constructionism discussed in Chapter Two, individuals and societies preserve the continuity and unity of their identity even though it is neither static nor complete. In extreme situations, cohesion may break down and identity then seems to collapse. Collapse, however, is not the standard reaction but merely one way of recognizing the constitutive role of culture, history, and society in human life. Continuity and unity rest on a primordial core that is not outside history and culture but not

60

C h a p te r 3

reducible to them either, because what shapes this core is the social-cultural context that, in existentialist terms, we are “thrown” into. This primordiality, then, is not a priori, since it is not beyond all cultural-social contexts. It is transcendental, however, in the sense that it mediates and regulates the absorption processes and the balance between the primordial contexts. Introducing the term “primordial identity” will help to clarify these determinations. Primordial identity denotes a primal existence that, though obviously related to some cultural-social context, is not contingent on a thick version of it. It is primordial in the sense that it is connected to a specific culture and relates to it as its own whether or not it accepts it, but does not necessarily bear all of it as a way of life. Formally, the primordial identity is embodied in the initial rejection of what is outside it—“to be something is always not to be something else.”1 Elsa Morante offers a fascinating literary expression of primordial identity. Ida, the protagonist of History: A Novel, has a Jewish mother, and during the Nazi occupation of Italy she “was a half-breed, though for everyone else, still, she was an ordinary Aryan.”2 She herself, like many Italian Jews, was well integrated into Italian society.3 At one particular moment, however, the awareness of her primary Jewish identity awakens in her: “ . . . now, Ida learned that the Jews were different not only because they were Jews, but also because they were non-Aryans.”4 In Morante’s view, Ida’s Jewish identity is primary and thus embodied “also” in her being nonAryan rather than the opposite: she is a Jew not because she is not Aryan or because others identify her as a Jew. She is a Jew and that is her primary identity. Albert Memmi, whose conscious Jewish commitment was more explicit than Morante’s, conveys the meaning of primary identity and its connection to cultural fullness: To be a Jew, I have been told time and time again, is to “live a Jewish life.” Now what is a Jewish life if not the aggregate of the Jew’s positive and negative relationships with other Jews and with non-Jews, according to the will of God if he is a believer? To be a Jew is to live

1 2 3 4

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd ed. (London-New York: Verso, 2001), 128. Elsa Morante, History: A Novel, trans. William Weaver (Penguin Modern Classics, 1980), 67. For an analysis of this phenomenon, see H. Stuart Hughes, Prisoners of Hope: The Silver Age of the Italian Jews 19241974 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983). Morante, History, 69.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

in a certain way, to marry and bury one’s dead as do the mass of Jews. It is also not to live like the majority, not to attend the same church, not to celebrate the same holidays . . . . To be a Jew is, briefly, to share a communal destiny, both positive and negative, which unites Jews among themselves and separates them from everyone else.5

Memmi assumes that to be a Jew means not to be a non-Jew. Rather than being the primary meaning, however, this negative aspect relies on a primordial, positive foundation—to be a Jew “is also not to live like the majority.” This, then, is the overt facet of isolation from others for Memmi, who emphasizes the real life dimension: “Judaism is more than a garland of pure values.”6 But what is the nature of this Jewish life? Does it have a clear, defined content? Memmi’s answer is complex: to be a Jew means to live in a certain way as a Jew, though tracing the outline of the “what,” the actual content, is impossible. Without a specific content, we have no Jewish existence, since we cannot have life without content. Constituting Jewish existence on a specific content, however, is not a correct description of it. Jewish existence is embodied in the initial experience of a primary “common fate” that precedes the contents, even if it never appears separately from them. Micha Yosef Berdyczewski first carved this path when he sought a change of values in Jewish existence. This search led Berdyczewski to the conclusion that in the relationship between Judaism and Jews, between contents and people, people have precedence: The renaissance of the Jewish people depends on the delivery of Judaism to the Jews, who have priority over their culture and their tradition . . . . Jewish wisdom, Jewish religion, are only isolated fragments given to each individual according to his will and his inclination, but the Jewish people stands above them and precedes them, and I say, “the Jewish people precede the Torah.”7

This text and others resembling it at times lead Berdyczewski to determine that Jewish existence can shed Judaism. At least in this passage, however, he relates to the question of precedence and not to the redundancy of the Jewish content. Berdyczewski, like Memmi, endorses 5 6 7

Albert Memmi, The Liberation of the Jew, trans. Judy Hyun (New York: Orion Press, 1966), 140. Ibid., 139. Micha Yosef Berdyczewski, Collected Works, ed. Avner Holtzman and Yitzhak Kafkafi (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2002), vol. 5, 112-113 [Heb].

61

62

C h a p te r 3

the primary identity thesis and its complex attitude toward the contents of identity and culture. This analysis also clarifies the relationship between the constructionist and primordial identities—the constructionist identity is a full realization of the primordial identity. People whose primary identity is Jewish take a stand vis-à-vis the constructionist axes of identity. These axes do not determine their taking a Jewish stand but the potential modes of realizing their Judaism.

hegel and primordial identity The analysis of Hegel’s stance on human existence will help to clarify what is new in the claim about primordial identity. Phenomenology of Spirit describes the process of the revelation and discovery of the spirit through the metaphor of the relationship between the bud and the flower: The bud disappears in the bursting-forth of the blossom, and one might say that the former is refuted by the latter; similarly, when the fruit appears, the blossom is shown up in its turn as a false manifestation of the plant, and the fruit now emerges as the truth of it instead. These forms are not just distinguished from one another, they also supplant one another as mutually incompatible. Yet at the same time their fluid nature makes them moments of an organic unity in which they not only do not conflict, but in which each is as necessary as the other; and this mutual necessity alone constitutes the life of the whole.8

Hegel’s central claim is that the human voyage to realization is an ongoing process, where advancement does not contradict the past but contains it as a necessary element. The spirit is a constant movement of progress: “Spirit is indeed never at rest but always engaged in moving forward” (6). In a sharper formulation: “The True is thus the Bacchanalian revel in which no member is not drunk; yet because each member collapses as soon as he drops out, the revel is just as much transparent and simple repose” (27). From this perspective, which seeks to trace the entire movement, Hegel rejects static views such as that of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who sees only the binary opposition between thesis and antithesis and the magic solution of the synthesis. Hegel never uses these terms, which are part of Fichte’s 8

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 2.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

terminology, since he emphasizes the dynamic movement that accumulates within it all the real elements—it denies the previous situation but does not remove it, and negation is always present: It [the Spirit] wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. It is this power, not as something positive, which closes its eyes to the negative, as when we say of something that it is nothing or is false, and then, having done with it, turns away and pass on to something else; on the contrary, Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. (19)

The dialectic voyage is the voyage of the Spirit seeking realization in reality, but it is also an actual voyage of civilization and education. It begins with individuals contemplating their culture as outsiders—“formative education, regarded from the side of the individual, consists in his acquiring what thus lies at hand, devouring his inorganic nature, and taking possession of it for himself ” (16). In this formation process, the Spirit attains realization and thereby restructures the individual, who is rescued from a separating particularism to embody the universal foundations of existence: “The single individual is incomplete Spirit,” it exists as “a concrete shape in whose whole existence one determinateness predominates, the others being present only in blurred outline” (ibid.). From this perspective, particularism and individualism are self-alienation, since they represent the subject’s non-realization in actual reality. This self is static, it does not become what it could have been and does not constitute itself in its otherness, that is, in the dynamic movement of objectification and externalization (10). The voyage described by Hegel culminates in the realization of the spirit and in the reflective consciousness that identifies the entire process as a totality. In Hegel’s terms, phenomenology becomes logic. At this highest stage, we attain harmony or simplicity through a consciousness that unites the process in one totality (11-12). Externalization—the modes through which the subject expresses and realizes himself—is the subject’s actual manifestation. Rather than only as an actual object, the subject exists as a potential that is realized through its externalizing actions—“everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not only as Substance, but equally as Subject” (10). The subject attains realization through action and Hegel can therefore claim: “Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is; and that precisely in this consists its nature” (11). The process

63

64

C h a p te r 3

of creation and realization is not a distancing from the self but rather the opposite: . . . the process of becoming is rather just this return into simplicity. Though the embryo is indeed in itself a human being, it is not so for itself; thus it only is as cultivated Reason, which has made itself into what it is in itself. And that is when it for the first time is actual . . . . The result is the same as the beginning, only because the beginning is the purpose . . . . The realized purpose, or the existent actuality, is movement and unfolded becoming; but it is just this unrest that is the self; and the self is like that immediacy and simplicity of the beginning because it is the result, that which has returned into itself, the latter being similarly just the self. And the self is the sameness and simplicity that relates itself to itself. (12)

Hegel describes the subject’s self-identity in dynamic terms of movement and becoming. Yet, his claim is that becoming does not transcend the beginning because this beginning bears within it the aims of its development—the “purpose” that becomes the actual “result.” Hegel’s contribution is the recognition that identity is ultimately constituted by the consciousness that ties the end of the realization process to its beginning. Diverting the core of identity from the object—the original datum of the reflection tying together the self ’s actual history—is a restructuring of consciousness that takes into account its real existence and determines that this existence is the identity’s dynamic space. From this perspective, the objective is the subjective, because the objective is the realization of the subjective. Hegel preceded Edmund Husserl in pointing to the intentional construct of consciousness, but the analysis of his position points to one of the most fundamental differences between his intentionality and Husserl’s. In Husserl’s intentionality, a defined relationship prevails between the act and the object. On the one hand, an act or an object does not appear by itself—the act always has an object and the object exists for the act. On the other hand, their shared manifestation is what points to the distance between act and object. For Hegel, however, the act is realized in the object itself: The immediate existence of Spirit, consciousness, contains the two moments of knowing and the objectivity negative to knowing. Since it is in this element [of consciousness] that Spirit develops itself and explicates its moments, these moments contain that antithesis, and they all appear as shapes of consciousness. The Science of this pathway

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

is the Science of the experience which consciousness goes through; the substance and its movement are viewed as the object of consciousness. Consciousness knows and comprehends only what falls within its experience; for what is contained in this is nothing but spiritual substance, and this, too, as object of the self. But Spirit becomes object because it is just this movement of becoming an other to itself, i.e. becoming an object to itself, and of suspending this otherness. (21)

According to Hegel, “the immediate existence of Spirit” or “the Science of the experience which consciousness goes through” denotes the spirit’s actual reality, and it is in the context of its dynamic movement that the Spirit itself is realized. From the perspective of “immediate” experience, we can identify the distinction between subject and object, or between the act and its object. But from the perspective of the Spirit, the object is the realization of the self in its otherness. The consciousness of the self identifies the movement between subject and object or between the act and its object, thereby overcoming the distinction between them. In his dynamic conception, “the disparity which exists in consciousness between the ‘I’ and the substance which is its object is the distinction between them, the negative in general” (ibid.). This disparity, however, is the basis of the movement and the realization that necessarily culminates in the awareness that the “outside” is the “inside” and the “inside” is the “outside.” This schematic description enables a deeper insight into the primordial identity thesis. Hegel’s analysis closely resembles the claim about a primordial self-identity. Both are predicated on the notion that identity must be interpreted in dynamic terms and, furthermore, that identity becomes and consolidates from within through its modes of objectification—norms, ideas, myths, and institutions. These modes are the manifestation and realization of identity and are not imposed from outside. Even when such an imposition does exist, if it is part of the identity it is mediated through the self. Finally, both argue that identity is essentially historical and cultural, since its modes of objectification are in history. Both these approaches, then, reject the claim about a self that transcends history and concrete reality and thereby reject the Kantian transcendental self. On two key issues, however, they disagree. The first is whether objectification is a necessary realization of the “bud”—in the present context, the primordial identity—or whether the primordial identity necessarily concretizes as a specific flower. According to Hegel, every realization is an imperative and exclusive realization of the primordial identity. In the

65

66

C h a p te r 3

thesis that I proposed, every objectification as such is never more than one of its possible manifestations. The primordial identity, therefore, never loses its evaluative critical stance. The second—and main—difference touches on the attitude of the primordial identity toward its actual cultural manifestations. Hegel describes the relationship between the primordial identity and actual reality as one of development and explication—the concrete identity is merely the primordial identity that reached maturity. Given that this is a realization process, it has a beginning and an end. Reflection reaffirms the fact that the end is already determined at the beginning. By contrast, according to the approach that I suggested, a constant distance prevails between the primordial and concrete identities, manifest in the fundamental freedom of the development processes. A person can always delay, adopt, and reinterpret the synchronic and diachronic contexts constitutive of life. This freedom does not imply that the development of the identity is incomplete. Quite the opposite. Identity develops through the tension between the primordial, judging, examining, interpreting identity that affirms the historical cultural data of its life, and the recognition of the unmediated tension between the emptiness of the original identity and the fullness of the concrete culture. This unique construct makes the primordial identity epistemologically elusive yet ontologically affirmative: Jews are Jews even before they are able, if at all, to give an account of the fullness of their lives.

on the totality of primordial jewish identity The distinction between the Hegelian view of primary identity and the one suggested here enables us to decode an additional phenomenon. Literary testimonies on primordial Jewish identity implicitly or explicitly suggest that this identity is not necessarily exclusive. Therefore, even people whose Jewish belongingness is central to them will not necessarily commit themselves to the idea that their Judaism covers all areas of their lives. Even people whose primordial identity is Jewish are not necessarily only Jews, and their view may convey the idea that they are also Jews. This stance makes sense in my view of primordial identity, which assumes a relationship with a specific cultural and social setting that is manifest in the judgment and evaluation of the cultural, social, and historical identity. The primordial identity is Jewish if this judgment compels a relationship with the diachronic and synchronic contexts of Jewish culture.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

But this judgment and this affirmation do not dictate the concrete contents of Jewish culture and identity, nor the measure of control over all the concrete realms of existence. An evaluating primordial identity requires a distance from the object of its judgment—the culture and the entire way of life—to enable different options of concretizing people’s identity. By contrast, the Hegelian approach that views identity as a dynamic process of realization rather than of judgment and evaluation cannot explain this complex human reality. It does not provide the mechanism that explicates the multiculturalism typical of people’s lives, and certainly not the hesitating, judging stance, detached and affirmative at the same time. To understand this phenomenon, I turn to two literary testimonies—one by Primo Levi and one by Ernst Toller. Primo Levi attests about himself: I am a Jew according to the population registry, that is, I am registered in the Torino Jewish community, but I am neither observant nor a believer. Yet, I am aware that I belong to a certain tradition, to a certain culture. I am used to saying that I feel three-quarters or fourfifths Italian, according to the time and the circumstances, but this small part is very important to me.9 I can’t say that Judaism has been my Pole star. I’m also a chemist and also a writer. There are a lot of things that interest me and Judaism is just one of them.10 I am Jewish by accident of birth . . . . Being Jewish, for me, is a matter of “identity”: an “identity,” I must also say, that I have no intention of discarding.11 As a Diaspora Jew, who feels much more Italian than Jewish, I would prefer the centre of gravity of Judaism to stay outside Israel.12

In these texts, and in many others, Levi attests to his Judaism. He begins with an assertion that belongs to the identification discourse—“I am a Jew according to the population registry”—but does not end there because, as he states, although this identification is constitutive of his identity as a Jew, it does not fully capture this identity. In his identification, he is “only” a Jew, but in his identity, in the entire complex of his life where he realizes cultural, social, and historical aspects, the Jewish component is “a small 9 10 11 12

Primo Levi, Conversazioni e interviste: 1963-87, ed. Marco Belpoliti (Torino: Einaudi, 1997), 37. Risa Sodi, “An Interview with Primo Levi,” Partisan Review 54 (1987): 360. Primo Levi, The Voice of Memory: Interviews 1961-87, ed. Marco Belpoliti and Robert Gordon, trans. Robert Gordon (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), 274. Ibid., 290.

67

68

C h a p te r 3

part.” He does locate himself as a Jew, however, and it is this location that points to a primordial Jewish identity. Awareness of a primordial Jewish identity does not necessarily imply awareness of the centrality or the totality of the Jewish component. Levi attests to the multiculturalism of his life and to the standing of the Jewish component within it. Evaluating the standing of Judaism within this domain is actually the primordial identity’s first action. It is Jewish in the sense that it affirms his existence as a Jew. Levi’s reflection about his Judaism and about the totality of his social and cultural life reveals that his primordial identity includes the horizon of Jewish culture and his attitude toward it. His primordial identity, then, is also Jewish, but not only Jewish. Levi’s life is a realization of his primordial Jewish identity in the sense that Judaism is a significant horizon for him, vis-à-vis he locates himself. Ernst Toller, a playwright and a prominent political figure in Germany before the Second World War, presents a similar view. In his memoirs, he deals with the relationship between the Jewish and the German components of his identity: I thought of my own childhood, of my misery when the other children shouted “Dirty Jew!” . . . of my terrible joy when I realized that nobody would recognize me for a Jew . . . And was not the German language my language, the language in which I felt and thought and spoke, a part of my very being? But was I not also a Jew? A member of that great race that for centuries had been persecuted, harried, martyrized and slain; whose prophets had called the world to righteousness . . . who had never bowed their heads to their persecutors, who had preferred death and dishonor. I had denied my own mother, and I was ashamed.13 And if I were asked where I belonged I should answer that a Jewish mother had borne me, that Germany had nourished me, Europe had formed me, my home was the earth, and the world my fatherland.14

Toller, like Levi, begins with identification: “the other children shouted ‘Dirty Jew!’” This identification, which had burdened Toller’s life because of the attitude of the non-Jewish surroundings toward him, became in his reflective consciousness a permanent element of his identity: “But was I not 13 14

Ernst Toller, I Was a German: The Autobiography of Ernst Toller, trans. Edward Crankshaw (New York: William Morrow, 1934), 284. Ibid., 286.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

also a Jew?” His Jewish identity is affirmed as a primordial identity and is therefore reflected both in his being the child of a Jewish mother and in his general connection to the Jewish heritage. But this primordial identity does not preclude his evaluation of this identity’s importance vis-à-vis the other elements in his life. He can therefore answer the question about his sense of belongingness through a complex description of the various domains that had shaped his life and, at times, had created tensions and conflicts. Indeed, that is the nature of a multicultural identity: it cannot always be founded on one harmonious foundation—the primordial Jewish identity— that organizes life. This identity is present in the affirmation of the two axes of concrete identity—the diachronic axis that in Toller is represented by his mother and his heritage, and the synchronic axis—the German, European domain. From Hegel’s perspective, a complex disharmonious reality of this kind is impossible because identity is the specific bud of a specific flower or, more precisely, the objectification of an inner yearning that was concretized in an orderly cultural web. According to the primordial identity outline that I suggested, however, this reality is definitely plausible. The primordial Jewish identity that is already given within a cultural, historical, and social reality is not manifest in the shaping of an entire way of life but in the affirmation of the Jewish horizon, without determining that this horizon is the only constitutive one.

primordial identity and the “other” Recognizing a primordial identity means recognizing that human beings are neither objects of, nor constituted by, the “other.” The approach assuming a self determined by the other was formulated by Sartre. Within a Jewish context, it acquires further validity. Sartre’s approach is close to that of Theodor Herzl, but sheds new light on it and is far more sophisticated. He opens with a question resembling the ones that had bothered Herzl and other thinkers: “What is it, then, that serves to keep a semblance of unity in the Jewish community?” His answer: To reply to this question, we must come back to the idea of situation. It is neither their past, their religion, nor their soil that unites the sons of Israel. If they have a common bond, if all of them deserve the name of Jew, it is because they have in common the situation of a Jew, that is, they live in a community which takes them for Jews. In a word, the

69

70

C h a p te r 3

Jew is perfectly assimilable by modern nations, but he is to be defined as one whom these nations do not wish to assimilate. What weighed upon him originally was that he was the assassin of Christ.15 The Jew is one whom other men consider a Jew: that is the simple truth from which we must start.16

From this perspective, “the situation,” meaning the Jew’s primal factuality, shows that he is not “for himself,” but that he is for “himself as others see him” (56). Sartre does not view this matter as specific to Jews since, in the view he developed in Being and Nothingness, the self as such—and not necessarily the Jewish one—is determined by the other’s gaze. We are subject to the other’s gaze, which penetrates into our very existence and seeks to fixate us as objects. Sartre, however, perceives something unique in the connection between the non-Jew and the Jew. The Jew is not only a being who is for the other as any other being, but he is also—and mainly—a Jew for the other. He therefore sums up: “It amounts in a sense to a doubling of the fundamental relationship with the Other. The Jew is overdetermined” (ibid.). Jews, then, are constituted by the other rather than by their own immanent movement. They have no independent history. Sartre thus argues that the history of the Jews, at least those living in France about whom he wrote, reflects the following paradoxical fact: “The Jew is not yet historical, and yet he is the most ancient of peoples, or nearly so. That is what gives him the air of being perpetually aged and yet always young: he has wisdom and no history” (60). Sartre understood that, if the other is the one who determines the Jew’s existence as a Jew, then Jews are the object rather than the subject of history. Sartre’s radical position was widely criticized, and considering the objections exceeds the scope of my argument here. Its importance in the present context lies in its formal articulation: to be means to be for the other. Sartre held that the authentic Jew differs from the inauthentic one precisely on that count: whereas the inauthentic Jew seeks to elude the other’s gaze and disappear, the authentic one endorses the opposite stance: To be a Jew is to be thrown into— to be abandoned to— the situation of a Jew; and at the same time it is to be responsible in and through one’s own person for the destiny and the very nature of the Jewish 15 16

Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate, trans. George J. Becker (New York: Schocken Books, 1948), 48. Ibid., 49.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

people . . . authenticity for him is to live to the full[est] his condition as Jew; inauthenticity is to deny it or to attempt to escape from it. (64-65) Jewish authenticity consists in choosing oneself as Jew— that is, in realizing one’s Jewish condition . . . . He [the authentic Jew] is what he makes himself, that is all that can be said. In this isolation to which he has consented, he becomes again a man, a whole man. (98-99)

For Sartre, then, the primordial element of existence and particularly of Jewish existence is the external imposition—the gaze of the other fixating one as a Jew. Jews are thrown into their Judaism against their will and this thrownness determines their real existence, since human existence is constituted by the gaze of the other. Authentic existence, however, comes forth in the transformation of this necessity into a voluntary decision. Authentic Jews choose to be what they already are. On this point, Sartre goes back to fundamental existentialist conceptions that, since Kierkegaard, have viewed return as the quintessential manifestation of the authentic decision. Humans are no longer alienated when they adopt the data imposed on them. Only after you embrace what you already are, your past, only then do you realize your existence as a real self, since being a real self means not giving up any component of human existence. In the free movement of return, individuals bring the imposed, estranged past into their freedom, into real consciousness, and fully realize their being. Jews too, therefore, are charged with the task of endorsing what they already are: they have already been fixated as Jews by the other’s gaze, and dismissing or ignoring this gaze means disregarding their concrete existence. Authentic Jews therefore return to their Jewish existence and endorse it. The primordial identity thesis is in a dialogue with Sartre’s view. On the one hand, like Sartre, it assumes that the question of identity cannot be exhausted through the culture, given the existence of a primal, pre-cultural element through which culture is mediated. On the other, it negates the stance of Sartre, who does not acknowledge this primordiality and postulates that identity begins with the other’s gaze. Memmi describes this insight in his autobiographical novel. The protagonist of the work discovers anti-Semitism. What is special in Memmi’s description is the relationship between his being Jewish and anti-Semitism. Contrary to Sartre’s claim, however, his being a Jew is the primordial component of his existence, and anti-Semitism is interpreted through it: It was in high school that I discovered how painful it is to be a Jew. Until then, the world had been alien to me, hostile of course, but no more so than anything unknown. I was not the cause of my own suffering.

71

72

C h a p te r 3

I did not feel alien to myself as I do today . . . . Anti-Semitism seemed to be a characteristic of the others, much as they might have a way of speaking or of dressing. They were not Jews, as I was, so they were anti-Semites.17

But what is the nature of this primordial identity, both connected to the culture and unconditioned by it? Identity, including primordial identity, is manifest in specific modes of existence. Epistemically, however, this identity is paradoxical because, despite its primordiality, its contents can only be known ex post factum, by reflecting retroactively, and even then only as a first person testimony. Its most primary manifestation is the refusal to be other. Its content, then, is secondary to this absolute affirmation, although any affirmation of identity obviously involves an intentional element. People who affirm their identity affirm it “as” something—Jew, American, Muslim, and so forth. The “as” entails a distinct intentional aspect. The content of this aspect, however, is always secondary, just as the content of any intentional act is secondary to the act itself and, in the current context, to the self-affirmation act of being for myself “as.” Generally, this identity is a kind of reflective manifestation of the primordial necessity to be something, but specific cultural contents are contingent and conditioned and no single content can be determined as its basis. Affirmation as such, then, is empty, though it does fill up with diverse social and cultural modes, whether by way of affirmation or by way of denial. The primordial identity relates to a “horizon”—a culture, a society, a history—but this horizon is a permanent reference point rather than some fixed necessary content. Only someone speaking in first person can say something about these contents, and this primordial identity is revealed in the reflection on the necessity to be something. Its primordiality is thus not only empirical but also analytical—the first person speaker conveys what he is and this statement proclaims its primordiality. Recognizing this analytical primordiality is not merely a speculative exercise. Indeed, it is what enables every speaker as well as every observer of this identity to reject attempts to fixate a specific content as the necessary, and perhaps sufficient, condition for its creation. The primordial identity a priori rejects the other’s gaze, even the one expressing itself through the culture, social values, or any other content.

17

Albert Memmi, The Pillar of Salt, trans. Edouard Roditi (New York: Criterion Books, 1955), 255.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

One expression of the primordial Jewish identity construct is Jacob Wassermann’s book, The Maurizius Case. One of the characters says: Can you conceive that a man should try to deceive himself about his own birth? A complicated business. To be unwilling to be what one is, to deny the roots from which one has sprung—it means wearing one’s own skin like a borrowed coat . . . . The Jew wants to be a Jew. What is a Jew? No one can explain that to his complete satisfaction.18

Wassermann thus views primordial Jewish identity as a basic belongingness, comparable to the relationship between skin and flesh. Alienation from this identity is possible but harmful to human existence, since it detaches a person’s real existence from the mode of her appearance. Nevertheless, the specific content of the identity remains open or even vague. Philip Roth devoted a great deal of thought to the existential meaning of being a Jew and formulated his view in terms similar to Wassermann’s: “To me, being a Jew had to do with a real historical predicament into which you were born and not with some identity you chose to don after reading a dozen books.”19 Roth’s forthright statement brings together most of the meanings attached to the notion of the primordial identity. A primordial identity is not a voluntary choice. It is the recognition of the individual’s connection to the concrete reality of his or her birth. If you choose your Jewishness, it is only after the affirmation of the “real historical predicament into which you were born.” Being a Jew, then, is not the same as being a member of a library with many Jewish books, since being a Jew is not related to a specific content but to the affirmation of the existential situation of birth in a particular context. This affirmation precedes any set of beliefs, values, or acts. Roth can therefore resolutely claim: I have always been far more pleased by my good fortune in being born a Jew than my critics may begin to imagine. It’s a complicated, interesting, morally demanding, and very singular experience, and I like that. I find myself in the historic predicament of being Jewish, with all its implications.20

To turn birth as a Jew into an event constitutive of identity is an ex post factum act of judgment, the product of a reflection that returns to the past 18 19 20

Jacob Wassermann, The Maurizius Case (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1930), 297. Philip Roth, The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988), 126. Philip Roth, Reading Myself and Others (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975), 20.

73

74

C h a p te r 3

and affirms it as an active element in the present. This affirmation, however, does not mean adopting content but relating to the “historic predicament of being Jewish”—tying the Jew to the diachronic horizon of Jewish existence. It is only from there that the Jew addresses concrete identity contents.

testimony and marginal jews Primordial identity, as noted, is discernible in personal testimonies. These testimonies are at times implicit and witnesses may be “marginal” or “detached” Jews. A complex discussion on the meaning and nature of identity should therefore precede the discussion of these testimonies, but I can only confine myself here to a few preliminary remarks. First, the social construct of center and periphery, or detachment and attachment, ultimately conveys one of two options. The first is the adoption of a hegemonic-essentialist notion of identity that proclaims a priori what the identity should be. It does not view identity as a personal project constituted by the narrative that people create for themselves, a narrative that builds the permanent foundations of their lives and their connections to others. Detachment and estrangement could provide an important perspective on the primordial identity, which is usually concealed by the thick culture encircling it. Crises of belongingness to a hegemonic culture could be the reflective augenblick affording a glimpse of the primordial identity. A crisis may compel a fundamental decision on identity, and the primary identity may then burst forth. One illuminating example is the story “Whither,” by Mordecai Ze’ev Feuerberg. Nahman, the protagonist, has lost his religious faith and feels estranged from the culture that had shaped his life but, precisely at that moment, recognizes his primordial Jewish identity: It’s my curse, he thought, to belong to a nation that has nothing in this world but its religion. This leaves only two choices . . . to attack the faith or defend it . . . and yet all that I want for myself is to be a free man. I can’t spend my life being for or against religion . . . there are other things that I want to be, and other things that I want to do for myself and among my people.21

Nahman recognizes that his Jewish identity compels him to relate to a Jewish context, but the prevalent one is no longer relevant to him. After dis21

Mordecai Ze’ev Feuerberg, Whither? and Other Stories, trans. Hillel Halkin (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973), 127.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

missing religion, he could have denied his Jewish identity but, upon reflection, he seeks a different Jewish fullness, unrelated to religion. He does not know what cultural content will fill his identity, but he does know that it will become manifest “among my people,” and he thereby affirms his primordial Jewish identity. In phenomenological terms, the estrangement and the detachment could be viewed as a bracketing, as it were, which removes the contingent and leads to the “essence” that is now known directly. Nahman’s estrangement from the hegemonic space enables him to reflect on the primordial element. Situations of detachment can thus be viewed as the tearing of a concealing screen to gain a glimpse of more primordial elements hidden by the hegemonic culture. But if the testimony about identity is in first person singular, what connects these different individuals? What turns individual Jews who affirm their primordial identity into a Jewish community? What matters for the current discussion is the construct of this question. Its implicit premise is that, given the existence of a specific practical goal—preserving the Jewish community—the meaning of identity should be constituted through this practice. But how can this argument be the element that determines who the person is for himself? What is the person’s identity for herself? This question also assumes as obvious that the cultural-social component is primordial for people who constitute a community. But this assumption is hard to substantiate, as ties between parents and children or within a couple will show. Are these mutual ties at all related to some cultural-social context? Do ties between parents and their children or between partners cease to be binding because they may no longer share a culture or social relationships? Such circumstances are possible, but are they instances of wider phenomena? Though the relationship of a couple or a family is unquestionably a cultural and social construction, this structure is too thin to contain the claim that the thick cultural-social element is the identity’s main foundation.

primordial identity and judaism Primordial identity comes forth in solidarity and empathy for those we recognize as “one of us.” This recognition does not necessarily indicate that we belong to the same cultural-social setting and, at times, may actually overpower cultural and social loyalties by invoking a kind of shared destiny.

75

76

C h a p te r 3

We are by now used to granting decisive weight to culture in our lives and no longer notice that we thereby negate our own being. A primordial identity begins from individuals and significantly challenges a cultural identity that begins from the “we” who bear the culture, the “we” denoting the hegemons who determine what the culture is and what are its boundaries, who is in and who is out. The term “Judaism” denotes many spans of culture that are part of historical and social contexts of meaning. The cultural, historical thickness of Jewish existence often blurs the primordial Jewish identity that is often perceived as contingent. Can there be a primordial Judaism that does not depend on standard contexts of meaning? Are those thought “detached” perhaps the ones who return what had been lost and enable us to see how primordial Jewish identity functions? Against the prevalent hegemonic view stressing the role of culture in the constitution of identity in general and Jewish identity in particular, I wish to reiterate the presence of a primordial Jewish identity that is emblematic of identity in general. I rely on first-person testimonies, tracing the reflections of some of this identity’s prominent representatives, beginning with Sigmund Freud. In the introduction to the Hebrew version of Totem and Taboo, Freud grapples with the meaning of his existence as a Jew: No reader of [the Hebrew version of] this book will find it easy to put himself in the emotional position of an author who is ignorant of the language of holy writ, who is completely estranged from the religion of his fathers—as well as from every other religion—and who cannot take a share in nationalist ideals, but who has yet never repudiated his people, who feels that he is in his essential nature a Jew and who has no desire to alter that nature. If the question were put to him: “Since you have abandoned all these common characteristics of your countrymen, what is there left to you that is Jewish?” he would reply: “A very great deal, and probably its very essence.” He could not now express that essence clearly in words; but some day, no doubt, it will become accessible to the scientific mind.22

This text is, in my view, one of the deepest articulations of the primordial identity thesis. Freud traces the borders of this identity not as a speculative theory but as a personal testimony of his own self-perception.

22

Sigmund Freud, “Preface to the Hebrew Translation,” in Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, trans. James Strachey (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950), xi.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

His primordial identity is related to the contents of a cultural web— an ancestral religion, national ideals, a language—but does not depend on them. The connection is in the recognition of the cultural spectrum as found “there,” in the ascription network that he relates to: the religion is the religion of his fathers, the language is their language, and the national ideals are the ideals of those who belong to the cultural-historical network that he refers to. But this entire cultural building is the superstructure rather than the “Jewish essence,” which is pre-cultural. The precedence, the primordiality conveying attachment and commitment to a Jewish “horizon,” enable Freud to determine his attitude to this intricate web. What turns this web into a reference point is his recognition of it as part of his identity. Although he has detached himself, the tie is still there because this web constituted his fathers’ world and, therefore, his own location vis-à-vis this horizon—he belongs to it even if he rejects its contents. The recognition of the genealogical ascription, of the family, of the lineage, is the starting point for expressing the primordial identity. Freud is a child of his fathers, even if he accepts nothing from their values and their world. This is not immediately obvious because the primordial ascription disappears precisely due to the thickness of our cultural, historical, and social surroundings, and Freud pinpoints this vanishing primary foundation. From this perspective, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi was mistaken when he stated that Freud’s view conveys the primacy of the negation, the “stubborn insistence on defining himself via negationis, by a series of reductions. He is not a Jew by religion, or in national terms, or through language . . . yet in some profound sense he remains a Jew.”23 But Freud is not yet a Jew “in some profound sense,” and he does not merely “remain a Jew,” detached and estranged. Freud is a Jew who discovered the primordiality of his existence as a Jew. The negation is not merely a reflection through which Freud arrives at the irreducible—the “Jewish essence.” The basic expression of this essence is twofold. First, the refusal to be other or, more precisely, the inner impossibility of being other—in Luther’s words: “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.” The other, then, does not function as the one who defines and constitutes my identity but as one who denies it, and the other’s denial constitutes the primordial affirmation of my existence. Second, the recognition of the genealogical ascription as a primordial element. The identity’s primordial nature is evident in its precedence to any visible manifestation 23

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Freud’s Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 14.

77

78

C h a p te r 3

discernible by the other. In Freud’s cautious, ironic formulation—“he could not now express that essence clearly in words.” But is there any time when this primordial quality would become an object of reflection? Freud reiterates this stance and complements the text discussed above in a speech before the Society of B’nai B’rith. His Judaism, he claims, does not rest on religion or on national pride, which he had endeavored to suppress “as harmful and wrong.” And yet, “I was myself a Jew, and it had always seemed to me not only unworthy but positively senseless to deny the fact.”24 After dismissing the elements he considers irrelevant, he reaches the irreducible one that he had begun with—his primordial Jewish identity. Freud seeks to give a clear account on this question and offers a far clearer and more radical formulation than the one in the preface to Totem and Taboo: But plenty of other things remained over to make the attraction of Jewry and Jews irresistible—many obscure emotional forces, which were the more powerful the less they could be expressed in words, as well as a clear consciousness of inner identity, the safe privacy of a common mental construction.25

Freud had claimed in the preface to Totem and Taboo that the inability to articulate the primordial identity was, as it were, temporary—“now” it cannot be expressed in words. In the present text, his claim is far-fetched— precisely because it is primordial, it is dark. The very meaning of primordiality is that it cannot be objectified and, most certainly, cannot be explicated by means of the secondary components through which it is revealed. This appears to be a classic Kantian move: the a priori component in our consciousness, which constitutes the objectification, is doomed to be unobjectifiable and known only through the traces of its secondary activity. Reflective consciousness can identify it but cannot turn it into an object of thematic thought. Freud concludes his preface to Totem and Taboo in a supremely ironic note: “but some day, no doubt, it [the essence] will become accessible to the scientific mind.” But what will be the contribution of this scientific pursuit? Will it find the key to the magic cave that no one can enter except the individual? How will this primordial connection, which is not subject to external scrutiny, be deciphered? Freud’s ironic formulation suggests 24

25

Sigmund Freud, “Address to the Society of B’nai B’Rith” (1926), in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 20, An Autobiographical Study, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, The Question of Lay Analysis and Other Works 1925-1926) (London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-analysis, 1959), 273. Ibid.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

that, ultimately, only the bearer of the identity can attest to it because this identity is internal and individuals will judge their relationship with contingent cultural contexts from its vantage point. Freud’s answer to the question as to whether only a marginal individual detached from the cultural network of meaning has a primordial identity is obviously negative. Detachment from the culture does enable identification of this fundamental primordiality, which does not depend on the “other” and is a positive element shaping the person’s stance vis-à-vis existence— every person and, in the current framework, every Jew. Without this primal affirmation, identity is meaningless and we are doomed to a choice between two rejected options: phenomenalism or romanticism. The writings of the young Ahad Ha-Am and Joseph Chayim Brenner— who are certainly not marginal or (at least not Ahad Ha-Am) “detached” Jews—support the view that a primordial identity is not limited to these types. In two texts, Ahad Ha-Am lucidly presents the primordial identity thesis, even if he expressed reservations about it in his later works: I at least know “why I remain a Jew”—or rather, I can find no meaning in such a question, any more than if I were asked why I remain my father’s son. I at least speak my mind concerning the beliefs and the opinions I have inherited from my ancestors, without fearing to snap the bond that unites me to my people . . . . In a word, I am my own, and my opinions and feelings are my own . . . . And this spiritual freedom—scoff who will!—I would not exchange or barter for all the emancipation in the world.26

Like Freud after him, Ahad Ha-Am argues that identity is contingent on a positive connection to the tradition, unlike kinship, which is not. Being a child to one’s parents is not necessarily a declaration about a set of beliefs and values common to parents and children. Children can repudiate this contingent set and feel deeply attached to their parents; their mutual connection is primal and usually overrides the question of agreement on ideas and social concerns. Elsewhere, Ahad Ha-Am cites at length a “Western rabbi” who, he finds, echoes his own view: Why are we Jews? How strange the very question! Ask the fire why it burns! Ask the sun why it shines! Ask the tree why it grows! . . . Thus, 26

Ahad Ha-Am, Selected Essays of Ahad Ha-Am, trans. Leon Simon (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1912), 194.

79

80

C h a p te r 3

ask the Jew why he is a Jew. We cannot but be what we are . . . . Not the Jewish Torah, not Jewish faith—this is not the original reason, the initial drive, but rather Jewish feeling, an instinctive feeling that cannot be defined in words. Call it whatever you wish, call it a blood relationship, the feeling of the Jewish race or the spirit of the nation, but more than any of them, it would be best to call it: the Hebrew heart.27

This text is a kind of testimony in Shoshana Felman’s sense, a revelation of what, in principle, cannot be talked about through objectified speech.28 The exclamation marks in the text are the tautological voice bursting from an inner testimony: Jews are Jews because they are Jews. This primal determination is not contingent on religion, or on faith, or on culture. It shines from inside as a necessity that people discover by themselves—“we cannot but be what we are.” This necessity is emblematic of primordiality, neither chosen nor mediated, and should not be interpreted as a denial of human freedom. Although people can detach themselves from this necessity and transcend it, it is a symptom of the primordiality wherein they already are or, in existentialist terms, the “thrownness” they are already part of. But the experience of necessity or “thrownness” does not include the entire cultural baggage, from which it is easier to be released since it is not part of the experience of necessity. Ahad Ha-am’s consistent reaffirmation of primordial identity is significant beyond its contents because of its function in the discourse about this identity’s marginality. If we assume that primordial identity is marginal, we must conclude that Ahad Ha-Am too supports the notion of a marginal Jewish identity. But beyond the cultural-historical absurdity of such a determination, it is clear that Ahad Ha-am, at least in his youth, had not viewed this stance as an expression of marginality but as the deepest expression of a pre-cultural and unmediated primordial identity: to be a Jew precedes any other position and all cultural moldings, which are merely modes of Jewish existence. Brenner, Ahad Ha-am’s younger contemporary and his scholarly opponent, introduces the notion of primordial identity in his article “On the ‘Vision’ of Apostasy.”29 Brenner offers two alternatives that challenge 27 28 29

Ahad Ha-Am, Collected Writings (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1965), 151 [Heb]. See Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (New York: Routledge, 1992). Joseph Chayim Brenner, Writings, vol. 3 (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1978-1985), 476-487 [Heb]. The analysis of Brenner’s stance is based on my book, To Be a Jew: Joseph Chayim Brenner as a Jewish Existentialist, trans. Batya

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

primordial Jewish identity—one religious and one cultural. He rejects the religious option because it is not the one prevalent in his Jewish surroundings. In his formulation, “I do not see that the question of religion and faith is of such great concern to my people,” and those who do continue the ritual tradition do so as part of a custom rather than on religious grounds, “through habit, through an inertia that will certainly persist for a very long time.”30 The young generation has already transcended the routine of Jewish practice and “I hear them talking about relations between people, between man and woman, between nations, between classes; talking and concerned with the riddle of life and of existence in general, with the realms of matter and spirit . . . they would not dream of sitting down to discuss theological trifles” (479). This factual analysis leads Brenner to the conclusion that the saying “there are no Jews without Jewish religion” is mistaken, because “a Jew and phylacteries are not the same thing” (ibid.). Furthermore, religion is only one configuration of more primary elements, and is itself contingent on the specific historical circumstances of its emergence: “Religion per se, with all its ceremonies and absurdities, is merely a part of the form of life that people have created voluntarily-by force, impelled by the economic-spiritual and human-national circumstances of their lives” (481). Once religion has been dismissed, culture emerges as the primary human option. Brenner’s critique of the cultural element is particularly interesting and focuses on the canonical texts of Hebrew culture. Brenner does not deny that Jews have such texts, but he refuses to see them as a necessary foundation of their lives—the fact that they are part of the cultural network does not mean that they are necessary, and he aims at Scripture in particular: As for me, even the Old Testament does not have the value that all scream about—“Scripture,” “The Book of Books,” “The Holy Writ,” and so forth. I have been liberated from the hypnosis of the twenty-four books of the Bible for a long, long time . . . Many secular books of recent times are much closer to me, far greater and deeper in my eyes. (482-483)

The importance of this text lies in Brenner’s testimony, whose validity transcends the personal story: if Brenner the man has been freed from these

30

Stein (London: Continuum, 2011), especially chap. 8. Brenner, Writings, vol. 3, 478.

81

82

C h a p te r 3

texts, so can all Jews living among Jews. These texts, therefore, do not reflect a necessary primordial identity. Brenner’s attack focuses on positions that Ahad Ha-Am formulated at a later stage, when he repeatedly argued that people find themselves within a culture that determines them, without a free decision on their part, because the social environment produces the hypnotic sleep in him [the individual] from his earliest years. In the form of education, it imposes on him a load of various commands, which from the outset limit his movements, and give a definite character to his intelligence, his feelings, his impulses, and his desires.31

Ahad Ha-Am adopted the cultural identity thesis and, therefore, held it to be a necessary foundation of human life. Against this thesis, Brenner set freedom and self-transcendence, but without assuming that people can live outside culture altogether. Indeed, his premise is that people create a “form of life . . . voluntarily-by force, impelled by the economic-spiritual and human-national circumstances of their lives.” But factual, historical, cultural, and social necessity is only so within the space where it functions and for whom it functions as such. In truth, that is the nature of the necessity component in identity that, since Kierkegaard, has pointed to a factual (rather than logical) component and, as such, is analytically contingent given its dependence on circumstances. If the specific religion and culture are not a necessity, they cannot be a component of primordial Jewish identity, given that the term “Jewish identity” is meant to include many different individuals. What, then, is the primordial Jewish identity? Brenner’s answer is unequivocal: a paradoxical combination of necessity and will. Necessity comes forth in Jews who find themselves as Jews, but the very recognition of this necessity occurs through the will that repeatedly endorses it.32 Jews who are born as Jews cannot rely on the conceptual and cultural modes of a specific Jewish existence. To make Jewish existence meaningful to their own lives, they must participate in its shaping. Its cultural content is secondary. In Brenner’s view, then, Jewish identity is created above all by an inner necessity that is reaffirmed by will and practice. He identifies primordial identity as pre-cultural and as a basic position that then impels cultural action. 31 32

Ahad Ha-Am, Selected Essays, 91-92. On this matter, see Sagi, To Be a Jew, 176-177.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

primordial jewish identity: necessity or freedom Herzl, who was Ahad Ha-am’s most significant opponent, endorses in The Jewish State the thesis of a primordial Jewish identity. He addresses the question of Jewish existence—how to interpret the existence of a people that, like the phoenix, refuses to die? In one of this work’s most famous determinations, Herzl writes: But the distinctive nationality of the Jews cannot, will not, and need not perish. It cannot, because external foes hold it together. That it does not want to perish it has proved through two thousand years of enormous suffering. It need not perish; this is what I am trying to demonstrate in this pamphlet, following many other Jews who did not abandon hope.33

These concise sentences seek to grapple with the riddle of Jewish existence: a dispersed nation that has preserved unity and mutual ties; a nation without organized political and military power holding on to its existence and refusing to perish; a nation living outside its place and time, outside world history, and surviving. Jewish existence is a marvel that Herzl seeks to explain. Refusing to rely on theological-metaphysical assumptions and insisting on the need for examining the historical, social, and cultural circumstances that have produced this wonder, he points to two contradictory elements: the inability of the Jewish people to disappear and their inner will. Jews cannot truly assimilate and disappear because the outside world does not accept them and forces them to remain Jews. Herzl reports at length on the Jews’ efforts to assimilate: “Everywhere we have sincerely endeavored to merge with the national communities surrounding us and to preserve only the faith of our fathers. We are not permitted to do so.”34 In this analysis, the Jewish people is the object rather than the subject of its continued existence—the non-Jewish other prevents their assimilation. Before Sartre, Herzl acknowledged an external necessity in Jewish existence, but unlike Sartre, who assumed a dialectical relationship between necessity and will, Herzl presented them as contradictory. For Sartre, the will comes after external necessity. The will endorses the necessity imposed from outside and turns it into a constitutive element of Jewish identity. But why should Jews choose the external will? Why does 33 34

Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat), trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Herzl Press, 1970), 37. Ibid., 33.

83

84

C h a p te r 3

adopting the other’s gaze make this decision authentic? Why must the Jew depend on this gaze rather than reject it outright? Herzl, who may have sensed the weight of these questions, suggested as an alternative an inner will that is entirely unconditioned by necessity. He may have been annoyed by a thesis that premises Jewish existence on a negative foundation and entrusts Jewish fate to strangers. He therefore added the second, contradictory element—the Jewish people’s inner will to survive. Elsewhere in the introduction, Herzl makes a deep, impassioned plea conveying this will: “We are a people, one people.”35 What is the relationship between these two contradictory elements? Is Jewish existence a necessity of destiny unconditioned by actual Jewish existence or is Jewish existence contingent on a decision of the will? Is the Jewish people an object of history or possibly its sovereign subject? But is continued existence indeed the only alternative available to the Jewish people? Note Herzl’s formulation—Jews actively pursued assimilation and sought “to preserve only the faith of our fathers.” Herzl fails to note the banal fact that, for the other, preserving this faith denies the possibility of integration, since the nations of the world understood what Herzl had not: Jewish faith is a national faith. In the perception of European nationality at the turn of the century, the prevalent assumption was that people could not become part of a nationality unless they renounced another. From a liberal perspective, the citizens’ duty is to comply with the country’s laws; they are not required to pledge loyalty to the nationality. This view enables membership in one national community and citizenship in another political community. But this perspective was not sufficiently strong in Herzl’s time in many parts of Europe, nor is it always prevalent now, even in contemporary Israel. This background points to Herzl’s mistake. Jews did not truly seek assimilation. They sought to preserve their fathers’ faith together with their desire to assimilate. In these terms, Herzl should have worded his determination as follows: “The Jewish people does not wish to end and, therefore, cannot end.” The Jewish people is the subject of its own history and, therefore, because of its inner will to survive, cannot end. Herzl’s attempt to link these two contradictory perspectives leads to the conclusion that, even when Jews are willing to shed their cultural garb, they do not want to be non-Jews. Their Judaism is primal. Herzl may have been a marginal Jew, perhaps even detached and alienated. Ahad Ha-Am definitely was not. The historical irony is that, contrary to the accepted truism, the marginal and the detached do not necessarily 35

Ibid. (emphasis in original).

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

hold on to the last shreds of their identity. Their ostensibly marginal stance enables them to perform a kind of phenomenological reduction and shed whatever is not essential. They are no less Jews than those Jews who have a thick Jewish culture; they are Jews who touch the very bottom, beyond which is the non-Jewish domain. The positive primordial identity, because it is primal, touches the margins of the possible negation by the non-Jew. Finally, Franz Rosenzweig offers an enlightening example of primordial identity. His statement is significant in that he, as a believer, recognizes an identity that is pre-religious because it is pre-cultural, and founded on what he calls the “blood community,” referring to a family element.36 The core of Jewish existence is the self—the primal, pre-cultural, and pre-social foundation. Humans, rather than creating the self, discover it as primal: The Self invests man one day like a soldier in arms . . . . Up to this day—it is always a definite day, even if man no longer remembers it—man is a piece of the world even before his own consciousness . . . . The breaking in of the Self robs him in one blow of all the riches and all the goods that he claimed to possess. He becomes very poor, he has no more than himself and knows only himself, no one knows him any longer; for there is no one there besides him. The Self is the lonely man in the hardest sense of the word. The “political animal” is the personality.37

These determinations are particularly important for Jewish existence because they serve to relocate the relationship as one between religion and culture on the one hand, and existence on the other. To be a Jew is a primal foundation for Rosenzweig, who reiterates this argument in various contexts. In one of his letters, he states: “Judaism is not law. It creates law, but is not law.”38 In another letter, he notes: “When the Jew is attacked (a Jew as I know him, that is, a religious Jew), he should not place the Torah before him as a shield—the place of the Jew is before the Torah.”39 The consciousness of the self repeatedly discovers that it both conveys and reflects the heritage. The human being, argues Rosenzweig, cannot change his own skin. That skin, that self he depends upon— he, who sees himself as omnipotent vis-à-vis the past—does not come 36 37 38 39

Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans. Barbara E. Galli (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 299. Ibid., 80. Franz Rosenzweig, Der Mensch und sein Werk: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Rachel Rosenzweig and Edith RosenzweigScheinmann, vol. 2, Briefe und Tagebücher 1918-1929 (Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), 762. Ibid., vol. 1, Briefe und Tagebücher 1900-1918, 95.

85

86

C h a p te r 3

from nowhere. It is a legacy from that very past whose spirit he strives to know. The spirit of the present is itself the continuation and the heir—if not the product—of that past. Instead of mastering the past, he finds himself depending on it.40

Morante, who conveys clear awareness of primordial identity in general and of the Jewish one in particular, describes with great sensitivity the coercive power of primordial Jewish identity from Ida’s perspective: Towards the end, almost every day, on the pretext of having to buy some little article, but actually without any specific motivation, Ida, on leaving school, would set off for the Jewish quarter. She felt drawn there by a summons of sweetness, like the stable’s smell for a calf, or a souk’s for an Arab woman; and also by an impulse of obsessive necessity, like a planet gravitating around a star . . . . but even after the beginning of the summer vacation, despite the distance from San Lorenzo, every so often she would follow her familiar summons.41

Morante understands that the power coercing Ida to reach the Jewish area, the ghetto, is not necessarily an oppressive power that Ida seeks release from, since it also entails pleasure. The combination of pleasure and necessity means that the necessity is entirely internal—it is the voice of the primordial Jewish identity striving to create contact with some Jewish space of existence, even if culturally insubstantial. This fundamental need of the primordial identity leads Ida to the Jews, to their geographic location rather than to the fullness of their cultural-religious life. She knows that the Jewish quarter is “behind the Synagogue.” The cultural domain is not alien to her. It is embodied in the geographic space and its familiarity also reflects some familiarity with the cultural domain. We may therefore assume that “the little settlement behind the Synagogue” refers not only to a geographic space but to the importance of the religious-cultural domain—the synagogue precedes the settlement. And yet, Ida does not go to the synagogue but to the place of Jewish life, one she does not explain or describe because that is the meaning of the primordial identity experience: a fundamental enlistment without thematic or explicit justifications. Nevertheless, and actually because of it, it is primordial. I have reviewed here personal comments of thinkers and writers who, at one stage or another, discovered primordial identity, a matter crucial to the 40 41

Franz Rosenzweig, “Geist und Epochen der Jüdischen Geschichte,” in Kleinere Schriften (Berlin: Schocken, 1937), 14. Morante, History, 110.

Pr i m o rd i a l Id e nti t y : Th e Je wish Case

current discussion. The usual focus on the contents of Jewish identity tends to blur the primal foundation. Overlooking primordial identity as an active element in life while addressing only cultural or religious aspects could turn the identity quest into an intellectual voyage between libraries and ideas. On the other hand, those establishing Jewish existence solely on a primordial identity could end up without any contents, rituals, or cultural structure. Shaping culture as an existential lifestyle entails a constant movement between the affirmation of the primordial identity and its actual manifestations. To be a Jew means to recognize the necessity of being a Jew, to be a member of an existing family into which one is thrown, and its relationship with the cultural forms of life. The voyage of identity is thus a voyage between the primal affirmation of what we already are and the shaping of our existence. The contemporary challenges to Jewish identity touch on the relationship between its synchronic and diachronic components: ethos, myths, and rituals on the one hand, and the primordial foundation on the other. The excessive focus on one of these two types of identity, which had been widespread in the past, neutralizes permanent elements in the constitution of human identity. Identity is always translated into a cultural web, but is contingent on a primary, non-metaphysical, pre-cultural foundation that organizes and regulates the cultural shaping. Without a cultural web, human identity will be empty of any content. Without a primordial identity, however, the cultural identity will be a random web of culture and social structuring lacking a constitutive foundation to judge and regulate the connections between the synchronic and diachronic axes. Founding Jewish identity solely on cultural grounds and without a primal subject does not explain the development and the organization of the Jewish cultural and social structuring. Furthermore, if Jewish identity is constituted solely by culture, to be a Jew means no more than being a member of a library or a partner to a set of ideas and practices. The experience of a shared destiny and of Jewish solidarity are, as it were, pointers to more primary links, resembling family ties. To be a Jew means to be a member of a specific family rather than of a metaphorical-conceptual one. To be a Jew means to situate existence within a set of connections and maintain a permanent relationship with the modes of its realization in Jewish existence. To be a Jew means “to be there,” prior to any specific cultural form. This stance is the foundation of Jewish culture throughout history, distinguishing the Jew from an outsider identifying with Jewish ideas and practices. Recognizing this primordiality in Jewish existence, then, is not the end but rather the beginning.

87

89

The central claim of Part One, stating that identity is inherent to a specific reality, is emblematic of the shift from an essentialist to a constructionist or multicultural conception of identity. If identity indeed assumes shape within a culture, a history, an actual reality, the essentialist discourse loses all meaning. But this view of identity could lead to its fragmentation into the socio-cultural contexts of people’s lives, and some postmodern thinkers have indeed renounced the concept of identity altogether, even in the limited sense presented in Part One. Against this claim, Part One points to the key role of individuals in the regulation of their lives’ cultural and social settings, covering the actual cultural contents that they affirm as well as their frequent re-evaluation and re-interpretation. The hero is one who, though living in a specific history and culture, is not controlled by them and engages in an ongoing dialogue with their components. This dialogue is founded on a core identity, to which I refer as “primordial.” The primordial identity affirms cultural, historical, and social horizons that are personally relevant and urges a dynamics of dialogue, socialization, and meaning. A struggle for hegemony, however, often unfolds over the determination of the “correct” horizon and the attempt to negate other modes of affirming and constituting cultural, historical, or social meaning. The Jewish identity discourse in Israel fits this description—a struggle for hegemony is still ongoing, focusing on the hierarchical regulation of “Jewish” culture and, in fact, of Jewish identity. As the state of Jews, Israel should purportedly enable various Jewish identities to flourish and diverse Jewish cultures to prosper, without granting preference to any. Israel is supposed to deal with questions of Jewish “identification” deriving from its laws, but neither can nor should deal with Jewish identities, which are a topic for a dialogue between concrete individuals to be conducted in the public realm. It is in Israel, however, that the confrontation between various Jewish identities in both the political-legal and the public realms reaches a height and, in Part Two, I analyze several variations of it. Chapter Four highlights the significance of the distinction between a discourse of identity and a discourse of rights, showing how the translation of an identity clash into one of rights intensifies the conflict. The analysis in Chapter Five reaches similar findings regarding the transposition of identity differences into the political key of the religion and state relationship. People, however, are not only historical creatures living in a political realm. They live somewhere, and the place is an expression of their being

90

concrete creatures. Chapter Six focuses on this connection and explores the question of whether Jewish identity is contingent on a specific place or, as George Steiner argues, the Jew’s homeland is the text. Through an analysis of the biblical text, this chapter concludes that Jews are not destined to eternal wandering—they do have a place, but their existence within it is unique and affects both the constitution of the Jew as a self and the Jew’s standing in the political realm. A complex panoramic picture of the meaning of identity in general and of Jewish identity in particular thus emerges.

Ch a p te r 4

BEtwEEn a rights discoursE and an i dEntity d iscoursE

Israeli society has been engaged since its foundation in an incisive discourse about fundamental issues touching on the relationship between its various components. In this chapter, I examine this discourse in light of two key concepts: the discourse of rights and the discourse of identity. These two modes of discourse both reflect and shape different types of relationships between the parties to the discourse. Patterns of intra-social discourse have proved highly revealing concerning a society’s character. My central claim is that Israeli society speaks mainly through a discourse of rights, as evinced by its frequent recourse to the legal system and to arguments from legal language. I begin this discussion with an analysis of Chief Justice Aharon Barak’s decision on the Bar-Ilan Road affair.1 This decision is interesting insofar as Justice Barak implicitly acknowledges a distinction between these two types of discourse. Pointing to the limitations of legal discourse, which is emblematic of the discourse of rights, he opens as follows: In Israel’s public discourse, Bar-Ilan is no longer a road and has become a social concept. It signals a deep political controversy between the ultra-Orthodox and the secularists. It is not merely a conflict about freedom of movement on the Sabbath. Fundamentally, it is a harsh conflict about the relationship between religion and state in Israel, a glaring dispute about the character of Israel as a Jewish or a democratic state. This conflict has now turned up at the door of the court and we must decide on it, despite the political consequences. (15)

According to Justice Barak, two different contexts were at play in the Bar-Ilan Road affair: the political-social context and the legal context. 1

Lior Horev v. The Ministry of Transport, Supreme Court of Justice 5016/96, PD 51(4) 1 (henceforth Bar-Ilan Road affair).

92

C h a p te r 4

The political-social context reflects the fundamental controversy between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews over the character of the State of the Israel, whereas the legal context raises the question of freedom of movement on the Sabbath. In the wake of this distinction, Justice Barak states: Our concern is not the social dispute, our considerations are not political. Our interest is the legal controversy; our considerations are normative. We do not deal with the relationship between ultraOrthodox and secularists in Israel. For us, the issue is not the relationship between religion and state in Israel . . . Our interest is simply the Bar-Ilan Road; the mandate of the Central Signposting Authority and the latitude of its discretion. Our concern is the relationship between freedom of movement on the one hand, and hurting religious feelings and a religious way of life on the other hand. (15)

Justice Barak is aware of apprehensions about the role that the legal system should assume in the political-social discourse, given that legal issues are only one aspect of the broader public context. He therefore adds: Apprehensions are rife lest the court be seen as abandoning its appropriate location and descending into the arena of public controversy . . . . In this sense, I see myself here, compelled as I am by law to rule on all issues brought before the court, as working under an imposition, well knowing that the public will not pay attention to the legal rationale but only to the final conclusion, and the Court’s standing as an institution that is above publicly divisive matters could be hurt. What can we do, however, when this is our role and our obligation as judges. (15)

Relying on this analysis, Justice Barak then argues that the Court is not a suitable venue for contending with this confrontation, which should rather be returned to its natural context—the public-social arena where it originated. He recommends “reaching social consensus between the various segments of the public in all that concerns transportation during the Sabbath” (25). Justice Barak even outlines the suitable parameters of this consensus, claiming that it should rely on a far-reaching discourse and develop mechanisms for interpersonal dialogue. In his formulation: “this consensus will be based on mutual patience and tolerance” (25), and will have to offer solutions for the specific problem on the public agenda, as well as examine its broader context. Hence, it “will focus not only on the question of whether the Bar-Ilan road should be closed to traffic on the

B e t we e n a R i g hts D i s co u rs e a n d a n Id ent it y Disco ur se

Sabbath, but will also deal with the projected social dynamic, and with its influence on secular-religious relationships in Jerusalem over the coming years” (25). This analysis, then, assumes that the legal context is essentially different from the public socio-political context, since the legal procedure is confined to the specific problem presented to the court by plaintiffs and defendants. The judicial decision determines who won and who lost the lawsuit; it is not interested in the interpersonal relationships between the parties, nor in the future dynamics of the relationships between the social groups to which the parties belong. In these statements, Justice Barak implicitly acknowledges that two different types of discourse exist in Israeli society: a rights discourse and an identity discourse. In terms of this conceptual framework, Justice Barak is therefore claiming that the rights discourse cannot replace the identity discourse. The constant transposition of the identity discourse to a key of rights may actually distort the meaning of the identity discourse and, thereby, its broader social context. A systematic analysis of the phenomenology characterizing these two types of discourse is my concern in the next sections.

the rights discourse In a discourse of rights, a negotiation process unfolds between two parties: the plaintiffs, who demand their rights, and the defendants, who are the object of a claim imposing on them matching obligations. This discourse may, but need not, take place within a court of law. A discourse of rights prevails wherever its features prevail, and, for instance, the relationship between a client and a bank clerk belongs in this category as well. The distinguishing feature of a rights discourse, then, is not its location but the identification of the parties as plaintiffs and defendants. Underlying this discourse, then, is the concept of right. Two main types of theories attempt to explain the meaning and the role of the concept of right: theories of interest and theories of will.2 Theories of interest, linked to the philosophical tradition of utilitarianism, assume that the role of rights is to promote the interests of individuals or groups. By contrast, 2

The discussion that follows is based on the analysis in James W. Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights: Philosophical Reflections on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). See 19-23 in particular.

93

94

C h a p te r 4

theories of will, linked to the Kantian philosophical tradition, assume that the role of rights is to promote the autonomy of individuals or groups. In my discussion, I endorse the theory of interest that Joseph Raz proposes for the concept of right.3 Raz points to the role of this concept in practical thinking. Claiming that an individual or group has a right usually implies that the interest of the individual or group is a sufficient reason for claiming that others are under an obligation. Obviously, not every individual or group interest turns automatically into a right, and only an interest that is sufficiently valuable and important imposes a matching obligation on the other. In this definition, however, the concept of right assumes an additional dimension, which conditions the very possibility of a rights discourse. If a right is a demand from the other, this implies the existence of some legal system—judicial, moral, or other—agreed upon by the parties to the discourse. In the absence of a shared legal system, to speak of a right as a demand from the other is meaningless. A rights discourse does involve a human interaction, but this interaction differs from a dialogue. First, interaction in a rights discourse hinges on certain interests, so that the meeting takes place only in the context of this interest. In a dialogue, two individuals meet in the fullness of their human existence. In a dialogue, to use Emmanuel Levinas’ terminology, human beings meet each other’s “face,” whereas parties to a rights discourse do not see each other’s “face” but rather their own needs and interests, namely, themselves. From the perspective of a rights discourse, the other is perceived only as plaintiff or defendant. Second, constitutive relationships in a rights discourse are hierarchical rather than symmetrical, while parties to a dialogue face each other in their full concreteness as equal creatures. This difference reflects a difference in their basic situation—while a dialogue involves direct address, a rights discourse uses the language of law and thus incorporates the law’s fundamental characteristics. The law, in Aristotle’s terms, is meant to establish legal justice, which is conveyed through the generality of the law, namely, the possibility of applying the law equally to all those bound by it.4 But generality entails limitations insofar as it hinders special consideration of individual cases, 3 4

Joseph Raz, “On the Nature of Rights,” Mind 93 (1984): 94. Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics, trans. Harris Rackham (Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth, 1996), 5:x, 133134. For further discussion, see Chaim Perelman, Justice, Law, and Argument: Essays on Moral and Legal Reasoning (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1980).

B e t we e n a R i g hts D i s co u rs e a n d a n Id ent it y Disco ur se

thus possibly leading to injustice, and Aristotle therefore argued that we might overcome this limitation through equity. The equitable man, argued Aristotle, is one who “does not stand on his rights unduly, but is content to receive a smaller share although he has the law on his side.”5 If we translate Aristotle’s position into the conceptual terms of the rights discourse, we could argue that a rights discourse that rests on the generality of the law cannot exhaust the complexity of human reality and should not be the sole language of human discourse. Aristotle sought to correct generality—or the rights discourse, in my terms—by resorting to equity, which reflects a disposition different from justice. A rights discourse, as a discourse of legal justice, erases the face of the other and sees him through concepts of rights and obligations, whereas equity sees the other in her full concreteness. In Levinas’ terms, equity responds to the basic obligation that the other’s face places on me. Equity does not require entering a dialogue with the other, but makes dialogue possible even within a legal rights discourse. Fostering this disposition enables the individual to develop a perception of the other as a creature worthy of respect and attention, and can even lead to a limitation of the self in order to make room for the other. A dialogue defined as turning to the other’s face involves great danger, as G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Jaspers, Paul Ricoeur, and others have pointed out. Opening up to the other’s world could undermine one’s previous world and identity. Partners to a dialogue know how they enter it but, if the dialogue is genuine, they do not know how they will leave it. A dialogue, in Hegel’s terms, is a “life and death struggle,” since the likelihood of something dying equals the likelihood of something being born. Dialogue, then, is the antithesis of a rights discourse. In a rights discourse, the parties entrench themselves in their own territory. They address each other obliquely, through the law, only to protect themselves from potential injury by the other. In contrast, in a dialogue, this territory is precisely what is encroached upon. A discourse of rights protects what Isaiah Berlin called the individual’s negative liberty, the domain where individuals will not be disturbed and will be autonomous to do as they please.6 A rights discourse is meant to protect “our castle,” our concrete and spiritual home, preserving the surrounding walls in line with the legal constraints. In contrast, in a dialogue, borders are breached, walls are 5 6

Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics, 134. Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 118-172.

95

96

C h a p te r 4

battered down, and the protected territory becomes the main topic of the dialogical “struggle.” Dialogue, by definition, is a struggle over the very meaning of identity. A rights discourse is thus meant to preserve the personal, biographical, cultural, and economic identity of individuals and of society, whereas a dialogical relationship tears this identity down. One remarkable outcome emerges from this analysis: the two main theories of right noted above share a model of right as a fundamental concept, involving recognition of the value and identity of human beings. According to the theory of interest, the concept of right recognizes human beings as creatures possessing interests worth protecting. The concept of right thus recognizes the value of human beings as holders of interests that, by definition, will differ for various individuals or groups. The recognition of interests as rights thus assumes that the unique identity of these interests’ holders is a value deserving normative protection. The concept of right in the theory of will also recognizes the autonomy of individuals or groups as a value worth protecting. In a Kantian sense, the concept of right conveys the recognition that “man . . . exists as an end in itself, and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will.”7 The concept of right expresses the notion that human beings are unique persons worthy of respect. In Kant’s formulation, human beings are “persons inasmuch as their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves, i.e., as something which is not to be used merely as means, and there is imposed thereby a limit on all arbitrary use of such beings, which are thus objects of respect.”8 The assumption that the notion of arbitrary use is limited to human beings is thus conveyed in the limitation entailed by the concept of right. Both theories of the concept of right, then, affirm the value of human beings. Moreover, both affirm the value of a unique identity: the theory of interest does so directly, since the interest expresses this unique identity, while the theory of will does so indirectly, since protecting autonomy enables the space required for unique identities to grow and thrive. The concept of right is thus the foundation that enables the growth of identity. The symmetry between rights and obligations also conveys this notion. A right usually imposes a parallel obligation. In James Nickel’s words: “rights have assignable addresses, people or agencies who bear normative 7 8

Immanuel Kant, Groundings for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. William Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981), 35. Ibid., 36.

B e t we e n a R i g hts D i s co u rs e a n d a n Id ent it y Disco ur se

burdens such as duties, liabilities, and disabilities.”9 As Nickel notes, this is the presumption underlying the ubiquitous question concerning human rights: who is responsible for realizing them? The conventional answer to this question is that this obligation is incumbent on states. But even if this answer is correct, it fails to give the full picture. Nickel shows that many rights in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights impose an obligation on individuals and not necessarily on states.10 This is the case, for instance, concerning section 4, which forbids slavery and slave trading. Slave traders or slave owners are individuals, so the right to freedom from slavery imposes this obligation not only on governments but also on individuals. The acknowledgment of obligations and responsibilities toward the other, which derives from the concept of right, is an act entailing both self-restraint and the performance of concrete activities. In this sense, a rights discourse lays the foundation for an identity discourse through the very act of protecting it. Jeremy Waldron formulated this insight when pointing out that rights are not constitutive of social life; instead, rights set the foundation on which human beings will establish social life: The structure of impersonal rules and rights not only provides a background guarantee; it also furnishes a basis on which people can initiate new relations with other people even from a position of alienation from the affective bonds of existing attachments and community. Impersonal rules and rights provide a basis for new beginnings and for moral initiatives which challenge existing affections.11

Waldron thus claims, accurately, that the power of the rights framework is precisely its detachment from the immediate social context. This detachment ensures the protection of basic human existence, regardless of intra-social changes.12 Yet, when the public discourse is confined to a rights discourse, when a rights discourse is not the scaffold of interpersonal discourse but its most thorough expression, it erodes, hinders, and harms the identity discourse. In this type of rights discourse, human beings perceive each other only in instrumental terms, from an egoistic perspective and without undue care for the other.13 Waldron sums this up succinctly: “To 9 10 11 12 13

Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 41. Ibid., 42. Jeremy Waldron, Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981-1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 376. See chap. 15 in particular. Ibid., 379. Cf. Jeffrey C. Alexander, “The Paradoxes of Civil Society,” International Sociology 12 (1997): 115-133.

97

98

C h a p te r 4

stand on one’s rights is to distance oneself from those to whom the claim is made; it is to announce, so to speak, an opening of hostilities, and it is to acknowledge that other warmer bonds of kinship, affection and intimacy can no longer hold.”14 Relying on this analysis, my central claim is that the status of the rights discourse in any given culture is the litmus test of intra-social discourse, of the relationship between self and other. The greater the dominance of a rights discourse mode in the public, intra-social discourse, the less vital the interpersonal cultural dialogue. The rise of the rights discourse leads to obstructive borders between various elements of society and to relationships marked by mutual alienation and self-seclusion, marking the end of the identity discourse.

the identity discourse In an identity discourse, individuals meet each other in the fullness of their existence. An identity discourse is an encounter where the core of the parties’ identities is at the center, as opposed to another, more prevalent mode of encounter, where we perceive them as “entities” endowed with certain qualities and characterized by certain modes of functioning. In these processes of objectification, the other, whether an individual or a society, is fixed within pre-set molds. The other is a bank clerk, a doctor, or a police officer, secular or religious. When objectifying others in this fashion, we tend to perceive their wholeness through one or several constitutive traits.15 As soon as we identify these traits in the other, we ascribe to them additional secondary traits, which we usually tend to link to the main ones. A secular individual will be someone to whom freedom is important, for whom self-realization is decisive, and so forth. A religious individual will be someone who is obedient and compliant, for whom self-realization is not a constitutive feature of existence. The complement to this objectification of the other is the objectification and rigidity of the self, which is now interpreted through categories and traits that are contrasted with the other. The subject-object relationship is not unilateral. People who turn others into pre-set objects will perceive themselves in similar fashion. If I perceive the other “as,” or “being like” something specific, this is how 14 15

Waldron, Liberal Rights, 373. Waldron relies here on Hegel. On the distinction between central and secondary status features, see Everett C. Hughes, “Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status,” American Journal of Sociology 50 (1945): 353-359.

B e t we e n a R i g hts D i s co u rs e a n d a n Id ent it y Disco ur se

I will perceive myself. Furthermore, we can expect that, in a society where I perceive others through this type of conceptual framework, others will answer in kind. Subject-object relationships are thus naturally hierarchic and asymmetric, and yet a difference prevails. In a rights discourse, hierarchic and asymmetric relationships move in one direction, from plaintiff to defendant. By contrast, interpersonal relationships mediated by subject-object relationships are characterized by asymmetry and a mutual hierarchy. An identity discourse channeled into a subject-object relationship, which Hegel described as a “dialectic of master and slave,”16 is a process that largely deprives the parties of their very essence as free, full human creatures. In Hegelian terms, this is a process where each one kills the other. In an identity discourse, the opposite process evolves. This is a discourse based on deliverance from mutual objectification, from the ascription of a specific trait or category to the other. In an identity discourse, the self and the other meet in their concrete fullness. Even if their discourse still includes aspects of objectification, its uniqueness lies in the parties’ ability to release each other from them and, in Hegelian terms, to struggle for mutual life rather than mutual death.17 This discourse is communicative rather than epistemological—the parties talk to one another rather than about each other. It unfolds through confession and narrative as well as by listening to the other’s “voice,” and includes an ongoing process of correcting mutual preconceptions. An identity discourse is ipso facto unique, since identity differentiates and draws distinctions between individuals and groups. The identity discourse addresses the unique and, therefore, in many ways, is a process of collapsing generalizations, stigmas, and stereotypes.

Identity in the Rights Discourse and in the Identity Discourse The concept of identity, then, emerges as significantly different in these two types of discourse. The rights discourse recognizes humanity’s intrinsic value. All human beings are entitled to equal recognition, since all represent universal human nature or universal human identity. The rights discourse enables the space required for the growth of essentially unique human identities. In and of itself, however, this discourse does not imply that we enter a true identity discourse; rather, it is an application of universal human identity: 16

17

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 111119. This text has been the subject of many analyses. See especially Yitzhak Klein, The Dialectic of Master and Slave (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1978) [Heb]. My interpretation of Hegel here is based largely based on Klein’s analysis.

99

100

C h a p te r 4

All human beings as the bearers of a universal human nature as persons—are of equal value from the democratic perspective, and all people as persons deserve equal respect and equal opportunity for self-realization. In other words, from the liberal-democratic point of view, a person has a right to claim equal recognition first and foremost on the basis of his or her universal human identity and potential, not primarily on the basis of an ethnic identity.18

Recognizing that human beings have rights rests on this universal human identity. This recognition applies in equal measure to the universal rights shared by all human beings and to the specific rights of individuals or groups. From a rights discourse perspective, the recognition of specific aspects as worthy of protection clearly expresses the universal human foundation—the general human capability to mold individual patterns of identity.19 Hence, even if a rights discourse focuses on specific rights of individuals or groups, it does not represent a concern with these unique aspects as such, since it does not address the fullness and concreteness of the specific individual or group whose rights it means to protect. Although this discourse acknowledges human beings as personalities with unique features, it is not genuinely concerned with these features or with personal identity. This distinction between a rights discourse and a genuine interest in the other is evident in the prevalent defenses of the right to culture on the one hand, and of pluralism on the other. I consider first the more common defenses of the right to culture. Will Kymlicka adduces one of the better-known arguments for the right to culture, based on the recognition of a universal right to freedom. In his view, the right to culture is an expression of this fundamental right, since an essential element of the potential to realize the right to freedom is contingent on the ability of human beings to examine and evaluate their ends and values, and change them if they feel them to be mistaken. The spectrum of cultural possibilities provides options, from which individuals will choose those that suit them.20 Cultural particularism for Kymlicka, then, is merely a necessary condition for realizing the universal value of freedom rather than an intrinsically valuable feature. Kymlicka’s critics, such as Avishai Margalit and Moshe Halbertal, who propose a defense of the right to culture that links it to a distinct “personal18 19 20

Steven C. Rockefeller, “Comment,” in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 88. Ibid. See also Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics, 42. See Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), chap. 8.

B e t we e n a R i g hts D i s co u rs e a n d a n Id ent it y Disco ur se

ity identity,” also resort to a perspective typical of a rights discourse—a lack of genuine interest in the other as a unique “entity”: The individual’s right to culture stems from the fact that every person has an overriding interest in his personality identity—that is, in preserving his way of life and the traits that are central identity components for him and the other members of his cultural group. Mainly, we consider the best formulation of the right to culture to be internal to the viewpoint of the members of a particular culture.21

This defense of the right to culture, contrary to that proposed by Kymlicka, takes into account the internal perspective of the specific group—what its members consider important and valuable. Kymlicka had assumed that the supreme value justifying the right to culture is freedom, but freedom is not a value that every cultural community endorses. Margalit and Halbertal, who reject Kymlicka’s argument, seek to rest their defense of the right to culture on the identity bearers’ internal perspective. This approach represents an important shift from Kymlicka’s liberal stance, insofar as it relates seriously to the variety of human identities and acknowledges identity at the core of the right to culture. Such an approach could signify a change of disposition because, by definition, it begins by directing attention to the other, but this need not be the case. The defense of the right to culture rests on the recognition that human beings shape unique cultures that grant meaning to their lives. Interest in the other, however, does not per se follow from this. This defense necessarily assumes that the bearers of a particular culture have an interest in it, and this interest is sufficient to establish this defense. This assumption, however, does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the defenders of this right are also interested in the specific identity embodied in a particular culture. In other words, this defense of the right to culture recognizes the ability of human beings to shape private identities, which are then materialized in specific cultures; it does not necessarily denote a transition to an identity discourse. The second issue concerned the prevalent defenses of pluralism. Pluralism is an approach that recognizes and affirms the intrinsic value of different views.22 On the surface, it necessarily follows that a pluralist is a person interested in the other, since the other represents an intrinsically valuable fullness. Yet, the more common defenses of pluralism show no nec21 22

Avishai Margalit and Moshe Halbertal, “Liberalism and the Right to Culture,” Social Research 61 (1994): 505. On pluralism, see Avi Sagi, Jewish Religion after Theology, trans. Batya Stein (Boston: Academic Press, 2009), 1-33.

101

102

C h a p te r 4

essary links between pluralism and its implications for a rights discourse on the one hand, and the acknowledgment of the other’s value as a constitutive element of identity on the other. In other words, pluralists are not compelled to enter into an identity discourse by virtue of their pluralistic stance. Two well-known arguments feature prominently in the defense of pluralism. According to one argument, advocated by John Stuart Mill and, in his wake, Isaiah Berlin, pluralism denotes recognition of the value of individualism.23 Human differences create variety and lead to diversity between various lifestyles, all of them equally valuable. Similarly, Berlin argues that pluralism is “the conception that there are many different ends that men may seek.”24 The acknowledgment of human diversity is a descriptive statement, but even a prescriptive statement assumes that individuality can only develop and grow within a pluralistic worldview. This approach to pluralism, however, rests on the assumption that personal or group identity is static and distinct; in fact, the hallmark of this view is its recognition of difference and uniqueness. Pluralists, then, do not necessarily engage in a genuine identity discourse since they need not show any interest in the other. The other does not represent possibilities that might ever be personally relevant. Nor do pluralists require the other in order to become aware of their own uniqueness. This type of pluralism conveys nothing more than recognition of the universal human potential to shape distinctive identities. Raz suggests another defense of pluralism. In his view, pluralism is a necessary condition of human autonomy. Autonomous individuals, through their choices, shape their lives and control their destiny as far as possible. But freedom of choice, argues Raz, is not sufficient for an individual to be truly autonomous. Individuals must choose between different and contradictory options, and no autonomy is possible in the absence of options to choose from. The selection cannot be limited to a choice between good and evil, and must be a choice between good options that are nevertheless different.25 This approach, however, does not require entering into a genuine identity discourse either. The other plays an instrumental role here, and 23 24

25

For a discussion of this matter, see p. 15 above. Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity (London: John Murray, 1990), 11, 78-92. Robert Nozick endorses a similar view of pluralism, claiming that no one idea of the good life is equally suitable for all and a utopian society is one in which individuals can realize a way of life as long as they respect the rights of others. See Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 310. See Joseph Raz, “Autonomy, Toleration, and the Harm Principle,” in Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives, ed. Susan Mendus (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 156-157. Cf. S. I. Benn, “Freedom and the Concept of a Person,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 76 (1975-1976): 123-128.

B e t we e n a R i g hts D i s co u rs e a n d a n Id ent it y Disco ur se

provides various options serving to expand autonomy. Both Raz and Kymlicka view concrete cultures and identities as a means for self-realization and for enhancing freedom. A pluralistic worldview, then, could be coupled with disinterest in the other as such—pluralism is either a conclusion derived from a supra-universal principle (the human ability to shape individual identities) or a means to the end of individual freedom. By contrast, the subject of an identity discourse is uniqueness as such, the other’s full face. An identity discourse, therefore, does not focus on the question of rights but on the dialogue with the other. The other, in George H. Mead’s terms, is a “significant other,” who makes a crucial contribution to shaping the identity of the self.26 Individuals and groups are interested in the other for one of two reasons: (1) Because the other represents existential possibilities that could be relevant to their own existence.27 The other, then, plays a decisive existential role in establishing their own identity, which will evolve through the encounter in a process of incessant molding that affects its most basic patterns. (2) Because, through the encounter with the other, individuals or groups become aware of the real limits of their identity.28 In other words, their awareness of themselves is mediated by their awareness of the other. The identity discourse, then, focuses on the other’s unique identity, in a mutual process that Jaspers succinctly defines as follows: I cannot be sure of myself unless I am sure of him. In communication I feel responsible not only for myself but for the other . . . . I do not reach the point of communication by my own action alone; the other’s action must match it. An agonizingly, externally inadequate relationship becomes inevitable at the moment when the other, instead of coming to meet me, turns himself into my object . . . Only mutual recognition allows both of us to rise as ourselves. Only together can we reach the goal each one is aiming at.29

The relationship between a rights discourse and an identity discourse can now be formulated more clearly. The rights discourse is the ground floor of 26

27

28 29

See George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1934). For an analysis of Mead’s approach see Paul E. Pfuetze, Self, Society, Existence: Human Nature and Dialogue in the Thought of George Herbert Mead and Martin Buber (New York: Harper, 1954). Supporters of this approach include Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers (see below), and Charles Taylor. See Avi Sagi, Kierkegaard, Religion, and Existence: The Voyage of the Self, trans. Batya Stein (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 2000), 61-62; Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition.” William Dilthey, Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977), 134. Karl Jaspers, Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), vol. 2, 53.

103

104

C h a p te r 4

the identity discourse; furthermore, although a rights discourse assumes a universal as well as an individual identity, it is not concerned with identity as such but with the rights deriving from it. In other words, identity and those of its features relevant to the rights discourse are acknowledged but not discussed directly, and identity remains an abstraction. Yet, even an identity discourse entails implications for a discourse of rights because the unique identity discourse brings the question of rights to the fore. When the identity discourse reveals that the differences between the parties are profound to the point that they feel threatened, the question of protecting diversity is translated in the public political arena into a discourse of rights. Since identities are different, interests are too, and rights are the normative formulation of these interests. The social and interpersonal dynamic that develops in a public discourse that is confined to a context of rights is strikingly different from that evolving in an identity context. When a discourse of rights is dominant, the parties have clearly lost their sense of solidarity and personal attachment. A rights discourse points to self-seclusion and possibly alienation. The law predicated on this discourse is the product of a balance of power. It cannot provide a basis for social solidarity, nor can it replace the intricate web of personal relationships, and society comes perilously close to losing its connecting bonds. In these circumstances, the rights discourse both confirms and accelerates the centrifugal processes of closure and social collapse. When the public discourse develops mainly in an identity context, however, it is characterized by mutual consideration and openness. If a rights discourse then unfolds in this setting, it undergoes a change. Even when there are plaintiffs and defendants, this discourse seeks social agreement by balancing the interests and rights of the parties involved. Rather than victory over the other, this rights discourse seeks to protect both plaintiffs and defendants. Therefore, whereas the natural milieu of the rights discourse is the court, the rights discourse in the context of the identity discourse finds its setting in the public consensus.

Between an Identity Discourse and a Rights Discourse A unique situation emerges when one party engages in an identity discourse and the other in a rights discourse. Richard Rorty refers to this as an “abnormal discourse,”30 or a discourse without pre-agreed rules that turns into a kind of monologue. 30

Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 320.

B e t we e n a R i g hts D i s co u rs e a n d a n Id ent it y Disco ur se

A telling instance of this type of discourse is the Bar-Ilan Road affair. According to Justice Barak, the issues at stake in this case are freedom of movement on the one hand, and “hurting religious feelings and a religious way of life” on the other.31 Justice Barak qualifies his statement by pointing out that this description places the problem in a legal context, but why assume that this is also its public context? Freedom of movement is a concept taken from a rights discourse. Hurting feelings or hurting a religious way of life are concepts taken from an identity discourse. Ostensibly, the parties are engaged in a conflict because the secular public is struggling for its right to free movement, whereas the ultra-Orthodox public wishes to preserve its religious way of life. In their view, traversing their neighborhood on the Sabbath strikes at the very heart of their Jewish identity, which demands that travel be stopped. Justice Barak also raised this issue, although favoring a rhetoric of hurt feelings:32 A religious community expects that Sabbath rest will not be confined to the individual domain of its members, but will reach out and inspire the public arena . . . . A street through the heart of the neighborhood involving a significant volume of traffic, the din of horns and the clatter of engines, sharply contrasts with the Sabbath atmosphere envisioned by its residents.33

Although this would appear to be a definite instance of abnormal discourse— one side concerned with the protection of its rights and the other with protecting the core of its identity—the picture is more complex. For many secular individuals resorting to the language of rights, protecting their right to freedom of movement is an indirect way of protecting their secular identity, since forbidding travel on the Sabbath means dismissing the option of a secular Jewish life. For the ultra-Orthodox, who hold that Judaism is only possible in its traditional religious expression, traveling on the Sabbath must be forbidden. But the problem cannot be confined to the bounds of an ultra-Orthodox identity discourse, because once identity is threatened, the protection of vital interests translates into a rights discourse. 31 32

33

Bar-Ilan Road affair, 15. For an analytical critique of the “hurting religious feelings” concept and for the use of this concept in the Bar-Ilan Road affair, see Daniel Statman, “Hurting Religious Feelings,” in Multiculturalism in a Democratic and Jewish State, ed. Menachem Mautner, Avi Sagi, and Ronen Shamir (Tel-Aviv: Ramot, 1998), 133-188 [Heb]. For his analysis of the Bar-Ilan Road affair, see 159, note 51, and 161-162. Bar-Ilan Road affair, 64.

105

106

C h a p te r 4

On a horizontal perspective, this is indeed an abnormal discourse including both rights and identity dimensions. My claim is that this abnormal discourse can be translated into either one of these dimensions. Returning to Justice Barak’s legal description of this clash as a conflict between the right to freedom of movement and hurting the feelings of the religious public is thus uncalled for.

israeli public discourse as a monologue: reflections and conclusions The characterization of Israeli public discourse as abnormal implies that it is a monologue. This concept seems paradoxical at first glance, since a monologue is the antithesis of a discourse involving several parties. A monological discourse would thus be better characterized as an apparent discourse, since each side talks to itself rather than to the other. Although it assumes a dialogical garb, it casts doubt on the very possibility of dialogue. Let us consider some basic differences between dialogue and monologue. In a monologue, one of the parties is interested in its own story, its truths, and its perceptions. The other, rather than a presence, is a passive “entity” that, at most, is supposed to absorb and internalize the world of the speaker. A monologue is based on an unambiguous hierarchy: one speaks and the other listens. The speaking party assumes that its speech, its story, its truth, have absolute value and must therefore be told, and is not genuinely interested in the speech or the story of the listener. The face and the world of the other are erased, as it were; they are erased because they do not sustain a meaningful world holding any interest to the party performing the monologue. A monological world presumes one story, one truth, one value. It is predicated on one certainty, the certainty of the speaker, one monistic perception of truth and values. There is one sole truth that, at least for all parties to the monological discourse, is equally valid. One of the main tasks of the monological discourse, then, is to convince. The discourse is designed to bring the listener to accept the one and only truth borne by the monologue. The monologue also persuades the speaking party, corroborating the absolute value of its own world. The monologue, then, dismisses the spiritual world and the fullness of the other: if the speaker’s truth is valid for everyone, no special validity attaches to this particular person, with a unique face and a specific culture

B e t we e n a R i g hts D i s co u rs e a n d a n Id ent it y Disco ur se

and personality. All the listeners have the same face, all have been flattened into uniformity, their uniqueness stamped out. To use Hegel’s aphorism, “at night all cows are black.” The monologue is the night that blurs the world of the other and makes it irrelevant. A dialogue is the diametrical antithesis. Parties to a dialogue meet each other’s whole being in the fullness of their unique personalities, they wish to hear the voice of the other and absorb the other’s full features. A dialogue is an effort to return to people their face, their world, and their unique value. In a dialogue, there is both attention and silence. The parties to the dialogue, each in turn, become passive. They limit themselves and make room for the other. Each partner goes through the dual experience of control and passivity, of speech and attentive silence. Monological time, by contrast, is in truth apparent time, since the evolving process is not intrinsically important. Monological discourse is merely a means for transmitting content whose value is beyond time and beyond the context of the monologue. The monologue is supposed to eliminate itself. Time in the dialogue, by contrast, is compressed and dramatic, with each moment bearing a unique fullness, since human beings know how they enter it but do not know how they will leave it. The true dialogical event changes their being and each one of the parties absorbs something from the other. This absorption may subvert something in their previous being and identity, just as it may sharpen and clarify the differences between the parties to the dialogue. Dialogical time, then, is unique. In a dialogue, experience rests on the acknowledgment of the other’s intrinsic value; each of the parties is a creature worthy of respect since each bears a fullness, an individuality, and a valuable world. True dialogue, then, presumes that different individuals have different worlds and different values. In other words, true dialogue assumes one or another version of pluralism rather than monism. A pluralistic dialogical discourse, as noted, could be predicated on two dissimilar, and even contradictory, assumptions. The first assumption acknowledges that the other portrays a full and meaningful world, which could also be a relevant option for me. The world of the other, then, is an open possibility for me. The second assumption, which is in many ways contradictory, is that through the dialogical discourse individuals learn about the differences between themselves and others. One assumption, then, views dialogical discourse as opening up new possibilities; for the

107

108

C h a p te r 4

other assumption, dialogue is the mechanism through which individuals consciously identify what they already are. They learn about the constitutive elements of their personality and their being by understanding the differences between themselves and others. According to this option, we learn about our world and our identity in indirect ways—by knowing the world of the other. In either case, dialogical discourse always acknowledges the intrinsic value of the other’s inner world, the importance of the encounter with the other for constituting identity, whereas monological discourse attaches no special value to this encounter and rests on the expectation of the other’s acquiescent silence at the end of the discourse. Monologue is a crucial element of Israel’s public discourse, as evident in the growing recourse to persuasive means and to a rhetoric devoid of openness and attentiveness. This process appears to evolve against a background of deep cleavages within Israeli society. No wonder, then, that this monological discourse is gradually transformed into a rights discourse, since it is the rights discourse that provides this monologue with tools. The monologue, seeking to impose one narrative, is translated into a formal language of rights that bears no trace of the concrete identity that engendered it. On the surface, a discourse of rights enables to cover up the clash between the various cultural identities making up Israel’s social web. A discourse of rights appears to confirm monological discourse, thus confirming the intrinsic value of the speaker’s identity. Against a background of diverse identities, however, the framework enabling the rights discourse is itself threatened. While some segments of Israeli society question the legal basis of the rights discourse and its legitimacy, others cast doubt on the need for entering a rights discourse at all, precisely because they negate the identities that the rights discourse seeks to protect. A negotiating process exclusively predicated on a discourse of rights could lead to increasing alienation, given its monological essence and the status of the parties involved. Then again, a negotiating process evolving within an identity discourse may be harder and more painful at the start, since the various identities question and threaten each other. A true identity discourse, however, relies on and fosters dispositions of mutual attentiveness and openness; when these are applied to the organization of a shared public life, they could evolve into a rights discourse conducted out of respect for the other rather than as an imposition. The Israeli preference for a rights discourse is particularly evident in the increasing recourse to the court as the arena for deciding the most vital issues of public life. Even concerning public matters discussed outside the

B e t we e n a R i g hts D i s co u rs e a n d a n Id ent it y Disco ur se

confines of the court, we have recently witnessed renewed attempts to organize public life by formulating fixed social contracts, seeking remedy through the “instant cure” of social agreement. Social agreements and contracts are, by definition, another form of the rights discourse. They freeze contractual parties in set, fixed frames. They balance the interests of various parties. Furthermore, social contracts are a game in which all the participants claim to be the true “voice” of the different constituencies they supposedly represent, while they actually represent mainly power, influence, and control of resources. The garb of “pastoral” power, a term coined by Michel Foucault, which politicians and public opinion leaders sometimes choose, is a screen often hiding political interests and brutal aspects. Awareness of the political field’s brutality supposedly leads to the aversion of political involvement altogether. In Israel, however, the pastoral political discourse is an acceptable substitute for a genuine identity discourse. The Israeli public still prefers to meet the other in the framework of what Ariel Rosen-Zvi called “an encounter at the level of results,”34 implying a negotiation at the level of the rights discourse that relinquishes the other’s “face,” the living dialogue with other, intrinsically full worlds. A political discourse centered on social contracts is clearly suited to this course. But even if these processes enable normal life to proceed for a limited period, they cannot replace the identity discourse. Ultimately, since they threaten the identity discourse, these processes result in costs involving growing alienation, the stoking of mutual frustrations, and the loosening of solidarity bonds. Not surprisingly, public discourse in Israel resorts chiefly to a rights discourse, thus evading the problematic entailed by an identity discourse. The “discourse” of identity is conducted mainly along lines involving the other’s total denial. The other is not only the one who is not I, whose identity is not mine, through whom I can learn about the actual limits of my own identity. The other is the one whose identity casts doubts on mine, and who must therefore be totally denied so that I may affirm my own. This description is true whether the other is a Jew or an Arab, secular, religious, or ultra-Orthodox.35 34 35

See Ariel Rosen-Zvi, “‘A Jewish Democratic State’: Spiritual Paternity, Alienation, and Symbiosis,” in A Jewish Democratic State: An Anthology, ed. Daphne Barak-Erez (Tel-Aviv: Ramot, 1996), 518. Cf. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1982), chap. 4.

109

110

C h a p te r 4

Israeli society cannot circumvent the identity discourse much longer without risking ominous consequences. This is particularly true at present, when the various communities making up Israeli society have become increasingly self-assured about the fullness of their own identity. A paradoxical result might obtain in these circumstances: a rights discourse designed to protect the various identities could emerge as the force that will crush the solidarity bonds tying these communities together. Barring a profound change in the way Israeli society thinks about itself, the seams that hold the web of this society together may not hold. The rights discourse that had protected this web in the past is no longer viable and must now give way to the identity discourse. What will an identity discourse in Israeli society look like? This question must remain open because in an identity discourse, unlike a rights discourse, the borders and modes of discussion are not pre-defined and will be decided by the participants. Despite this immanent opacity, the character of this identity discourse will largely be defined by the dispositions of the parties concerning the relationship between the shaping of the self and the other. Increasing awareness of this relationship brings the identity discourse closer to an attentive dialogue, while, as this awareness lessens, the identity discourse turns into a monologue gradually dwindling into a perilous discourse of rights. Israeli society is at a crucial crossroads. On the one hand, it appears to have exhausted the rights discourse without having shaped a suitable alternative. On the other, the tapering of a dominant cultural hegemony and the increasing awareness of Israel as a multicultural society compel the adoption of new modes of discourse, lest Israeli multiculturalism comes down to a struggle between cultures and the growing negation of social solidarity. Will Israeli society succeed in developing a new discourse, richer and more fruitful, capable of dealing with questions of identity? Will the emerging identity discourse avoid a return to monological discourse? How will the new identity discourse unfold? I cannot answer these questions within an analytical, philosophical outline. Responses to these questions will emerge, if at all, in the concrete experiences of the real world, faced with obstacles and challenges.

Ch a p te r 5

“rEligion and statE”: a critical analysis

This chapter deals with the symbolic meaning attached to the term “religion and state” in Israel’s public discourse, focusing on contexts of meaning underlying the “religion and state” linkage. My premise is that this linkage functions as a metaphor, which builds on previous contexts of meaning and shapes new ones. Though both these terms are loaded with historical, cultural, social, political, and ethical associations, their combination creates a statement joining together different (and even contradictory) options into one conceptual scheme. A complex reality converges into a symbol where “religion” and “state” function as either equivalent or antithetical concepts. The relationship between reality and the conceptual structure that represents it—like that between signifier and signified—is often subject to modifications. The conceptual structure then gradually loses its referential power and creates an autonomous semantic area, where a compelling statement emerges. This is also the course followed by the semantic expression “religion and state,” whose power lies in the possibility it offers of joining together equivalence and antithesis. The compound “religion and state” thus functions in ways typical of what Clifford Geertz described as a “metaphor”: In metaphor one has, of course, a stratification of meaning, in which an incongruity of sense in one meaning, produces an influx of significance on another . . . The power of a metaphor derives precisely from the interplay between the discordant meanings it symbolically coerces into a unitary conceptual framework . . . When it works, a metaphor transforms a false identification . . . into an apt analogy; when it misfires, it is a mere extravagance.1

The “religion and state” utterance brings together contradictory meanings that shape characteristic dispositions. The contrasting structure of these dispositions will emerge in the rhetoric adopted by those advocating 1

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 210-211.

112

C h a p te r 5

equivalence or opposition between these concepts. A view of these concepts as antithetical leads its supporters to endorse a secular liberal semantics and promote a discourse of rights that, by nature, is individualistic. The semantics they rely upon leans toward the present and the future and minimizes the past and tradition, confining them to the private sphere. In this discourse, the public sphere is a neutral domain that enables different, and even contradictory, practices. By contrast, supporters of a conceptual equivalence between “religion and state” create a semantics focused on religion, nationality, and the collective. They promote a discourse of identity centering on commitment to the past and to tradition as its main, and possibly sole, constitutive elements. In this discourse, some dimensions in the private sphere and significant practices in the public one are assumed to be shaped by an inevitable juxtaposition of “religion and state.” The semantic field with the “religion and state” linkage at its center thus leads to a metaphor that creates both antitheses and equivalences. Whereas the supporters of antithesis develop a disposition of atomistic liberalism that places individuals and their rights at its core,2 the supporters of equivalence develop a disposition centering on a collectivist identity. This analysis thus reveals that deep, thick, and tense symbolic meanings are part of the “religion and state” issue in Israel, which turn it into a charged controversy rather than merely another political problem. A comparison with models of “religion and state” relations in democratic countries supports this conclusion. Benjamin Neuberger’s analysis of the arrangements regulating “religion and state” relations in Europe shows that the situation in Israel differs from any pattern currently known in European democracies.3 Even in countries sponsoring a state church, such as England, the meaning of the religion-state equivalence is primarily formal. Though the state recognizes only one church as official, the church is subject to the state—its leaders are the king or queen, who appoints the bishops and other officials, and its rules must be ratified by the parliament. Anglicanism, however, is not perceived in English public discourse as the body making decisions on the equivalence of “religion and state” or on 2 3

Charles Taylor, “Atomism,” in Comunitarianism and Individualism, ed. Shlomo Avinery and Avner de-Shalit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 29-50. Benjamin Neuberger, “Religion and State Arrangements in Europe,” in The Conflict: Religion and State in Israel, ed. Nahum Langental and Shuki Friedman (Tel Aviv: Yedi‘ot Aharonot, 2002), 336-353 [Heb].

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

civil rights issues. Even in countries that support one official church, notes Neuberger, the status of the church is receding. In Israel, by contrast, the status of the official “church”—meaning Judaism—is at the center of the “religion and state” discourse, although it has never been agreed that an official “church” is necessary or that the “church” is, or should be, subject to the state. Characterized by controversy, animosity, and polarization, the Israeli discourse on “religion and state” lacks basic shared understandings and even agreed rules of decision making. All that can be hoped for in these circumstances are political arrangements involving some dimension of compromise, putting any serious agreements beyond the pale. Such arrangements are fragile, however, because political compromises convey recognition of the limits of power and not necessarily agreement with, or understanding of, the other’s position. Moreover, as expected, these political compromises are repeatedly breached and attempts to impose them lead to further confrontations, due to the ever-present antithetical dispositions, like magma sizzling in the depths of a volcano and threatening to erupt. It might be contained for a long time, but its renewed outbursts only intensify the symbolic meaning ascribed to the “religion and state” linkage. Why does this semantic field evoke such hostile dispositions? Is this rivalry inevitable? An analysis of these dispositions and their role in the “religion and state” compound follows.

The “Religion and State” Linkage: Contradictory Dispositions The starting assumption of this analysis is that Israel is a secular state. Its secularism is not a function of its founders’ intentions or its leaders’ identity, but of its quality as a modern state. In Eliezer Goldman’s formulation: Secularism is essential to the modern state as a territorial state, the scope of whose authority overlaps a particular territory and extends over the entire population of the territory rather than being limited to part of it. It is the state of all its citizens. Furthermore, it is part of the state’s essence that its powers, and only its powers, are authorized to exercise coercion. By definition, the state serves its entire population without discrimination. Such a state cannot have a religious regime if its population is religiously heterogeneous . . . Israel, which has a significant religious Jewish minority, a considerable Moslem minority, a Christian minority, and most of whose Jewish inhabitants

113

114

C h a p te r 5

are secular, cannot be the Torah state. Such a state could become a Torah state only by enforcing means used by Iran’s fundamentalist Islam.4

In this programmatic passage, Goldman notes several reasons for the secularism of the state. The first is that the State of Israel is a territorial state, and its authority and sovereignty extend to every person inhabiting its territory. The State of Israel is not “God’s kingdom,” it does not represent a church whose sovereignty and authority extend only to its believers; it is the state of its citizens, all its citizens. This determination rests on the character of the modern state, not on theological or philosophical considerations. The second reason is linked to the power of the state. The authority to legislate and coerce is solely the state’s, and it is from it that all other bodies draw their own. Institutions officiating in a religious capacity—the rabbinate, the Shari‘a court, and others—represent the state. The rabbinate’s power to command and instruct does not derive from the biblical verse “according to the law which they shall teach thee” (Deuteronomy 17:11), but from the authority the sovereign has granted them and within the limits it has set. These are fundamental principles. Goldman, however, offers an additional argument: since most Israeli citizens are not religious Jews but secular Jews, Arabs, Christians, or Druze, establishing a Torah regime in the State of Israel would involve coercion. This argument is particularly important because, ostensibly, even if Israel is a territorial state and even if the state is the supreme sovereign, the state can still establish a regime in which Jewish religious norms are dominant. This conclusion is correct not only for a state that is modern, secular, and non-democratic, such as a totalitarian state, but also for one whose regime is democratic only in a formal sense, meaning it has not adopted the values inherent in a democratic worldview, including freedom of thought and action and the protection of minorities’ rights. Israel, however, is not a democracy only formally. Since its foundation, it has adopted the basic values of a liberal democracy, and a Torah regime would only be possible at their expense. These arguments show that both supporters and opponents of the “religion and state” linkage have set up a dichotomy that does not fit the reality. 4

Eliezer Goldman, Expositions and Inquiries: Jewish Thought in Past and Present, ed. Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996), 16-17 [Heb].

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

Whereas the claim of “religion and state” equivalence can easily be trumped, showing that an antithesis between religion and state is also apparently inadequate to convey the signifier-signified relationship—that is, the reality—appears to be harder. My aim here is to show that all variations of the “religion and state” linkage as it functions in the semantic field of Israeli society are inappropriate for conveying the reality. I begin with an analysis of the approach assuming an equivalence.

The “Religion and State” Compound as an Equivalence What is the meaning of claiming an equivalence between religion and state? One possibility is that this equivalence conveys the principle of sovereignty, meaning a theocratic conception of politics that is part of a religious worldview. Yet, although theocracy as a political regime is an invention whose introduction into the philosophical discourse can be traced back to Josephus Flavius and Benedict de Spinoza,5 it never reflected either mainstream Jewish tradition or Jewish reality.6 Spinoza assumed that theocracy is the only legitimate form of government for Jews, and still could not but add: “However, this state of things existed rather in theory than in practice.”7 No wonder, then, that this possibility was almost never formulated as a political platform by the supporters of the “religion and state” equivalence. A cursory review of the literature shows that it is the supporters of a “religion and state” antithesis who ascribe this option to those assuming equivalence, a finding that will prove extremely significant further in the discussion. Another way of understanding the “religion and state” equivalence is to claim that it refers to the preferable ruling regime, meaning that norms in Israel as a democratic state should be halakhic norms. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who together with others coined the term “Torah state,” meant by this the imposition of halakhic norms rather than the principle of sovereignty.8 Precisely within these circles, however, it soon became clear that halakhic tradition was far from ready for the creation of a modern territorial state. Attempts such as that of R. Moshe Zvi Neriah to derive the 5 6 7 8

Gershon Weiler, Jewish Theocracy (Leiden: Brill, 1988), chap. 1; Benedict de Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, trans R. H. M. Elwes (London and New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1905), chap. 18. See Avi Sagi, “Judaism and Democracy: Indeed at Odds?” Democratic Culture 2 (1999): 169-187 [Heb]. Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 220. On this question see Avi Sagi, Tradition vs. Traditionalism: Contemporary Perspectives in Jewish Thought, trans. Batya Stein (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2008), chap. 3.

115

116

C h a p te r 5

Halakhah relevant to the political-public domain from personal law soon proved inapplicable and irrelevant.9 Norms called “religious” in the “religion and state” equivalence equation do not reflect Halakhah, as an account of several examples typically used in this rhetoric will clarify. The first example concerns the problem of imposing halakhic norms through the secular system—is the secular legal-political system in Israel halakhically worthy of this task? And even assuming the halakhic propriety of imposing observance of the commandments—is the duty to coerce them incumbent on the secular government? In halakhic sources, coercing the commandments is a task assigned to the courts.10 Is it plausible to ascribe to the secular legal system, whose halakhic validity is at the very least problematic, the status of a court enforcing observance of halakhic norms? Furthermore, is it halakhically proper to impose observance on a public that does not believe in the Torah and the commandments? R. Shaul Israeli was categorically opposed to coercion: The coercion rule applies only to one who wishes to comply with all the laws of the Torah and draw away from transgressions, but concerning those in our generation, where non-observance follows from a lack of faith in the Torah and the commandments . . . the law that the court (or those working as its representatives) should impose them through beatings and so forth does not apply . . . . Even if we were stronger than them, they will not be persuaded of the truth of the commandments and will not agree to them willingly.11

A distinction is necessary between coercing observance on the one hand, and imposing halakhic norms in the public sphere in general and in family law in particular, on the other. Positions on this question derive from a complex set of halakhic and meta-halakhic considerations but, unfortunately, the political discourse of equivalence supporters shows no awareness of this complexity, and creates a fictitious parallel between Halakhah and 9 10 11

On Neriah’s stance and on the surrounding controversy, see Asher Cohen, The Prayer Shawl and the Flag (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1998), chap. 7 [Heb]. See, for instance, Moses Maimonides, The Book of Divine Commandments (Sefer ha-Mitzvoth of Moses Maimonides) trans. Charles B. Chavel (London: Soncino, 1940), positive commandment 176. Shaul Israeli, Sefer Amud ha-Yemini (Jerusalem: Eretz Hemdah, 1992), 101-102 [Heb]. See also Yaakov Levinger, From Routine to Renewal: Pointers in Contemporary Jewish Thought (Jerusalem: De‘ot, 1973), chap. 9 [Heb]; Michael Zvi Nehorai, “Can a Religious Deed Be Coerced?” in Between Authority and Autonomy in Jewish Tradition, ed. Zeev Safrai and Avi Sagi (Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1997) [Heb]; Avi Sagi, Jewish Religion after Theology, trans. Batya Stein (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2009), chap. 1.

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

the politics of religion. This equivalence, then, is only apparent—it does not reflect halakhic “reality” and only creates it through the political discourse. An analysis of the political struggles aiming to impose specific halakhic norms reveals a similar picture. In their politics, supporters of the “religion and state” linkage as conveying an equivalence consistently resist the introduction of civil marriage in Israel, insisting on marriage according to Jewish law. Without entering the tangled halakhic discussion on this matter,12 I will only note that, in a reality of hastened secularization and the collapse of the family, marriage according to Jewish law may not be halakhically preferable to civil marriage. Indeed, marriage according to Jewish law could increase the number of mamzerim,13 should the couple fail to divorce according to Halakhah and should the woman become another man’s partner. Civil marriage, by contrast, is a case of “doubtful marriage” (safek kiddushin) and, after reviewing halakhic sources, Pinhas Schiffman sums up: The question of mamzerut due to doubtful marriage is particularly significant concerning the halakhic status of civil marriage. The question is whether children, born to a woman who married a man after she had been married to another in a civil ceremony and had not divorced him according to Jewish law, could potentially fit the mamzerim category . . . . It appears that even those who take a stringent view of civil marriage and require a divorce according to Jewish law, tend to be lenient regarding mamzerut. Whether rabbis will indeed be lenient on this issue if civil marriage were introduced in Israel will largely depend on the social and ideological policy they consider desirable.14

This analysis points out the gap between Halakhah and those who pretend to represent it in the political discourse. In this discourse, marriage according to Jewish law is not merely another challenging alakhic question with contradictory answers. Advocates of the “religion and state” equivalence utterly deny the possibility of civil marriage, not because it is halakhically impossible but because it contradicts their basic dispositions. Marriage, 12

13 14

On this question, see Eliyakim G. Ellinson, Non-Halakhic Marriage (Jerusalem: Devir, 1975) [Heb]; Pinhas Schiffman, Who Is Afraid of Civil Marriage? (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1995) [Heb]; idem, Doubtful Marriage in Israel Law (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1975) [Heb]. Mamzerut is a halakhic definition of persons born from forbidden relationships (a woman’s adulterous involvement, incest) or to a parent categorized as a mamzer. Schiffman, Doubtful Marriage, 97; idem, Who Is Afraid of Civil Marriage, chap. 5. See also Levinger, From Routine to Renewal, chap. 10.

117

118

C h a p te r 5

then, ceases to be a normative question and turns into a representative symbol in what is presented as a dichotomous equation.15 One last example concerns conversion. Halakhically, the conversion procedure can be performed by three fit laymen, who constitute a conversion court without any need for an official one. Maimonides summed up this law as follows: “A proselyte who has not undergone an examination, or was not made acquainted with the commandments and the punishment for transgressing them, but was circumcised and immersed in the presence of three laymen, is deemed a proselyte.”16 Maimonides then notes that, indeed, turning to three laymen rather than to the official court would not be the initial step.17 In the contemporary halakhic literature, however, it is suggested that the official court refer halakhically “problematic” cases to non-institutional courts.18 Furthermore, according to the norm prevalent in Israel, the main meaning of conversion is a commitment to observance. On these grounds, most courts will refrain from converting individuals whom they cannot be certain will later be observant Jews. Yet, this approach to conversion is a modern innovation unlike the halakhic stance that had prevailed in the past.19 Supporters of the “religion and state” equivalence, however, ignore this complexity. Conversion and its constitutive halakhic norms are no longer a halakhic problem and have instead become a symbolic issue in the political discourse. A conversion where a commitment to observance is not the central and constitutive component, though halakhically valid, is rejected because it does not fit the dispositions of adherents to the “religion and state” equivalence. The symbolic meaning detected in all these examples of the equivalence semantics comes forth in its supporters’ conception of Halakhah. Rather than a pragmatic and dynamic system grappling openly and daringly with day-to-day life, Halakhah in this semantics is a closed deductive system operating according to an independent mechanism and entirely dissociated from reality.

15 16 17 18 19

I owe a significant debt for this analysis to Schiffman’s book, Who Is Afraid of Civil Marriage. Maimonides, The Code of Maimonides, Laws on Forbidden Intercourse, 13:14. Ibid., 14:15. See R. Menachem Kirschbaum, Responsa Menachem Meshiv (Bnei Brak, 1936), no. 42 [Heb]. See Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar, Transforming Identity: The Ritual Transition from Gentile to Jew—Structure and Meaning (London: Continuum 2007), chap. 12-14.

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

This analysis leads to the conclusion that supporters of the “religion and state” equivalence do not struggle for the imposition of Halakhah but for an entirely different cause. “Religion” functions for them as a symbol of this cause rather than of Halakhah per se. So what is this cause? A more rigorous analysis of the struggle for the “religion and state” linkage will help to shed further light on this question. First, however, I need to explore the antithetical meaning of this linkage and its underlying dispositions.

The “Religion and State” Compound as an Antithesis Supporters of religion and state separation defend this thesis either on formal or substantive grounds. The formal argument relies on Goldman’s thesis that the modern state, as noted, is secular by definition. Although this argument is important, dispositions premised on an antithesis between religion and state convey an entirely different dimension. The perception is that the “religion and state” equivalence is detrimental to fundamental liberal values, at whose core is the freedom of individuals to shape their lives without interference from state institutions. Supporters of these dispositions view the imposition of religious norms in a liberal state as harmful to liberal underpinnings. The key question, then, is: what is the liberal conception—or more precisely, the liberal disposition—at the basis of this antithesis? The history of liberal thought and practice points to the development of two conceptions of liberalism: atomistic liberalism20 and communitarian liberalism. Atomistic liberalism centers on the right of individuals to think, to act, and to realize their aspirations as they wish. The hero of atomistic liberalism is the individual, rather than the society or the community. By contrast, another approach has developed in recent decades that diverts the center of gravity to the community as the constitutive element of the person’s existence and identity. Whereas atomistic liberalism views the individual as an abstract autonomous entity whose identity is created in the private sphere, the communitarian approach assigns decisive weight to the shaping of the person’s concrete life within cultural and social contexts.21 Israel’s public and political discourse tends to focus on the rights of individuals to self-realization and autonomy. The prevalent liberal disposition 20 21

On this issue, see Taylor, “Atomism.” On communitarian positions and their connection to liberalism, see mainly Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

119

120

C h a p te r 5

on religion and state relations is atomistic liberalism,22 often presented as the opposite pole of the collectivistic national-religious disposition sponsored by the supporters of the “religion and state” equivalence.23 Consider the following examples:24 An editorial in Haaretz (13 March 1981) reacts to a bill proposed by the religious factions to prohibit the marketing of pork in Israel: Needless to say, many Jews—and not only observant ones—view pigs as loathsome and the ban on pork consumption as one of the most stringent halakhic injunctions. But is it appropriate to impose in state law a criminal prohibition prompted by a pure religious motivation, coercing secular Jews and non-Jews to adopt a lifestyle and eating habits they do not desire? This is actually an extreme case of interference with individual freedom and freedom of religion, which Israeli law is supposed to protect according to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Should the Knesset pass these bills, it will move us one step closer to the imposition of religious norms through secular law . . . The Labor Party should also be told it must make a clear statement concerning individual rights and religious coercion even before the elections.

My concern with this passage is not the contents of the argument but its implicit dispositions. The writer of this editorial states that pigs bear negative symbolic connotations for both religious and secular Jews, meaning that the ban on pork eating is part of meaning contexts that touch on the identity of Jews. In his view, however, the law is not meant to reflect or express these contexts but to protect the freedom of autonomous individuals to choose their lifestyle as they wish. The law, then, is supposed to reflect and express atomistic liberalism, which disregards these contexts. The crucial role of the law within atomistic liberalism merits note here. The approach outlined in this early 1980s editorial would become increasingly dominant later, when the discourse of rights characterizing atomistic liberalism would be channeled to the law and the Supreme Court. Another Haaretz editorial (2 May 1982) again traces the dispositions of atomistic liberalism as well as the mirror image ascribed to its opponents. The catalyst for the article is El-Al’s flights on the Sabbath. The writer holds 22 23 24

For a systematic and illuminating formulation of atomistic liberalism that is opposed to the collectivistic-Jewish identity conception, see, for instance, Yigal Elam, The End of Judaism (Tel Aviv: Yedi‘ot Aharonot, 2000) [Heb]. Ibid., chap. 4-5. See Menachem Mautner, Law and the Culture of Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 127-142.

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

that this affair is a paradigm of the “shameful system that grants a small minority within the public the possibility of dictating to the vast majority how the country will be run.” In his view, the question of El-Al flights is “another step toward the paralysis of the State of Israel on the Sabbath.” But he goes even further. In his view, this matter is merely a further move in the transformation of the State of Israel into a theocracy. He repeatedly cautions against the danger of “surrender to the Orthodox,” which “eats away more and more at the liberal, progressive, and free character of the State of Israel.” In a warning tone, he adds: “Should this cancerous process persist, more and more of its enlightened citizens will find it hard to adapt to the prevailing atmosphere.” Classic liberal atomistic dispositions—enlightenment, progress, and freedom—are presented here as dogmas. A complex issue is examined solely through their prism, while the identity and culture of Israel’s Jewish society never enter the dichotomy that is assumed between liberalism and theocracy. The public controversy surrounding the play Messiah, shown at the Haifa Theater, was the subject of yet another Haaretz editorial (3 February 1984). Its topic are the threats and demands to cancel the performance of the play “due to several sentences uttered by the main female character, who inveighs against the Master of the Universe because of her suffering and the suffering of the Jews.” The writer focuses on the municipality of Haifa and others who intervened on the matter: Instead of unequivocally backing the theatre and freedom of expression, the Municipality of Haifa played a dubious role here . . . . The involvement of the President [Haim Herzog] in this matter was interpreted as endorsing a position against freedom of expression and, for this reason, it would have been better had he not intervened. And yet, the most worrisome issue is not the President’s initiative, but the very ability of religious circles to intervene in a play that was staged within the framework of the law and of the legitimate professional discretion of the Haifa Theater, to dictate what Israel’s inhabitants will see or not see.

Typically, the familiar dichotomy is presented again: religion versus freedom. The public sphere, of which the theater is one element, is mediated solely through a classic category of atomistic liberalism—freedom of expression—without suggesting any other. The argument redraws the contrast of religion with freedom and liberal civic rights, according to the symbolic semantics of the “religion and state” linkage—whoever represents the antithesis of liberalism is radically negative.

121

122

C h a p te r 5

This editorial was not a lone voice. Another writer—Michael Handelsaltz—joined the fray (Haaretz, 6 February 1984) and described the scene and the two parties involved in this symbolic struggle. In his view, the struggle over Messiah is a Kulturkampf: “This is a war between humanism and Humeinism,25 between tolerance and zealotry, between an enlightened and a backward world, between the twentieth century and the preceding ones.” Many ideologies are characterized by a sharp distinction between the good represented by them and the evil represented by their adversaries: the lines are clear, and drawn in black and white.26 The good that Handelsaltz describes in this equation does not include elements such as culture, identity, memory, feelings, and myths, but only the basic dispositions of atomistic liberalism from which, as in a picture negative, the image of evil is derived. This image, however, hardly reflects a real picture of specific individuals or societies, and “the other” is merely the reversal of the liberal disposition. A Kulturkampf is not a struggle about the nature of a particular culture, but a more fundamental war about dispositions positively or negatively calibrated solely through an atomistic liberal lens. These findings, as shown below, entail interesting implications. A later example is a letter sent to Iton Tel Aviv (26 July 2002), as one of many responses to a report about acts of vandalism committed by students of the senior class at Municipal Tel Aviv High School D. This letter addresses a previous response by the principal of Municipal Tel Aviv High School E, describing a program on the topic: “To be an Israeli Jew in the State of Israel.”27 Ronit Silver writes: I hold that this is pure indoctrination at best or just racism at worst. How should a student at High School E feel as an Israeli citizen who is not a Jew? . . . It seems to me that in a program of this kind, they “explain” to the students what should be their Judaism or their Israeliness, without giving them a chance of interpreting their identity in the way they themselves understand it. It would have been better had he [the principal of the high school] developed a program on “to be a person in the State of Israel” and then, perhaps, he would have prevented such phenomena as the vandalism at High School D.

This letter conveys typical liberal dispositions built through processes that deny the identity discourse. The same contrast again emerges, between a 25 26 27

This was an expression greatly favored by Haaretz writers in the 1980s as a description of the religious parties. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 201. Iton Tel Aviv, 19 July 2002.

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

discourse of rights and a discourse of identity. The writer favors a discourse of rights centering on the concept of the “person,” adducing a classic liberal argument—consideration for the other’s feelings. Like many people with liberal dispositions, she too holds that the liberal discourse grants some kind of immunity from violence and vandalism. Identity is confined to the private realm since it is merely the realization of autonomy—individuals will interpret (or, more precisely, shape) their identity as they understand it, in a process entailing no implications for others. The discourse on Jewish-Israeli identity is construed as the antithesis of the atomistic liberal discourse of rights, and negative, almost demonic attributes are ascribed to it: it is indoctrination, it is racist, hurtful to the other’s feelings, and, at least indirectly, responsible for the vandalism. I do not pretend to claim that these examples exhaust the antithetical semantics. Serious methodological problems are involved in the extrapolation from specific texts written at specific times by individuals who are part of a defined cultural environment to a general claim about the semantics of an antithetical “religion and state” linkage. And yet, a critical analysis of the processes affecting Israeli society points to an intensification of the atomistic liberal discourse. Completing the legislation of Basic Laws, together with the Supreme Court’s involvement in a wave of litigation pursuing the realization of liberal rights and freedoms, point to the strong entrenchment of atomistic liberalism in the public discourse bearing on religion and state relations. To counter my analysis, one could claim that the quoted passages show that atomistic liberalism is not an independent disposition but merely a reversal of the religious stance. The semantics of antithesis, then, is merely a byproduct of the threat lurking in the stance supporting equivalence. This claim is related to a broader question in the study of cultural phenomena: if a cultural phenomenon is responding to another, should it be viewed solely as a response or as expressing an independent cultural wholeness? If it reflects only a response, several questions emerge. First, is it right to analyze a cultural whole that creates contexts of meaning by reducing it to causal relationships? Geertz was clear in his critique: “The link between the causes of ideology and its consequences seem adventitious because the connecting element—the autonomous process of symbolic formulation—is passed over in virtual silence.”28 Second, if atomistic liberalism is only a response to a threat and does not reflect independent dispositions—why 28

Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 207.

123

124

C h a p te r 5

is it threatened by the advocates of a “religion and state” equivalence? The perception of a threat to someone or something warrants that someone or something exists independently of the threatening factor, and that is why the threat can be made at all. Atomistic liberalism, therefore, is not only a “reaction” but an independent position expressing itself through the semantics of the “religion and state” linkage.

atomistic liberalism Neither equivalence nor antithesis, then, offers an accurate description of the reality that the “religion and state” linkage supposedly represents. Whereas supporters of equivalence create a gap between ideology and life, advocates of atomistic liberalism create a gap between practice and liberal ideology, which comes to the fore in their conception of identity. What is the conception of identity represented by atomistic liberalism? Where is this identity supposed to be realized? Scholars have often noted that atomistic liberalism continues a conception of identity that was dominant in classic rationalism and during the Enlightenment, which assumes that human identity is universal and its particularistic aspects are random, variable, and inconsequential. René Descartes’ “thinking self ” is not a specific “thinking self ” living in a particular place and culture, but a universal one. Individuality has always been an irrational principle, precisely because of the variable and random character of the self. The authentic self, then, is merely the universal self, the rational human creature able to constitute and shape his or her life in intelligent ways.29 To this rationalist tradition, atomistic liberalism added elements from Romanticism.30 Unlike rationalism, Romanticism exalted the private, special, authentic self. But what is this “self ”? Romanticism answers this question in a language similar to that of rationalism: the true self is the one hidden below and beyond the person’s historical-social-cultural concrete manifestations. Both Romanticism and the Enlightenment thus assumed the existence of a true self that does not necessarily overlap its real historical-social-cultural manifestations. Atomistic liberalism drew on these two great traditions and, inspired by them, developed a special conception of identity. Liberal tradition made 29 30

See also Alessandro Ferrara, Reflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity (London: Routledge, 1998). On the interface between Romanticism and atomistic liberalism, see Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), chap. 6; Nancy L. Rosenblum, Another Liberalism: Romanticism and the Reconstruction of Liberal Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

the self-molding autonomous self a supra-model of its spiritual world, thereby expressing its closeness to Romanticism. But the premise that all persons are autonomous creatures capable of shaping their own lives drew on rationalism and the Enlightenment, which approached rationality as the element common to all humans as such. According to atomistic liberalism’s conception of identity, then, humans shape their world out of themselves. The public sphere is the realm where people with different identities meet one another and the role of the state is to ensure that it will be free and open to this diversity. These perceptions of identity and the public sphere cannot be easily reconciled, as noted, with a recognition of human identity’s historicalsocial-cultural character. Romantics and rationalists had, not by chance, assigned little importance to the public sphere. They assumed that human identity does not depend on the concrete life contexts of human beings, and therefore concluded that the public sphere is the realm of fraud and concealment where concrete human existence disappears. Liberals tried to overcome this obstacle by assigning another purpose to the public sphere or, more precisely, to the political field, which is such a significant component of it. At first, liberals held that people will only prosper in conditions that ensure human freedom, but this is a prosperity of humans who are by nature individuals. Negative freedom, in the term coined by Berlin,31 promised non-interference. The ability of humans to become whatever they wish is now guaranteed—the public-political sphere will henceforth ensure the optimal protection of these freedoms. But how will a person’s identity be realized outside the public sphere? Indeed, the greatest achievement of atomistic liberalism—and also its weakness—is the restriction of identity to the private sphere. The publicpolitical sphere will be the setting for a discourse of rights only, meant to enable identity to develop outside it. Some of the critiques aimed at this perception of identity were presented above, and they are particularly important for my discussion of the Jewish-Israeli discourse of identity. The choice of atomistic liberalism in Israel implies a failure to acknowledge not only the constructionist character of human identity in general but also the constitutive element of Jewish-Israeli existence in particular, which unfolded vis-à-vis Jewish history and tradition. The secularization of Jewish religion is what enabled in the past the recognition of religion’s special role as the bearer of Jewish tradition and culture. This identity, 31

Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 118-172.

125

126

C h a p te r 5

however, cannot be exclusively secular. Secularism signals the rise of human sovereignty and the acknowledgment of a domain amenable to human molding. It is the liberation of life from the yoke of the church and its laws and the condition for shaping open, dynamic, and variable identities—but it cannot be identical to them. Humans shape their identities from the materials of the history and the culture given to them. For Jews, these materials are the legacy of Jewish culture and tradition. The pathos that seeks to turn Israel into a state that is only liberal empties this identity from any meaning, since it formulates a stance that is fundamentally negative—“just not religion”—and relinquishes the public-political field, which is considered irrelevant from the perspective of identity. I aim my critique here at supporters of both the antithetical and equivalence conceptions. Advocates of the equivalence hypothesis acknowledge the importance of the political-public realm but not the dynamic character of identity. They do not recognize the decisive importance of conducting an identity discourse precisely in the public realm. A gap thus emerges between the practice of their lives and the ideology conveyed in the equivalence of the “religion and state” semantic compound because they, too, lead their lives and shape their identities in different contexts of meaning. They, too, belong to various communities, workplaces, and social frameworks, and they, too, read different texts and shape their concrete identities as an ongoing voyage between these contexts, reinterpreting them according to priorities they themselves determine. Even the halakhic context of meaning, which they view as crucial, is subject to reinterpretation in light of their associations with others. Religious-Zionists who support gender equality, for example—a value they absorbed in a non-halakhic context of meaning—reshape the halakhic commitment accordingly.32 This dynamism disappears or, more precisely, is silenced when the discourse addresses the metaphoric-symbolic compound “religion and state.” Unlike daily practice, the discourse on this metaphor shapes rigid dispositions unsuited to real life, as clearly evident in the words of R. Shlomo Goren.33 Although he recognized the democratic-liberal framework, he formulated a dogmatic position concerning the discourse of identity: Although our country is fundamentally a democracy founded on the principle of individual freedom, and although its legal system and its 32 33

Eliezer Goldman analyzes this issue at length in his works. For an analysis of this approach, see Sagi, Tradition vs. Traditionalism, chap. 4 and 8. R. Shlomo Goren was a central rabbinic figure in Israel’s public life. He was the first Chief Military Rabbi and established the Military Rabbinate. In 1972-1983, he was Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel.

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

regime of governance are determined through the free expression of the people’s will, this principle cannot apply to the holy laws of the Torah of Israel, which are the roots of the people’s soul and the contents of its eternal uniqueness throughout the world . . . . The mystery of the people’s existence and the miracle of renewed redemption latent in the renaissance of the state should be credited to the sacred values of our Torah, which preserved the wholeness of the people and acted as a fence and a barrier to absorption and assimilation into the nations of the world . . . . Ignoring them or formally putting them to the people’s renewed vote . . . [would] remove the strong basis of our right to exist as a people and a state and infringe on our eternal rights to the Land of Israel. Since time immemorial, the absolute identification between Judaism as expressing the uniqueness of the Jewish people and its Torah have been known and obvious to the Jewish people and to the entire world . . . . So is the absolute identification and union between the national aspirations of the Jewish people and the national and spiritual goals and aims of the Torah of Israel.34

This programmatic passage offers a prism for understanding the mechanism shaping dispositions among supporters of a “religion and state” equivalence. R. Goren does not deny the liberal component but confines it to private life, to the realm of personal freedom, and within this realm he constrains it through a rigid collectivistic conception of identity shaped as a myth to which even history defers. The Zionist project, which culminated in the creation of Israel, serves merely to confirm this conception of identity, and actual events are not allowed to negate this myth. The history of Zionism and Israel’s creation is tied to the secularization of the Jewish people and the rise of identity conceptions alternative to the religious one, but this matter is blurred through the symbolic power of collectivistic identity. Secularization is acknowledged only insofar as it touches on day-to-day activities, but ignored altogether in regard to identity. The conclusion of this analysis is that the significant impact of the “religion and state” metaphor derives from its power to shape a semantic field of intensive confrontation between dispositions. Although these dispositions express contexts of meaning that preceded the discourse on religion and state relations, this discourse provides them a channel for escalating polarization and radicalization. Supporters of a “religion and state” antithesis are 34

R. Shlomo Goren, “On the Problem of Religion and State,” in Religion and the State, ed. Matityahu Rotenberg (Tel Aviv: NRP, 1964), 79 [Heb].

127

128

C h a p te r 5

increasingly pushed into an atomistic liberalism removed from concrete life, describe the other through rigid negative features, and deny the discourse of identity. Advocates of equivalence in the “religion and state” linkage are also pushed into rigid dispositions, which suit neither what they purportedly represent—Halakhah—nor their own concrete world. Both sides portray one another in demonic terms, negating the full value of the other’s world and identity.

public discourse in israel as a negating discourse Why has the “religion and state” controversy evolved in this fashion? Why is this negating dichotomous discourse conducted in the semantic field of the “religion and state” linkage rather than in its actual setting—the problematic field of the relationship between a liberal worldview and the recognition of identity’s key role in the public-political dimension?

The Political Thesis One answer to this riddle is what I call “the political thesis,” stating that the special character of this “religion and state” discourse reflects the crucial role of politics in Israel. Jonathan Shapira describes Israeli society as “a society held captive by politicians”: Politics in Israel is modeled on what the professional literature calls absolute politics, in which the political system dictates the rules of thought and behavior in all areas of social action as well as the moral norms. This politics is the reversal of liberal politics, where civil society enjoys a measure of autonomy in the state and participates in the determination of its aims.35

The political system, which controls public practice, is the one that shapes the discourse in Israel and has (or, more precisely, politicians have) a strong interest in exacerbating conflicts in order to achieve political gains. Politicians are not thinkers and social critics. They work within a field that has accepted rules of conduct, and shaping a metaphorical field of opposition between black and white is one they often endorse. Shapira argues that absolute politics is not liberal politics and, if this thesis is correct, a paradox emerges: an absolute non-liberal politics is the one leading to the polarization 35

Jonathan Shapira, A Society Held Captive by Politicians (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Po‘alim, 1996), 131 [Heb].

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

between atomistic liberalism and national collectivism. Whereas absolute approaches tend to deny and dismiss the individual particular realm, political absolutism in Israeli politics leads to the creation of an atomistic liberal sphere. But this explanation is not sufficient to clarify the semantic field of the “religion and state” linkage for several reasons. The first is related to the restricted scope of the “interest theory.” Geertz points to two main approaches prevalent in the study of ideology’s social factors. He refers to them as the interest theory and the strain theory, and analyzes their mutual relationship.36 According to the interest theory, “ideology is a mask and a weapon”; according to the strain theory, ideology is “a symptom and a remedy.” “In the interest theory, ideological pronouncements are seen against the background of a universal struggle for advantage; in the strain theory, against the background of a chronic effort to correct sociopsychological disequilibrium.”37 According to this theory, people escape into ideology because of anxiety. Geertz emphasizes that these two theories are not necessarily contradictory, since people can be moved to act by both interest and strain. Yet, he finds the interest theory simplistic and less efficient, and points to two fundamental flaws in it. One touches on its basic psychological and sociological assumptions, given its failure to offer a suitable method for analyzing the motives of people operating in ideological contexts: Lacking a developed analysis of motivation, it has been constantly forced to oscillate between a narrow and superficial utilitarianism that sees men as impelled by rational calculation of their consciously recognized personal advantage and a broader, but no less superficial, historicism that speaks with a studied vagueness of men’s ideas as somehow “reflecting,” “expressing,” “corresponding to,” “emerging from,” or “conditioned by” their social commitments.38

The second flaw lies in the fact that the interest theory views social practice as a continued struggle for power and might. It describes social action in Machiavellian terms and argues that ideology is no more than “a form of higher cunning.”39 This theory does not take into account the role of ideologies “in defining (or obscuring) social categories, stabilizing (or upsetting) social expectations, maintaining (or undermining) social norms, 36 37 38 39

Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 201. Ibid. Ibid., 202 Ibid.

129

130

C h a p te r 5

strengthening (or weakening) social consensus, relieving (or exacerbating) social tensions.”40 Since the interest theory places the struggle for interest at the center, it does not take into account all the factors that endow ideology and its semantic field with meaning. If these critiques are valid, the political thesis fails to explain why the public discourse is conducted in the semantic field of “religion and state,” since it reduces the semantic field of meaning to interest and, moreover, does not distinguish properly between the public and political fields. The second reason for rejecting the political thesis is that, in Israel, the tense conflict of dispositions over the “religion and state” linkage is not limited to the political field (where politicians operate), but extends to the public sphere (where actors are not necessarily politicians). The public field does not necessarily operate according to interests but reflects and expresses the strains, desires, and hopes of those active in it. Individuals and societies meet one another in the public field, not necessarily under a Machiavellian cover of concealment and deceit or under a regime of reduction to interest. The struggle over the “religion and state” linkage in the public sphere often reflects a true struggle for identity, culture, and practice rather than a cynical, self-serving pursuit. People operating in the public realm are often extremely suspicious of politicians. Even if we agree with the thesis that Israeli society is held captive by politicians, we must take into account islands of free agents—academics, intellectuals, and media people—whose mistrust of politicians is inherent in their consciousness and their actions. This mistrust largely neutralizes the control exerted by political interests. From a critical perspective, these islands often create forces that actually hold politicians captive—through the press, public opinion, and particularly the legal system—and steer the political field. This analysis thus casts doubts on the political thesis as the explication of the conflict unfolding in the semantic field of religion and state relations.

The Struggle for Hegemony Thesis The thesis I wish to propose is closer to Geertz’s strain theory. Geertz was critical of this theory too, but his critique was more moderate. In his view, the strain theory, like the interest theory, lacks “anything more than the most rudimentary conception of the processes of symbolic formulation. 40

Ibid., 203

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

There is a good deal of talk about emotions ‘finding a symbolic outlet’ or ‘becoming attached to appropriate symbols’—but very little idea of how the trick is really done.”41 Geertz, as he often does, directs the readers to the lack of correlation between the causal explanation and the autonomous meanings of ideological symbols. Nevertheless, he concedes concerning the strain theory: “Diagnostically it is convincing; functionally it is not.”42 My thesis relies on the strain theory, but I will argue that the gap between the causal analysis and the analysis of the meaning context per se can easily be surmounted here, as clarified below. The validity of the strain theory in the analysis of the Israeli reality rests on the claim that the strain is what shapes the unique structure of the Israeli discourse. In other words, the general structure of the discourse does not transcend the strain that created it but, indeed, serves to preserve it. The conflicting Israeli discourse surrounding the “religion and state” semantic linkage mirrors the Jewish identity discourse that has been taking place for over a century. Secularization offered an alternative to the traditional conception of Jewish identity by pointing out that Jews belong to two circles of identity: the ethnic circle, meaning the circle of their birth, and the religious circle, meaning the circle of norms and beliefs requiring them to live within a Jewish community.43 The traditional approach, as noted, claimed that deviant religious behavior did not remove individuals from the ethnic circle: “Though he has sinned, he remains a Jew.”44 Paradoxically, the very labeling of these individuals as deviants is what enabled others to still view them as members of the community. In his well-known study of the Indian caste system,45 Louis Dumont points out that religious societies are organized through a hierarchic mechanism that determines the status of individuals and groups. The hierarchic structure ensures both the identity of the collective and the status of those who are marginalized. According to Dumont, the hierarchy of religious societies is “the principle by which the elements of a whole are ranked in relation to the whole, it being understood in the majority of societies that it is religion which provides the view of the whole, and that the ranking will thus be religious in nature.”46 41 42 43 44 45 46

Ibid., 207. Ibid. For an analysis of this question, see Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar, Circles of Jewish Identity: A Study in Halakhic Literature (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2000), chap. 10-12 [Heb]. See p. 77 above. Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications, trans. Mark Sainsbury (London: Paladin, 1972). Ibid., 66.

131

132

C h a p te r 5

Societies created by a hierarchical mechanism live in harmony precisely because they have a clear principle for determining the ranking of the groups within them. We, who have adopted equality, find it hard to endorse a hierarchical conception that has become completely alien. But according to Dumont, this hierarchical mechanism is what ensures tolerance, when every group knows its place in the ranking. Dumont says about the castes in India: People have often noted what has been called the tolerance of Indians and Hindus. It is easy to see what this feature corresponds to in social life. Many castes, who may differ in their customs and habits, live side by side, agreed on the code which ranks them and separates them. In the hierarchical scheme a group’s acknowledged differentness, whereby it is contrasted with other groups, becomes the very principle whereby it is integrated into society.47

I will not address here the issue of marginality within a hierarchical structure and will only note that marginality is a specific type of hierarchical relationship in which the marginal group, whose practice differs from the mainstream legacy of the group as a whole, is perceived as inferior.48 This complex picture of hierarchy and marginality was also reflected in the relationships between the Jewish collective and deviant individuals or groups. The expansion of alternative patterns of Jewish identity, however, including such variations as Ahad Ha-Am’s Zionism or the Reform and Conservative movements, disrupted this picture. These groups refused to be part of the hierarchy and rejected the marginal status allotted to them by the Jewish collective and, instead, struggled for primacy in the definition of Jewish identity. In that context, it was Jewish religion that was marginalized and became merely one more version, less relevant than others, of the reshaped Jewish identity. The battle was now on for the center rather than the periphery. The hierarchical “whole” and the harmony it enabled— collapsed. This Kulturkampf had to accumulate negative power, since each of these positions could only reach the top spot by negating the other. The Orthodox religious community could not accept a marginal status; given the threat posed by the alternatives, it had to negate them altogether. Similarly, the new alternatives could only break through from the margins 47 48

Ibid., 191. For a seminal discussion of marginality and hierarchy in the relationships of Jews, Christians, and Moslems, see Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), chap. 6. An important part of the perspective I offer here is influenced by Cohen’s theses.

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

by negating the traditional center. The discourse of identity thus became a discourse of intensifying mutual negation. The result of this negation is twofold. First, it leads to radicalism concerning the other, who is described only in negative terms as demonic and as the opposite of the good represented by the self. But the negation of the other is not sufficient, since identity is also—and perhaps mainly—shaped by the self so that the negation of the other as radical, the other’s threat to the core of the identity, is accompanied by a radical consciousness of self. Supporters of the classic pattern thus struggle to preserve the element unique to their Jewish identity, leading the Orthodox to reject civil marriage or uphold the most radical version of conversion, focusing on observance. Rather than to impose a halakhic regime, this struggle seeks to preserve the “Orthodox” circle as the sole expression of Jewish identity. Behind the rigidity that characterizes supporters of the “religion and state” equivalence is thus the attempt to resist a perceived threat. By contrast, the opponents of this approach have been in a strange situation for over a century. They are expected to shape their identity according to a powerful historical alternative in the life of the Jewish people and explain why an existing identity should be denied. This approach leads to an emphasis on the negative rather than the productive elements represented by the new Jewish identities. The negation began with the ethos of the Second and Third Aliyah pioneers, who tried to erase almost every remnant of Judaism from their identity,49 all the way up to a liberal world view that evades answering hard questions about the shaping of a Jewish identity in the public-political sphere. The turn from a Jewish identity discourse to one about religion and state relations is crucial in a process lacking the parameters of a classic identity discourse. The public sphere, rather than the venue for an open discourse according to set limits, becomes the scene of a life and death struggle. Identity symbols become war paints—these adorn themselves with a Halakhah they have neutralized from its concrete form, and these with an atomistic liberalism devoid of the cultural element vital to the shaping of identity. Both sides have renounced the free discourse where Jewish identities talk to one another and determine the boundaries of their exchange. 49

See David Canaani, The Second Aliyah and Its Attitude toward Religion and Tradition (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim, 1976) [Heb]; Moti Ze‘ira, Rural Collective Settlement and Jewish Culture in Eretz Israel during the 1920s (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 2002) [Heb].

133

134

C h a p te r 5

One instance of this process was an attempt to reach an accord on the regulation of the relationship between religious and secular citizens and between religion and state. This move institutionalizes the renunciation of a Jewish identity discourse in favor of a “truce” that ensures public peace. Accords of this kind are an almost desperate, and definitely pathetic, attempt to hold the stick from both ends: refrain from conducting an identity discourse and avoid the explosive effects of this evasion. Besides formal questions, such as on whose authority might the proponents offer their suggestions, this is yet another effort to shape a discourse that silences the basic problems of Jewish identity. The threat to their religious conception encouraged the religious public to persistently foster an “inflated” identity in an attempt to counteract any alternative option. The alternative identity, whose cultural and historical Jewish depth is by nature weaker, has gradually been pushed into atomistic liberalism as a defense mechanism that leaves broad room for the shaping of Jewish identities. Neither has invented anything ex nihilo or formulated a new approach solely in reaction to a threat. Supporters of the “religion and state” equivalence have the backing of their religious world and its trove of meanings, and supporters of the antithesis have the backing of their liberalism and of their Jewish-cultural world. The dynamic of their “life-and-death” struggle and of their mutual negation as it developed in the course of modern Jewish history has pushed each of the parties into an ideology that fixates and radicalizes one component as exclusive and dominant. Supporters of the “religion and state” equivalence have turned religion into a static, total element that allows no further context of meaning beyond the “halakhic” one. In this approach, as noted, the concept of Halakhah retreats further and further away from real Halakhah. Supporters of the “religion and state” antithesis have emphasized autonomy as the value underlying their conception of Judaism as a culture. Autonomy indeed reflects an acknowledgment of culture as the product of human action and, together with the secular conception of Jewish identity, concretized in an atomistic liberalism that emphasizes it above any other value. But supporters of a “religion and state” equivalence do not actually conduct their lives along the polarized dispositions underlying their discourse and do recognize contexts of meaning free from this total, collective perspective. In turn, supporters of a “religion and state” antithesis do not merely endorse an atomistic discourse of rights and do express a conception of identity in the practice of their lives in both the private and public realms.

“ R e l i gi o n a n d State” : A C r i ti cal A nalysis

The polarized discourse endorsed by atomistic liberalism and the collectivistic approach emerges through the confrontation processes enabled and encouraged by the semantic field of the “religion and state” metaphor. These processes do not fully express the practice, but provide each side with effective defense weapons against the threat posed by the other.

summary The “religion and state” question is generally formulated as a political question, that is, a question bearing on the regime’s character and on political sovereignty. My discussion in this chapter was predicated on the premise that this formulation does not reflect the true meaning of the semantic field created by the “religion and state” metaphor. In its standard formulation, this realm of discourse is the exposed tip of the iceberg in a Jewish identity discourse that is deeper and more primary, but remains vague and blurred due to the historical context of its development. Many others questions are related to the character of the identity discourse: What are its borders? What is the relationship between its political and cultural aspects? What is the status of the identity symbols? What is the status of the other—the Moslem, the Christian, the Druze—in the Jewish identity discourse and in the public sphere where it is conducted? These questions obviously require separate discussion. My concern in this chapter focused on the need for a new analysis of the “religion and state” discourse. In its political formulation, this discourse blurs the true realm that the political discourse pretends to represent—the problem of Jewish identity or Jewish identities.

135

Ch a p te r 6

on ExilE, strangErs, and sovErEignty: idEntity in thE BiBlical tradition

“The great paradox of the Exodus, and of all subsequent liberation struggles, is the people’s simultaneous willingness and unwillingness to put Egypt behind them. They yearn to be free, and they yearn to escape their new freedom . . . ; they both accept and resist the discipline of the march.”1 The journey of the Israelites in the desert is an attempt to overcome this paradox. It is a movement of liberation from a consciousness of enslavement, from the renunciation of liberty, and from the yearning for the delicacies and the free sustenance provided by their Egyptian masters. The journey in the desert will prepare the people for freedom, which is a condition for receiving the Torah because only free individuals can assume commitments and enter into a covenant with God. The people of Israel had left Egypt as a nation of slaves: It is no wonder that this nation, which in its emancipation bore the most slavelike demeanor, regretted leaving Egypt, wished to return there again whenever difficulty or danger came upon it in the sequel, and thus showed how in its liberation it had been without the soul and the spontaneous need of freedom.2

The Israelites do not wander in the desert: “The Israelites do not, as is sometimes said, go wandering in the wilderness; the Exodus is a journey forward— not only in time and space. It is a march toward a goal, a moral progress, a transformation.”3 The shift from a consciousness of enslavement to a consciousness of freedom is the first change required, and that is the purpose of their journey. Maimonides formulates this insight when he writes: For just as it is not in the nature of man that, after having been brought up in slavish service occupied with clay, bricks and similar things, he should all of a sudden wash off from his hands the dirt deriving from 1 2 3

Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 73. Georg Friedrich Hegel, On Christianity: Early Theological Writings, trans. T. M. Knox (New York: Harper, 1961), 190. Walzer, Exodus and Revolution, 12.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

them and proceed immediately to fight against the “children of Anak” (Numbers 13:28) . . . the deity used a gracious ruse in causing them to wander perplexedly in the desert until their soul became courageous— it being well known that life in the desert and lack of comforts for the body necessarily develop cowardice, and . . . moreover, people were born who were not accustomed to humiliation and servitude.4

This journey, however, was not meant to liberate the people from the memory of slavery. Only liberation from a consciousness of slaves who depend on their masters and have abdicated selfhood prepares them for the re-weaving of slavery’s memory into their consciousness and their emergence as free individuals. The coerced past, from which one must be free, is reinterpreted in the consciousness of the present. This is a process of return to the past, though not the factual past but rather the past as constituted by the present and the future.5 Søren Kierkegaard suggested the term “repetition” to describe the process in which the past returns to the present and reconstitutes it: [In repetition] the whole of life and of existence begins anew, not through an immanent continuity with the former existence, which is contradiction, but through a transcendence. This transcendence separates repetition from the former existence by such a chasm that one can only figuratively say that the former and the latter relate themselves to each other as the totality of living creatures in the ocean relates itself to those in the air and to those upon earth.6

The past returns to the present through the normative system and through its reevaluation according to constructs relevant to the present. In this new framework, memory plays an active role: the memory of having been slaves and strangers in Egypt becomes the basis for a new religious and moral position. The biblical instruction, “And you will remember that you were a bondsman in the land of Egypt,”7 is a commanded, conscious memory legislated as part of a broader, comprehensive, normative setting. The concrete aspects of slavery are dismissed from the past that returns to the 4 5

6 7

Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), III:32, 527-528. Kierkegaard refers to this movement of return to the past as repetition. For a discussion of this term, see Avi Sagi, Kierkegaard, Religion, and Existence: The Voyage of the Self, trans. Batya Stein (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 2000), 19-22, 108-109. Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, trans. Reider Thomte (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 17. See, for example, Deuteronomy 15:15; 16:12; 24:18, 24:22.

137

138

C h a p te r 6

present, and the constructed memory focuses on the pure phenomenon of slavery as the loss of freedom and mastery. Passover, focusing on the duty to tell the story of the Exodus on the night of the Seder, is an ongoing manifestation of this memory that enters the present. The mishnah that describes the Seder says: “In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he were the one who went out from Egypt, as it is said, ‘And on that day tell your son, saying, for this purpose the Lord labored on my behalf, by taking me out of Egypt‘ (Exodus 13:18).”8 Raba emphasizes the duty to actualize this memory. Beyond quoting the verse noting past events, which implies that every individual lives through the Exodus as a personal experience, he states, “He must say ‘and us did he bring forth from there’ (Deuteronomy 6:23).”9 The individual, then, must join the memory of the collective in an ongoing, multi-generational experience that shapes the life of the entire people. The reference to a verse in Deuteronomy is extremely significant in this context because chapter 6 in Deuteronomy deals with the behavior of the Jewish people in their land. It deals with the future, and includes in it the memory of the Exodus from Egypt. Raba, therefore, directs us to fixate the memory of the Exodus from Egypt as an event with permanent consequences for the shaping of the society. The author of the Passover Haggadah added the Mishnah citation to Raba’s statement and fixated the proper memory of the Exodus from Egypt: “In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he were the one who went out from Egypt . . . . It was not our fathers alone who were delivered by the Holy One, blessed be He—we were also delivered with them . . . .” This talmudic tradition reflects the biblical obligation of remembering the Exodus as an actualization of the past, turning it into a living, active component shaping a new consciousness of selfhood. From this perspective, the Egyptian enslavement has a moral purpose, as hinted in the verse, “But the Lord has taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as you are this day.”10 The iron furnace is designed to refine silver and gold. The suffering in Egypt, the “iron furnace,” is intended to prepare Israel to be the people of God. In Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s formulation: 8 9 10

M. Pesahim 10:5. TB Pesahim 116b. Deuteronomy 4:20.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

The suffering in Egypt apparently was intended to refine and cleanse the Jewish character, removing the dross of moral impurities and heightening the people’s ethical sensitivity. This metaphor is echoed by the prophet Yeshayahu (49:10): “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of afflictions.” The Egyptian exile may thus be viewed as a necessary experience which molded the moral quality of the Jewish people for all time . . . . The Egyptian experience may therefore be regarded as the fountainhead and moral inspiration for the teaching of compassion which is so pervasive in Jewish Law. It sharpened the Jew’s ethical sensitivity and moral awareness.11

This basic approach comes forth in many norms. For example, the organizing principle underlying the prohibition of work on the Sabbath is the Egyptian enslavement: “And remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”12 Elsewhere in Deuteronomy, establishing this memory becomes the rationale for a series of commands touching on the behavior toward the weak—the stranger, the fatherless, the widow: You will not pervert the judgment of the stranger, or of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s garment as a pledge: but you will remember that you were a bondman in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this thing . . . . When you beat your olive tree, you will not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you will not glean it afterwards; it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. And you will remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt: therefore I command you to do this thing.13

Moses is the first to give a personal subjective response to this command when he names his son Gershom—“for he said, I have been a stranger [ger] in a strange land.”14 Through his son, then, Moses sets up a living 11 12 13 14

Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Reflections of the Rav: Lessons in Jewish Thought Adapted from the Lectures of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, ed. Abraham R. Besdin (New York: Ktav, 1993), 189-190. Deuteronomy 5:15. Deuteronomy 24:17-22. Exodus 2:22.

139

140

C h a p te r 6

memorial to the historical event. Had the meaning of the stay in Egypt been negative and had it served no purpose in the shaping of life in the present, Moses would not have stigmatized his son by naming him after this event. Resonating in Moses’ act, which perpetuates the consciousness of estrangement, is Abraham’s statement: “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you.”15 And they are not the only ones—David too calls himself a stranger. The Mekhilta emphasizes this connection between the ancestors of the nation and its normative ideal meaning when it comments on the verse, “You will neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”:16 Abraham called himself a stranger, as it is said, “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you”; David called himself a stranger, as it is said: “I am a stranger on the earth” (Psalms 119:19). And he also says: “For we are strangers before You, and sojourners, as all our fathers were: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding” (I Chronicles 29:15). And it also says: “For I am a stranger with you, a sojourner, as all my fathers were” (Psalms 39:13).17

The history of the nation’s ancestors shows that being strangers was indeed a formative experience for them. Abraham was commanded to leave his country and go to a foreign, unknown place—“the land that I will show you.” He is not leaving the safe surroundings of his home and his fatherland in order to reach another safe place, but journeying to a perilous unknown.18 In his wanderings, Abraham feels alienated from the surroundings. His saying to the children of Het, “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you,” sums up his experience in the Land of Canaan, since the term “stranger” [ger] in biblical literature denotes one who has left his country and his homeland and has moved to a place where he does not own land.19 Even when Abraham is living in the Land of Israel, then, his homeland is beyond it. He seeks a wife for his son in his homeland and orders Eliezer, “but you will

15 16 17 18 19

Genesis 23:4. Exodus 22:20. Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, trans. Jacob Lauterbach, Tractate Nezikin XVIII (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2010), 453. See Martin Buber, On Zion: The History of an Idea, trans. Stanley Goodman (London: East and West Library, 1973). See Yehezkel Kaufmann, Exile and Estrangement: A Socio-Historical Study on the Fate of the Nation of Israel from Ancient Times Until the Present, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1962), 227 [Heb].

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

go to my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife to my son Isaac.”20 Abraham insists on this matter: And the servant said to him, Perhaps the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land: must I bring your son back to the land from where you came? And Abraham said to him, Beware lest you bring my son back there. The Lord God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me, and swore to me, saying, To your seed will I give this land; he shall send his angel before you, and you will take a wife from my son from there. And if the woman will not be willing to follow you, then you will be clear from this my oath: only bring not my son back there.21

Abraham has a dialectical attitude toward his homeland. He does not wish his son to marry a local woman but one from his homeland. Abraham understands that, if the sense of being strangers is to be a formative foundation of his family, his son Isaac must marry a woman whose personality is deeply imprinted with the memory of exile. Not only was Abraham a wanderer, but so were Isaac and Jacob. Isaac wanders around the land as a stranger and Jacob is exiled, as are his sons. Yehezkel Kaufmann summed up by stating: Biblical tradition approaches the period of the “patriarchs” as a time of wanderings. Abraham has a country and a homeland: Ur Kasdim or Haran.22 But in the Land of Canaan, he and his descendants are strangers. This is the most typical attribute of the patriarchs’ era: the patriarchs live in a foreign land, outside a cultural-national independent domain. They are not with their people and in their land. They do not conquer the land or even part of it through a military-political conquest, and certainly not through an ethnic conquest. They buy land and pay for it . . . . The patriarchs were promised the land, but the land was not given to them.23

The wanderings of the patriarchs, and even their exile, become the preordained fate of the Jewish people in the Egyptian exile, as stated in the “covenant of the pieces”: “And he said to Abram, Know surely that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and 20 21 22 23

Genesis 24:4. Genesis 24:5-8. Genesis 11:28; 12:1. Yehezkel Kaufmann, History of the Religion of Israel, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1972), 2 [Heb]. See also 143, 304-307.

141

142

C h a p te r 6

they shall afflict them four hundred years.”24 This fate has puzzled many commentators: why the harsh decree of Egyptian exile? The biblical story does not suggest that the Egyptian exile is a punishment for some specific act. Rather, the story fits the rhythm of the biblical narrative as a whole— this unique fate is explained teleologically rather than causally. The enslavement in Egypt was meant to imprint the consciousness of the Israelites with the experience of being strangers, not merely as another event in their past but as a constitutive component of their life in the present. The journey to Egypt is an initiation journey of non-belongingness, non-rootedness. As Irit Rogoff noted, only a journey will enable this experience in all its intensity.25

the people of israel and the land of israel Classic Jewish thought offers several approaches on the question of the relationship between the people of Israel and their land, including two antithetical views.26 One assumes that Eretz Israel is the locus of the Jewish people and that exile is therefore not natural to them. The other holds that exile is the ideal state of the Jewish people, who are meant to live and realize their existence as a people outside the territorial area intended to be their home. The classic representative of the former trend is R. Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as the Maharal of Prague, the first thinker to formulate a comprehensive systematic doctrine on exile and redemption. Although ideas from the schools of Judah Halevi and Nahmanides are preserved in his thought, the Maharal’s approach is marked by a unique and innovative national conception.27 Given his starting assumption—that the natural locus of the Jewish people is their land and that exile is a deviation from this natural state—he views the historical fact of exile as a guarantee of redemption: Exile is itself evidence and clear proof of redemption given that exile is, unquestionably, a change and a departure from the order arranged by God, may He be blessed, who set every nation in its proper place and 24 25 26

27

Genesis 15:13. Irit Rogoff, Terra Infirma (London: Routledge, 2000), 19. On this issue, see Moshe Hallamish and Aviezer Ravitzky, eds., The Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1991) [Heb]; Aviezer Ravitzky, ed., The Land of Israel in Modern Jewish Thought (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1998) [Heb]; idem, The Land of Israel in Twentieth Century Jewish Thought (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2005) [Heb]. See Buber, On Zion, 78-81. See also Benjamin Gross, Le Messianisme juif: L’éternité d’Israel du Maharal de Prague (Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1969).

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

set the people of Israel in the proper place for them, which is the Land of Israel. Exile from their place is a change and altogether a departure. And all things, when taken out of their natural place, will not endure in a place that is unnatural for them and [will do so] only if they return to their natural place because, had they stayed in a place unnatural to them, the unnatural would become natural and that is impossible.28

The Maharal assumes that the relationship between exile and redemption is as the relationship between the natural and unnatural dimensions of reality. Since reality is organized as a cosmos, that is, as a natural, consistent, and ordered system, he concludes that a reality that transcends nature is necessarily transient. From this perspective, the Maharal claims that precisely the fact that the Jewish people failed to strike roots in exile and remained dispersed is evidence that they belong to their natural place—the Land of Israel. Exile is an anomaly in Jewish existence, and should remain so until the people’s return to their land, their natural place.29 The Maharal’s approach is enormously appealing, so much so that Yitzhak Baer, among the most distinguished contemporary historians, endorses it and states, “It is up to us to give the old faith a new meaning.”30 Baer determines that the Maharal’s view is the classic approach of Jewish tradition and that this conception, rather than the national European movements, is the driving force behind Zionism: “The Jewish revival of the present day is in its essence not determined by the national movements of Europe; it harks back to the nascent national consciousness of the Jews, which existed before the history of Europe.”31 Mainstream religious-Zionist thought did indeed endorse the Maharal’s view, as is prominently evident in the writings of R. Abraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook and his school.32

28

29 30 31 32

Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague (Maharal), Netsah Yisrael (London, 1952), chap. 1, 9 [Heb]. On exile and redemption in the Maharal’s thought, see Gross, Le Messianisme juif. See also Rivka Schatz-Uffenheimer, “Existence and Eschatology in the Teaching of the Maharal,” in Messianism and Eschatology: A Collection of Essays, ed. Zvi Baras (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1982), 301-322 [Heb]. For a particularly interesting interpretation of the Maharal, see Buber, On Zion, 77-89. See also Dov Schwartz, “Land of Romanticism and Redemption: Buber as Commentator of R. Judah Loew of Prague,” in On Repentance and Redemption: Presented to Binyamin Gross, ed. Dov Schwartz and Ariel Gross (RamatGan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2008), 175-190 [Heb]. See Maharal, Netsah Yisrael, 122. Yitzhak F. Baer, Galut (New York: Schocken Books, 1947), 119. Ibid. For a deep and comprehensive analysis of this matter, see Dov Schwartz, The Land of Israel in Religious-Zionist Thought (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1997) [Heb), particularly under Maharal in the index.

143

144

C h a p te r 6

The Maharal’s approach is hard to reconcile with biblical historiosophy, which does not assume that the Land of Israel is the natural locus of the Jewish people, but rather the opposite. Eliezer Schweid refers to the Land of Israel as a “land of destiny,”33 which will be given to the people of Israel only under certain conditions. It is not entirely free from the giver—God— who has a special attitude toward it. Life in the Land of Israel is not merely life in a natural place. One cannot be a native of it, since life in it involves a constant call to forge a consciousness of being strangers, to reject natural belongingness: “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me.”34 The Bible denies the notion of a natural association between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel, and contrasts it with the view of the people of Israel as strangers in their land. Even in what is purportedly their locus and their home, the people must understand and experience rootlessness. In sum, the Maharal did not take into account the significance of this experience as constitutive to the connection to the land as well, an issue discussed below. Against the Maharal’s view, another trend in modern Jewish thought turned the experience of exile into the fundamental notion of Jewish existence. Without denying the centrality of the land, this trend viewed it as a different domain—the land of the patriarchs, an ideal, holy place. Hermann Cohen tersely formulates this position in his confrontation with Zionist thought: Palestine is not merely the land of our fathers; it is the land of our prophets, who established and perfected the ideal of our religion. Hence, we consider it indeed the Holy Land, though only in the sense that our timeless, sacred heritage originated there . . . . The classical concept of our religion points towards the future of mankind, and not towards the past of an ethnic community whose holiness, rather than being tied down to a geographical location, is bound up with its world historical idea. For us as for the psalmist, God dwells in Israel’s songs of praise (Psalms 22:4). These, however, cannot ring out into the world by themselves. It is up to us to remain God’s true emissaries spreading these songs, in their unique distinctiveness, throughout the world.35 33 34 35

Eliezer Schweid, The Land of Israel: National Home or Land of Destiny, trans. Deborah Greniman (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985). Leviticus 25:23. Hermann Cohen, Reason and Hope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen, trans. Eva Jospe (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), 169-170.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

Cohen emphasized the a-territorial character of Jewish religion, which had detached Judaism from a specific territorial realm—the Land of Israel. Franz Rosenzweig, who was deeply influenced by Cohen’s thought, develops this view as part of the broad theological approach he formulates in The Star of Redemption. In his view, “there is only one community in which such a relationship of eternal life reaches from the grandfather to the grandson, only one that cannot express the ‘We’ of its unity without hearing as well within its core ‘are eternal’ as its complement.”36 According to Rosenzweig, the eternity of the Jewish people is rooted in its power to abandon the land: . . . alone among all peoples of the earth we have awakened out of every community living with the dead. For the earth nourishes, but it also binds, and when a people loves the soil of the homeland more than its own life, then the danger hangs over it—and it hangs over all peoples of the world—that nine times that love may save the soil of the homeland against the enemy and also with them the life of the people; but a tenth time the soil remains as that which is loved more and the very life of the people pours out of it. Ultimately the people, too, belong to him who conquers the land; it cannot be otherwise when people are more attached to the land than to their own life as a people. In this way, the earth betrays the people that entrusts to the permanence of the earth its own permanence; the earth itself persists, but the people on it perish.37

This approach is seemingly anchored in pragmatic considerations, as part of the struggle against the identification of Judaism with Zionism. In light of these considerations, the eternity of the Jewish people cannot be dependent on a territory, for two reasons. First, rule over a territory is contingent. The territory could be conquered and, were the people’s existence to depend on it, the result could be the people’s end. Second, others reside on the land, and they will bring the people to disappear within them. On closer scrutiny, however, Rosenzweig’s view is revealed as resting on a unique conception of the people of Israel. He recurrently emphasizes that the Jewish people is not indigenous: For this reason, the tribal legend of the eternal people begins otherwise than with indigenousness. Only the father of humanity and even he only as regards the body, is sprouted from the earth; Israel’s ancestor, 36 37

Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans. Barbara E. Galli (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 317. Ibid., 318-319.

145

146

C h a p te r 6

however, immigrated; his story begins, as the Holy Books recount it, with the divine command to go out of the land of his birth and to go into a land that God will show him. And the people becomes the people, as in the dawn of its earliest times so later again in the bright light of history, in an exile, the Egyptian one as later the one in Babylon. And the homeland in which the life of a people begins to feel at home and ploughed in . . . for the eternal people the homeland never becomes its own in that sense; it is not permitted to sleep at home; it always remembers the lack of constraints on a traveler and is a knight truer to his land when he lingers in his travels and adventures and longs for the homeland it has left than in the times when he is at home. The land is in the deepest sense its own only as [a] land of longing, as [a] holy land. And this is why for it, when it is at home . . . this full proprietorship of the homeland is disputed; it is itself only a stranger and tenant in its land. “The land is mine,” says God to the people; the holiness of the land removes the land from its natural hold . . . ; the holiness infinitely increases its longing for the lost land and henceforward no longer lets it feel entirely at home in any other land . . . ; this can be realized only by means of the people itself; the people is a people only through the people.38

Furthermore, he writes: Unlike other nations, the people of Israel is not allowed to feel the land is its own, and year after year must remember that it received the land from God only in trust and not as its property. “An Aramean nomad was my father” (Deuteronomy 26:5) admits the farmer when bringing the first fruits of his land, and he is told by God “the land is mine” (Leviticus 25:23). And whereas for other nations the apex of their being a people is the independence symbolized by the monarchy’s dominion of the people, for the people of Israel the wish to be “like other nations” is considered a betrayal, a betrayal of the sole rule the people is allowed to wish for—the rule of its God.39 38 39

Ibid., 319. Franz Rosenzweig, “Geist und Epochen der Jüdischen Geschichte,” in Kleinere Schriften (Berlin: Schocken, 1937), 20. Rosenzweig’s approach very closely resembles that of Isaac Breuer. See Isaac Breuer, Wegzeichen (Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann, 1923), 21-39, and idem, Programm oder Testament: Vier Jüdische-Politische Aufsätze (Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann, 1929), 56-73.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

At the center of Cohen’s conception of exile is the idea of the Jewish people’s mission to other nations. Rosenzweig does not accept this idea. His approach rests on a historiosophical assumption stating that the eternity of the Jewish people cannot be contingent on a territory. Precisely because the people of Israel is an eternal people, a meta-historical entity, it cannot depend on an outside element. The constitutive foundation of the Jewish people is the people and, in his sharp formulation, “the people is a people only through the people.”40 The Jewish people, as a meta-historical people, must be alienated from real history, from the yearnings typical of historical peoples. The Jew, so Emmanuel Levinas interprets Rosenzweig, “has already arrived. He has no need of State. He has no need of land, he has no need of laws, to be sure of his permanence within being. Nothing comes to him from outside.”41 Note that this stance does not make the land superfluous. Rather, it merely turns the land from a concrete territorial domain into one of unattainable longing and unconsummated passion. Consummating this passion indeed leads to its destruction as the holy land of the eternal people.42 Whereas Rosenzweig interpreted the demand of exile and alienation in historiosophical terms, Hillel Zeitlin and Soloveitchik (whose thought was influenced by Rosenzweig’s) adopted an existential-religious perspective of the meaning of exile. For Zeitlin, the biblical command “Go forth from your country,”43 without indicating a precise alternative destination, is an expression of the self-transcendence constitutive of religious life. The meaning of religiosity is a ceaseless yearning for infinity: Go and seek a remote land, a superior land, a land of heaven . . . . God does not tell man, there is the land you require, but rather, God said to man, your land—in the infinite blue, in the endless space, in the glory

40 41 42

43

The basic difference between their approaches lies in the element they view as constitutive of the Jewish people’s existence as aterritorial. Rosenzweig emphasizes the religious-theological aspect, whereas Breuer stresses the normative aspect—the people of Israel is founded on the law, and by submitting to the law it submits to God, and is thus unconditioned by territory. Rosenzweig, Star of Redemption, 319. Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, trans. Seán Hand (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 194. For manifestations of the idea that the land is an object of longing rather than a space where life concretizes, see Zohar Maor, “Transforming the Land of Israel into Longing: Political Theology in Kafka and Brod and in Contemporary Post-Zionism,” in Jewish Political Tradition Throughout the Ages: In Memory of Daniel J. Elazar, ed. Moshe Hellinger (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000) [Heb]. Genesis 12:1.

147

148

C h a p te r 6

of the mystery, in the hiddenness of the light, in the concealment of the secret . . . 44

According to Zeitlin, the biblical emphasis on detachment from the land, from the homeland, and from the father’s house conveys the believers’ duty to detach themselves from elements that prevent them from transcending concrete reality. The command to Abraham outlines a universal religious paradigm, and Zeitlin recurrently interprets in its terms every component of the biblical command. Individuals are deeply connected to their homeland . . . they believe it to be the most unique of all lands, requiring them to renounce everything for its existence and its success and to ensure it will thrive and flourish. They believe that everything is permitted and allowed for the “homeland” . . . “Go forth from your country,” it is true that people love the place they live in . . . true that you must work and toil for this homeland, but something is greater than this love . . . the land that is invisible, which God shows to those close to him, shows and hides, lights up and conceals.45

The religious obligation is not confined solely to a passion for infinity. It is directed toward the mystical world beyond concrete existence. According to Zeitlin, detachment from the homeland thus means not only detachment from patriotism but from the oppressive power of nationalism, particularly when it “supports offensive beliefs and opinions,” and if this nationalism “enslaves other peoples, brutally overpowers them, subjugates them, crushes them and shatters them . . . . God will say to man, ‘Go forth from your country!’ . . . Sustain only what is good and sacred in your nation, but not its egoism, not its cravings for power and conquest.”46 The ancestral home denotes the fundamental core of human existence. Even individuals liberated from their homeland remain attached “to the special customs and the special beliefs and opinions of their families.”47 The early environment is extremely powerful and shapes the individual both consciously and unconsciously. The person speaking in first person singular conveys “the surrounding environment with its wickedness and missteps . . . .”48 The biblical call 44 45 46 47 48

Hillel Zeitlin, Collected Writings (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1979), 25-26 [Heb]. Ibid., 26. Ibid. Ibid., 26. Ibid., 26-27.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

“to the land that I will show you” ties the end to the beginning. “Go forth from your country”—to your self, to the root of your supreme soul, and that is indeed also the supreme land that God shows to those who seek him truly . . . . The constant surrender to the radiance of the world, the constant, deep and absolute self-negation vis-à-vis the infinite light . . . the search for the absolute divine good . . . . Through self-negation, we gain understanding, and through understanding— greater self-negation, and so forth forever and ever ad infinitum.49

This drama is not only the story of Abraham: “This statement, made to Abraham, is forever repeated to everyone in this world, except that their eyes are closed and their ears shut.”50 As the father of all believers, Abraham carves the religious path—detachment from the real self and its social contexts, and immersion in the mystical contemplation that embodies authentic human existence. Zeitlin is close to Rosenzweig in regard to negation—both view detachment from concrete existence as the foundation of religious life. On two issues, however, they differ. One is the identity of the subject receiving this commandment. Rosenzweig holds that the subject is the people, whereas Zeitlin holds that the subject is the individual. The other is the purpose of this negation. For Rosenzweig, the negation relates to the territory—the Jewish people, as an eternal people, is not territorial. Zeitlin, by contrast, holds that the negation is the beginning of the believer’s journey to God. This analysis points to Zeitlin’s closeness to Soloveitchik. Both focus on the individual and on the individual’s journey of faith. In an essay he devotes to the analysis of Abraham as a wanderer, Soloveitchik develops a unique view of the idea of Abraham as an eternal wanderer.51 In his view, God’s command to Abraham, “Go forth from your country,” assumed a demand from Abraham: “Keep on journeying: you are but a wandering Aramean. You have no home, you have no country.”52 The experience of being an eternal wandering exile is constructive and redeeming. It frees us from absurd vanity and foolish haughtiness. This exile awareness is per se redemptive, because man 49 50 51 52

Ibid., 27. Ibid. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Abraham’s Journey: Reflections on the Life of the Founding Patriarch (New Jersey: Ktav, 2008), 73-89. Ibid., 78-79.

149

150

C h a p te r 6

seeks shelter and serenity in God in answer to the grisly fright of nihility. The quest for God is precipitated by the utter despair that follows upon being abandoned by God . . . . Exile is the prologue to return [to God].53

The redeeming role of the exile experience, beyond directing the individual toward God as the sole source of refuge and serenity, also releases us from dependence on human values. According to Soloveitchik, “Relativization of man–made values, ideals and institutions is a basic article in Judaism. The human creative mind deserves respect, attention, and appreciation, but it must never be made the object of adoration and worship.”54 This view of Soloveitchik brings together the romantic notion of exile and the existentialist approaches of Martin Heidegger and Sigmund Freud. The romantic notion emphasizes exile as the human domain of freedom. Free individuals must exile themselves from themselves, they must be estranged and alienated in order to become independent from external conditions and even from their own life circumstances. From existentialist thought, mainly from Heidegger, Soloveitchik drew the idea that our fundamental experience is anxiety—we are not at home (unheimlich).55 For Soloveitchik, exile is indeed a shift in the geographic space but reaches its culmination in the individual’s personal life. Like Kierkegaard before him, Soloveitchik argues that from the depths of alienation, anxiety, and despair, Abraham—and, by implication, all of us—learns how to be liberated from a belief in the infinite power, sovereignty, and fullness of humans, and is thus able to turn to God.56 Particularly in the modern era, we are exiles, homeless. This is our inescapable reality: Man is in exile, homeless . . . . Not the Jew alone is in exile, but man as such . . . . From a metaphysical existential perspective is a universal experience. Our exile is merely a reflection of the general, metaphysical consciousness of exile that oppresses every man and not only the Jew. Man was cursed by God and expelled from paradise as homeless.57 53 54 55 56

57

Ibid., 75. Ibid., 80. For an extensive discussion of this issue, see Avi Sagi, Facing Others and Otherness: The Ethics of Inner Retreat (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2012), 126-128 [Heb]. The thesis of Jewish normative exile has also found expression elsewhere. See Hannah Arendt, The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age (New York: Grove Press, 1978); George Steiner, Errata: An Examined Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 54-62. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Divrei Hagut ve-Ha‘arakhah (Jerusalem: WZO, 1981), 102-103 [Heb].

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

This exiled creature, experiencing estrangement and alienation from the world, can only find sustenance in God. Exile redeems us from the vain delusions that seduce us into thinking we may find meaning in our lives outside God: On the long life journey, at one point or another, one must reach the absurd stage at which one finds oneself bankrupt and forlorn . . . Man must be cognizant of this tragic fact . . . If a man is not conscious of the contradiction inherent in the very core of his personality, he lives in the world of illusion and leads an unredeemed existence.58

Exile is thus postulated as a necessary existential religious state that leads humans toward God. Despite the similarities, however, Zeitlin’s and Soloveitchik’s views are far apart. For Zeitlin, the journey begins with the liberation from the concrete and ends with the elimination of the self and immersion in the mystical. By contrast, Soloveitchik describes a classic existentialist journey: believers transcend their concrete being and discover the impotence and fragility of their existence. This discovery enables them to surrender to God and be obedient subjects. The purpose of the journey is to shape a new existential stance for the believer within the world, rather than, as Zeitlin had postulated, in complete detachment from it. Be that as it may, these views of exile are a Jewish response to the medieval legend of Ahasuerus, the wandering Jew punished with eternal exile for his vile conduct toward Christ on the way to the cross.59 In the course of time, the wandering Jew turned from an excoriated figure into the hero of modernity—Prometheus freed from his chains60 bearing tidings of freedom, a creature that does not depend on time and place. The wandering Jew thus underwent a transformation—from a guilty character to a modern, active, skeptical person. Nahum Sokolov offers a highly 58 59

60

Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “Catharsis,” Tradition 17 (1978): 53-54. On this legend, see the references in Avi Sagi, The Human Voyage to Meaning: A Philosophical-Hermeneutical Study of Literary Works (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2009), 177, note 7 [Heb]. One of Aharon Appelfeld’s characters, a woman vacationing on the shores of the Prut river, offers an interesting literary expression of this view of the Jew: ”An Ukrainian peasant is connected to his land—plows, sows, plants. They are deeply rooted in the soil. The Jews are here and tomorrow they are elsewhere: rootless plants, parasites feeding on shadows. Just take them out to the light of day and they wilt” (Aharon Appelfeld, My Parents [Or Yehuda, Israel: Kinneret-Zmora-Bitan, 2013], 64 [Heb]). Later in the story, however, we learn that this character is not at ease with her Judaism, and she admits she would happily leave her Jewish existence behind (ibid., 67). On the Promethean theme, see David Ohana, The Promethean Passion: The Intellectual Origins of the Twentieth Century from Rousseau to Foucault (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2000), particularly 3-16 [Heb].

151

152

C h a p te r 6

instructive instance of this transformation. In a book he wrote on Spinoza, he describes the legend as it had been interpreted in Christian tradition. He, however, approaches the eternity and wanderings of the Jew entirely differently. The eternity of the Jew is a “victory over time and place. The ‘eternal Jew’ . . . is a protean figure, who remembers all that has been forgotten, flying from one end of the world to the other.”61 The other, radical side of this transformation is the endorsement of cosmopolitanism as a way of life.62 Cosmopolitanism does not imply a negation of real, local, biographical components. Each component is important, but human existence rises above all of them. Cosmopolitanism, then, is not an endorsement of the exile thesis because cosmopolites are not exiles—their homeland is the world. From this perspective, the views of exile suggested by Cohen, Rosenzweig, Zeitlin, and Soloveitchik are renewed interpretations of the wandering Jew legend on the one hand and of the seduction of cosmopolitanism on the other. According to Cohen, the wandering Jew is a-territorial, since he bears universal religious tidings. According to Rosenzweig, the wandering Jew denotes the Jewish people’s existence as a meta-historical eternal entity that is not tied to concrete circumstances. According to Zeitlin and Soloveitchik, the wanderings in exile enable Jews to transform their immanent human condition and associate their personal experiences—anxiety and despair according to Soloveitchik, or the certainty and safety of the real according to Zeitlin—with God: mystical communion with the divine world according to Zeitlin, or obedience and submission according to Soloveitchik. All these positions share the assumption that the Jew’s metaphysical fate is realized by living outside a territorial space, outside the Land of Israel. According to this approach, and contrary to the Maharal’s view, the Jew does not have a natural locus, since the Jewish people is outside nature, outside history, and outside the human set of values. These approaches assign importance to exile and to non-belongingness but they do not strengthen cosmopolitanism. Quite the contrary, the world is not the homeland of the Jew as it is the homeland of the cosmopolite because the Jew has no homeland at all—the Jew is a stranger in the world. For a Jew, the homeland is a non-geographic space. 61 62

Nahum Sokolov, Baruch Spinoza and His Time (Paris: Voltaire, 1929), 371 [Heb]. See also Jacob David Abramski, In the Footsteps of the Eternal Jew: Reflections and Studies in Judaism (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim, 1985), 106-121 [Heb]. See p. 68 above, and the discussion there of Ernst Toller, I Was a German: An Autobiography, trans. Edward Crankshaw (London: John Lane, 1934).

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

This historiosophical move closes a circle pointed out by George Steiner: “The Jews in exile were always suspect to the nations among whom they lived . . . . First they separated the Jew and then they blamed him for being aloof, for refusing to assimilate. Through such a dialectic, the Jew became an oddity to his surroundings.”63 Steiner then claims that this went beyond the attitude of outsiders: “In quite complex ways, he also became a ‘stranger’ to himself, especially if he was not a zealous member of the religious community.”64 This analysis, however, suggests that being a stranger became a meta-historical or existential component of religious existence as such. Steiner emphasized the moral and cultural significance of exile. Like Zeitlin, Steiner holds that exile ensures liberation from the myth of nationalism, which can lead to a loss of moral judgment. The marginality of life in exile, the Jews’ place as guests, allows them the wealth of creativity and moral criticism. According to Steiner, the Jew’s new dwelling is the culturallinguistic realm. The wandering Jew is open to cultural horizons, to creativity, to a range of cultural achievements—all are his homeland: “I am from the city of Freud and Trotsky, from the land of Kafka and Roman Jakobson.”65 Their coerced fate became constitutive of the Jews’ existence as cultural and ethical creatures. The seduction of exile is indeed a recurring motif among several twentieth-century thinkers. Edmond Jabès, for example, supported the view of the text rather than any particular territory as the Jews’ homeland: I am in the book. The book is my world, my country, my roof, and my riddle.66 The Jewish world is based on a written law, on a logic of words one cannot deny. So the country of the Jews is on the scale of their world, because it is a book.67

And yet, the attempt to claim that this view represents Jewish tradition is based on the failure to distinguish the exile from the stranger. 63 64 65 66

67

George Steiner, “The Wandering Jew,” Petahim 1, 6 (1968): 17-18 [Heb]. Ibid. Ibid., 21. See also George Steiner, “Jewish Values in the Post-Holocaust Future,” Judaism 16 (1967): 276. Edmond Jabès, The Book of Questions, trans. Rosmarie Waldrop (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1977), 31. Heinrich Heine was the first to suggest that the linguistic space can be a homeland that replaces a concrete one. Heine, however, was describing his situation as a Jew living in Prussia after Napoleon’s defeat. The Jew, robbed of his homeland by evil men, is left with a linguistic homeland—German. See Heinrich Heine, Sämtliche Schriften, vol. 2, ed. Klaus Briegleb (Munich: Hanser, 1975-1985), 92. His stance, however, hints at a longing for a real homeland in a specific geographic space, whereas Jabès chooses the linguistic space as his homeland. Jabès, Book of Questions, 100. See also 31.

153

154

C h a p te r 6

Being an exile is similar to being a stranger, but these are different modes of existence. Being a stranger denotes a type of consciousness, as well as a social and legal status. The non-Jew living in the Land of Israel is a stranger in several ways. Factually, the stranger is an exile; socially, this alien quality entails implications for his status. Not so Jews who, in the biblical tradition, are living in their place: the Jew is the native [ezrah]— “one born among you”68 or one “that was born in the land.”69 This connection between the condition of being an ezrah in the land assumes unique form in Psalms: “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil” [ezrah ra‘anan].70 The term ezrah in the context of this verse is explained as a “plant rooted in the earth . . . . Probably a vine of pure strain . . . and also the pure members of the people, unlike the strangers.”71 R. David Kimhi (Radak) comments: “Because it is visible to all in its beauty and moisture, as a man is called ezrah when all know who he and his family are, and its opposite is the stranger.”72 Defining the Jew as an ezrah brings him close to the native, and the ezrah metaphor is particularly accurate here. Being an ezrah who belongs to an ethnic community rooted in its place—the Land of Israel— denies the Jew’s exilic dimension. The Jewish ezrah, moreover, is a native, a statement resting on the legal-factual determination that Jews own the land because it was given to them. Scripture, however, seeks to implant in the Jew the consciousness of being a stranger, which is not necessarily preempted by being an ezrah. Kaufmann claims that an ezrah can have a stranger’s consciousness, and he points as an example to the plight of Jews in various countries of their exile that had granted them civic rights: The notion of the Jews as strangers in exile is broader . . . than the legal concept of foreigners, and includes Jews who, legally, were granted civic rights in Gentile countries. At its root, this is not a legal concept but a popular psychological one . . . . The popular Jewish and Gentile consciousness has always thought of the Jews as strangers in countries not their own.73 68 69 70 71 72 73

See, for example, Exodus 12:49; Leviticus 16:29; 18:26; 19:34; 24, 16, 22, and many others. See, for example, Numbers 9:14. Psalms 37:35. Encyclopaedia Biblica, s.v. “ezrah,” vol. 1, 187 (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1952-1982) [Heb]. Commentary of Radak, Psalms 37:35. Kaufmann, Exile and Estrangement, vol. 1, 474.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

This characterization clarifies the demand made from Jews to be strangers in their own land. Although as natives, as the sovereign, Jews do not belong to the marginal group of strangers and Scripture often contrasts the stranger with the ezrah, it still seeks to entrench this consciousness and requires Jews to experience themselves as strangers while in their place and at their home in the Land of Israel. But Scripture does not direct Jews to leave their land and live in exile—outside their place. In pointing out the fundamental connection between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel, the Maharal’s view is far from the biblical one. Whereas he views attachment to the land as natural and primary, Scripture seeks to dismiss this notion and wishes Jews to develop a consciousness of being strangers while in their land. Nor do Cohen, Rosenzweig, Soloveitchik, and the exilic tradition in general reflect the biblical view. Exile in Scripture is punishment for a sin, a departure from the place where the people are truly meant to live. Rather than exalting exile, Scripture condemns it and, according to Ezekiel and Isaiah, even views it as a desecration of the Divine Name.74 The Bible teaches that the Land of Israel is indeed the land of destiny, the home of the Jewish people, and it is precisely in their home that they must experience themselves as strangers. Insofar as the people of Israel are concerned, the crucial distinction is that between the stranger and the exile and, in what follows, I will seek to clarify this complex issue.

stranger and exile Edward Said calls exile the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement.75

Exile is an experience of dislodgement from the land and from the past, denoting an incomplete, flawed way of life. The experience of exile thus gives rise to a constant impulse to heal it, to return to the place, the home, 74 75

See, for example, Ezekiel 36:20-21; Isaiah 52:5. Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 173.

155

156

C h a p te r 6

the homeland.76 One without a homeland is one who has no place, a strange and abstract creature, insecure and adrift. A good perspective for understanding the relationship between exile and homeland is to consider the meaning of home. In an influential essay, Gaston Bachelard traces the contours of this term.77 He rejects Heidegger’s view that the first phenomenological datum of human existence is that we are thrown into the world.78 According to Heidegger’s ontology, our primary form of existence is the anxiety denoting our unheimlichkeit,79 which we seek to blur and ignore. Bachelard argues that this thrownness is a “secondary metaphysics” and the primary human existence is the protected, warm, and stable existence embodied in the home. Being at home is part of the “preliminaries” of metaphysics, since our first existence is “being within” a familiar and protected home.80 The home provides the space of safety, of dreams, and the primary organization of the world. The home is our first world, it is the basic cosmos.81 A house is not only a specific structure but a space defined as a place—a place where we are at home as opposed to a place where we are not. Zali Gurevitch suggests a poetic formulation of these insights: The universal question of place can be formulated as follows: what is the place where “we are at home” in the world? Anthropology answers it through the concept of the “native.” The native is always in place. He was born in a place and from it and, ever since, he dwells in it—in the cradle, at home, in the grave, the place is as an extension of his body. For the native, there is a natural tie, an actual overlap between place in the physical sense and place in the realm of meanings, of language, memory, and faith. For him, the place is a cosmos.82

The experience of place points to the basic localization of human existence, close to that of nativeness, and comprises “home, street, friends, childhood landscapes, habit, and automatic identification with all of these as with a mother tongue.”83 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

Ibid., 177. See Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994). See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 174-179. Ibid., 233. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, 7. Ibid., 4. Zali Gurevitch, Al Hamakom (On Place/God) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2007), 23 [Heb]. Ibid., 25.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

Only out of the primary experience of the home can we experience the homelessness that is at times called exile. A well-known study characterizes modern consciousness as a “homeless mind,” manifest in the mobility and the uncertainty typical of modern existence.84 This consciousness must not be interpreted as merely the loss of people’s concrete dwellings, because even someone whose house has collapsed can experience a sense of home. Homelessness captures here the metaphysical loss of the obviousness and safety that a space called home provides, together with the passion and the nostalgia for it—the endless dream of being at home.85 Homi Bhabha draws a distinction between two ways of detachment from home—being homeless and being unhomed.86 The unhomed is one who has been denied (or has chosen to deny) the experience of belongingness, whereas the homeless has no basis for belonging. Only few have turned the experience of lacking a home into the constitutive foundation of their being. These individuals neither feel nostalgia for a home nor do they search for certainty and safety. They experience life as naturally mobile or, in Zygmunt Bauman’s terms, as a ceaseless pilgrimage, as cosmopolitan tourism, as not being in one place.87 For them, the permanent journey epitomized in non-belongingness is a positive experience of release from a solid identity.88 But someone attached to the idea of a home, of a stable identity shaped by the fusion of a geographical space and a space of metaphysical certainty (an idea that, despite its rejection in the professional literature, still largely dominates our consciousness), may experience exile. With the experience of exile will come the distress and the loss of identity affecting someone who has been removed from the familiar spaces of existence that gave rise to one’s being—the homeland. Exiles attest to the vitality of the primary geographic space, without which they would not have experienced exile. Cesare Pavese formulates this insight: That you need a village, if only for the pleasure of leaving it. Your own village means that you are not alone, that you know there’s something 84 85 86 87

88

Peter Berger, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfried Kellner, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 184-185. Ibid., 82. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2001), 9. See Zygmunt Bauman, “Morality in the Age of Contingency,” in Detraditionalization: Critical Reflections on Authority and Identity, ed. Paul Heelas, Scott Lash ,and Paul Morris (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996). See also Avi Sagi, The Jewish Israeli Voyage: Culture and Identity (Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute, 2006) [Heb]. See Rogoff, Terra Infirma, 9.

157

158

C h a p te r 6

of you in the people and the plants and the soil, that even when you are there it waits to welcome you. But it isn’t easy to stay there quietly.89

Only those whose homeland is present in their concrete existence might experience exile. Jean Améry was expelled from his Austrian homeland by the Nazis, who forced his Judaism upon him. In a moving essay entitled “How Much Home Does a Person Need?” he states, “One must have a home in order not to need it.”90 Without a homeland, then, exile makes no sense, contrary to the modern conception of the romantic exile that assumes people have no need for a geographic space they call home. Biblical tradition directs the Jewish people to their land. The Land of Israel is the people’s land of destiny, their home, and any distance from it is a break and a wound requiring healing. Abraham is not meant to wander around aimlessly. At the end of his wanderings, he is meant to reach the promised land that God will show him.91 The wanderings, rather than being aimless or the aim itself, have a defined address—the Land of Israel— and this is also true for his descendants: the Egypt exile and the journey in the desert end as they enter the promised land. In biblical language, the term exile indeed denotes exit from the place where a person is meant to be to another place that is not the original one: “Therefore, you son of man, prepare you the gear for exile, and remove as though for exile by day in their sight; and you shall remove from your place to another place in their sight; it may be that they will perceive, though they are a rebellious house.”92 Exile in a biblical context usually alludes to the fate of those forced to leave following the victory of their enemies, an experience that leaves them feeling abandoned, unprotected, and full of endless longing for the homeland. They feel not only outside their place, but also outside themselves and outside their God, and they 89 90 91

92

Cesare Pavese, The Moon and the Bonfire (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1950), 8. Jean Améry, At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities, trans. Sidney Rosenfeld and Stella P. Rosenfeld (London: Granta Books, 1980), 46. In an idiosyncratic interpretation, Vincenzo Vitiello argues that the God of Israel is a jealous God who, therefore, will not share his people with anyone. Hence, Abraham is driven away from his kindred and his father’s home. Vitiello holds that this approach reaches quintessential culmination in Moses, whose home and land is the desert. See Vincenzo Vitiello, “Desert, Ethos, Abandonment: Toward a Typology of the Religion,” in Religion, ed. Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 137-139. This strange exegesis views a specific situation in the history of Abraham or Moses as a reflection of the ideal rather than as part of a process. But Abraham is not meant to be outside the place that is God’s sole inheritance and Moses’ destination is not the desert. The desert is a station on the way to the land that Moses, too, yearns to reach. The destination is the land, not the wanderings. Ezekiel 12:3. See also Psalms, chap. 42-43

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

can find no peace. The biblical threat of exile warns: “And among these nations will you find no ease, neither will the sole of your foot have rest; but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and despair of mind.”93 Exiles yearn for their land and remember it with endless longing: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.”94 Being a stranger is entirely different from being an exile. The Jew was not meant to be a “guest,”95 as Steiner argued. Jews are required to be at home, in a specific geographic space—the Land of Israel—yet live there with the constant experience of being strangers. For Jews, being strangers denotes their status inside their place, contrary to being exiles, which denotes their status outside their place. Being a stranger is not meant as a challenge to human existence but as its completion, establishing it on new and worthy foundations. Biblical exiles are defeated by their weakness; hurt and wounded, their longings enslave them, and they can find no peace. Their attitude toward the surroundings is determined by the fragile circumstances of their factual existence. Not so strangers in their homeland. The homeland, as noted, is the space of certainty. Living in one’s homeland may lead to haughtiness, because in the homeland we feel confident to express our power and our ability. A consciousness of life as a stranger, however, can lead to a new normative stance that relies on an ideal notion of the human being. The stranger endorses an ethics of inner retreat,96 involving self-restraint toward the surroundings and a new stance vis-à-vis the cosmos. This normative stance rests on the dialectic tension between living securely in the homeland and being a stranger within it. The consciousness of being a stranger is part of the subject’s autonomous life as a choosing being, and Scripture leads us, even compels us to develop this consciousness. A commandment is impossible without freedom, without the power to refuse compliance with it. The consciousness of being a stranger is therefore part of human autonomy. In a factual description, Rainer Maria Rilke notes, “we don’t feel very securely at home within our interpreted world.”97 The loss of home is 93 94 95 96 97

Deuteronomy 28:65. Psalms 137:1-6. See Steiner, Errata, 54-62. See Sagi, Facing Others and Otherness. Elements developed in this book served as the theoretical foundation for my reading of the biblical text in this chapter. Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, trans. J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender (London: Hogarth Press, 1942), 25.

159

160

C h a p te r 6

indeed a symptom of modern life, particularly after the Holocaust: “Maybe it’s in the nature of modern man to be in a foreign land even at home. After all, the concept of ‘home’ after the Holocaust is problematic.”98 In the Bible, however, to be a stranger is not a factual description but a normative demand. Theodor Adorno articulates a similar approach concerning the social reality of post-Holocaust refugees when he writes, “it is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home.”99 The moral dimension is what turns being a stranger from a factual description into a normative demand; non-assimilation into the homeland as a natural, primary, native space provides a new moral perspective. Being a stranger is meant to be an existential experience, touching on oneself but not only on oneself and involving moral and political aspects emerging in the attitude toward the other, the geographic space, and even God. What is the relationship between the various dimensions of being a stranger? My thesis here rests on a phenomenological reading of the biblical text and I will therefore refrain from hypothesizing a hierarchy, which the text does not suggest. The plausible thesis is that the stranger experience extends to all of life’s realms and Scripture’s demand from the Jew to be a stranger is constitutive to Jewish identity in its entirety. These determinations are fleshed out below in a rigorous analysis of the Jew’s experience as a stranger presented in the Bible. In the Bible, the stranger is from the margins of the society—landless, tribeless, without a space ensuring safety. The stranger lacks a space of tribal or familial fellowship to share anxieties and hopes, and is alienated and isolated, not an “ezrah,” a native-born.100 The biblical demand from the Jew to be a stranger is thus a demand to transcend the certainty and mastery typical of people who live in their land and to experience, at least partly, what the actual, absolute stranger experiences, even though the Jew is not one. In the Land of Israel, this demand carries a special meaning. Being a stranger is the proper stance vis-à-vis God and existence, and the place—the Land of Israel—is the precise locus of its realization. Being a stranger is thus assuming an existential stance rather than merely denoting its physical location. 98

99 100

“I, too, sought Judaism. I, too, sought Jewish texts I could identify with.” Interview with Aharon Appelfeld in Schmuel Schneider, Existence and Memory in the Writings of Aharon Appelfeld, Yosef Chaim Brenner, and Other Writings (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2010), 113 [Heb]. Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, trans. E. F. N. Jephcott (London: New Left Books, 1974), 39. See Exodus 12:49; Leviticus 24:16; Numbers 15:16.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

Being a stranger disrupts the consciousness of mastery—subjects know their existence is temporary and nowhere will their power allow them to feel absolutely safe. In the wake of the Hegelian tradition that traces the dialectic of master and slave as one between subject and object,101 we can determine that a consciousness of mastery is violent because it turns all the master’s surroundings into the object of his activity. Violence, as Levinas notes, “is to be found in any action in which one acts as if one were alone to act: as if the rest of the universe were there only to receive the action.”102 This consciousness precludes any other presence except that of the master. Being a stranger negates this type of domination and enables subjects to contract and retreat from their controlling power, which flaws their relationships with their surroundings—with God, the land, and the other.103 Being a stranger can create a new awareness of human weakness and its consequent vulnerability. It leads to modesty and attention to the other as well as to recognition of the need for creating a society where humans will turn to, and show consideration for, one another. Being a stranger leads us to the other and may help to develop attitudes of kindness and compassion, since no one holds any advantage. Inflated self-confidence can lead to the building of a closed homeland, sealed to strangers and to the weak. Self-confident individuals do not need the other. They live the fullness of their life within their home, their castle. Undermining an inflated selfhood could open the doors of the home to the weak, the poor, and the stranger, establishing a new human solidarity as well as a different relationship with God. All these elements come forth in the three realms where the Jewish people confront a demand to be strangers: the relationship with the land, with God, and with the stranger. These three realms are the basic contexts vis-àvis which Jews determine their identity and existence. The geographical space where the Jew is meant to live is reconstituted by the two basic axes that shape the Jew’s life: God and others. 101 102 103

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 111-118. Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 6. Cf. the analysis in Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, “Exile within Sovereignty: Toward a Critique of the ‘Negation of Exile’ in Israeli Culture, ”Theory and Criticism 4 (1993): 113-132 [Heb]. Raz-Krakotzkin presents a comprehensive thesis pointing to exile as vital to the connection to a place, and my position is close to his. We differ, however, in that his view represents a specific, one-dimensional ideology that adopts myths of exile developed inside and outside Jewish thought on the one hand, and a judgmental view of the current reality on the other. The ideological ballast prevented him from drawing a distinction between exile and stranger, flawing his discussion of exile concerning the people of Israel.

161

162

C h a p te r 6

The historical memory of slavery and being a stranger in Egypt is meant to instill this consciousness. This memory is not the record of a historical event. Instead, this memory grapples with the constant danger represented by power and mastery, which can distort the Jew’s attitude. Walter Benjamin notes: To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it “the way it really was” . . . . It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger . . . . The danger affects both the content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it.104

The memory of slavery and being a stranger in Egypt is meant to equip the Jewish people with weapons for the struggle against the ever-present dangers that lie in wait for those living in a land they rule unchallenged.

strangers in the land The patriarchs, as noted, are strangers and wanderers. This is not merely a historical description but one bearing implications for the attachment of the Jewish people to their land. As Kaufmann notes: The right of the Israelites to the Land of Canaan does not follow from the political rule of their ancestors over this land but from a divine promise. The Hebrew tradition speaks of the kings that reigned in Edom “before there reigned any king over the children of Israel” (Genesis 36:31). It is thus aware of the Israelite kingdom’s late origin.105

These determinations could lead to the following conclusion: The alternative narrative of Jewish history would begin with a people that had always been detached from any particular land, questioning the very idea that a people needs a land in order to be a people . . . . In some sense, the people of Israel was born in exile, Abraham must abandon the land of his birth in order to go to the promised land; the father of the Jewish people is doomed to de-territorialization.106 104 105 106

Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, trans. Walter Zohn (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1968), 255. Yehezkel Kaufmann, History of the Religion of Israel, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1972), 188 [Heb]. Daniel Boyarin and Yonatan Boyarin, “No Homeland to Israel: On the Place of the Jews,” Theory and Criticism 5

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

This interpretation of the biblical story, like those of Cohen, Rosenzweig, Zeitlin, Soloveitchik, and their followers, reformulate Hegel’s view107 that Abraham’s fundamental move in the world is one of abandonment and disseverance.108 According to Hegel’s interpretation, Abraham’s detachment from his family was meant to turn him into “a wholly self-subsistent, independent man, to be an overlord himself.”109 Through this move, however, Abraham cuts off not only from the world but also, and mainly, from the foundations of existence. He loses the ability to love and to create a society marked by warm mutual ties: The first act which made Abraham the progenitor of a nation is a disseverance which snaps the bonds of communal life and love. The entirety of the relationships in which he had hitherto lived with men and nature, these beautiful relationships of his youth (Joshua xxiv, 2) he spurned.110

Hegel’s claim is that this general move of disseverance occurs without Abraham sensing pain and suffering: “He did this without having been injured or disowned, without the grief which after a wrong or an outrage signifies love’s enduring need, when love, injured indeed but not lost, goes in quest of a new fatherland in order to flourish and enjoy itself there.”111 This move projects onto Abraham’s conception of God and onto his ties to the world. God can no longer be viewed as attached to and loving the world: “The whole world Abraham regarded as simply his opposite; if he did not take it to be a nullity, he looked on it as sustained by the God who was alien to it. Nothing in nature was supposed to have any part in God; everything was simply under God’s mastery.”112 The renewed mediation to the world from these spaces of estrangement occurs through a divine command. This command, however, could tie Abraham to the world but denied him the possibility of love. He could not even love his son Isaac properly. This love “could depress him, trouble his all-exclusive heart and disquiet it to such an extent that even this love he once wished to destroy.”113

107 108 109 110 111 112 113

(1994): 97-98 [Heb]. See also A. B. Yehoshua Between Right and Right, trans. Arnold Schwartz (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 26-44. Hegel, On Christianity, 185-188. Ibid., 185. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 187. Ibid.

163

164

C h a p te r 6

Hegel, then, ascribes a deep moral flaw to Abraham, denying him his fullness as a real being able to create fitting relationships with the other. Followers of the Hegelian approach, who openly supported exile as the ideal mode of Jewish existence realized by Abraham and his descendants, did not challenge Hegel’s assumption about Abraham’s estrangement and, in his wake, that of the Jewish people throughout their history. They only sought to find a positive moral meaning in estrangement, whose purpose, in their view, is to shape a valuable moral stance beyond mere survival. Hegel’s approach and the moral flaws he found in Jewish existence, however, are incompatible with the biblical story of Abraham and his seed. Nor is the answer to Hegel to imbue exile with value, since Abraham and his descendants were not meant to be exiles but strangers in their land. Being a stranger, not an exile, has a clear moral purpose that establishes a new relationship between the person and the entire world—the other, God, and the territorial space. This relationship rests on a new conception of the self that is based on being a stranger. In the biblical story, Abraham and the Jewish people are not required to live outside a place but to live in a specific place. There they will flourish, prosper, realize love, and build a society based on moral foundations of which the primary sense of being strangers will be a constitutive element. Even though not born in the land, the Jewish people is required to live in it. Abraham is not told to become de-territorialized, but to move to from one territory to another: “Go forth from your country, and from your kindred, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you: and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.”114 Furthermore, in his covenant with God, Abraham is promised: “To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt, to the great river, the river Euphrates.”115 And God further says, “Walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it: for I will give it to you.”116 The Land of Israel is given to Abraham and his seed, and he is ordered to wander the land precisely because it is their future land. It is not, however, their native land. He reaches the land as part of a movement, in compliance with God’s command. The land that Abraham is supposed to reach is not mentioned by name, and is referred to as “the land that I will show you.” The Midrash comments: “It [Scripture] does 114 115 116

Genesis 12:1-2. Genesis 15:18. Genesis 13:17.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

not specify a country but says ‘the land that I will show you,’ and Abraham wandered around until he reached the Land of Israel.”117 Abraham goes to the land in the wake of his faith in God and guided by God’s voice.118 The Land of Israel is a destination that is reached by moving in from outside—a movement of faith. This is not a native attachment to the land and, precisely for this reason, Abraham is told to walk through it.119 Natives are not commanded to move around the space since they are already in their place. But the Land of Israel has not been Abraham’s land since time immemorial, and Scripture emphasizes God’s giving. This emphasis precludes a sense of nativeness and an experience of primary attachment to the land. For Abraham and his seed, the land is not part of their natural being, and the giving God is what ties them to it.120 The determination that the people of Israel is not a native people, that it neither is nor will become master of the land and its absolute owner, but that the land is God’s gift to Abraham and his seed, is a recurrent motif in the Bible.121 The grounds given for the commandments of the sabbatical and the jubilee years are, “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine: for you are strangers and sojourners with me.”122 Rabbeinu Bahya explains this as a demand to develop the suitable disposition—man is not the sovereign, not even in his land, but God: “The Torah prescribed this commandment, revoking any form of ownership and mastery in the working of the land, to remind us that ownership and mastery are only God’s, may He be blessed.”123 From a biblical studies perspective, Chaney notes that 117 118 119 120 121

122

123

Midrash Tanhuma, ed. Shlomo Buber, Lekh Lekha #8 [Heb]. See Buber, On Zion, 46. Cf. Gurevitch, Al Hamakom, 32. Some of this intuition is also found in rabbinic literature. See TB Bava Bathra 100a, which cites Genesis 13:17. See Buber, On Zion, xviii-xxii. See also Yehoshua, Between Right and Right, 56. From this perspective, it is interesting to trace the growth of a new native Israeli consciousness. On this issue, see David Ohana, The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites nor Crusaders, trans. David Maisel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). See index, under “nativist ideology.” Leviticus 25:23. In this context, Marvin Chaney’s comment merits special attention: “There is archeological evidence that at least some of the villagers of pre-monarchic Israel did, in fact, grow cereals in the hill country,” although their terraced plots “were best suited to vine, olive, and nut cultivation.” Chaney quotes the hypothesis that the villagers preferred to grow cereals even though the mountain terrain was not suitable because of the biblical law that requires returning the land to its owner on the jubilee year: “Where a piece of land changes hands periodically few cultivators will make permanent improvements on it. The system thus reinforces the traditional and relatively extensive cultivation of annual crops and discourages the introduction of intensively produced perennials” (Marvin L. Chaney, “Systemic Study of the Israelite Monarchy,” Semeia 37 [1986]: 63-64). Rabbenu Bahya, Commentary on the Torah, ed. Hayyim Dov Chavel (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1974), Leviticus 25:2 [Heb]. R. Ephraim of Luntschitz writes: “In order for this matter to be remembered by the people, who will never feel they have enough, God prescribed the sanctification of the jubilee, a year when the people should neither sow nor work the land. As He commanded us to sanctify the seventh year to proclaim that the land is God’s,

165

166

C h a p te r 6

Israelite society emerged through a confrontation with the Canaanite citystate: “At the heart of the contrast was Israel’s system of land tenure . . . . Israel’s ideology denied legitimacy to any human king. Royal prerogatives were Yahwe’s alone . . . . The land was Yahwe’s.”124 In this light, it is clear why the Bible warns against developing a consciousness of mastery: Beware that you forget not the Lord your God . . . lest when you have eaten and are replete, and have built goodly houses, and dwelt in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God . . . and you say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.125

God brings the people of Israel to the land, but they are not its owners and their standing in it is conditional. This notion of land ownership is repeated and affirmed in the bringing of the first fruits, conveying the attachment of the people to the land on the one hand, and the acknowledgment of God’s ownership of it on the other: And you shall go the priest that shall be in those days, and say to him, I profess this day to the Lord your God, that I am come to the country which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us . . . . And you shall speak and say before the Lord your God, an Aramean nomad was my father, and he went down to Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous . . . . And the Lord brought us out of Egypt . . . : and he brought us to this place, and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land which thou, O Lord, have given me.126

Martin Buber emphasizes that the speaker says, “I am come to the country,” thereby joining and identifying with the people of Israel: “Even the son of a

124 125 126

so did He command us to sanctify the fiftieth year to proclaim that there are limits and restrictions to all human deeds. Man is not the absolute owner of the field but he is as a stranger in the land and has no power over it beyond fifty years. Hence, the land shall not be sold for ever, since God has not granted him the power to sell something that does not belong to him . . . . The Holy One, blessed be He, has given you the land as a vassal or as a loan, and how could you sell something that does not belong to you” (Keli Yakar, Leviticus 25:8). Chaney, “Systemic Study,” 61. Deuteronomy 8:11-17. Deuteronomy 26:3-10.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

later generation speaks for the generation which once came into Canaan and therefore for the whole people that came to Canaan in that generation.” This identification with the people over the generations turns into a renewed personal testimony: “I as an individual profess myself as one who has come into the land and every time that I offer its first-fruits I acknowledge that anew and declare it anew.”127 The Jew’s recurring acknowledgment of God’s renewing gift is the meaning of this testimony. Natives do not come to the land, they are already in it. The consciousness of reaching the promised land reaffirms the consciousness of being a stranger within it. Yet, the experience of safety and abundance could lead the people to develop a feeling of mastery, ascribing these to their own power and might. God therefore warns them that, as he has brought them to the land, he can also destroy them. Dwelling in the land means inhabiting a realm of temptation—the people may be seduced into seeking release from the experience of being strangers. Therefore, a clear warning and a directive are issued: the only way to contend with this temptation is to develop a disposition that overcomes the seduction of mastery and acknowledges God’s sovereignty. Ezekiel describes the development of this consciousness, which develops despite this warning, and points out the consequences: Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, they that inhabit those waste places of the Land of Israel speak saying, Abraham was one man, and yet he inherited the land: but we are many: the land is given us for inheritance. Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord God: You eat with the blood and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall you possess the land? You stand upon your sword, you carry out disgusting deeds, and you defile every man his neighbor’s wife: and shall you possess the land? Say you to them as follows: Thus says the Lord God: As I live, surely they that are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts for food, and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves shall die of the pestilence. For I will the make the land most desolate, and the pride of her strength shall cease: and the mountains of Israel shall be blighted, so that none shall pass through. Then shall they know that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a total blight because of their disgusting deeds which they have committed.128 127 128

Buber, On Zion, 4. Ezekiel 33:23-29.

167

168

C h a p te r 6

Ezekiel accordingly issues a far-reaching directive concerning strangers: So shall you divide this land for yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. And it shall come to pass, that you shall divide it by lot for an inheritance to you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, who shall beget children among you: and they shall be to you as those born in the country among the children of Israel: they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And it shall come to pass, that in whatever tribe the stranger may sojourn, there shall you give him his inheritance, says the Lord God.129

This ordinance, which puzzled the rabbis,130 fits Ezekiel’s view that the people of Israel do not own the land. Granting the stranger inheritance perpetuates this situation—the stranger becomes a witness to God’s ownership of the land. This testimony, as will be shown below, is a challenge to the native, to the Jew. The Land of Israel is unlike other lands, which are the property of the nations settled on them, where people can build their homes and do whatever they wish. The Land of Israel expels those who harm it through their conduct: You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourns among you: for all these abominations have the men of the land done, who were before you, and the land is defiled; that the land vomit not you out also, when you defile it, as it has vomited out the nations that were before you.131

The land is defiled by the acts of its dwellers; it is polluted and, as a result, its inhabitants are removed. Samson Raphael Hirsch emphasized the connection between human behavior and the conduct of the land: Just as the people is “God’s people,” so its land is “God’s land”132 . . . The flowering of this Land depends on the moral flowering of its inhabitants—who are born on it, nourished by its fruit, and enriched with its treasures . . . . If the society that lives in this Land subverts, through corruption, the purpose of its existence, the Land, too, loses 129 130 131 132

See Ezekiel 47:21-23. See Sifrei Numbers 10:30. Leviticus 18:26-28. Hirsch notes references to “my land”[artzi] and “my inheritance” [nahalati] in Jeremiah 2:7 and many other places.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

the reason for its existence . . . and even as any organism will reject an element that has become incompatible with it, so the Land will “vomit out” its inhabitants.133

Not only is this land a different, unnatural, non-native kind of space, but it is also a land whose concrete existence depends on God. The land’s abundance depends on God’s action: For the land, into which you go to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence you came out, where you did sow your seed, and did water it with your foot, like a garden of vegetables: but the land, into which you go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinks water of the rain of heaven . . . Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; and then the Lord’s anger be inflamed against you, and he shut up the heaven that there be no rain, and that the land yield not its fruit; and you perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord gives you.134 The Land of Israel is entirely contingent on God’s will. Nature is no guarantee of its existence, since it is entirely dependent on rainwater that humans cannot control. The Jew’s experience is thus one of absolute insecurity, in Nahmanides’ words: From it we learn that although everything is under His authority and it was “but a light thing in the sight of the Eternal” (II Kings 3:18), blessed be He, to destroy the inhabitants of the land of Egypt and dry up their rivers and streams, the Land of Canaan, however, could be destroyed more quickly, by His not providing “the showers of His mighty rain” (Job 37:6). The sick person needs merits and prayer in order that God heal him more than the healthy one who is not struck by illness.135

According to the health and sickness metaphors that Nahmanides uses, Egypt and its land are characterized by health, and the people of Israel and their land—by sickness. Whereas health denotes a state of ontological 133

134 135

Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: The Five Books of the Torah, trans. Daniel Haberman (New YorkJerusalem: Feldheim, 2008), Leviticus 18:24-28, 586-587. See also Buber, On Zion, 10-14, and Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School, trans. Jackie Feldman and Peretz Rodman (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). Deuteronomy 11:10-17. Ramban-Nahmanides, Commentary on the Torah, trans. Charles B. Chavel, vol. 5 (New York: Shiloh, 1976), Deuteronomy 11:10, 132. See also Buber, On Zion, 24-25.

169

170

C h a p te r 6

certainty and fullness, sickness conveys a state of ontological imperfection and uncertainty—being a stranger. Schweid points to the kind of consciousness created by this reality: . . . the riverlands more closely approximate the image of the Garden of Eden, which brings forth its fruits by itself. Even if irrigation demands an effort, the continual abundance of soil that is fertile and easy to work, and of water, gives man a feeling of complete security . . . this is not so, however, of a land watered by rain. There nature gives no guarantees. All depends upon the grace of rain, over which man has no control. In the riverlands there can thus develop a culture based upon man’s aspiration for complete mastery over the primary factors that condition his existence and his well-being. In a mountainous country, however, this is not so. There, even the illusion of mastery cannot survive . . . . It is precisely the desire for sovereignty over the conditions of human existence that produces an idolatrous culture . . . . On the other hand, awareness of the dependence that limits human sovereignty is the foundation for a culture of faith, the culture of free men. It is precisely on this account that the land of Israel is appropriate to the chosen people, which is subject to continual divine supervision and is always aware of being commanded by God. It is this awareness that guarantees its freedom.136

The analysis so far suggests several conclusions. First, the Land of Israel is not the eternal unconditional property of the people of Israel since, ultimately, the land is God’s—“The Promised Land will never be in the Bible ‘property’ in the Latin sense of the term, and the farmer, at the moment of the first-born, will think not of his timeless link to the land but of the child of Aram, his ancestor, who was an errant.”137 This biblical approach indeed resonates in rabbinic statements stating that the sabbatical year is not just another commandment but an expression of God’s full ownership of the land, and compliance with this commandment conveys this recognition: “Sow your seed six years but omit the seventh, that you may know that the earth is mine. They, however, did not do so, but sinned and were exiled.”138 136 137 138

Schweid, National Home, 22-23. Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 17. TB Sanhedrin 39a. See also R. Ben Zion Meir Hai Uzziel, The Sabbatical, the Jubilee, and the Commandment to Gather the People (Jerusalem: The Committee for the Publication of the Rabbi’s Writings, 2005), 22-23 [Heb]. Knohl analyzes at length the norms that repeatedly perpetuate God’s ownership of the Land of Israel. See Knohl, The Sanctuary, 187-189.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

Second, the normative shaping of society precedes the attachment to the land; indeed, this attachment depends upon the kind of society that will be founded. Levinas formulates this insight as follows: The Jewish man discovers man before discovering landscapes and towns. He is at home in a society before being so in a house. He understands the world on the basis of the Other rather than the whole of being functioning in relation to the earth. He is in a sense exiled on this earth, as the psalmist says [“I am a stranger on the earth: do not hide your commandments from me” (Psalms 119:19)], and he finds a meaning to the earth on the basis of a human society. This is not an analysis of the contemporary Jewish soul; it is the literal teaching of the Bible in which the earth is not possessed individually, but belongs to God.139

Levinas’ determination that Jews are exiles in their land is an overstatement. He is relying here on Rosenzweig, who influenced his philosophy. He did note correctly, however, that establishing a worthy society precedes geographical emplacement in the Land of Israel. This space is contingent on the social, religious-moral organization of human life. This is the experience of being a stranger that Jews must bear in their consciousness. It is meant to encourage their religious and moral amendment, given that their homes promise no safety beyond the one that will be ensured by the required normative organization. Indeed, the two central areas highlighting the significance of this experience are the relationship with God and the relationship with the stranger.

strangers and god The Bible’s grounds for the sabbatical and the jubilee years, as noted, are that we are strangers and sojourners vis-à-vis God: “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine: for you are strangers and sojourners with me.”140 Since living in the Land of Israel could, as noted, foster a consciousness of power and mastery, this determination appears precisely in regard to the land and the fundamental unheimilichkeit is prominently manifest vis-à-vis God. We are strangers, both outside and inside our place and our home, because the whole world belongs to God. Moreover, the 139 140

Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 22-23. Yehoshua boldly formulates this insight in Between Right and Right, 28: “the people takes precedence over the land in every sense” (emphasis in original). Leviticus 25:23.

171

172

C h a p te r 6

Jew is described as God’s servant and a Hebrew slave is therefore only a day laborer: “For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen.”141 Life as a slave or as a stranger is a mode of existence that denies individuals their power and sovereignty, locating them in a position of submission vis-à-vis God. Beside its context as a command, the experience of being a stranger appears in biblical literature in a subjective context as well: Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry: keep not silence at my tears: for I am a stranger with you, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.142 I am a stranger on the earth: do not hide your commandments from me.143 For we are strangers before you, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.144

To be a stranger vis-à-vis God has ontological implications: we are meant to experience our self-limitation. The subject is a temporary creature, homeless and adrift. This fundamental experience affected even the nation’s ancestors, conveying the consciousness that we are not sovereign masters. This human stance vis-à-vis God affects the character of human sovereignty—the institution of kingship. In a detailed analysis, Yair Lorberbaum pointed to three perspectives on the monarchy.145 The first negates human sovereignty and assumes that the people’s sole sovereign is God. One example of this approach is the exchange between Gideon and the people. The people ask Gideon to rule over them, and he rejects the request: “And Gideon said to them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you.”146 The second approach assumes that the earthly kingdom has a special connection to God: kingship is sacral.147 141 142 143 144 145 146 147

Leviticus 25:42. Psalms 39:13. Psalms 119:19. I Chronicles 29:15. See Yair Lorberbaum, Disempowered King: Monarchy in Classical Jewish Literature, trans. Jonathan Chipman (Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute, 2011), 1-36. Judges 8:23. Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 312-314. On various modalities of connection, see Yair Lorberbaum, Disempowered King, 7-26. On the distinction between divine and sacral kingship, see ibid., 20. See also Israel Knohl, The Divine Symphony: The Bible’s Many Voices (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,‎ 2003), 87-91.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

By contrast, the third approach acknowledges the earthly, political dimension and grants the king limited powers. My focus will be on two texts making a clear statement and bearing direct implications for the human relationship with God and the human standing vis-à-vis God, one in Deuteronomy and one in the Book of Samuel.148 In Deuteronomy, the question of appointing a king appears after the description of the judicial system empowered to pass judgment.149 The two opening verses create a concealed tension implicit in a restraining framework: When you are come to the land which the Lord your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell in it, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me; then you may appoint a king over you, whom the Lord your God shall choose: one from among your brethren shall you set as king over you: you may not set a stranger over you, who is not your brother.150

These verses describe circumstances during the future settlement in the land, which will only become possible when God gives the land to the people of Israel. The giving of the land is, purportedly, clear evidence of God’s sovereignty, since only the sovereign can give the land as he wishes. Hence, the continuation of the verse, “and shall say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me,” creates a hidden tension with the beginning, which emphasizes God’s action. God does not command the appointment of a king, as he commands the appointment of judges,151 and the duty to obey them.152 The desire for a king represents the people’s hope to strike roots and attain normalization, to which God acquiesces. God’s action, which appears at the beginning of verse 14, is thus replaced by human action. Ostensibly, at this moment, humans seek liberation from God’s sovereignty and thus liberation from their sense of being strangers. This tension is resolved in verse 15, where God retreats from his sovereignty. This reversal occurs by replacing human desire with a divine instruction and determining the borders of human choice— God commands: ”You may appoint a king over you.” A caveat, however, accompanies this command: God will choose the king. The rest of the 148 149 150 151 152

Deuteronomy 17:14-20; I Samuel 8. Deuteronomy 17:11. Deuteronomy 17:14-15. Deuteronomy 16:18. Deuteronomy 17:8-13.

173

174

C h a p te r 6

verse clarifies that God’s choice is not detached from human action—if only God acts, the determination “you may not set a stranger over you, who is not your brother” is redundant. Despite the divine-human partnership, the Bible determines the king’s limitations: he should not have too many horses, too many wives, or too much silver and gold.153 Furthermore, the king has an obligation: And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this Torah in a book . . . : and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep of the words of this Torah and these statutes, to do them.154

The king, then, is not an arbitrary sovereign; he is limited by a set of obligations that perpetuate the fact that his kingdom is ultimately, in Buber’s terms, a “representative ‘kingship.’”155 The king is God’s representative and thus owes God absolute obedience.156 The closing verse illustrates the king’s standing: “that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel.”157 As God’s representative, he is bound to God in the basic subordination that characterizes the humanGod relationship. He is not above his brethren and, like them, he too is a stranger to God.158 This view contrasts with the one in the Book of Samuel.159 The people ask Samuel to appoint a king, and Samuel rejects their demand and turns to God in search of answers. Contrary to what we are told in Deuteronomy, here God answers sharply: And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to you: for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them out of 153 154 155 156 157 158 159

Deuteronomy 17:16-17. Deuteronomy 17:18-19. Martin Buber, The Prophetic Faith, trans. Carlyle Witton-Davies (New York: MacMillan, 1949), 66. See also Japhet, Ideology of the Book of Chronicles, 308-309. Buber, Prophetic Faith, 68. See also Encyclopaedia Biblica vol. 4, 74, 1088-1092. Deuteronomy 17:20. See also Knohl, Divine Symphony, 91-93. I Samuel 8.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

Egypt, and to this day, in that they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so they also do to you.160

This text, as others in the Book of Samuel, conveys the view that God alone is the sovereign: “Samuel equates the people’s demand for a king with a rejection of divine kingship . . . monarchy is not being compared to the rule of the judges; earthly kingship is opposed to the rule of YHWH.”161 The attitude toward Samuel, God’s representative, is indicative of the attitude toward God. And yet, God agrees to the people’s request. But contrary to the spirit of the words in Deuteronomy, the king described in the Book of Samuel is an arbitrary king, whose main concern is for himself and for his wealth.162 This kingship will ultimately turn the people into the king’s slaves.163 The picture becomes clearer when these two views on kingship are read together. Deuteronomy presents the view that recognizes the earthly king, purportedly God’s representative, fulfilling social, political, and military functions. In an ideal state of affairs, the earthly king is not supposed to replace God, who is the true sovereign. The king is not above his brethren and the practical functions he fulfills preserve the human-God relationship. In the Book of Samuel, however, the king is God and the people’s request for an earthly king conveys their yearning for sovereignty, which negates the sovereignty of God. This view approaches the consequences of this change of sovereignty as disastrous. The king and the people are presumed to be in a hierarchical relationship of mastery-slavery, which is antithetical to the fitting disposition toward God. Humans are strangers and servants of God and, precisely for that reason, they are not slaves: “For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen.”164 This statement outlines the sharp distinction between the practical needs that might give rise to the demand for social, legal, and political regulation, as opposed to bestowing the special status of sovereign on an earthly king. Despite the differences between Deuteronomy and the Book of Samuel concerning the nature of kingship, the implications of establishing a kingdom are relevant to our relationship with God. Restricting royal authority to practical aspects preserves the stance of humans as strangers 160 161 162 163 164

I Samuel 8:7-8. Japhet, Ideology of the Book of Chronicles, 313. I Samuel 8:11-15. I Samuel 8:17. Leviticus 25:42.

175

176

C h a p te r 6

vis-à-vis God, whereas viewing the king as a manifestation of sovereignty and mastery violates these boundaries and, ultimately, turns us into slaves of other flesh and blood creatures. The Book of Samuel thus presents the fundamental dilemma: God’s mastery over humans who are strangers and servants to him, or the mastery and sovereignty of the earthly king and enslavement to him. Being slaves and strangers vis-à-vis God releases us from enslavement to flesh-and-blood others. The more moderate view in Deuteronomy does not stumble on this dichotomy since the earthly king is not lifted above his brethren, and both he and his subjects are as strangers vis-à-vis God. Being strangers vis-à-vis God entails implications for the chosenness of the people of Israel. According to various biblical texts, renouncing the consciousness of mastery is constitutive of the people’s chosenness: “Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own treasure [segulah] from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine: and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”165 The common exegesis of the term segulah claims it denotes a property or a treasure, as Rashi indeed commented: “Segulah—a beloved treasure, as ‘the treasure of kings,’166 a precious jewel and gems that kings store away.” As Benjamin Uffenheimer noted, however, this exegesis is problematic because, if God owns the whole world, how can the people of Israel belong to God only conditionally? Uffenheimer pointed out that the exegesis of the term in this and other verses167 is entirely different, and has a political meaning: it is related to the covenant between God and the people of Israel. In the context of a covenant, the term denotes a vassal. The uniqueness of the Jewish people is that only they, and they alone, are God’s servants. The semantic displacement whereby the term “segulah” denotes property occurs only during the Second Temple era.168 The people of Israel are unique because they are God’s servants: “The vassal is duty bound to obey all his master’s orders. Put differently: Israel is a holy people to the Lord = a people apart, given over to the service/worship of the Lord, as the priests are.”169 The perception of the people of Israel as servants, vassals, 165 166 167 168 169

Exodus 19:5-6. Ecclesiastes 2:8. Deuteronomy 7:6; 14:2; Psalms 135:4. See Benjamin Uffenheimer, Early Prophecy in Israel, trans. David Louvish (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999), 516-529. Ibid., 523. On the development of the chosen people idea in the Bible, see Benjamin Uffenheimer, “The Idea of the Chosen People in the Bible,” in Chosen People, Elect Nation and Universal Mission: Collected Essays, ed. Shmuel Almog and Michael Heyd (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1991), 17-40 [Heb]. In this article, Uffenheimer also sums up anew his findings concerning the term “segulah.” See pages 19-20.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

rests on the notion that “all the earth is mine.” God is the master of the earth and, therefore, the people of Israel can and must be his servants, according to God’s will.170 The people of Israel’s renunciation of ownership of the land it has been given is thus part of a new human consciousness, whereby it is not a master but a servant. A servant is not a stranger, since the stranger is free, but their common denominator is that they lack a consciousness of mastery. Being a stranger vis-à-vis the land and being a servant or a stranger vis-à-vis God is not merely a description but a demand imposed on humans. Only if humans listen to God and abide by his covenant will they be God’s servants, and only if they renounce the consciousness of ownership and become strangers will they be able to turn to God in fitting ways. The purpose of human self-deprecation and the violation of human sovereignty was not only to turn humans into God’s submissive subjects, as Hegel had held, but meant for religious and moral ends, as part of establishing the human standing in the world. The moral purposes are fulfilled in the attitude toward the other, and particularly toward the stranger. To paraphrase Jacques Derrida,171 the question posed by the stranger is not a question about the stranger, but the question of the stranger: the stranger challenges our standing in the world, our attitude toward the geographic space where we are meant to live and toward God. The stranger is the challenge confronting believers, their supreme test.

the attitude toward the stranger The Bible contains frequent references to the stranger. The rabbis counted thirty-six warnings about the stranger in the Bible,172 and the attitude toward the stranger is one of the classic expressions of proper worship. We read in Exodus, “He that sacrifices to any god, save to the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed. You shall neither vex a stranger nor oppress him: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”173 The juxtaposition of these two verses does not necessarily attest to an association between them, but does hint to a connection between worship and the attitude toward the stranger. 170 171 172 173

See also Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence, 187-188. See Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 3. TB Bava Metsia 59b. Exodus 22:19-20.

177

178

C h a p te r 6

Acquiescence to a possible tie appears in the exegeses of both Nahmanides and Hirsch. Nahmanides writes: The correct interpretation appears to me to be that He is saying, “Do not wrong a stranger or oppress him, thinking as you might that none can deliver him out of your hand; for you know that you were strangers in the land of Egypt, ‘and I saw the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppressed’ (Exodus 3:9) you, and I avenged your cause on them, because ‘I behold the tears of such who are oppressed and have no comforter, and on the side of their oppressors there is power’ (Ecclesiastes 4:1), and I deliver each one ‘from him that is too strong for him’ (Psalms 35:10). Likewise, ‘you shall not afflict the widow and the fatherless child’ (Exodus 22:21) for I will hear their cry (Exodus 22:22), for all these people do not rely upon themselves but trust in Me.” And in another verse He added this reason, “for ye know the soul of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9). That is to say, you know that every stranger feels depressed, and is always sighing and crying and his eyes are always directed towards God, therefore He will have mercy upon him even as He showed mercy to you.174

Nahmanides ties these two verses to yet another: “for ye know the soul of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”175 The prohibition of vexing the stranger rests on God taking a stand in favor of the stranger and the weak—God sees the tears of the oppressed. Moreover, an Israelite knows the soul of the stranger. The commitment to the stranger is thus based on two arguments. One reflects the relationship with God, conveyed in Exodus 22:19-20, where God takes a stand for the stranger, and the other—the relationship between the Israelite and the stranger, described in Exodus 23:9, claiming that the mental disposition is decisive. The religious and the existential experiential perspective coalesce in order to form the proper attitude toward the stranger. Hirsch offers a different perspective on the relationship between Exodus 22:19-20 and Exodus 23:9: The connection between these two verses marks the great principle, frequently reiterated in Scripture, that personal and civil rights, and personal worth, do not depend on descent, place of birth, or property ownership; nor do they depend on any external, incidental factor that 174 175

Ramban-Nahmanides, Commentary on the Torah, vol. 2, Exodus 22:20, 219-220. Exodus 23:9.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

bears no relationship to the individual’s true character. Rather, they depend solely on the individual’s moral and spiritual qualities. The distinctive rationale, “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” serves to safeguard this principle against any violation.176

In his view, these verses explain the attitude toward the stranger in ways different from those noted in Exodus 23:9, which rests the attitude toward the stranger on a subjective rather than a normative objective foundation: “For the meaning of this rationale is not the same as that of ‘for you know the heart of a stranger’ (below 23:9). Rather, here it says simply and absolutely ‘for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.’”177 In Hirsch’s view, a normative attitude must be objective and cannot rely on personal experiences; empathy or compassion are not, in his view, a suitable basis for structuring the attitude toward the other. This approach, seemingly over-affected by Kantian tradition, does not take into account that underlying ethics is a broad set of suitable considerations.178 The biblical text seems to ignore the distinction between the arguments. The connection between the verses conveys the Torah’s fundamental position toward the other—rather than merely one more commandment in a list, this is a basic human principle. The grounds given for this commandment are instructive: “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Having been a stranger in the past is meant to be the basis for the attitude toward the stranger in the present. But through the very process of framing the attitude toward the stranger based on the past, the past is returned to the forefront of consciousness. Memory becomes a fundamental fact of human consciousness. Returning the experience of being a stranger to the present means that this is not merely a kind of abstract consciousness. Hence the verse: “for ye know the soul of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”179 The consciousness of being a stranger, reactivated in the present, is epitomized by the empathy evident in the “knowledge” of the stranger’s heart. This knowledge is the basis of the experience of suffering common to the sovereign and the stranger, and compels the sovereign to action. It points to the fundamental equality of human existence—being a stranger. Hirsch himself writes in this spirit in his exegesis of Exodus 23:9: 176 177 178 179

Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash, Exodus 22:20, 470. Ibid. On this issue, see Sagi, Facing Others and Otherness, 15-67. Exodus 23:9.

179

180

C h a p te r 6

Our verse now once again places the principles of equality and lovingkindness at the forefront. The real test of these principles will be the Jewish state’s treatment of foreigners: . . . In this spirit Scripture now introduces a series of laws which here [Mishpatim portion] are presented in only broad outlines . . . they all have one feature in common: by virtue of their inmost essence, they nurture in the nation the spirit of equality and humanity. For these laws are intended to instill in the people the awareness that they, too, should regard themselves as merely strangers and sojourners in God’s land and on God’s earth; hence they should not exaggerate the importance of material property—an exaggeration which always creates legal inequality and harshness in human relationships.

Not only does the Bible devise a socio-political program but indeed rests this program on a new consciousness of self—the consciousness of being a stranger. The author of Sefer ha-Hinnuch sums up the consciousness construct entailed by the attitude toward the stranger: It is for us to learn from this precious mitzvah to take pity on any man who is in a town or city that is not his native ground and the site of the family of his fathers . . . . Scripture alludes to the reason for the command by stating, for you were gérim (alien sojourners) in the land of Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:19). It thus reminds us that long ago we were scorched by that great pain that comes upon every man who sees himself among alien people, in a foreign land. Remembering, then, the great anxiety of the heart that the matter entails, which we experienced in the past, until the Eternal Lord in His loving-kindness took us out from there, we will be moved to compassion for every man who is so [situated].180

The obligation toward the stranger is supposed to create a new disposition of compassion and openness toward the stranger’s suffering and toward human suffering in general. This is the answer to the strangers’ question: will they remain weak and transparent on the margins of the society, or will their presence lead the Israelites to develop a new stance of openness and responsiveness to their suffering? According to Scripture, this new disposition is not accidental and does not depend on the stranger’s 180

Sefer ha-Hinnuch: The Book of [Mitzvah] Education, trans. Charles Wengrov (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim 1988), 337.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

concrete appearance. Rather, the response to the stranger reflects a disposition already present. Education toward this disposition proceeds even when human consciousness is purportedly free from the experience of being a stranger, at moments of happiness and fullness. At the height of the holidays, in pilgrimages to the Temple, we are required to remember the Egyptian enslavement: And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite who is within your gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord your God has chosen as the residence of his name. And you shall remember that you were a bondman in Egypt: therefore you shall observe and do these statutes.181

Pilgrims go to the holy place. As Mircea Eliade notes, “the place” conveys the non-homogeneity of the usual, ordered local space, the rift in it. Rather than part of the spatial continuity, “the place” is beyond it since it is a realm for the renewal of actual creation. This place is the source of the person’s identity and orientation in the world, where the hierophany or revelation of holiness takes place.182 The voyage to the holy place is a voyage to a goal, since that is the place where redemption occurs and where hopes and yearnings are realized. The voyage to the “center” is indeed the voyage of “the seeker for the road to the self, to the ‘center’ of his being.”183 Joy in this place is the joy of one who has found himself—his redemption, his wholeness. This fulfillment of the self thus occurs outside the home, outside the safe and protected place. The person is redeemed in the not-at-home, in the sacred “place.” But the moments of happiness at being in the “place” could cause one to forget the consciousness that fits human existence, losing awareness of human transience and unheimlichkeit and leading us to forget the other, since self-fullness could lead to self-enclosure. One should therefore be joyful before God together with one’s dependents, who will be witnesses to the celebration and serve as the living memory of the proper consciousness of existence. In order for them to be perceived as the basis of joy 181 182

183

Deuteronomy 16:11-12. See, at length, Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harcourt, 1959). On the renewal of time, see Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), 51-92. Ibid., 18.

181

182

C h a p te r 6

rather than as an oppressive burden on it, Scripture compels us to revive the memory, to turn a distant historical past into an active living present. Benjamin writes, “History is the subject of a structure whose site is not homogeneous, empty time, but time filled by the presence of the now.”184 Bringing the past to life begins with the stranger accompanying the ezrah, who depends on the stranger for developing a consciousness of selfestrangement. The attitude toward the stranger reflects the place where the ezrah is, or should be. In Jabès’ terms: “The foreigner allows you to be yourself by making a foreigner of you.”185 The question of the stranger, then, is the human question: will we reject the stranger and develop a consciousness of mastery and fullness, or will we remain aware of the stranger and respond as required? The stranger is thus a necessary factor, to the point that even in a prophecy dealing with redemption we are told that strangers will accompany the redeemed people of Israel: “For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel and set them in their own land: and the stranger shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.”186 The redemption of Israel is not redemption from the stranger but with the stranger, since the stranger is a permanent element of human consciousness and of the human stance vis-à-vis the three key contexts of existence: God, the land, and the other. More, however, is expected. The stranger is not only the other who is present here and imposes legal obligations. The attitude toward the other must transcend the borders of the legal norm and even of compassion. The Jew is obliged to love the stranger: For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, who favours no person, and takes no bribe: he executes the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and raiment. Love therefore the stranger: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.187

Gradually, the rhythm of the verses shifts from law to love, from the norm to the unique mental disposition of love. God, who is a God of justice and law, applies these to the stranger as well. The conception of God in Deuteronomy as bearing no discrimination and meting out justice merges with the demand 184 185 186 187

Benjamin, Illuminations, 261. Edmond Jabés, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Book, trans. Rosmarie Waldrop (Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989), 1. Isaiah 14:1. Deuteronomy 10:17-19.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

in Leviticus to have one legal norm: “You shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.”188 God’s stance toward the stranger, however, is not confined to the law, since the law can also result in alienation. Scripture therefore stresses that God loves the stranger. God’s love is not a substitute for justice but an addition to it. The law ensures the absence of discrimination, and God’s love leads us to give food and raiment to the stranger. The shift from law to love is epitomized in the demand to love the stranger—a love that does not replace the law but transcends it, resembling the love of God. We would have expected the verse in Deuteronomy to explain this demand by invoking God’s love for the stranger, but Scripture seeks to found the love of the stranger on the actual experience of being strangers that is branded in our consciousness. This experience turns the ideal love for the stranger demanded by God into a conceivable disposition: the fate common to the Jewish ezrah and the stranger opens up the hearts and enables the love that marks the height of their relationship. We join the God who loves the stranger through our immanent power to love the other. In Hermann Cohen’s words: “Here, too, national history is understood as a support for the love of the stranger.” Cohen goes even further and states that this love, “psychologically as well as objectively, is the foundation for the love of the fellow man.”189 His claim is part of the broad analysis he suggests for the relationship with the other, which is established through “intimate knowledge” of one’s fellow’s distress.190 One can challenge Cohen’s assumption that, according to Scripture, the connection to the stranger is based on love for one’s fellow. Probably, however, a substantive tie can be found between loving one’s fellow and loving the stranger. Love is an attitude of constant care and concern for the other. Can we compartmentalize care and limit it exclusively to our religious-social community? Although Scripture does not answer this question, it does demand from us love for our fellows if they are our Jewish brethren, and no less than that—love for the stranger. It thereby establishes the required disposition—openness to the other, even when the other is a stranger, as a constitutive foundation of human consciousness. We do not do this for the sake of the other. This openness is the fitting stance in the world and through it, we resemble our Creator. 188 189 190

Leviticus 24:22. Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism, trans. Simon Kaplan (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1972), 127-128. Ibid., 133. See also 133-143.

183

184

C h a p te r 6

the open house The experience of being a stranger in one’s homeland, as noted, entails clear moral implications. This position leads not only to a change in the perception of the self but also to a different view of the concrete house one lives in. I have already noted the connection between the house and the homeland: the homeland is the home. In the original command to Abraham, moladetkha (literally, the place where you were born, rendered as “your kindred”) is juxtaposed to “your father’s house,” that is, the place where one grows up. The place where one grows up begins with the concrete house where one lives, and the homeland is an extension of that house. The homeland is the home because it carries the basic meanings of the home as a space ensuring safety, certainty, and familiarity. Améry notes that the meaning of the homeland begins from the home: the homeland (Vaterland), the national land, is one’s home (Heimat).191 The connection to the homeland is a copy and an expansion of the home’s primary elements. People do not live only within their homes but in familiar streets and landscapes, some of them visible from their windows. These spaces grant them the domestic safety they require. Without these familiar spaces, the home is planted in a space that is not real. The traces of the home are rooted in the structuring of a consciousness of homeland, which is an expansion of the home. The perception of the homeland and that of the home are therefore related, and the fitting notion of a home can be derived from the fitting notion of a homeland. Those who live in their homeland imbued with a sense of mastery and ownership might close the doors of their concrete homes to the stranger and the weak, contrary to those who experience their lives in the homeland as strangers, without a sense of full ontological security. This experience may deny people the illusion that the closed house realizes their fullness. For such people, opening up the house to the other is essential. Levinas points to the ties between a person’s consciousness of self and the mode of establishing the home, and to the two possibilities of the home—closed or open—as basic: But the separated being can close itself up in its egoism, that is, in the very accomplishment of its isolation. And this possibility of forgetting the transcendence of the Other—of banishing with impunity all hospitality . . . from one’s home, banishing the transcendental relation that alone permits the I to shut itself up in itself—evinces the absolute truth, the radicalism, of separation . . . . The possibility for the home to 191

On this issue, see Améry, At the Mind’s Limits, 41-61.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

open to the Other is as essential to the essence of the home as closed doors and windows.192

The warranted question here concerns the kind of home that Scripture describes—closed or open? Scripture recurrently emerges as emphasizing the open home, including the expectation of the guest, of the other, as integral to it. This emphasis on the open home that expects a guest can lead to Derrida’s conclusion—the host needs a guest, a stranger, a foreigner, as if, then, the stranger could save the master and liberate the power of his host; it’s as if the master, qua master, were prisoner of his place and his power, of his ipseity, of his subjectivity (his subjectivity is hostage). So it is indeed the master, the one who invites, the inviting host, who becomes the hostage—and who really always has been. And the guest, the invited hostage, becomes the one who invites the one who invites, the master of the host. The guest becomes the host’s host. The guest (hôte) becomes the host (hôte) of the host (hôte).193

Derrida’s analysis fits the biblical literature. Abraham is described as one readily awaiting a guest: And the Lord appeared to him by the terebinths of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he raised his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in your sight, pass not away, I pray you, from your servant: . . . And they said to him, Where is Sara your wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent.194

Abraham is described as sitting at the tent door, seemingly due to the heat of the day. Yet, this seating also involves a dimension of expectation. Contrary to Sara, who is sitting in the tent, he sits at its door and his response to the guests’ appearance is immediate. They are guests meant for him, he needs them, and their appearance concretizes this need: “seeing that you are come 192 193 194

Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 172-173. Derrida, Of Hospitality, 123, 125 (emphasis in original). Genesis 18:1-9.

185

186

C h a p te r 6

to your servant.” Similarly, Lot goes out to his guests and insists that they should come into his home despite their refusal: “Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and you may rise up early, and go your ways.”195 In biblical literature, an open house turns into an obligation: “Is it not [the purpose of the fast] to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring the poor that are cast out to your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him: and that you hide not yourself from your own flesh?”196 This description traces a picture of an open house and its implications for the self. The emphasis is on “share your bread with the hungry.” The bread given to the hungry is the same bread the house-owner eats. The houseowner shares his bread with the hungry, and the open house enhances their partnership. The master of the house does not take charity to the poor outside—the poor comes inside. The notion of the open house projects onto life outside as well: “when you see the naked, that you cover him.” The stranger and the weak are no longer transparent. Whoever lives in an open house where the stranger, the weak, and the hungry are at home, lives in a world where shifting the gaze away from the sufferer is impossible. And the end of the verse indeed attests to this: “and that you hide not yourself from your own flesh.” The term “your own flesh” can be explained as denoting family ties, as Rashi did: “your own flesh—your relatives.”197 But the text seems to hint at something beyond blood ties. The hungry and the poor are not necessarily relatives of people who open the doors of their homes. Meir Leibush ben Jehiel Michel Wisser (known as Malbim) indeed understood this differently: “’Hide not yourself from your own flesh.” You should not think of this as stealing from your flesh for the sake of outsiders, but as giving to your own. Because we are all one flesh.”198 Isaiah emphasizes the disposition required to realize this approach: “and if you draw out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall your light rise in darkness, and your gloom be as the noonday.”199 Malbim explains: “Besides what you shall give him according to what the Torah requires from you, give him also your soul, give wholeheartedly and with a soul joyful with the bliss of fulfilling a commandment—do not give

195 196 197 198 199

Genesis 19:2. Isaiah 58:7. Rashi on Isaiah 58:7. Malbim on Isaiah 58:7. Isaiah 58:10.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

only your bread.”200 This approach is also evident in Job: “But the stranger did not lodge in the street: I opened my doors to the traveller.”201 This view of the open house is contrasted with the closed house, full of iniquity and evil, which is compared to a closed cage: “As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and grown rich.”202 The talmudic formulation sums up the meaning of an open house: “Do whatever the host tells you to do (except leave).”203 The addition in parentheses does not appear in all versions of the Talmud and is problematic. As Shmuel Eidels (known as Maharsha) notes: “Can someone be a guest against the host’s wishes?” Nevertheless, he does assume that the version containing the addition is the correct one: “And I learned that he understood this to mean—‘Do whatever the host tells you to do, since in all matters he is your host, but not so when he tells you to leave, since those are not at all the words of a host.’”204 The paradox is obvious: when a host tells his guest to leave, he is no longer a host, although the guest is at the house of the person saying this. When he closes the doors of his house and expels the guest, the host is no longer a host. The solution to the paradox lies in the assumption that this statement does not describe a factual situation—given that the owner of the house is still the owner—but a normative determination, stating that a host is not allowed to do this. A home must remain open to guests.205 That is its nature as a home. The words of the Maharsha and his followers206 thus convey the biblical ethos of the open house. I noted above the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and its joy as the realm for reshaping our consciousness of foreignness vis-à-vis the stranger. Maimonides conveys this consciousness when prescribing the conduct of the home during the joy of the holiday. His normative demand fits the biblical ethos of the home: And while one eats and drinks himself, it is his duty to feed the stranger, the orphan, the widow,  and other poor and unfortunate 200 201 202 203 204 205 206

Malbim on Isaiah 58:10. Job 31:32. Jeremiah 5:27. TB Pesahim 86b. Maharsha on TB Pesahim 86b, s.v. “kol mah she-iyomar.” For a different interpretation of this statement see Yoel Sirkish, Bayit Hadash, in Yaakov b. Asher, Arba’ah Turim, Tur Orah Hayyim, #170 (6). See also Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, Sefat Emet, TB Pesahim 86b. See, for example, R. Yosef Shaul Nathanson, Responsa Sho’el U-Meshiv, 1st ed., Part 3, #117, s.v. “shalom u-berakhah” [Heb]; R. Sholem Mordechai Schwadron (Maharsham), Responsa, Part 1, #225, s.v. ve-hinei be-din [Heb].

187

188

C h a p te r 6

people, for he who locks the doors to his courtyard and eats and drinks with his wife and family, without giving anything to eat and drink to the poor and the bitter in soul—his meal is not a rejoicing in a divine commandment, but a rejoicing in his own stomach. It is of such persons that Scripture says, “Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners, all that eat thereof shall be polluted; for their bread is for their own appetite” (Hoshea 9:4). Rejoicing of this kind is a disgrace to those who indulge in it, as Scripture says, “And I will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your sacrifices” (Malachi 2:3).207

The open—unlocked—home is fundamental to the performance of the religious commandment. The closed home “pollutes” all those who eat there. It conveys the exaltation of the self and disgraces humans. At least the post-talmudic literature, however, sets limits on the open house idea, because exaggerated openness may destroy the house, the family, and primary intimate relationships: “A man should not invite too many friends to his house, as it says, there are friends who merely pretend friendship.”208 R. Abraham Hacohen Kook comments subtly on this rabbinic determination: Family life is the foundation, and only then come friendships beyond the family circle. Hence, when widening borders to include friendships and love beyond the family, we should always be careful to note that we are not harming family life . . . . Too many friends in the home, their interference beyond what is proper, bring a person to behave at home according to the judgment of the friends coming into his home rather than according to his own judgment . . . . Friendship, therefore, should only surround the home and enter it at suitable times, and avoid having too many within it so as not to lose full control of one’s privacy.209

R. Kook points to a fundamental problem that emerges when establishing an open house: it can be destructive. Individuality and family life could disappear due to the power of the other, which harms the members of the household. An open house is founded on a dialectic between closure and 207 208 209

The Code of Maimonides, The Book of Seasons, trans. Solomon Gandz and Hyman Klein (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1956-1961), Laws of Repose on a Festival 6:18, 303. TB Berakhot 63a. R. Abraham Hacohen Kook, Eyn Ayah: On Rabbinic Aggadot in Eyn Yaakov vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Machon Harav Zvi Yehuda Kook, 1987), TB Berakhot 63 [Heb].

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

openness: absolute closure or absolute openness threatens the very essence of the home. A closed home disrupts a person’s ability to be with the other and to establish one’s own self vis-à-vis the other. A sealed home that never turns outward becomes a prison, but an open home might strengthen the other in ways that overwhelm the individual. The home is then denied its power of closure, ceasing to be a home and turning into a public area, where the face and the unique relationships of each individual become meaningless. The home is no longer a home—be it because its walls enclose the individual or because they have collapsed altogether. An open home results from an opening action performed from inside, not from a force coming from outside. Household members go out and invite the other in, but the home remains their home. Openness is therefore both an outward and inward-bound movement, which never breaks down the walls entirely. Scripture is sensitive to this dialectic: “thou bring the poor that are cast out to your house”;210 “I opened my doors to the traveller.”211 The houseowner moves outward—going out to the one standing outside, opening the doors, and inviting the outsider in. We are told about Abraham: “And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in to him, and entered into his house: and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.”212 Abraham is the one who opens the doors of his home and brings in his guests. Respect for the person’s home and for the personality enfolded in the home is epitomized by the guest standing outside. The houseowner is the one who opens up the doors, and no one can break in without the owner’s consent, not even someone making a legitimate demand: “When you do lend your brother anything, you shall not go into his house to fetch his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring out the pledge to you.”213 The representation of the house as a delimited space that should not be broken into found fitting expression in talmudic literature: “Our Rabbis taught: Seven things did R. Akiba charge his son R. Joshua . . . do not enter your own house suddenly, and all the more your neighbor’s house.”214 Any entry from outside, then, should follow proper rules. Even owners should not enter their home suddenly, since the other members of the household living in it deserve consideration. 210 211 212 213 214

Isaiah 58:7. Job 31:32. Genesis 19:3. Deuteronomy 24:10-11. TB Pesahim 112a.

189

190

C h a p te r 6

In post-talmudic literature, this determination is seen as relying on Scripture. R. Tuviah ben Eliezer, an eleventh century sage, holds that this instruction relies on the behavior of Jacob and Yitro: “And he sent Judah before him to Joseph, to show the way before him to Goshen.”215 And this is the way of the world, to announce to the other that one will be coming, as you find concerning Yitro, “I your father in law Yitro am come to you” (Exodus 18:6). Our rabbis, of blessed memory, therefore said, “you should never enter your own house suddenly, and all the more so your neighbor’s house.”216

In the Mahzor Vitry, a later source ascribed to thirteenth-century rabbi Simha ben Shmuel of Vitry, this instruction is explained as learned directly from God: “One should never enter one neighbor’s house suddenly. And all should learn respect from God, who stood at the entrance to the Garden and called Adam, ‘and said to him, Where are you?’”217 R. Shmuel ben Meir (known as Rashbam) also draws an analogy between the proper behavior toward members of the household and toward God’s home: Do not enter your home suddenly but rather let them hear your voice before you arrive, lest they are engaged in private matters (Leviticus Rabbah 21:8). R. Yohanan would make a sound when going home because it is written, “and its sound shall be heard when he goes in to the holy place” [Exodus 28:35].218

According to this interpretation, behind the recognition that the doors of the house should be opened from inside is an awareness of the need to respect privacy. The home, in Bachelard’s terms, is a space of “protected intimacy.”219 The midrash cited by Rashbam views this determination as applying to the relationship with God. When entering God’s home, Aaron must announce himself. He cannot suddenly break in. Bells are set on Aaron’s ministering robes, of which Scripture says: “And it shall be upon Aaron when he comes to minister: and its sound shall be heard when he goes in to the holy place before the Lord, and when he comes out, that he die not.”220 According to the 215 216 217 218 219 220

Genesis 46:28. Pesikta Zutarte (Lekah Tov), Genesis 46:8. Mahzor Vitry, #531. Rashbam, TB Pesahim 112a. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, 3. Exodus 28:35.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

midrash, the bells’ role is to announce to God that the priest is entering his home. In this source, which Rashbam relies upon, we read that R. Yohanan learned the need to announce his coming to the members of his household from Aaron--as one does not enter God’s house unannounced, neither does one break into another person’s house, and not even into one’s own.221 Consideration for a person’s house—and, by implication, for God’s house as well—reflects awareness of the home as the full embodiment of human existence. Our subjectivity is realized in our home; we are beings who dwell in homes.222 Respect, therefore, comes forth in waiting for the invitation of the house-owner, who comes out to the guest or to the one demanding a pledge. Even the owner should delay entry into his house, which is a space identified not only with him but with all the members of his household, who are separate from one another. Preserving the distance from the home is imperative in order to sustain the connections between the individual and the other. Without it, the walls of people’s homes collapse and their unique identity is violated in ways that, ultimately, also affect the other. Without validating my existence as an independent subject, I cannot create a moral relationship with the other. Every demand from the other is mediated only by relying on the assumption that the subject is an independent being capable of judgment, responding to the other’s voice and the other’s gaze.223 The movement of opening the doors from inside epitomizes the primal nature of the household members’ dwelling in the house, the primal quality of the home web. The home has doors and windows turning outward: “It has a ‘street front,’ but also its secrecy.”224 The one standing outside is different from the house-owner and the host is not a guest, even though he needs the guest. Even if the one standing outside imposes an obligation on the houseowner, the host is not a hostage. In this unique opening gesture, neither the members of the household nor those standing outside lose their specific identity, but they do turn to and establish themselves vis-à-vis one another. The distance between them is preserved, and it is out of this distance that they turn to each other. As beings living in our homes, we are at the same time beings that turn to the other and live with the other. Hence, we cannot 221 222

223 224

See also Menachem Mendel Kasher, Torah Shlemah (New York: Beth Torah Slemah, 1948), Exodus 28:35, #105 [Heb]. This issue is developed at length in Bachelard, The Poetics of Space. In his view, the home is the place where the individual develops a consciousness of self and knowledge of the world. Cf. Martin Heidegger, “Building, Dwelling, Thinking,” in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), 326-327. See also Sagi, Facing Others and Otherness, for an extensive discussion of this issue. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 156.

191

192

C h a p te r 6

live in a sealed house without harming our being. A closed home becomes a kind of prison or fortress; we are meant to live in houses.225 This openness, manifest in the turn to the other, is unique. The other does not lose his identity, does not become an undefined or transcendent being. The other is a specific being, possessing unique characteristics. Hence, the stranger and the poor do not cease to be what they are. Their specific existence cannot be blurred without blurring the existence of the one who turns to them.226 Even though the term home points to a delimited geographic space, this space becomes a home only because of a specific set of interpersonal connections within it. The walls of the house as such do not ensure a home experience; indeed, they could become prison walls. The space becomes a home only due to these interpersonal relationships, which are so primal that one can experience a home even in the absence of a given geographic space, making the human connection not only a necessary but also a sufficient condition. José Saramago delicately portrays this in his description of a relationship between lovers, Baltasar and Blimunda: “Blimunda remained silent and Baltasar did not greet her, they simply looked at each other, finding refuge in each other’s eyes.”227 Any space where we experience certainty and safety, attained through an interpersonal connection, can be our home. And although Scripture, as usual, does not develop this insight fully, it is the basis for the biblical conception of the open house. The open house conception refers not only to the proper human home. God’s house too is described as open to all nations and all creatures, who come to it without losing their otherness and their identity. Contrary to Hegel’s view, the God of Israel is not alienated from the world, nor is his attitude toward the world based solely on power. The God of Israel has a home in the world, which expects and invites all the world’s creatures to enter. This expectation and this invitation are divine gestures of love, overstepping the built-in human-divine hierarchy and renouncing human submission. Cohen228 directs attention to Solomon’s prayer at the inauguration of the Temple: Moreover, concerning a stranger, that is not of your people Israel, but comes out of a far country for your name’s sake, for they shall hear of your great name, and of your strong hand, and of your stretched out

225 226 227 228

See also Heidegger, “Building, Dwelling, Thinking.” See Sagi, Facing Others and Otherness. José Saramago, Baltasar and Blimunda, trans. Giovanni Pontiero (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1998), 101. Cohen, Religion of Reason, 120.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

arm; when he shall come and pray towards this house; hear you in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calls to you for; that all people of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as do your people Israel; and they may know that this house, which I have built is called by your name.229

This invocation assumes that exclusivism is inappropriate to God’s image. Rather, God’s house is open to all people, as they are—foreigners remain strangers, and God’s house contains them as they are. This unique openness is an expression of God’s perfection, which contains all creatures, an approach that recurs in the prophetic literature: And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all the nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.230 Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and all that take hold of my covenant. Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.231 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established on the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall stream towards it.232

Cohen, who sensed the power of these verses, concluded: “Thus the foreigner becomes fellowman through the community of prayer.”233 This community, established through prayer, does not make the stranger, the foreigner, part of the Jewish people. Indeed, the essence of God’s open house is precisely that it is open to everyone without expecting individuals 229 230 231 232 233

I Kings 8:41-43. Isaiah 2:2-3. Isaiah 56:7. Micha 4:1. Cohen, Religion of Reason, 120.

193

194

C h a p te r 6

to shed their uniqueness. Scripture emphasizes that the one coming to the house of the Lord is a stranger who belongs to another nation. The otherness, which neither vanishes nor takes shelter under the wings of Jewish existence, is reaffirmed by God’s open house. Elijah Benamozegh clearly formulates these insights: Are the “foreigners” in this passage those who have converted entirely to Judaism? The name given to them here, even after their conversion—b’nei ha-nechar, literally “sons of the stranger”— strongly suggests otherwise . . . . And the final verse of the passage proves amply that it is a question of other peoples and all races without distinction.234

God’s open house imposes on human beings the obligation to develop a suitable disposition. They must overcome the consciousness of sovereignty and fullness and the need to approach whatever is outside them as objects of their activity. People can be in God’s house if they are open to otherness and difference. The recognition that the Jew is not sovereign but only one of those coming to God’s open house is the primary foundation enabling the development of a suitable disposition. Those who have not renounced the consciousness of mastery and sovereignty cannot come to God’s house. Indeed, only this renunciation can put an end to the temptation to develop a disposition of mastery vis-à-vis God. God’s open house relocates our stance toward the other and toward God. Scripture tells us: Trust not lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord are these. For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbour; if you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.235

Verse 4 does not clarify what is signified by the term “the temple of the Lord,” since the third repetition includes the addition “the temple of the Lord are these.” Malbim offers a plausible exegesis: 234 235

Elijah Benamozegh, Israel and Humanity, trans. Maxwell Luria (New York: Paulist Press, 1995), 250 (emphasis in original). Jeremiah 7:4-7.

On E x i l e, S t ra nge rs, a n d S ove re i gnt y : Id e nti t y i n t he B ib li c al Tradi t io n

Do not imagine that because this is the temple of the Lord and was built for the Lord it is therefore his temple, meaning that he will therefore dwell in it. It is not so—“the temple of the Lord are these,” means that your good ways and deeds . . . are the temple of the Lord, and through them will God live there in holiness, and he explains (verses 5-7) “For if you thoroughly amend.” . . . Your good deeds are God’s dwelling, the temple of the Lord are these, and you will thereby live in the land forever and will not be exiled from it.236

God’s house and the house of Israel emerge through the appropriate normative structure. Rather than merely a geographic space, God’s house is a religious-social-moral space standing upon a territorial space that, in and of itself, does not ensure the permanence of the geographic space and actually poses a challenge. No space, not even the sacred space, ensures certainty. The only way of creating a fragile certainty is through a constant, normative social building, founded on the recognition of the universal human partnership. Rilke writes, “And now we all are nomads; not because none of us has a home where we can stay and work, but rather because we no longer have a common home.”237 Overcoming the nomadism that characterizes exile cannot be founded on a closed house. Indeed, a closed house can only ensure the shaping of a space outside the concrete realm where different human beings, including strangers and foreigners, live. The real home—the homeland and God’s house—is meant to be open to the other, and only this openness grants some kind of permanence and certainty to human life, no greater than that ensured to the stranger. Rilke’s “common home” enables us to overcome nomadism, but can never grant us the illusion that we are sovereign and can be self-sustaining within a closed house. A closed house will replace the sense of being strangers with nomadism and exile. The only fitting disposition ensuring movement toward openness and sharing is to be a stranger. According to Scripture, Jews are required to be voluntary strangers in their home. Deriving from this demand is the entire range of fitting relationships with the homeland and the other, and the linchpin is the consciousness of being a stranger vis-à-vis God. In the biblical view, being a stranger conveys the hierarchy fitting the human-God relationship, which radiates onto human existence as a whole. 236 237

Malbim, Jeremiah 7:4. Rainer Maria Rilke, Auguste Rodin, trans. Daniel Slager (New York: Archipelago, 2004), 87-88.

195

196

C h a p te r 6

Even though the unique sense of being a stranger that I considered relates to the normative demand from the Jew, the existential, political, religious, and moral insights of this thesis are valid for everyone everywhere. The biblical text poses a challenge: renouncing sovereignty and mastery on the one hand, and renouncing absolute belongingness to an existential space larger than the individual as the foundation of existential meaning on the other. These two temptations are permanent foundations of existence in general, and of modern existence in particular. By contrast, Scripture poses the challenge of individual and social self-contraction and self-retreat to enable greater openness toward existence as a whole. This openness, Scripture assumes, enables us to establish new relationships with the world. Hegel held that Scripture denies Jews the power of primary love, since it demands from them detachment and estrangement. Scripture, however, answers that the foundation of love is the self ’s renunciation of fullness and sovereignty in favor of self-retreat. If love is the renunciation of narcissism, it must surely be based on the contraction of the self, which is impossible without the readiness to withdraw and make room for the other by renouncing the claim to sovereignty and subjective empowerment.238 This is our ethical and ontological task, not only for the sake of the other but above all for our own.

238

For an extensive discussion of this issue, see a chapter entitled “Between Love and a Politics of Sovereignty,“ in Sagi, Facing Others and Otherness, 107-136.

Bibliography

Abramski, Jacob David. In the Footsteps of the Eternal Jew: Reflections and Studies in Judaism. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim, 1985 [Heb]. Adorno, Theodor. Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life. Translated by E. F. N. Jephcott. London: New Left Books, 1974. Ahad Ha-Am. Selected Essays of Ahad-Ha-Am. Translated by Leon Simon. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1912. . Collected Writings. Tel Aviv: Devir, 1965 [Heb]. Alexander, Jeffrey C. “The Paradoxes of Civil Society.” International Sociology 12, 2 (1997): 115-133. Alston, William P. “Religious Diversity and Perceptual Knowledge of God.” Faith and Philosophy 5 (1988): 433-448. . Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Améry, Jean. At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor of Auschwitz and Its Realities. Translated by Sidney Rosenfeld and Stella P. Rosenfeld. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1980. Appelfeld, Aharon. My Parents. Or Yehuda, Israel: Kinneret-Zmora-Bitan, 2013 [Heb]. Arendt, Hannah. The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age. New York: Grove Press, 1978. Aristotle. The Nichomachean Ethics. Translated by Harris Rackham. Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth, 1996. Assaf, Simha. Beoholei Ya‘akov: Essays on the Cultural Life of the Jews in the Middle Ages. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1965 [Heb]. Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. Baer, Yitzhak F. Galut. New York: Schocken Books, 1947. Bauman, Zygmunt. “Morality in the Age of Contingency.” In Detraditionalization: Critical Reflections on Authority and Identity, edited by Paul Heelas, Scott Lash, and Paul Morris, 49-58. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Ben Rafael, Eliezer. Jewish Identities: Fifty Intellectuals Answer Ben-Gurion. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Benamozegh, Elijah. Israel and Humanity. Translated by Maxwell Luria. New York: Paulist Press, 1995. Bendix, Regina. In Search of Authenticity: The Formation of Folklore Studies. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1968.

198

B i b l i o gra phy

Benn, S. I. “Freedom and the Concept of a Person.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 76 (1975-1976): 123-128. Berdyczewski, Micha Yosef. Collected Works, vol. 5. Edited by Avner Holtzman and Yitzhak Kafkafi. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2002 [Heb]. Berger, Peter L. The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1979. Berger, Peter, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfried Kellner. The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness. New York: Vintage Books, 1974. Berlin, Isaiah. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969. . The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. London: J. Murray, 1990. . The Roots of Romanticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. Berofsky, Bernard. “The Identity of Cultural and Personal Identity.” In Jewish Identity, edited by David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz, 35-48. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 2001. Boyarin, Daniel, and Yonatan Boyarin. “No Homeland to Israel: On the Place of the Jews.” Theory and Criticism 5 (1994): 79-104 [Heb]. Boyer, Pascal. Tradition as Truth and Communication: A Cognitive Description of Traditional Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Brenner, Joseph Chayim. Writings, vol. 3. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1978-1985 [Heb]. Breuer, Isaac. Wegzeichen. Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann, 1923. . Programm oder Testament: Vier Jüdische-Politische Aufsätze. Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann, 1929. Buber, Martin. The Prophetic Faith. Translated by Carlyle Witton-Davies. New York: Macmillan, 1949. . On Zion: The History of an Idea. Translated by Stanley Goodman. London: East and West Library, 1973. Calhoun, Craig. “Social Theory and the Politics of Identity.” In Social Theory and the Politics of Identity, 13-27. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Canaani, David. The Second Aliyah and Its Attitude toward Religion and Tradition. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim, 1976 [Heb]. Chaney, Marvin L. “Systemic Study of the Israelite Monarchy.” Semeia 37 (1986): 53-76. Charmé, Stuart Z. “Varieties of Authenticity in Contemporary Jewish Identity.” Jewish Social Studies 6 (Winter 2000): 133-155. Cohen, Asher. The Prayer Shawl and the Flag: Religious-Zionism and the Vision of a Torah State in Israel’s Early Years. Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak BenZvi Institute, 1998 [Heb]. Cohen, Hermann. Reason and Hope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen. Translated by Eva Jospe. New York: W. W. Norton, 1971. . Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism. Translated by Simon Kaplan. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1972.

B i b l i o gra phy

Cohen, Jonathan “’If Rabbi Akiba Were Alive Today’ . . . or the Authenticity Argument.” Judaism 37 (1988): 136-142. Cohen, Mark R. Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. Davies, Bronwyn, and Rom Harré. “Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20 (1990): 43-64. Derrida, Jacques. “Deconstruction and the Other: An Interview with Jacques Derrida.” In Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers: The Phenomenological Heritage, edited by Richard Kearney, 105-126. Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress, 1984. . Of Hospitality. Translated by Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000. Diamond, Cora. “Sahibs and Jews.” In Jewish Identity, edited by David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz, 93-107. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Dilthey, William. Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding. Translated by Richard M. Zaner and Kenneth L. Heiges. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977. Dumont, Louis. Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications. Translated by Mark Sainsbury. London: Paladin, 1972. Elam, Yigal. The End of Judaism. Tel Aviv: Yedi‘ot Aharonot, 2000 [Heb]. Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane. New York: Harcourt, 1959. . The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History. Translated by Willard R. Trask. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971. Ellinson, Eliyakim G. Non-Halakhic Marriage. Jerusalem: Devir, 1975 [Heb]. Erikson, Kai T. Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: J. Wiley, 1966. Federbusch, Simon. The Vision of Torah and Zion. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1960 [Heb]. Feinberg, Walter. “Liberalism and the Aims of Liberal Education.” In Democratic Education in a Multicultural State, edited by Yael Tamir, 45-58. London: Blackwell, 1995. Felman, Shoshana, and Dori Laub. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. New York: Routledge, 1992. Ferrara, Alessandro. Reflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity. London: Routledge, 1998. Feuerberg, Mordecai Zeev. Whither? and Other Stories. Translated by Hillel Halkin. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973. Fischer-Rosenthal, Wolfram. “From Identity to Biography: On the Social Construction of Biography and the Question of Social Order in Modern Times.” In A Quest for Identity: Post War Jewish Biographies, edited by Yitzhak Kashti et al., 9-20. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1996. Frankfurt, Harry G. “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person.” The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971): 5-20. Freud, Sigmund. “Preface to the Hebrew Translation.” In Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, translated by James Strachey, XV. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950.

199

200

B i b l i o gra phy

. “Address to the Society of B’nai B’Rith.” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 20, An Autobiographical Study, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, The Question of Lay Analysis and Other Works 1925-1926. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1959. Friedman, Jonathan. Cultural Identity and Global Process. London: Sage, 1994. Gadamer, Hans Georg. Truth and Method. New York: Crossroad, 1988. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991. Glass, James. Shattered Selves. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. Goldberg, David Theo and Michael Krausz. “Introduction: The Culture of Identity.” In Jewish Identity, edited by David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz, 1-12. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Goldman, Eliezer. Expositions and Inquiries: Jewish Thought in Past and Present. Edited by Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996, [Heb]. Goldstein, Leon J. “Reflections on Conceptual Openness and Conceptual Tension.” In Freedom and Rationality: Essays in Honor of John Watkins from His Colleagues and Friends, edited by Fred D’Agostino and I. C. Jarvie, 87-110. Dordrecht: Klewer, 1989. . “Thoughts on Jewish Identity.” In Jewish Identity, edited by David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz, 79-92. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Goren, Shlomo. “On the Problem of Religion and State.” In Religion and the State, edited by Matityahu Rotenberg, 77-82. Tel Aviv: NRP, 1964 [Heb]. Gross, Benjamin. Le Messianisme juif: L’éternité d’Israel du Maharal de Prague. Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1969. Gurevitch, Zali. Al Hamakom (On Place/God). Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2007 [Heb]. Gutmann, Amy. “The Challenge of Multiculturalism in Political Ethics.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993): 171-206. Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford, 222-237. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990. Hallamish, Moshe, and Aviezer Ravitzky, eds. The Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1991 [Heb]. Harré, Rom. “Persons and Selves.” In Persons and Personality: A Contemporary Inquiry, edited by Arthur R. Peacocke and Grant Gillet, 99-115. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. Hazaz, Hayyim. The Sermon and Other Stories. New Milford, CT: Toby Press, 2005. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. On Christianity: Early Theological Writings. Translated by T. M. Knox. New York: Harper, 1961. . Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A. V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. .“Building, Dwelling, Thinking.” In Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, edited by David Farrell Krell, 320-339. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.

B i b l i o gra phy

Heine, Heinrich. Sämtliche Schriften, vol. 2. Edited by Klaus Briegleb. Munich: Hanser, 1975-1985. Herzl, Theodor. The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat). Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Herzl Press, 1970. Hevlin, Rina. Coping with Jewish Identity: A Study of Ahad Ha-Am’s Thought. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2001 [Heb]. Hirsch, Samson Raphael. The Hirsch Chumash: The Five Books of the Torah. Translated by Daniel Haberman. New York and Jerusalem: Feldheim, 2008. Hughes, Everett C. “Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status.” American Journal of Sociology 4 (1945): 353-359. Hughes, H. Stuart. Prisoners of Hope: The Silver Age of the Italian Jews 1924-1974. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. London: Pelican Books, 1969. Irshai, Oded. “The Apostate as an Inheritor in Geonic Responsa: Basics of Decision Making and Parallels in Gentile Law.” Shenaton ha-Mishpat ha-Ivri: Annual of the Institute for Research in Jewish Law 11/12 (1984-1986): 435-471. [Heb]. Israeli, Shaul. Sefer Amud ha-Yemini. Jerusalem: Eretz Hemdah, 1992 [Heb]. Jabès, Edmond. The Book of Questions. Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1977. . A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Book. Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989. Japhet, Sara. The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009. Jaspers, Karl. Philosophy, vol. 2. Translated by E. B. Ashton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague (Maharal). Netsah Yisrael. London, 1952 [Heb]. Kant, Immanuel. Groundings for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by William Ellington. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1981. Kapchan, Deborah. “Hybridization and the Marketplace: Emerging Paradigms in Folkloristics.” Western Folklore 52 (1993): 303-326. Kasher, Menachem Mendel. Torah Shlemah. New York: Beth Torah Slemah, 1948 [Heb] Katz, Jacob. Halakhah and Kabbalah: Studies in the History of Jewish Religion, Its Various Aspects and Social Relevance. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984 [Heb]. Kaufmann, Yehezkel. Exile and Estrangement: A Socio-Historical Study on the Fate of the Nation of Israel from Ancient Times Until the Present, vol. 1. Tel Aviv: Devir, 1962 [Heb]. . History of the Religion of Israel. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1972 [Heb]. Kekes, John. The Morality of Pluralism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. Kierkegaard, Søren. The Concept of Anxiety. Translated by Reider Thomte. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980. . The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.

201

202

B i b l i o gra phy

Kirschbaum, Menachem. Responsa Menachem Meshiv. Benei Berak, 1936 [Heb]. Klein, Yitzhak. The Dialectic of Master and Slave. Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1978 [Heb]. Knohl, Israel. The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Translated by Jackie Feldman and Peretz Rodman. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995. . The Divine Symphony: The Bible’s Many Voices. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003. Kook, Abraham Hacohen. Eyn Ayah: On Rabbinic Aggadot in Eyn Yaakov, vol. 2. Jerusalem: Machon Harav Zvi Yehuda Kook, 1987 [Heb]. Krausz, Michael. “On Being Jewish.” In Jewish Identity, edited by David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz, 264-278. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Kymlicka, Will. Liberalism, Community, and Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. . Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. 2nd edition. London and New York: Verso, 2001. Lang, Berel. “The Phenomenal-Noumenal Jew.” In Jewish Identity, edited by David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz, 279-290. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. London: Michael Joseph, 1989. . Conversazioni e interviste: 1963-87. Edited by Marco Belpoliti. Torino: Einaudi, 1997. . The Voice of Memory: Interviews 1961-87. Edited by Marco Belpoliti and Robert Gordon. Translated by Robert Gordon. Cambridge: Polity, 2001. Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1969. . Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism. Translated by Seán Hand. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. Levinger, Jacob. From Routine to Renewal: Pointers in Contemporary Jewish Thought. Jerusalem: De‘ot, 1973 [Heb]. Lorberbaum, Yair. Disempowered King: Monarchy in Classical Jewish Literature. Translated by Jonathan Chipman. Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute, 2011. Luntley, Michael. Reason, Truth and Self: The Postmodern Reconditioned. London: Routledge, 1995. Maor, Zohar. “Transforming the Land of Israel into Longing: Political Theology in Kafka and Brod and in Contemporary Post-Zionism.” In Jewish Political Tradition Throughout the Ages: In Memory of Daniel J. Elazar, edited by Moshe Hellinger, 229-254. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000 [Heb]. Margalit, Avishai, and Moshe Halbertal. “Liberalism and the Right to Culture.” Social Research 61 (1994): 491-510. Markus, Hazel Rose, Patricia R. Mullally, and Shinobu Kitayama. “Selfways: Diversity in Modes of Cultural Participation.” In The Conceptual Self in Context: Culture, Experience, Self-Understanding, edited by Ulric Neisser and David A. Jopling, 13-61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Mautner, Menachem. Law and the Culture of Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

B i b l i o gra phy

Mautner, Menahem, Avi Sagi, and Ronen Shamir. “Reflections on Multiculturalism in Israel.” In Multiculturalism in a Democratic and Jewish State, edited by Menahem Mautner, Avi Sagi, and Ronen Shamir, 67-76. Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1998 [Heb]. Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934. Memmi, Albert. The Pillar of Salt. Translated by Edouard Roditi. New York: Criterion Books, 1955. . The Liberation of the Jew. Translated by Judy Hyun. New York: Orion Press, 1966. Mendus, Susan. “Toleration and Recognition: Education in a Multicultural Society.” In Democratic Education in a Multicultural State, edited by Yael Tamir, 33-43. London: Blackwell, 1995. Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984. Morante, Elsa. History: A Novel. Translated by William Weaver. Penguin Modern Classics, 1980. Moshe ben Maimon. The Book of Divine Commandments (Sefer ha-Mitzvoth of Moses Maimonides). Translated by Charles B. Chavel. London: Soncino, 1940. . The Code of Maimonides. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1947. . The Guide of the Perplexed. Translated by Shlomo Pines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Nathanson, Yosef Shaul. Responsa Sho’el U-Meshiv. 1st edition. Lemberg, 1865-1880 [Heb]. Nehorai, Michael Zvi. “Can a Religious Deed Be Coerced?” In Between Authority and Autonomy in Jewish Tradition, edited by Zeev Safrai and Avi Sagi, 346-381. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1997 [Heb]. Neuberger, Benjamin. “Religion and State Arrangements in Europe.” In The Conflict: Religion and State in Israel, edited by Nahum Langental and Shuki Friedman, 336-353. Tel Aviv: Yedi‘ot Aharonot, 2002 [Heb]. Nickel, James W. Making Sense of Human Rights: Philosophical Reflections on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Ohana, David. The Promethean Passion: The Intellectual Origins of the Twentieth Century from Rousseau to Foucault. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2000 [Heb]. . The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites nor Crusaders. Translated by David Maisel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Passmore, John. Hume’s Intentions. London: Gerald Duckworth, 1968. Pavese, Cesare. The Moon and the Bonfire. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1950. Perelman, Chaim. Justice, Law, and Argument: Essays on Moral and Legal Reasoning. Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1980. Pfohl, Stephen J. Images of Deviance and Social Control: A Sociological History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985. Pfuetze, Paul E. Self, Society, Existence: Human Nature and Dialogue in the Thought of George Herbert Mead and Martin Buber. New York: Harpers Brothers, 1954. Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni. Oration on the Dignity of Man: A New Translation and Commentary. Edited by Francesco Borghesi, Michael Papio, and Massimo Riva. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

203

204

B i b l i o gra phy

Piekarz, Mendel. Ideological Trends of Hasidism in Poland during the Interwar Period and the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1990 [Heb]. Ramban-Nahmanides. Commentary on the Torah. Translated by Charles B. Chavel. New York: Shiloh, 1976. Ravitzky, Aviezer, ed. The Land of Israel in Modern Jewish Thought. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1998 [Heb]. ------, ed. The Land of Israel in Twentieth Century Jewish Thought. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2005 [Heb]. Raz, Joseph. “On the Nature of Rights.” Mind 93 (1984): 194-214. . “Autonomy, Toleration, and the Harm Principle.” In Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives, edited by Susan Mendus, 155-175. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Raz-Krakotzkin, Amnon. “Exile within Sovereignty: Toward a Critique of the ‘Negation of Exile’ in Israeli Culture.” Theory and Criticism 4 (1993): 113-132 [Heb]. Ricoeur, Paul. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation. Translated by John B. Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Rilke, Rainer Maria. Duino Elegies. Translated by J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender. London: Hogarth Press, 1942. . Auguste Rodin. Translated by Daniel Slager. New York: Archipelago, 2004. Rockefeller, Steven C. “Comment on Charles Taylor’s Politics of Recognition.” In Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, edited by Amy Gutmann, 79-98. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. Rogoff, Irit. Terra Infirma. London: Routledge, 2000. Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979. . Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Rosenblum, Nancy L. Another Liberalism: Romanticism and the Reconstruction of Liberal Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. Rosen-Zvi, Ariel. “‘A Jewish Democratic State’: Spiritual Paternity, Alienation, and Symbiosis.” In A Jewish Democratic State: An Anthology, edited by Daphne Barak-Erez, 479-519. Tel-Aviv: Ramot, 1996 [Heb]. Rosenzweig, Franz. “Geist und Epochen der Jüdischen Geschichte.” In Kleinere Schriften. Berlin: Schocken, 1937. . Der Mensch und sein Werk: Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 2, Briefe und Tagebücher 1918-1929. Edited by Rachel Rosenzweig and Edith Rosenzweig-Scheinmann. Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979. . The Star of Redemption. Translated by Barbara E. Galli. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. Roth, Philip. Reading Myself and Others. London: Jonathan Cape, 1975. . The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1988. Rush, Rhees. Without Answers. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969.

B i b l i o gra phy

Sagi, Avi. “The Suspension of the Ethical and the Religious Meaning of Ethics in Kierkegaard’s Thought.” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 32 (1992): 83-103. . “Judaism and Democracy: Indeed at Odds?” Democratic Culture 2 (1999): 169-187 [Heb]. . Kierkegaard, Religion, and Existence: The Voyage of the Self. Translated by Batya Stein. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 2000. . A Challenge: Returning to Tradition. Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Shalom Hartman Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2003 [Heb]. . The Jewish Israeli Voyage: Culture and Identity. Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute, 2006 [Heb]. . The Open Canon: On the Meaning of Halakhic Discourse. Translated by Batya Stein. London: Continuum, 2007. . Tradition vs. Traditionalism: Contemporary Perspectives in Jewish Thought. Translated by Batya Stein. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2008. . Jewish Religion after Theology. Translated by Batya Stein. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2009. . The Human Voyage to Meaning: A Philosophical-Hermeneutical Study of Literary Works. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2009 [Heb]. . To Be a Jew: Joseph Chayim Brenner as a Jewish Existentialist. Translated by Batya Stein. London: Continuum, 2011. . “Justifying Interreligious Pluralism.” In Jewish Theology and World Religions, edited by Alon Goshen-Gottstein and Eugene Korn, 61-86. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2012. . Facing Others and Otherness: The Ethics of Inner Retreat. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2012 [Heb]. Sagi, Avi, and Zvi Zohar. Circles Of Jewish Identity: A Study in Halakhic Literature. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2000 [Heb]. . Transforming Identity—The Ritual Transition from Gentile to Jew: Structure and Meaning. London and New York: Continuum, 2007. Said, Edward W. Out of Place: A Memoir. London: Granta Books, 1999. . Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Saramago, José. Baltasar and Blimunda. Translated by Giovanni Pontiero. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1998. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate. Translated by George J. Becker. New York: Schocken, 1976. Schatz-Uffenheimer, Rivka. “Existence and Eschatology in the Teaching of the Maharal.” In Messianism and Eschatology: A Collection of Essays, edited by Zvi Baras, 301-324. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1982 [Heb]. Schiffman, Pinhas. Doubtful Marriage in Israel Law. Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1975 [Heb]. . Who Is Afraid of Civil Marriage? Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1995 [Heb].

205

206

B i b l i o gra phy

Schneider, Schmuel. Existence and Memory in the Writings of Aharon Appelfeld, Yosef Chaim Brenner, and Other Writings. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2010 [Heb]. Schwadron, Sholem Mordechai (Maharsham). Responsa, Part 1. Jerusalem, 1992 [Heb]. Schwartz, Dov. The Land of Israel in Religious-Zionist Thought. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1997 [Heb]. . “Land of Romanticism and Redemption: Buber as Commentator of R. Judah Loew of Prague.” In On Repentance and Redemption: Presented to Binyamin Gross, edited by Dov Schwartz and Ariel Gross, 175-190. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2008 [Heb]. Schweid, Eliezer. The Lonely Jew and Judaism. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1974 [Heb]. . The Land of Israel: National Home or Land of Destiny. Translated by Deborah Greniman. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985. Searle, John R. Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Sefer ha-Hinnuch: The Book of [Mitzvah] Education. Translated by Charles Wengrov. Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1988. Shapira, Jonathan. A Society Held Captive by Politicians. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Po‘alim, 1996 [Heb]. Shmueli, Efraim. Seven Jewish Cultures: A Reinterpretation of Jewish History and Thought. Tel Aviv: Yahdav, 1980 [Heb]. Silberg, Moshe. In Inner Harmony: Essays and Articles. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981 [Heb]. Silberstein, Lawrence J. “Others Within and Others Without: Rethinking Jewish Identity and Culture.” In The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity, edited by Lawrence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn, 1-34. New York: New York University Press, 1994. Silman,Yohanan. “Halakhic Determinations of a Nominalistic and Realistic Nature: Legal and Philosophical Considerations.” Diné Israel 12 (1985): 249-266 [Heb]. . “Commandments and Transgressions: Matters of Obedience or Intrinsic Quality.” Diné Israel 16 (1991-1992): 183-201 [Heb]. Sodi, Risa. “An Interview with Primo Levi.” Partisan Review 54 (1987): 355-366. Sokolov, Nahum. Baruch Spinoza and His Time. Paris: Voltaire, 1929 [Heb]. Soloveitchik, Joseph B. “Catharsis,” Tradition 17 (1978): 38-54. . Divrei Hagut ve-Ha‘arakhah. Jerusalem: WZO, 1981 [Heb]. . Reflections of the Rav: Lessons in Jewish Thought Adapted from the Lectures of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Edited by Abraham R. Besdin. New York: Ktav, 1993. . Abraham’s Journey: Reflections on the Life of the Founding Patriarch. New Jersey: Ktav, 2008. Spinoza, Benedict de. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Translated by R. H. M. Elwes. London and New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1905. Statman, Daniel. “Hurting Religious Feelings.” In Multiculturalism in a Democratic and Jewish State, edited by Menachem Mautner, Avi Sagi, and Ronen Shamir, 133-188. Tel-Aviv: Ramot, 1998 [Heb]. Steiner, George. “Jewish Values in the Post-Holocaust Future.”Judaism 16 (1967): 269-299. . “The Wandering Jew.” Petahim 1, 6 (1968): 17-23 [Heb]. . Errata: An Examined Life. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1997.

B i b l i o gra phy

Strawson, Peter F. Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London: Methuen, 1959. Tamir, Yael. Liberal Nationalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. .“Some Thoughts Concerning the Phrase: A Quest for Identity.” In A Quest for Identity: Post War Jewish Biographies, edited by Yitzhak Kashti et al., 21-48. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1996. Taylor, Charles. Human Agency and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. . The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. . “Atomism.” In Communitarianism and Individualism, edited by Shlomo Avinery and Avner de-Shalit, 29-50. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. . Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. . Hegel and Modern Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Thompson, John B. “Tradition and Self in a Mediated World.” In Detraditionalization: Critical Reflections on Authority and Identity, edited by Paul Heelas, Scott Lash, and Paul Morris,  89-108. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Toller, Ernst. I Was a German: An Autobiography. Translated by Edward Crankshaw. London: John Lane, 1934. Trilling, Lionel. Sincerity and Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972. Uffenheimer, Benjamin. “The Idea of the Chosen People in the Bible.” In Chosen People, Elect Nation and Universal Mission: Collected Essays, edited by Shmuel Almog and Michael Heyd, 17-40. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1991 [Heb]. .Early Prophecy in Israel. Translated by David Louvish. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999. Uzziel, Ben Zion Meir Hai. The Sabbatical, the Jubilee, and the Commandment to Gather the People. Jerusalem: The Committee for the Publication of the Rabbi’s Writings, 2005 [Heb]. Vitiello, Vincenzo. “Desert, Ethos, Abandonment: Toward a Typology of the Religion.” In Religion, edited by Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo, 136-169. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998. Waldron, Jeremy. Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981-1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993. . “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative.” In The Rights of Minority Cultures, edited by Will Kymlicka, 93-119. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Walzer, Michael. Exodus and Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 1985. Wasserman, Elhanan. Collected Articles. Jerusalem: Judah Press, 1963 [Heb]. Wassermann, Jacob. The Maurizius Case. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1930. Webber, Jonathan. “Modern Jewish Identities.” In Jewish Identities in the New Europe, edited by Jonathan Webber, 74-85. London: Littman Library, 1994. Weiler, Gershon. Jewish Theocracy. Leiden: Brill, 1988. Winch, Peter. Ethics and Action. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972. . Trying to Make Sense. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. Yehoshua, A. B. Between Right and Right. Translated by Arnold Schwartz. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981.

207

208

B i b l i o gra phy

Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1982. . Freud’s Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. Yovel, Yirmiyahu. Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. Ze‘ira, Moti. Rural Collective Settlement and Jewish Culture in Eretz Israel During the 1920s. Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 2002 [Heb]. Zeitlin, Hillel. Collected Writings. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1979 [Heb].

Sources

Earlier versions of chapters 2, 4 and 5 appeared as: “Identity and Commitment in a Multicultural World.” Democratic Culture 3 (2000): 167–186. “Society and Law in Israel: Between a Rights Discourse and an Identity Discourse.” In The Multicultural Challenge in Israel, edited by Avi Sagi and Ohad Nachtomy (129-149). Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2009. “Religion and State: A Critical Analysis of Meaning in Public Discourse.” In The Israel NationState: Political, Constitutional and Cultural Challenges, edited by Fania Oz-Salzberger and Yedidia Z. Stern (210-242). Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2014.

Index

A

Adorno, Theodor, 160 Ahad Ha-Am, 38, 79–82, 84, 132 Améry, Jean, 6, 158 anti-Semitism, 40 Aristotle, 95 atomistic liberalism, 119–120, 123–128, 134 in Israel, 125 authentic identity, 49 authentic Jewish identity, 48–55

B

Bachelard, Gaston, 156 Baer, Yitzhak, 143 Barak, Aharon, 91–93, 105 Bar-Ilan Road affair, 91, 105 political-social context and legal context, 91–93 Bauman, Zygmunt, 16, 157 Benamozegh, Elijah, 194 Berdyczewski, Micha Yosef, 61–62 Berger, Peter, 50 Berlin, Isaiah, 30 Bezalel, R. Judah Loew ben, 142–144, 152, 155 Bhabha, Homi, 157 Brenner, Joseph Chayim, 79–82 Buber, Martin, 166

C

Calhoun, Craig, 40 Charmé, Stuart, 51–52 Cohen, Hermann, 144–147, 152, 163, 192–193 commitment, 29 compartmentalization, 23–25 concrete identity, 66, 69, 74, 108 constructionist identification, 55–58 cosmopolitan commitment, 21 cosmopolitan self, 20–22 cultural communities, 19 cultural identity constructionist view of, 12–13 essentialist perception of, 11 cultural phenomenalism, 59 cultural self-realization, 19 culture, 5, 14–17

diachronic perspective, 15–16 encounter with another culture, effects of, 26 Maimonides’ philosophical tradition, 16 romantic perspective, 14–15 synchronic perspective, 15–16

D

Dahlhaus, Carl, 51 Derrida, Jacques, 42, 177, 185 Descartes, René, 124 “thinking self,” 124 discourse of identity. see identity discourse; rights discourse Dumont, Louis, 131–132

E

Eidels, Shmuel, 187 essentialist authenticity, 51 essentialist conception of identity, 2 ethnic membership in a Jewish family, 56 exile, 139, 141–144, 146–147, 149–151, 154 biblical, 158–159 stranger and, 155–162 existential authenticity, 51–52 existential multiculturalism, 18–19 Exodus, story of, 138–141

F

Federbusch, Simon, 50 Felman, Shoshana, 80 Feuerberg, Mordecai Ze’ev, 74 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 62 Flavius, Josephus, 115 Foucault, Michel, 109 Freud, Sigmund, 76–78 Friedman, Jonathan, 3

G

Gadamer, Hans Georg, 6, 27, 44 Geertz, Clifford, 111, 123, 129, 131 German Romanticism, 51 God’s open house, 184–196 Goldman, Eliezer, 113, 119 Goren, R. Shlomo, 126–127

Index

H

Haaretz, 120–121 halakhic objectivism, 36, 39–40 Halbertal, Moshe, 100 Hall, Stuart, 10 Handelsaltz, Michael, 122 Harré, Rom, 12 Hegel, G. W. F., 27, 69, 95, 107, 192, 196 dynamic movement of objectification and externalization, 63 metaphor of relationship between bud and flower, 62 moral flaws in biblical story, 163–164 Phenomenology of Spirit, 62–63 on primordial identity, 62–66 subject-object relationships, 99 subject’s self-identity in dynamic terms, 63 hegemony thesis, 130–135 Heidegger, Martin, 5, 7, 10 “being with the other,” 10 ontology of, 156 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 15, 49 Herzl, Theodor, 69, 83–84 homelessness, 157 human-God relationship, 195 human self, 42 description of, 6–7 essentialist view of, 9–13 existentialist view, 8–9 phenomenalist approach, 7 philosophical discussion, 7–8 as static, 7 temporal-historical character of, 8 as a tension between finitude and infinity, 8 Hume, David, 7 cosmopolitan self, 21 epistemology of, 22 identity, 21 self ’s consciousness, 22 Husserl, Edmund, 7, 63

I

identification, 55–58, 68–69 identification, act of, 3–4 as encountering practices, 5 of group members, 5 identity constructionist view of, 11–12 diachronic perspective, 16

essentialist view of, 10–11, 13–14 moderate constructionist approach, 13 open and dialogical character of, 28 in rights discourse and identity discourse, 99–104 synchronic perspective, 16 identity change, process of, 5 adopting an identity, 5–6 formal element in, 4 practical element in, 4 substantive element in, 4 identity discourse, 98–99 relationship between rights discourse and, 103–106 identity problem, 6–9 internalizing the other, 25–26 Israeli, R. Shaul, 116 Israeli public discourse, 106–111 as a negating discourse, 128–135

J

Jaspers, Karl, 95, 103 Jewish constructionism, 47 Jewish identification, 57, 89 Jewish identity, 26, 31, 88, 133–134 based on Orthodoxy, 36 constructionist Jewish identity and, 48–55 constructionist view, 42–48 diachronic discourse, 42–47 essentialist view, 36, 41–42 historical-cultural character of, 38 identification or self-identification discourse of, 33–38 non-Orthodox approach, 37 objectivist identity, 40 primordial, 66–69, 83–87 structured around halakhic practice, 36 subjective identification with, 43 synchronic discourse, 42, 44–45 tension between Jewish multiculturalism and, 41–42 Jewish-Israeli identity, 45, 123 Jewish nationalism, 51 Jewish objectivism, 36, 38–40 Judaism, 38, 61 primordial Jewish identity and, 75–82

K

Kantian transcendental self, 65 Kaufmann, Yehezkel, 141, 162

211

212

Index

Kierkegaard, Søren, 7, 52, 71, 150 Kierkegaardian selfhood, 7–9 “repetition,” 137 Kook, R. Abraham Yitzhak Hacohen, 143, 188 Kulturkampf, 122, 132 Kymlicka, Will, 17, 100–101, 103

L

Land of Israel, 142–155 Leibowitz, Yeshayahu, 24, 115 Levi, Primo, 6, 67–68 Levinas, Emmanuel, 147, 161, 171, 184 loyalty, 29–30 Luntley, Michael, 7

M

Maimonides, 118, 136, 187 mamzerim (mamzerut), 117 Margalit, Avishai, 100 Mead, George H., 103 Memmi, Albert, 60–61 Mill, John Stuart, 15, 102 moderate constructionism, 13 monological discourse, 106–110 Morante, Elsa, 60, 86 multiculturalism, 23, 67 cosmopolitan model, 20–23 definition of, 17 embraced by liberal communitarian, 18 in existentialist context, 18 multicultural identity, 27–31 negation of the other, 23–27 in political context, 17–18

N

negative freedom, 125 Nickel, James, 96–97 normative commitments, 30

O

objectification, 63 observing self, 22

P

Passmore, John, 22 paternalism, 36–37 Pavese, Cesare, 157 people of Israel, 142–155, 162, 164, 166, 168–170, 173, 176 renunciation of ownership of the land, 177

phenomenalism, 7 phenomenological self, 21 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 2 self-creation, duty of, 2 transition between old and new, 2 pluralism, 101–102 pluralistic dialogical discourse, 107 political thesis, 128–130 primordial identity, 60–62, 88 Hegel’s stance, 62–66 Judaism and, 75–82 “marginal” or “detached” Jews, 74–75 the “other,” 69–74 in personal testimonies, 74–75 primordial Jewish identity, 66–69, 83–87

R

radical empiricism, 47 Raz, Joseph, 94, 102–103 “religion and state” relations, 111–112 as an antithesis, 119–124 as an equivalence, 115–119, 134 in democratic countries, 112 in halakhic literature, 117–119 in Israel, 113–115 religious language, 24 religious-Zionism, 50, 126 Rhees, Rush, 24 Ricoeur, Paul, 10, 95 rights discourse, 91, 93–98 relationship between identity discourse and, 103–106 symmetry between rights and obligations, 96–97 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 159 romantic authenticity, 50 Romanticism, 124–125 Rorty, Richard, 104 Rosenzweig, Franz, 85, 145, 147, 152, 163 Roth, Philip, 73 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 10, 49 Rufeisen, Daniel Oswald, 57 Rushdie, Salman, 22–23

S

Said, Edward, 12, 155 Saramago, José, 192 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 10, 51–52, 69–71, 83 Scripture, 189–190, 192, 194–196 secularism, 22, 37, 51, 113–114, 126

Index

secular Zionism, 50 self-identification, 4 semantic displacement, 176 Shmueli, Ephraim, 46–47 slavery, 97, 137–138, 162 social contracts, 109 Society of B’nai B’rith, 78 Soloveitchik, Joseph B., 138, 147, 149–150, 152, 163 Spinoza, Benedict de, 115 Steiner, George, 153 stranger attitude toward, 177–183 exile and, 155–162 God and, 171–177 in land, 162–171 sense of being a, 196 Strawson, Peter, 3 subject-object relationships, 98–99

Toller, Ernst, 67–68 Torah state, 115

T

Z

Taylor, Charles, 27 Thompson, John, 44

U

ultra-Orthodoxy, 40, 50-51, 105 universal human identity, 99–100

V

Vico, Giambattista, 15

W

Waldron, Jeremy, 20–22, 97 Wassermann, Jacob, 73 Winch, Peter, 24 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 45 family resemblance, 45–47

Y

Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim, 77 Zionism, 38, 50–51, 127, 132, 143, 145 ultra-Orthodox response to, 50

213

—————————————————— Epilogue and Postscript ——————————————————

— 328 —

—————————————————— Epilogue and Postscript ——————————————————

— 328 —

—————————————————— Epilogue and Postscript ——————————————————

— 328 —