Jul 21/07 - Parashat Devarim / Shabbat Chazon

Commentary by Rabbi Alan Green

 

“And the Lord our God put Og, King of Bashan, and his entire people into our hand. We smote him, without leaving a survivor. At that time, we conquered all his cities—there was no city that we didn’t take from him … We annihilated them as we done to Sichon, King of Cheshbon, annihilating every city’s men, women, and children. And all the animals and booty of the cities, we plundered for ourselves.”

Deuteronomy 3:3-7

The book of Deuteronomy is sometimes called Mishnah Torah—”a review of the Torah.” Indeed, Moses begins Deuteronomy with a quick review of the stages of the Israelite journey from Mt. Sinai to where they stand today, at the boundary of the Promised Land. Now that the Israelites are about to enter the land, it’s time for them to pause and reflect about their past and future in the most profound way possible.

As Moses delivers the most eloquent and powerful teachings of his whole career, the book of Deuteronomy doesn’t disappoint. The writing here is truly exalted, some of the greatest literature in the history of civilization. However, the first Parasha of Deuteronomy doesn’t do much more than scratch the surface. It is creating the backdrop against which Moses will exit the world in a blaze of glory that still shines today.

And what is the characteristic of that backdrop? It’s open, honest, unapologetically violent, and vastly, politically incorrect. When we read about how the Israelites annihilated “every city’s men, women, and children,” and that they did so with God’s help, it makes us wonder: What is genocide doing in the Torah? And why is God the advocate of such horrible behaviour?

The answer is that these actions were taken during the barbarian phase of Jewish history. Thirty-three centuries ago, we weren’t the doctors, lawyers, professors, and accountants that we are today. We were an invading barbarian desert people, savouring the possibility of a better life, in a better land that was ripe for the taking.

From the perspective of an invading army, nothing is sweeter than a crushing victory over one’s foes. And if the Israelites tasted the sweetness of military victory as they gained a toe-hold in the Promised Land, why not acknowledge God for coming to their aid, and furthering His plan for the region and His people?

But the fact is that we Jews ceased being barbarians a long time ago. Some twenty centuries ago, the rabbis found the harsher prescriptions of the Torah to be unacceptable. For example, the Torah advocates the death penalty for those who rebel against their parents. The rabbis replied: LO HAYA V’LO YIH’YEH – “such a situation never existed, nor will it ever exist.” It was simply beyond the rabbinic imagination that Jewish children and parents could interact in this way. So they effectively ignored the point, and moved on.
In fact, all great religions are based on selective readings of their foundational scripture. As a religious civilization evolves, the more violent, primitive portions of the original text are reinterpreted, or recontextualized. Therefore, in Jewish tradition, once they have been dealt with on the historical plane, the external Canaanite enemy becomes a symbol of the internal evil against which we must all struggle, and which we must eventually conquer and destroy.

Yet there are fluctuations in that process of selectivity. Civilization doesn’t necessarily progress in a straight line. So even today, there is a Jewish lunatic fringe that equates modern Palestinians with the Canaanites of ancient times. (Ironically, many Palestinians also make this fanciful connection.) These Jewish fanatics conclude that “just as we annihilated the ancient Canaanite population, so with the Palestinians of today.”

Similarly Islam. The Koranic tradition is also a combination of the primitive and the refined; peace-promoting, as well as war-like material. A holy scripture and the traditions that grow out of it are always a reflection of the times in which they are written. In the early history of Islam, there was warfare between the fledgling Muslim nation and neighbouring tribes of Jews.

Hence, this widely circulated teaching from the Koranic tradition (although not from the Koran itself): “The Last Hour will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews, until a Jew will hide himself behind a stone or a tree, and the stone or the tree will say: “O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.” [Sahih Muslim 41/6981]. Unfortunately, the Muslim lunatic fringe has taken this tradition to heart, and repeatedly used it to justify acts of violence against Israel and the Jewish people.

Recently, I had dinner with someone who blamed religion for the whole sad history of conflict that has marked civilization from the beginning of time. I replied that even if it were possible to excise religion from human existence, people are creative, and would undoubtedly have found many other ways to justify mass murder and destruction against perceived enemies.

In the lobby of the United Nations building in New York, it says, “War begins in the minds of men.” But if war begins in the mind, it must be possible for peace to originate from there as well. May the day soon come when we discover the limitless source of peace that lies deep within the human spirit, and allow it to manifest in every impulse of thought, speech and action. “May He who manifests peace on high, also manifest peace for us, for Israel, and for all of humanity everywhere.”

Shabbat Shalom.