Ambivalence and Shrinking Oneself - Milcah

 

“You are ambivalent.” This statement was said to me decades ago, but it still stings. It seems to me that we are all expected to be decisive and certain, all the time. Sometimes, I am. Yet there are days when I worry about getting it wrong. 

This week I came across a woman in the Torah I had never noticed before, a woman whose example holds some lessons about ambivalence. Her name was Milcah. 

In the Torah, people are often introduced as the son or daughter of their fathers. Generally, their mothers and certainly their grandmothers are not mentioned. There is one exception. When Rebecca, one of the greatest characters in the Torah, was asked about her identity and family, she replied: ““I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah” (1). It has been suggested that Rebecca was influenced by her grandmother (2).  

Milcah being mentioned as part of Rebecca’s identity made me curious about her character and personality. Nowhere in the Torah do we hear Milcah’s voice; all we are given are clues about her based on her family members, including her father, her sons, her granddaughter Rebecca, and, according to the Midrash (3), her beautiful and at times vocal sister Sarah, the wife of Abraham. 

Milcah’s father was Haran, the brother of Abraham. According to the Midrash (4), both brothers were confronted by the dictator Nimrod, who demanded conformity of belief. Abraham was certain in his faith in one invisible God, which deviated from Nimrod’s edict. Nimrod declared that Abraham would be thrown into a fiery furnace, and Haran was asked to take a side. Was he with his brother Abraham or with Nimrod?

His initial answer was that he was neither. Instead, he sat on the fence to see what would happen to Abraham. If Abraham would survive being thrown into a furnace, he would commit to Abraham’s faith, but Haran would not commit before he had all the evidence. 

Milcah, according to one interpretation (5), was like her father Haran in that she was also ambivalent. Milcah was judged harshly for this, similar to the judgments that are made about people who are ambivalent about some difficult issues in their lives. She was also not beautiful like her sister Sarah- which shouldn’t matter at all, but so it is written. 

Despite Milcah’s ambivalence, she is credited with being the mother of all non-Jewish prophets, particularly Job, Balaam and the somewhat obscure Elihu (6). These three people - Milcah’s sons – have had an enormous impact on people over the last three thousand years.

The book of Job is one of the most important books about suffering. Job’s response to tragedy: “Naked, I emerged from my mother’s womb and naked I will return [or leave the world]. God gave. God took. May his name be blessed” (7). His words might not provide much comfort to the modern sufferer, but they help some people with faith grapple with the challenge of living with suffering.

Elihu was not a particularly expansive person. He listened to Job’s friends talk to him about his (Job’s) suffering, waiting for them to speak first because they were older (8) before offering his insights. I see a link between decisiveness and expansiveness on the one hand, and ambivalence and shrinking oneself, or holding back in a group, on the other, as Elihu did.

Rebecca, Milcah’s granddaughter, does not come across as ambivalent, yet she also took a step back. When meeting her future husband, Isaac, Rebecca fell off the camel (9), creating space (10) for her future husband. Rebecca also took a veil and covered herself, another self-effacing stance.   

They say fortune favours the bold. Yet there is a place for those of us who sometimes feel less sure. As Yeats wrote: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” I am not convinced that Yeats is always right, but the case of Milcah is a lesson about valuing those of us - including ourselves, if it applies- who are less beautiful and bold but might have massive contributions to make.  

 

Notes

1)     Genesis 24:24

2)     Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch on Genesis 24:15

3)     Bereshit Rabbah, cited in Rashi on Genesis 11:28

4)     Bereshit Rabbah 38:13

5)     Be'er Basadeh on Genesis 11:29 (Meir Benjamin Menahem Danon (c. 1770 – 1854, chief rabbi of Sarajevo)

6)     Yalkut Shimoni on the Torah 761:3

7)     Job, 1:21

8)     Job 32:4-7

9)     Genesis 24:64-65

10)  Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch on Genesis 24:15, Netziv.

Compassion, Blame, Humiliation in the Hagar Sarah Dynamic - Lech Lecha

This week, I had the pleasure of talking with Christian leaders in Perth about polarisation and compassion in our time, and a confronting story in Genesis about two humiliated women, Hagar and Sarah. While questions of blame and justice are always important, there needs to be a strong element of compassion whenever we are confronted with pain, regardless of the blame and justice response.

The story of Hagar and Sarah begins with admiration, according to the Midrash (1). Sarah caught the attention of Pharaoh’s daughter Hagar, when Sarah was abducted to the house of the Pharaoh (2). The princess was struck by Sarah’s character and righteousness to such an extent that she volunteered to be a maid in the house of this great woman – in modern terms, her intern – rather than stay in the palace.

The relationship between Hagar and Sarah changed, twice. First, Sarah’s infertility led Sarah to propose that her husband Abraham take Hagar as a second wife (3), with the idea that Hagar would become pregnant and the baby would be raised by Sarah. This was taking internship to the next level, but was common practice in the ancient world, as recorded in Hammurabi’s code (4). The Torah also has examples of this, with Rachel naming the children born by her maid Bilhah (5). Abraham either too quickly (6) or reluctantly (7) – depending on two interpretations - agreed to this arrangement, and Hagar became his second wife.

When Hagar became pregnant, there was a further shift in her relationship with Sarah, with her previous admiration being replaced by contempt (8). Hagar thought that Sarah’s infertility must have been a punishment from God because of hidden faults that did not match her public persona. (9) Hagar assumed that Sarah was not authentic and was deeply disillusioned with her former hero, whom she now saw as deeply flawed. Hagar made humiliating comments to Sarah about there being no place for her because she was barren and old (10), in contrast to her own pregnancy and youth.

Sarah might have felt that Hagar saw herself as Sarah’s replacement in Abraham’s life (11). Her response was to become enraged both with Hagar and Abraham (12). Abraham’s response was to encourage Sarah to do whatever she wanted to her maidservant (13).  According to the Midrash (14), Abraham feebly objected to changing Hagar’s status back from wife to maidservant, but was either too conflict-averse or too taken with Sarah’s humiliation to assert himself and his understanding of what was ethical. Perhaps he hoped that the change of status from wife to maidservant would be sufficient to cool Sarah’s rage and diffuse the situation (15).

Sarah took up Abraham’s invitation to dominate Hagar with gusto. She “afflicted” Hagar to the point that Hagar ran away from what felt like an abusive workplace (16).

There is much discussion about whether what Sarah did was wrong or somehow justified. Several highly respected early authorities are adamant that Sarah was in the wrong and use words including “sin” and “great cruelty” to describe her actions. They are also critical of Abraham for being complicit in her behaviour (17).

I am drawn to the views that the humiliation of the powerless servant at the hands of her “master’ was wrong and to be condemned.

On the other hand, the Torah is less clear about a judgement of Sarah. There is an implicit criticism of her deeds, hinted at by the fact that the Torah uses very similar words to describe Hagar’s situation and that of the powerless Hebrews who were “afflicted” by the Pharaoh (18). Both Abraham and Hagar are given very similar promises of many descendants and wealth as apparent compensation for their affliction (19). On the other hand, Hagar is addressed by an angel as “maidservant of Sarah” (20) and instructed to go back to her master and continue to suffer the abuse (21).

I will invoke Rumi here. “Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there is a garden. I will meet you there.”

“Beyond right and wrong”. There is a powerful message from the angel that God has heard Hagar’s cries (22) and encouraged her to name her son Yishmael, “God will hear”. Her suffering calls for a divine response of compassion. The Talmud writes that the gates of tears (to heaven and God) are never locked (23).

Hagar herself was deeply moved by God’s compassion. She named God, “God of my seeing”. I suggest this could be read as “God who sees me.” In other words, Hagar feels heard and seen by God.

By all means, let us not shy away from blame and seeking justice for all who are harmed, especially – but not limited to- the weak victims of the strong. At the same time, let us ensure that along with the indignation and the rage, there is compassion, and even some calm, to hear and see all who cry out in pain.

Notes   

1)       Midrash Sechel Tov to Genesis 16:1

2)       Genesis 12:15-20

3)       Genesis 16:1-3

4)       Cited in Nachama Lebovitz, Studies in the Weekly Torah Portion, Genesis, p, 156

5)       Genesis 30:3-6, see Rabbi Yaakov Medan, https://etzion.org.il/en/tanakh/torah/sefer-bereishit/parashat-lekh-lekha/banishment-hagar-did-avraham-and-sarah-sin

6)       Midrash Hagadol on Genesis 39:10 cited in Torah Shlaima, p. 675 "Our father Avraham, when Sarah told him come to my maidservant, ' immediately hearkened to the voice of Sarah, and in the end what happened to him? [Sarah said] "May God judge between me and you". However, Joseph, when propositioned [by Potiphar's wife] did not listen to her and in the end what happened to him? he took kingship and married her [Potiphar's wife's] daughter.

7)       Ramban

8)       Genesis 16:4

9)       Rashi based on Midrash Rabba 45:4

10)    Ohr Haafela - in Torah Shlaima p. 678, 21,

11)    Medan, ibid, Medan links Hagar's perspective to "The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck”, ..a poor Chinese farmer of lowly standing who marries a woman of equally humble background, homely, but devoted and resourceful. She helps him to the best of her ability with the difficult work in the fields, even when she is pregnant, and fights alongside him most conscientiously in their struggle to survive. They experience years of drought and hunger; the village is deserted, and the couple moves with their children to an unfamiliar town, with no income and no home. The husband despairs and becomes feeble; his wife assumes the helm of the family, and by virtue of her efforts and resourcefulness the family is delivered from its troubles. The couple returns to the village, rebuild their home and their farmstead, and grow prosperous. Once the husband is finally in a position to rest a little from his hard work by hiring laborers, he looks at his wife, whose face has been blackened and whose body has grown old from all the effort during the difficult years, and he feels that he deserves a younger, more beautiful wife. The now-wealthy farmer is inundated with offers, and a beautiful young concubine joins his household to entertain him in his free time. Slowly, his wife is pushed aside and marginalized as the concubine comes to occupy her central position in the home".

12)    Genesis 16:5, Targum Yonathan, and Targum Yerushalmi

13)    Genesis 16:6

14)    Midrash Rabba, Bereshit 45:6

15)    Tzror Hamor

16)    Genesis 16:6

17)    Ramban, Radak, Tzror Hamor

18)    Prof. Yonatan Grossman –https://etzion.org.il/en/tanakh/torah/sefer-bereishit/parashat-lekh-lekha/lekh-lekha-suffering-hagar-and-enslavement-egypt

19)    Grossman compares Genesis 16:10-12 to Genesis 15:13-14

20)    Genesis 16:8

21)    Genesis 16:9

Tolerance and Space for the Other - the Tower of Babel

Tolerance is necessary, and it cannot simply be replaced with a celebration of differences in every situation. I acknowledge that there are people who don’t want to be tolerated and, in principle, we should affirm all people, not just put up with them. Still, we need tolerance as a tool in the toolbox against hate. 

Ideally, tolerance would be applied only to attitudes or behaviours that we strongly disapprove of, while people should be valued for who they are (1). In reality, the distinction between people and their behaviours and attitudes is fraught because some people see their own identities or the identities of others as inseparable from their politics, religious convictions, behaviours, or attachment to places where harm was done. In such cases, there is often a sense that the only choice is either acceptance, agreement and approval on the one hand or hatred and intolerance on the other hand, of both the person and the position.

However, tolerance is a good third option, even if it may be a less inspiring option in a range of stances one can take as part of the broader imperative of making space for “others”.

I was moved the other week by the words of a softly spoken, academic, Muslim woman and migrant to Australia who attended a roundtable that Together for Humanity organised with the Federal Minister for Education. She said how pleased she was to have a seat at the table. On merit alone, she certainly belonged there, but too often there is not enough space created for difference.

There is a verse in the Book of Genesis story of the Tower of Babel that seems benign but that I find chilling. “[All the people of] the whole earth were of one language and singular words” (2). Everyone, apparently, agreed with everyone else about everything, including the construction of a great tower. Thinking about this more deeply, we need to consider that the only way to have everyone across humanity agree on everything is by suppression of dissent (3). In such a context, this Tower would provide an opportunity for surveillance and to enforce totalitarianism. One person who disagreed with the enforced “groupthink” was Ashur, who had to leave civilisation (4). Another was Abraham, who, according to the Midrash, would later be thrown into a fiery furnace for daring to have another view (5). It was only after the defeat of the tower that Abraham and Ethical Monotheism emerged, thereby illustrating how putting an end to imposed conformity can unleash human flourishing. 

I read a wonderful idea by the philosopher known as Manitou (6), that the primary challenge of all of human history is to leave space for the “other”. I love that.

I have been thinking a lot about Cain and Abel. Like my older brother Mendel and me and our many siblings, these two siblings were very different people, something that we recognise and acknowledge. Cain was a firstborn, a very practical and substantial (7) man. He produced food as a farmer for his whole family (8). He was the one who initiated the first act of worship (9). His mother thought that his birth was the most significant event in contrast to the much less exciting birth of his brother, which passed without comment or celebration. Abel’s Hebrew name, Hevel, means air or vanity. Far less practical than his high-achieving older brother, he became a shepherd. In a vegetarian age, that was not very productive, but it gave him the chance to contemplate the big questions of life, while standing around with his sheep. Unlike my brother Mendel and me, Cain and Abel never appear to appreciate each other’s distinct ways.

Cain eventually killed Abel. Before he did so, there appeared to be an interrupted attempt (10) at dialogue between them. Genesis tells us that “Cain said to Abel” but mentions nothing about what he said, only that the dialogue was followed by murder.    

 According to the Midrash, Cain believed that, as Adam and Eve’s son, all of the earth belonged to him (11). He did not think Abel had any right to exist on “his earth”. Cain began to talk at Abel. Abel failed to assert himself and claim a space for himself (12). The two brothers failed to appreciate each other’s ways of being and at least to tolerate those ways.    

While I have argued for tolerance to be included in the toolbox for creating space for others, there are other tools. These include curiosity and questions like “tell me more”, instead of assuming we fully understand others without deep and slow listening. Another tool is the courage to sit with the discomfort of hearing the lived experience of others that can be painful to hear.  Hopefully, we can get to a stage where tolerance is invoked far less often than appreciation and celebration of difference. Until then, I will do what I can to promote not just connection across difference but also tolerance.

 Notes

1)       https://ethics.org.au/explainer-tolerance/

2)       Genesis 11:1

3)       Haemek Davar, Bick, E. Unity and Individualism, https://etzion.org.il/en

4)       Midrash Rabba

5)       Kahn, Y. Tower Bavel The Brotherhood of Man - https://etzion.org.il/en

6)       Ashkenazi, Y.L., Sod Midrash ha-Toldot, III, p. 151, cited in Eitam, U. https://etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/great-thinkers/manitou/kayin-and-hevel

7)       Bick, E, https://etzion.org.il/en/tanakh/torah/sefer-bereishit/parashat-bereishit/bereishit-raising-cain-and-hevel

8)       Haemek Davar

9)      Genesis 4:3, Bick, E, https://etzion.org.il/en/tanakh/torah/sefer-bereishit/parashat-bereishit/bereishit-raising-cain-and-hevel

10)    Genesis 4:8

11)    Midrash Rabba

12)   Eitam, U. https://etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/great-thinkers/manitou/kayin-and-hevel

Status Games - Abel and Cain

 Last Friday, 2 October, I was at a roundtable on social cohesion with the Australian education minister, Jason Clare, where I noticed that several people standing near me had little gold pins with a blue dot in the middle, similar to the one I was wearing. I also noticed that one man’s pin didn’t have a blue dot because he outranked the rest of us. If I was dishonest, I would make a joke about all the pins; in fact, I was tempted to do so on the day. However, I will admit to feeling some pride that the work I have done and continue to do has been recognised by my being awarded the Member of Australia honour. I also admit to feeling honoured to be in the company of others whose efforts were recognised. My only regret is that there are some unsung heroes whose much-deserved recognition is lacking. It got me thinking about the role that status plays in our lives.

In his book The Status Game (1), Will Storr argues – and I partially agree with him - that human behaviour is driven by an on-going game to gain social rank and status. Historically, having high status meant better access to better food, mates and safety. Storr describes three types of status games:

a) dominance games: forcing or intimidating others to submit, using fear and power.
b) virtue games: proving moral superiority, duty or selflessness within a group.
c) success/competence games: achieving prestige through skills, knowledge or achievements.

The quest for status – especially but not limited to dominance games - is often measured in terms of one’s rank in comparison to others, and it can be very destructive. The Talmud states that envy, lust and the pursuit of honour cause people to be removed from the world (2). Status anxiety can cause illness. Often, the stress involved in status-related conflict – where people are fighting to be seen as the “good one” and the victim and to position the other as the villain – can have serious health impacts.

It is really important to mitigate the harm of one person gaining status at the expense of others. At this roundtable, participants were asked to stand near a poster with the name of a value that they would be prepared to sacrifice. The values were based on the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values (3). The values we used were Achievement, Benevolence & Loyalty (to the people close to you), Change, Conformity, Hedonism, Humility, Self-Direction/ Self-Expression, Peace, Power, Security, Tradition, Universalism and Dignity for all. Some participants stood at Tradition as something they would trade in favour of Change, others at Conformity that they saw as destructive. I stood at Power, because I am concerned that the exercise of power by one person is often at the cost of the dignity of another.

In our work in Together for Humanity, we recently invited young people to consider the trade-offs between values to make better choices. One group of girls reflected that their value of power made them act like “control freaks” at the expense of their values of respect for others and cooperation. I told participants at the roundtable that preaching respect is not enough to defeat hatred and discrimination. Perhaps, thinking more deeply about values trade-offs can lead to better results.

Fortunately, in cases where a win-win is possible, there is no need for trade-offs. One insight about this is the Jewish teaching, “Who is respected? Those who respect all people.” (4) Starr points out that there are multiple ways to play the “status game”, in some of these approaches, we can spread high status around.

One way of understanding the story of Cain and Abel is as a catastrophic status game. The siblings’ rivalry began with arguments about which of their occupations – farming or being a shepherd – was more worthy (5). The offerings the two brothers brought to God (6) were an attempt to get God to referee their status game (7). The enduring shame (8) and anger that Cain felt in seeing his brother recognised by God while he and his offering were rejected led him to murder his brother. This is therefore a cautionary tale about the harmful aspects of the status game and an invitation to play it differently.

Going back to the roundtable I mentioned at the start of this blog, among the participants were an Aboriginal elder, a female academic who is both Muslim and a migrant, a passionate feminist, representatives of the Ethics Centre, people of Jewish heritage and someone working on Anzac Day remembrance. It was wonderful to see the dignity of all participants and the communities they represent affirmed on this occasion. We might not all have had pins in our lapels,
but the body language of all participants made it clear that the status of all was recognised.  

1)      Storr, W. (2021). The Status Game: On human life and how to play it. William Collins.

2)      Pirkey Avot – Ethics of the Fathers, 4:21

3)      Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2.1

4)      Pirkey Avot – Ethics of the Fathers, 4:1

5)      Abarbanel’s commentary on Genesis 4:1-8, Chorev Edition, p. 221

6)      Genesis 4:3

7)      Abarbanel, p. 222

Sa’adiya Gaon

A Moment in Anger, A Lifetime in Goodwill. Rosh Hashana

I recently delivered a keynote at the MacKillop Institute’s “Lead the Way” conference about how I cared for myself and supported members of my Australian Jewish community. I reflected on the middle ground between anger and absence of anger, between ignoring danger and debilitating anxiety and between shamelessness and persistent shame. This is the path I have walked since the mass murder of 15 people at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025. The multiple emotions that I have navigated have been heavy.

 

The feelings of loss and hurt are varied and I make no judgement on how others deal with their pain. However, we can still explore different ways of striving for emotional wellbeing to get to as good a place as possible.  After all, however difficult it may be to receive emotional support, the cost of not getting relief is high.

Limited Duration Emotions

In Genesis (1), Cain felt angry and his “face fell” after his offering of fruit was rejected by God. The fallen face is a classic shame response. God challenged Cain with two questions. The first was; why was Cain angry? The second question was, “Why has your face fallen?” While Cain had failed to please God with his offering, and an initial feeling of shame was understandable, ruminating on rejection that led to persistent shame was not helping Cain.

One of the Chasidic masters compared a person in a low mood to a wrestler who is feeling down and can be easily defeated by a weaker but positive opponent (2). If we allow our negative emotions to drag us down, we won’t have the energy we need to prevail over our inner struggles. 

Trying to deny or squash one’s emotions does not work because they, especially fear and anger, are like alarm clocks, natural alerts telling us that a response is needed.  If I feel anger because something is wrong, and it leads me to have an adrenaline spike and I use this emotion as fuel to motivate myself and others to change something specific, then the anger is clearly beneficial.

However, we can regulate our emotions to feel them for shorter amounts of time. Emotions are like an alarm clock - anger, fear, etc are a response to a situation to alert us that a response might be needed. Once our alarm clock rings, we need to switch it off. For those of us who are in the habit of scrolling social media, we have ongoing stimuli that trigger ongoing emotions. It is like spending the whole day with an alarm clock ringing at top volume.

When strong emotions such as fear, anger or despair become more pervasive and semi-permanent, they start to eat away at our well-being, with diminishing returns in terms of righting any wrongs or solving any problems.

Another argument for shortened anger can be made based on a psalm referring to divine anger. “For one moment, I find myself in His anger, a lifetime in His goodwill” (3) The Talmud states that God’s anger lasts for one 16^th of a second, every day! (4)

A values Star

Another factor is inner coherence. My clarity about my principles and my work with Muslims and others was strong enough to dismiss an angry outburst at a cemetery at the end of the funeral of a friend killed at Bondi, on 16 December, just two days after the murders. A man yelled at me that “my Muslims” did this and included some profanities.  The reason this rant did not hurt me was, first, that his accusation was absurd. But second, I have been on a journey toward what I call having a settled soul that comes from internal clarity.  

The Together for Humanity team was working recently with some 13-year-old girls at a Jewish school. Out of a menu of 18 values, we asked the girls to prioritise five or six values and paint a wooden star to depict their choses top values. The purpose of this exercise was to give the students representations of their values to help them navigate life and be less thrown by strong emotions.

The process for selecting the values drew on the Schwartz theory of basic human values, which encompasses hedonism or fun and the desire for power and control as well as care for others, universalism and tradition. We hope that a clearer sense of their most important values would make the girls less vulnerable to the judgement of others; when we know who we are, others’ representation of us matters less.

Ruminating after Bondi

One form of fear I have noticed recently in the Jewish community is a persistent anxiety or heaviness – which of course is completely understandable. The anxiety is made worse for some people in the community by ruminating on everything that is wrong and terrible, fed by doom-scrolling and endless circular conversations in person and on WhatsApp. Being more intentional about our attention might help some people, at least some of the time. My reduced use of social media in general – at least a lot of the time – has been very helpful to me.

Hope

Despite all the concerns, I remain hopeful – at least some of the time - and I have spoken to Jewish communities around Australia, arguing against voices of despair.

When I spoke to a Jewish community in Perth, some in the audience said that all hope was lost for Jewish people in Australia and that we need to move to other countries. They argued that our time is similar to what they experienced in the former Soviet Union or what happened with the Nazis in the lead-up to the Holocaust.

I acknowledged that there are legitimate safety concerns, that there are people who wish to do us harm and are prepared to put such wishes into action. On the other hand, there are important differences between what is happening now and what happened in the past, and the future is still up for grabs. The future has not happened yet. There are decisions being made now that can take our country in a good direction. We can improve education in schools to encourage intercultural curiosity and wellbeing for all; we can have leadership in the public sphere that pushes back on narratives that represent people as less than others or collectively deserving of hatred. 

The same group of Jewish girls I mentioned earlier met a Muslim woman in a hijab whom I will call Fatima. Fatima talked to the girls about her experience at their age of attending a government school in regional Australia and craving to fit in and blend in. Despite this desire, she kept her scarf on because this was important to her as a young person of faith. The Jewish girls applauded her choice. In doing so, they not only showed care and respect for another, but also normalised their own place in multi-faith Australia. The warmth and love shown by those girls gives me hope.

We can be furious and fearful about specific behaviours and harm and take ethically considered action to respond to those emotions in ways that address the problem without causing unjustified harm. Then we can be intentional about directing our attention to thoughts and stimuli and self-care practices that enable us to be calm in ourselves and caring toward our neighbours. Renewing our social contract and flourishing together requires nothing less.

Notes

1)       Genesis, 4:5

2)       Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, in Tanya chapter 26

3)       Psalm 30:6

4)       Talmud, Brachot, 7a 

Monoculture

Driving across a beautiful bridge one morning this week, on the way to a Sydney Catholic Schools study day, I cracked the monoculture riddle.

It has been bothering me for years: the apparent justification of a monoculture in the Torah.

“If you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, those whom you will leave over, will be spikes in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will persecute you upon the land.” (1)

A compelling counterexample of approval for a monoculture is in the Book of Esther. The villain of the story argues to the King: “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to leave them.  If it please Your Majesty, let an edict be drawn for their destruction (2).”

Surely, if Haman (the villain in the Book of Esther) was evil then he must be wrong.

And, of course, there is a context. “This (guidance about dealing with the Canaanite population) is an exceptional Divine decree in a particular time and context that no human ruler has the right to apply in any other situation (3).”

However, no Halachic authority of any standing that I am aware of has advocated for ethnic cleansing or mass expulsions of any population anywhere in more than 1000 years. While these words above were not written by any major classical authority, they do reflect a common contemporary attitude by religious Jews.

Still, until that morning, the idea of characterising the “other” as a thorn in the side did not sit well with me.

A day or two later, I thought about the textual and historical contexts of the verse about the “thorns in your side” and I think it makes a little more sense.

The verses (4) prior to the “thorns” comparison are clearly about polytheism or idol worship rather than ethnic difference. Having polytheists hanging around the Israelites would blind their eyes to God’s guidance (5), just as bribes cause moral blindness to the eyes of judges (6). The thorns are a type of hedge that obscures one’s view and thus can be misleading (7).

The historical context is of a people trying to create a counter-cultural ethical monotheistic society around 1300 BC, in a world in which the religious norms of the time were polytheism and (according to traditional Jewish commentaries) decadent.

It has been suggested that everyone “does religion” as a way of managing uncertainty. Polytheists in 1300 BC apparently “did’ theirs by creating many gods that they could manipulate and hopefully do their bidding in exchange for some offerings, with a bit of ritual temple prostitution thrown in on the side.  

Along comes a crazy group of people who believe in an invisible God that sets the terms of the relationship between humans and Himself. This fragile idea had to be protected for the good of humanity and the purpose of creation with extreme measures. One of these measures was the execution of a social misfit ̶blasphemer ̶, about whom I wrote about before (8); the second was a temporary measure, monoculturalism.

King Saul failed to recognise that monoculturalism was an exception rather than the rule. The focus in his policy were the Gibeonites, whom “Saul had tried to wipe [them] out in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.” (9) 

The punishment for Saul’s discrimination was shocking. Seven members of his royal family were executed, then hung and left for months to publicise the severity of the crime of oppressing the stranger and reinforce the message that even royalty must be held accountable for such crime (10).

The Talmud’s discussion of this episode is worth quoting.

The Talmud poses the question: How could they have left Saul’s executed sons unburied all that time?  “Isn’t it written: “His body shall not remain all night upon the tree; but you shall surely bury him the same day” (11)? … It is better that one letter be uprooted from the Torah and thereby the name of Heaven [God] be sanctified in public. How so? As the gentile passersby would say: What is the nature of these people? They were told that these are sons of kings. And what did they do to deserve such a fate? They had laid their hands upon and caused harm to the stranger.” (12).

The Torah contains repeated commandments in the Torah that call for loving the stranger and never to oppress the stranger, which in modern terms would include members of minority groups. The punishment of Saul’s family and its interpretation in the Talmud makes a strong case to me that the Torah generally rejects monoculturalism.

 Notes

1)      Numbers 33:55

2)      Esther 3:8

3)      ArtScroll Chumash commentary to Numbers 33:55

4)      Numbers 33:52

5)      Ramban on Numbers 33:52

6)      Exodus 23:8

7)      Samson Raphael Hirsch on Numbers 33:52

8)      https://torahforsociallyawarehasid.blogspot.com/2012/05/outcast-offenders-understanding-and.html

9)      Talmud, Yevamot 79a

10)   II Samuel 21:2

11)   Deuteronomy 21:23

12)   The term used in the Talmud to refer to the Gibeonites here is complex, but I think the moral argument that I present here is accurate enough