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
