By: Jacob Levin

Every year at the Seder, we confidently declare that had God not extricated us from Egypt, then we, our children, and our children’s children would have remained slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. How many of us have truly believed that? That Egypt would have continued indefinitely, and that no other imperial power would have come to dominate the region?

Many commentators have attempted to explain this. Their answers fall into three main categories: historical, mental, and spiritual.

First, historical. Some have explained that every other empire expelled us, but Egypt tried to retain us and make us a slave race.1 This does not seem true; Persia attempted to exterminate us, not export us. More recently, the Papal States, among other European powers, kept us in ghettos, barring us from leaving. Famously, the USSR did not want its Jews to leave.

Another historical answer is more theological: the statement means that without God’s promise to Abraham, we would have become Egyptian completely.2 Since we would not have been distinct enough to separate, we would have remained there forever as slaves to Pharaoh (like all other Egyptians). In what way would we become Egyptian?

Second, the mental answer is that the past influences the future. Even though we might have escaped the physical burdens of Egypt, we never would have escaped the trauma of slavery, and it would have been baked into our ethnic identity.3 Some commentators went further, saying we never would have escaped due to that slave mindset.4 Does this require a Pharaoh, or could we think like Egyptian slaves even outside of Egypt?

Third, there are two spiritual answers. One is that the Exodus is like a birth, and the key of childbirth stays in God’s hands. That is, only God could have actualized our potential to be a nation.5 What does it mean to be a nation?

The other spiritual answer is that if God had not taken us out, we would have been consumed by the impurities of Egypt, from which we could never have escaped.6 What is impurity?

When one answers the lingering questions, I believe all the answers reveal themselves to be the same answer. To be an Egyptian, rather than an Israelite, one must think like an Egyptian. One must have an Egyptian mindset of being a slave to Pharaoh. The impurities of Egypt are those Egyptian thought processes, and the more we think like Egyptians, the more we become Egyptian. Egypt itself may not have endured, but without God’s intervention, we never would have left Egyptian civilization and started thinking like Israelites.

The same is true today. The more we think like Americans, or like Westerners, the more we are in Western civilization. The more we think like Arabs, the more we are in Arab civilization. In each case, we are less in Israelite civilization. So how do Israelites think?

When we left Egypt, we also left their mindset– as much as we could, anyway. The subsequent passages in the Torah tell us how we should think instead. Immediately upon leaving Egypt, Moses leads the Israelites in the spontaneous, prophetic recitation of poetry. This is an aspect of civilization: Literature; in this case, poetry. The Torah then tells us about Miriam’s Music– another aspect.

They came to Mara, where Moses was given “law, and there he tested it,”– Science.7 After that, they encamped in Elim by twelve springs and seventy palms, parallelling the twelve tribes and seventy elders, illustrating Government and Law.

After the promise of food falling from the sky, Aaron speaks to the entire camp, and God’s glory was seen in the clouds, possibly referring to Art. The Israelites receive the concept of the Sabbath, too, introducing Israelite Time. When the heavenly bread descends, the Israelites coin a new word, demonstrating their mastery over Language. At the end of that section, we are told about Measurement.

From there, the Israelites travel to Rephidim, where Moses brings water from a rock, possibly indicating irrigation, and thus Agriculture. Finally, Amalek attacks. It seems we learned Martial Arts here, though perhaps we were supposed to learn something else before Amalek interrupted.

While I am not yet completely confident in this exact list, a couple of these aspects serve as good examples of civilizational differences and the meaning of leaving Egypt every year. Literature, particularly poetry, is one of the aspects I’d like to focus on. Poetry as a rule uses a higher register– a higher vocabulary, older or more obscure grammar, or a loftier tone, or all three. The reasons for this vary between civilizations.

Egyptian poetry was mainly used for praising gods and their agents or for imparting specific wisdom.8 Their poetry uses a lot of alliteration and parallelism, and it gradually builds to a climax. This may remind you of Biblical poetry, but there is at least one key difference: Israelite poetry never engages in significant narrative.9 Though no Egyptian poem before the Battle of Kadesh is strictly narrative, there is much exposition and narrative in their poems of praise and wisdom.10

Western poetry is seemingly exclusively narrative. Epic poetry tells of grand historical themes to imbue the reader with knowledge, while dramatic poetry tells of more personal stories in order to provide catharsis.11 Though Western poetry does have a greater emphasis on emotion than Egyptian poetry, it imparts emotion on the reader through a shared narrative. From a more modern perspective, poetry is meant to provide an illogical space where emotions can thrive.12

Israelite poetry strictly conveys ideas, whether wisdom (Proverbs, Job) or emotion (Psalms). Where there is a semblance of narrative, it is only described enough to convey the relevant emotion of praise (Song of the Sea, Song of Deborah, Song of Hannah).13

Government, too, is highly illustrative of the fundamental differences between civilizations. The Egyptian government was highly centralized and controlled by a strict, executive bureaucracy. The Pharaoh was at the top, and all his subjects were his slaves. To extend his reach, the Pharaoh had a vizier in charge of administration, like a chief of staff. The country was divided into 42 administrative divisions called nomes (or seplut in Egyptian), each of which had a temple that served as an administrative, economic, and religious capital. Each nome had its own governor who acted like its own Pharaoh but reported to the vizier.

The Egyptian government was predicated on the idea of absolute power in the hands of one man who doles out pieces of absolute power in small chunks so that no governor could overpower him.

Today’s Western governments vary greatly, but they all build off the Roman system. There is an aristocracy, whether hereditary or plutocratic, that makes decisions on behalf of the citizens of the state. There are popular elections where the people choose which members of the aristocracy should make those decisions. Fundamental ideas include the separation of powers, the social contract, and natural rights.

The Israelite government is composed of twelve tribes, seventy elders, and one king. Each city has its own court, whether three or twenty-three judges, who are chosen based on merit.14 Seventy of those city courts each elect a representative from among themselves to the national capital to serve as their elder. Those representatives form a body both judicial and legislative, who judge the toughest cases and make legislation as needed.15

The king exists entirely outside this system. When the elders are unable to act, the king intervenes.16 He also has other military, executive, and bureaucratic duties, like road maintenance.17 He can employ as many people as needed to carry out his duties.18

Each tribe has its own capital and courts as well.19 The tribes often administer themselves with no need for intervention from the national government. In fact, each city often governs itself with no intervention from the tribal governments. And if two Israelites can resolve their dispute without the courts, no court intervenes.20

The Israelite government promotes the authority of wise, local leaders, reserving their national leaders for real emergencies.21 It is built on wisdom, independence, and community. Towards the end of the Haggada, there is a statement: “בכל דור ודור חיב אדם לראות את עצמו כאלו הוא יצא ממצרים.” Why bother with “in each and every generation”? It is enough to say that one is obligated. Furthermore, the word “לראות” does not mean “to imagine”, but “to see”. What does it mean that they should see themselves as if they left Egypt?

Every generation of our exile, we are given the opportunity to “leave Egypt”, to abandon our host civilization and return to thinking like Israelites. Originally, that host civilization was Egypt. Then it was Mesopotamia, then Persia, then Greece, and finally Rome. Leaving Egypt means making an effort to think like an Israelite. So in every generation– whichever exile we are in– one is obligated to see themselves as if they left Egypt– to look inside themselves and “leave Egypt” in this metaphorical sense. Introspect. Question your fundamental beliefs. Wonder what a modern, forward-looking Israelite would do.

What is Israelite literature? Maybe you can write some. What is Israelite art? Maybe you can create some. And we at Hadesh would love to see it. Tag us on Twitter @hadesh_renewal or email us at editor.hadesh@gmail.com and share your ideas and creations with us. Together we can leave Egypt and enter Israel.

By: Ariel Yaari

“Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the gate:

‘To every man upon this earth,

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better,

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods[?]’”

• Thomas Babington Macauly

Pesaḥ is upon us. Many are frantically cleaning, earnestly checking that not even the minutest granule of Ḥameṣ is left in their vicinity. Children prepare the questions and songs that they’ll sing at the Seder table and everyone is thinking about “freedom”.

Often repeated and more misunderstood, we triumphantly declare at the Seder that “Now we are slaves, next year we will be free.” But, what does “freedom” mean and more importantly, what does it demand of us?

From the outset, there is no mention of freedom as the goal of the Exodus. We tend to have a collective image of Moses going confidently before Pharaoh and proclaiming that the God of the Hebrews demands to “Let My People Go”. Hashem says no such thing to Moshe.

The first time Moshe (and Aharon) go to Pharaoh they proclaim that the God of Israel commands: “Send out my people and they will celebrate for me in the wilderness.”1 This isn’t exactly the revolutionary statement of freedom so many imagine. Subsequent divine commands do not only omit “freedom” as a goal, Hashem commands Pharaoh: “Send out my people that they should serve me.”2 This is another form of submission!

In Hebrew, there are two main words that are used for “freedom”. The first being חופש, which is freedom from oppression and subservience.3 The Torah states regarding a slave who is released from bondage: “And on the seventh [year] he shall go free (לחפשי), without charge”.4 However, the term used abundantly by Ḥazal is that we are “בני חורין” or “in a state of liberty” during Pesaḥ. We refer to the holiday throughout our liturgy as “זמן חרותינו” or “the holiday of our liberation”. Noticeably, the term for freedom from slavery is NOT used by Ḥazal for the holiday when we were liberated from slavery! Why is this the case? To answer, I think it’s important that we turn to the realm of political philosophy.

Liberty in the modern era is largely framed against the backdrop of the American and French Revolutions, which popularized this term. The American Founders assumed a rights-based framework of political organization, based on the theories of John Locke. Men are born free in the state of nature. This condition however, causes men to be isolated, weak, and subject to predation. Therefore, in pursuing their own self-preservation, men sacrifice part of this liberty to form a state in coordination with others that will protect their lives and property.5 Authority is assented to for the purpose of advancing as many individual goods as possible. This permission can be revoked at any time if the authority imposed by this new government is more detrimental to life and property than the anarchist state of nature would be.

There are a plethora of problems with Locke’s formulation. To be brief, no one is “born” free. For as long as there have been human beings, there have been bonds of loyalty between them which connected them to larger collectives. Babies are born to parents who belong to families, who belong to clans, who belong to tribes, etc. all who are bound to one another not because children “consented” to be born. Rather, there are bonds of mutual loyalty which tie these groups together. Those dissatisfied with current affairs in the collective can voice their complaints and ask for absolution, but this does not dissolve those bonds outright. You are part of a nation and subject to its hierarchies whether you like its policies or not.6

Far from being abstract political theory, we see bonds and hierarchies emerge in nature.7 The moment a person enters the world, they are subject to an order and the obligations that arise from their place within it. The state of nature imagined by Locke is just that. Furthermore, the flattening of all human bonds as attributable to consent and inherent freedoms gives one the opportunity to opt out if those burdens become too onerous. It is important to note that Locke himself does not state this to be the case. He was a devout Christian and believed in order, duty, and principle. His later interpreters and subsequent theorists of political liberty8 would take him further than even he intended, so that all human connections became voluntary. The final shape this would take would be the radical subjectivism of the postmodernists. Everything is arbitrary. Everything is meaningless. Is it any wonder that despite being one of the wealthiest generations in human history, we are one of the most miserable?

Modern life for many feels more like a prison than the shining city on a hill we were all promised. People in developed countries are experiencing a “loneliness epidemic”.9 We are experiencing an unprecedented rate of alienation between the sexes and things don’t seem to be letting up. There is a distinct lack of purpose among most. No one knows what they’re working toward anymore and there is a profound sense of being untethered from any concretizing force.

The ancients understood the cost of disenchantment and severely warned against it. Libertas, as understood by the earliest political theorists, was the decentralization of control not the lack of it. If towns and cities are able to implement virtue and guard against chaos then a strong government coming in to restore order was not only unnecessary it was nothing more than a blatant power ploy by the king to install tyranny.10 But in a society where each man is allowed to do “what is right in his eyes” that leads to a complete collapse of social cohesion. We’ve seen this before in Jewish history and we’re seeing it again now.

To be free, one must submit to order. If I took a pitcher of water and started pouring it on the table for the sake of “freedom”, you would (rightfully) look at me as if I were mad. The water’s purpose is fulfilled by it being stored in a container and being used towards a constructive end. I can drink it, or water my plants, or use it to clean. Freeform water, while unconstrained, just ends up making a mess of everything.

According to the Ramban, Pesaḥ and Shavuot are part of the same long holiday.11 Linked by the Omer, they are the tail end manifestations of one event. Yetziat Mitzrayim and Matan Torah are connected. While this seems obvious to most, an added dimension must be added here. None of Ḥazal’s language was arbitrary. When they call Pesaḥ “זמן חרותינו” they are describing the beginning of a liberty that only is achieved with the Giving of the Torah. The Bnei Yisrael were slaves, and then were freed from that slavery. Slavery to Pharaoh was evil because it did not orient us towards a telos. We worked and labored for the vainglorious pursuits of a self made god-king. But boundless freedom rarely produces good results. So, Moshe commands Pharaoh in the name of God of Israel: “Send out my people that they should serve me.” It is only when oriented toward purpose: worship of God, cultivation of our communities, building families, and rearing children, a tethering to order, that we can truly understand what liberation means.

Ḥag Kasher ve’Sameaḥ to all.

By: Hila Oz-Shneider

Before I begin this essay, I want to preface that I speak very openly about sexual violence in an attempt not to sugar-coat it. Readers who are sensitive to this topic should be advised.

Purim is known by many as our most fun and festive holiday. Giving gifts of charity, sending food baskets to our friends, dressing up in outrageous costumes, and eating and drinking to our heart’s content and beyond. Even the Megilla reading is full of the excited “boo”s of the enraptured audience any time they hear Haman’s name. On the surface the story seems to be like some fairy tale: the “common” maiden picked to become royalty, palace intrigue, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil, but the story is much grimmer than that. When we look deeper into the text and how Hazal describe Esther’s story, it seems much more like a nightmare than a fairy tale. In light of the recent uncovering of a global pedophilic trafficking ring, I think it very fitting to dive deep into the Megilla and how it describes sexual violence.

The Megilla starts off with gender-based violence in its first chapter, with the attempted coercion into a degrading situation and implied killing–or at the very least, exile–of Vashti. Vashti is an interesting figure in Tanakh, portrayed in the Gemara in one of two ways: evil (from the Bavli) or neutral (from the Yerushalmi).1 Before delving any deeper into the topic, I think it’s important to acknowledge that sexual violence is rarely about sexual gratification; it is almost always about assertion of power.2

According to the Bavli, Ahashverosh may have begun his life as a commoner, a stableboy,3 and was promoted to king partially or mainly due to his marriage to Vashti. In an attempt to assert his power independent from his wife, he calls her to the party to dance naked,4 forcing her to either debase herself publicly, proving her total submission to her husband, or violate a direct order from the king, an action punishable by death. Whether Vashti was killed or deposed, the outcome is the same: Ahashverosh lands on top, and Vashti is left either dead or destitute.

Regardless of Vashti’s personal morality, she was a victim in this sense. The Gemara tells us that what made her wicked was not only her halting the rebuilding of the Bet HaMikdash,5 but also that she would force Jewish maidservants to perform melakha naked on Shabbat. If we go by the Bavli’s opinion here, we understand that in societies whose values are not based in Torah, but rather in aesthetics, gluttony, and hedonism–as described in Ahashverosh’s first party–sexual violence is the obvious outcome.

“The Megilla purposely portrays the promiscuous, orgiastic, sex-crazy life of Persian upper society… They had lost all standards of decency; the woman turned into a female animal. She had nothing in her life but the gratification of the desires of the opposite sex.”6

This degeneracy was so deeply ingrained into the Persian psyche that even women were willing to contribute to the degradation of their own sex in an attempt to feel some level of power in a world where they had little to none. These Jewish hostages were robbed of their dignity and ability to perform what they deemed most holy, and for that the Sages declare that Vashti received measure for measure: she was killed on Shabbat for refusing to show up naked against her will. The chapter ends with a decree that seems almost ridiculous in how superfluous it is in the society described so far, that “each man be master in his home, speaking the language of his own people.”7

The Megilla continues to describe a global pedophilic trafficking scheme in an attempt to please Ahashverosh. The Malbim brings down that the punishment for non-compliance with the decree to have these girls taken by force was the death penalty.8 In her research, Tamar Eilam Gindin points out that the common age of brides in Persia during that time was around nine at the oldest.9 Of course some commentaries bring down that Esther was 40 or even older at the time of her kidnapping,10 but regardless of Esther’s exact age, we know that the vast majority of girls kidnapped in order to be raped by the king were around/under nine, as it was explicitly decreed to round up virgins.11 While I think there is what to say about approaching this within its historical context, the fact that this type of abuse was so widespread and accepted does not erase the damage caused to the victims (in the same way one may discuss ancient near-eastern slavery).

After these girls were rounded up, they went through a year-long beauty treatment, which served as a time for Hegai (the eunuch in charge of the virgins) to essentially groom these girls into complete obedience via their constant dependence on him.12 After Vashti’s public defiance of the king, measures were put in place to ensure the issue would not be repeated with the new girls. The girls were also granted anything they requested for their night with the king, which could be viewed as a way to manufacture consent from those who would otherwise be completely unwilling.

Just imagine: you’re a peasant girl from a poor family, stolen away from the only life you’ve known to fulfill the king’s desires. You know if you are not chosen as queen or do not conceive after that first night, you will likely spend the rest of your life as a prisoner of the palace. At the same time, not only are you awed by the grandeur of the palace, the access to clothes and cosmetics you could never dream of, but you are also competing for a chance at a better life. This forces you into the uncomfortable situation of having to seem like a willing participant in your own abuse.

After their night with the king, the girls would be sent to the house of concubines never to be seen again unless called by name.13 For the rest of their lives, they would be forbidden to any other man, unable to return home, and chained to Ahashverosh whether or not they ever saw him again.

As previously mentioned, Esther may or may not have been around the age of nine at the time of her abduction. If she was, I have already touched upon the grave injustice committed against these children. If she was not, she was still kidnapped and raped many times over the course of her life.

The Megilla speaks about how she requested nothing from the palace,14 completely refusing to even hint at consent. Rav Noble goes on to say, “despite her beautiful appearance fading as a result of becoming green at the thought of pleasing a wicked person, she requested nothing to address this issue, which shows the degree to which she had to be forced to marry Ahashverosh.”15

When speaking about Esther’s relationship to Ahashverosh, the Gemara says that she was קרקע עולם, like the everlasting ground.16 There are some who expound upon this to say that it simply meant she wasn’t an active participant,17 but to many others, the wording is much more tragic. It not only speaks to an unwillingness to be intimate but to a deep traumatic response. To be like the ground, like the earth, involves a self-nullification. She is not there, she is not living at that moment. Many survivors of sexual assault have experienced a similar feeling.18 When being violated, they want to sink into and become the earth. Their agency is stolen and so it is as if they are inanimate.

The Zohar expounds upon this phrase saying that whenever Ahashverosh called, Esther sent a demoness to take her place.19 The Kabbalistic implications of this statement, as well as the Jewish view on demons (that they are not necessarily evil, i.e., if a demoness took Esther’s place, it would actually be good), are beyond the scope of this essay, but the demon could be interpreted as Esther having an out of body experience at the time of her assault. This is yet another trauma response that many survivors of sexual violence experience.

We know that the only time it could be argued that Esther was an active participant in her “relationship” with Ahashverosh is when she goes to plead for him to cancel Haman’s genocidal decree, and even that is under duress. Shortly before this, she mentioned that she had not been called to Ahashverosh in the past thirty days,20 implying that this was either an abnormally long time to not be called or that she was likely to be called soon. Keep in mind: this was about five years into her being queen,21 and she remained queen until well after the Megilla ended.22 One can only imagine the amount of abuse she faced in her life.

When we hear the Megilla we rejoice at the happy ending wherein the Jews overcome their foes, but this happiness and success is at the expense of the book’s titular figure. Many scholars, rabbis, and sages speak highly of Esther’s level of sacrifice. Through her pain and suffering, the Jewish people were saved. It is beautiful and natural for Jews to find the good in what seems irredeemably evil, but when we pass off her suffering as simply “for the cause,” and are satisfied with the catharsis felt after hearing the story, we miss a deeper meaning.

There is much to be said about how sexual violence is handled within the observant Jewish community, but the issue is so much broader. Jews were chosen to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”23 The job of a priest is to facilitate connection between man and G-d, and if all the Jews are members of this kingdom of priests, then it is clear that we are meant to facilitate that relationship for all of the non-Jews of the world. It seems to me that we are exposed to this level of degeneracy and violence in the Megilla because we are meant to do something about it.

When there is an obsession with aesthetics and carnal pleasures, those in power are able to easily disregard the personhood of others, which leads not only to widespread sexual violence, but ultimately to genocide. How are we as a community fighting against this toxicity? What are we saying about the status of women in Iran outside of our own national interests in toppling the regime? How are we speaking out against the prevalence of child marriage in Afghanistan and the fact that women are not allowed any agency in their life? What are we doing to counter the culture that tells women it is empowering to engage in sex work–an industry built off of pedophilia, rape, and human trafficking?

It’s nice to speak about Esther as being this strong, courageous heroine. Perhaps Hazal, in saying she was 40 (בינה) or 80 (double בינה), was attempting to acknowledge her resilience in the face of unspeakable abuse, but the events of the Megilla and the words of Hazal are meant to elicit an emotional response within us. We are meant to be angry at the injustice of it all. We are meant to be called to the fight for morality.

And therein lies the essence of the holiday. In a story which portrays the evils of a society which values physicality over all else, we are called upon not to abstain from physical pleasure, but to engage in and uplift it. There is holiness in eating. There is holiness in drinking. There is holiness in aesthetics. There is holiness in intimacy. We have been chosen to show the nations how to be holy in this world, both by destroying evil and uplifting good.

Raising children is the most important thing a person can do. For many years, the life of someone else is completely in your hands at all times. Feeding, clothing, washing, caring, it’s all down to you and the effects of your efforts, and your shortcomings will be felt far into the future.

I recently heard Rabbi Breitowitz ask: “Why is it that the commandment to honour one’s father and mother falls in with the bein adam lemakom side of the commandments?” He answers that the relationship one develops with their parents serves as the basis of the relationship one develops with Hashem. For the beginning of a child’s life, he says, “My parents are quite like God, all powerful and completely in control.” If one sees their parents as kind and caring, they’re more likely to see Hashem as kind and caring. If one sees their parents as angry people who cannot be relied upon…1

The effect of your efforts, good or bad, will leave an enduring impact. As good as your relationship with your child can be, as much positive potential there is, there too lies the opportunity for negative effects.

And so it is with everything. In every aspect of life, there is a potential, and it can manifest as good or as evil. The potential of any given thing is more or less determined already. It has a certain “amount”, and you make it positive or negative. In that sense, it is a balance; it will either be +70 or –70, but nothing in between.

The greater potential something has for positivity, the greater potential it has for negativity. We see this balance play out in every part of our lives. To the same extent that raising children can bring light into this world as you learn the trait of selflessness and teach them independence and Torah values, you can fill them with hate and distrust if you don’t take your responsibility seriously.

You cannot have the potential for positivity without the potential for negativity.

We’ve all met someone who had a lot of potential, but didn’t utilize it. He had a knack for business as a kid, but became a petty drug dealer instead of a successful businessman. He used his own supply, stayed in his parents’ basement. When he moves out (more commonly, is kicked out), it’s to somewhere that should’ve been beneath him. He loses friends and becomes isolated, even though he was so outgoing and social in school! It pains us to see him at the store, even to think of him, because we remember who he was, and most of all, who he could’ve been.

The balance of potential can be clearly seen in intimacy. On the one hand, a man and a woman can have sex with the commitment that they will look after and love one another for the rest of their lives. As a result of their loving connection and selfless commitment to each other, they will selflessly give of themselves to raise children, teaching them to be loving, caring people who will independently serve Hashem and in doing so, they become Hashem’s partners in creation.

Marriage allows us to take the sex drive, a hedonistic force which would have us take advantage of others for our own pleasure, and harness it, elevating it into the foundation of the most selfless part of our lives, looking after our spouse and children.

On the one hand sex can be used to lovingly connect to a partner and raise children; on the other hand it can be done in the context of short term, sex-based relationships where people are taken advantage of and hearts are broken. It can also be done in the context of rape, pornography, etc– the black hole is endless. Jordan Peterson often points out how dark tetrad traits (Narcissism, Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Sadism) are strongly linked with short term, sex-based relationships, and how such relationships strongly encourage and train you in the aforementioned traits.2

As much light as the sex drive can bring into the world, so too it can bring darkness.

Yom Kippur is yet another example. The previous ten days, you commit yourself to being better, the type of person you wish to be. You prepare yourself to talk to Hashem in a more intimate way than you have all year, just as the High Priest prepared himself in the laws of entering the holiest place on Earth, serving Hashem in a more intimate way than he has all year. You wear all white, and enter into the synagogue early in the day. The High Priest wears no gold, and begins his service before dawn. Both you and he work tirelessly through the day, standing, sitting, pouring your heart out, entering, exiting, pouring the blood on the altar. By the end of the day, you’ve been uplifted, having been granted access to Hashem’s abode, and the High Priest has completed his service, guaranteeing forgiveness and a fresh relationship for every Israelite.

Except. Just as this day can be the promise of a fresh, new start with Hashem, reuniting and strengthening the relationship like never before, you just as easily could have eaten a bacon cheeseburger, with spicy, candied ants for dessert.

The greatest potential for a mended relationship is the greatest potential to ruin the relationship.

Whereas on Yom Kippur, we separate from this world and enter Hashem’s world, on Purim, Hashem enters our world. Not just the soul, but even the body is entirely devoted to Hashem. The whole world is raised up in kedusha, not just our souls. We embrace the world God created on Purim, and use it to glorify Him.

Imagine a kingdom. The king is tasking you with collecting a tax on his populace, and he gives you a chest to hold the coins. You could gather the coins in any other container, or even transport them by hand back to the palace, and the king would be pleased to have received his revenue. But if you use the chest, you prove that you are trustworthy because you follow the king’s word to the ‘T’. He knows he can depend on you, and will give you greater tasks in the future, and may even consider your council.

In the same way, Hashem entrusts us with the task of performing mitzvot and elevating the world. We could focus on our own thoughts, speech, and studying Torah, and Hashem would be happy. But to venture into the world, using physicality to do mitzvot, is even holier. Getting married, having children, being honest in business, making berakhot on food and drink… these are what prove to Hashem that we are trustworthy. Using the physical for holiness is what strengthens our relationship with God beyond anything else.

Except. Just as we can use the physical for holiness, we can use it for corruption. People use drinking on Purim as an excuse to just drink, like they’re Greeks at a frat party. In fact, the authors have been to both types of party, and Purim parties are worse. It’s city-wide, no, nationwide chaos. The bus Jacob took to his seuda a few years ago was attacked by a mob of drunken Haredim. The door shattered onto a stroller, and there was blood.

This year there will be a couple in their first year of marriage, where a poor wife will sit in shock and embarrassment as her husband loses all ability to engage with the day and those around him, and slumps into a drunken stupor with hardly more ability to look after himself than an infant, vomiting into whatever direction his friends happen to point him. Josh has seen that even in cases where the ability to function has been maintained, ‘religious and God-fearing’ individuals throw food and drink at each other like a scene of greek debauchery.

As much as we can tell you what we’ve seen, we’re certain that you’ve also seen horrific abuses of what should be the holiest day of the year. We tell you these stories not to bring you to despair, but to hope. These stories are proof of Purim’s potential. Stories like these show the negative side, but that by necessity means the positive can be just as strong. We can make Purim the greatest kiddush Hashem every year. It just takes some thought and concerted effort.

There can be a tremendous amount of kedusha in drinking alcohol. There is a reason why we make kiddush on wine every Shabbat and Yom Tov. In a physical sense, alcohol removes inhibitions. When channeled correctly, this can allow one to open his heart to Hashem and his friends, allowing him to express the deepest emotion of the nefesh elokit, the divine soul. The environment he is in, supplemented by alcohol, now has the ability to receive this vulnerable display of emotion in an accepting manner and respond in turn with the same display.

In this way alcohol, when used with the right intention, can be the key to opening euphoric love and intimacy with Hahem. A group of friends can shed the outward display of normalcy, drop their masks and allow their hearts to talk. This day can be the biggest possible expression of love for Hashem.

We are supposed to drink until we don’t know the difference between “Cursed is Haman” and “Blessed is Mordekhai”. That is, to see the potential more than the outcome. The same magnitude, the same amount, but Haman is negative and Mordekhai is positive.

By: Ephraim S. Ayil, Philologist and Author of Identifying the Stones of Classical Hebrew A Modern Philological Approach

Four languages are fitting for the world to use,

And they are:

Greek for song,

Latin for war,

Aramaic for elegy,

Hebrew for divine speech.1

According to the narrative promoted by linguists and the Israeli government, Hebrew is the only language to have been revived. Like most claims that are pushed by Hasbara, it is wrong.

First, it must be determined what the moniker “Hebrew” refers to, a far more difficult problem than it seems. Linguistics can provide a taxonomic answer: Hebrew is a Semitic language, itself part of the larger Afroasiatic family. Linguists can also describe Hebrew in terms of its grammar, vocabulary, phonemic inventory, and other aspects. What linguistics is, as it turns out, incapable of providing is a precise definition of a language.

The most salient questions linguists deal with, as politically-charged as a question can be, is what defines a language. In the mid-century rush to achieve value-neutrality, linguistics abandoned prescription (“ought”) in favor of description (“is”). A parallel from the field of biology is illustrative: once it was realized that life is in a continual state of evolution without definitive breaks, it became impossible to define what, exactly, a species is - the aptly-named “species problem”.

The same line of thinking, at an earlier stage in the dialectic, is found in the language-dialect problem, whereby it becomes impossible to decide what the “language” is and what the “dialect” is from a value-neutral standpoint. At some point it will be argued, perhaps already, that naming a language at any given point in time (including now) necessitates an arbitrary choice, as language changes gradually from ancestor languages. Descriptivism made it impossible to delineate a language.

Therefore, to call the language I am writing in “English” is really quite an arbitrary label, you see.

This logical absurdity is the product of true value-neutrality, which is not only impossible (the choice to study one language over others is a value-decision), but incompatible with any other value-system by exclusion. In that sense, it is also ahistorical because prescription is a natural part of language evolution at least for as long as people have been recording language in writing.

Linguistics cannot answer what distinguishes a particular language such as Hebrew nor what it should look like. These questions can only be derived by recourse to the Jewish people’s preexisting value-system.

It is further necessary to justify why one would communicate in Hebrew today. We live in the age of the ascendancy of Imperial English. Should a monolingual English-speaker find himself in a city of ten thousand or more people, anywhere in the globe, he will have someone with which to speak. As with virtually every other language, Hebrew faces the existential challenge of justifying itself against English.

But communication is not the only reason why people would choose to speak or write in a particular language over another. Language is one of the primary expressions of culture. To speak or write in Hebrew instead of English is to make a cultural choice that displays a value structure which elevates something above mere communication.

To resolve these difficulties, we must appeal to pre-modern and pre-scientific thought, where values were not only tolerated but intentionally cultivated. To understand what Hebrew is, we need only ask what the truest essence of Hebrew is. In Platonic terms, what is its form?

The ideal form of a language is defined by the language as it exists in its most iconic literature. Nearly every modern language possesses a standard for “correct” (or at least “good”) language on what it believes to be the best early work. Latin has Cicero. Arabic: the Qur’an. Sanskrit: the Vedas. English: Shakespeare and the KJV. Italian: Dante. It may necessarily follow that the act of composing an authoritative text is equally an act of establishing an authoritative register.

As it concerns Hebrew, that something must be an affinity to some element of the legacy of the Israelites, whose great cultural legacy–for whom the term magnum opus is an understatement–is the Hebrew Bible. What more iconic or authoritative model could Hebrew be defined by?

The Jewish people are defined by the Hebrew Bible (traditionally called מִקְרָא, as it was the collection of texts which were appropriate to publicly read in the synagogue). The nation of Israel was created when God led us out of Egypt and revealed to us his Divine Law (תּוֺרָה). Unlike etiological myths, our ethnogenesis continually shapes our national destiny such that it is more than the origin of our nation, it forms the essential core of it.

From the sequence of Torah > Nation of Israel > Hebrew.

People look to that authoritative text as the barometer for “good” versus “bad” language. When God via the Torah created the nation of Israel, the language of the Torah–which was based on our spoken language at the time–became our national language.

I want to disabuse the reader of the notion that the language of Miqra is identical with that colloquially spoken by people. Most languages with a literary tradition distinguish between a lower colloquial register and a higher classical register. The former we may call “colloquial Hebrew” and the latter “Classical Hebrew”.

The language of the Torah was probably based on the common language of the Semitic slaves who left Egypt in the 13th century BCE. In the articulation of the Babylonian Talmud, דִּבְּרָה תּוֹרָה כִּלְשׁוֹן בְּנֵי אָדָם “the Torah speaks like the language of men”.2 The Hebrew of the rest of Miqra was largely based on this literary standard, even with the subtlest changes that scholars have excavated: neologisms, new borrowings, the subtlest of grammatical changes.3

By studying the Classical Hebrew of Miqra, we may be able to discern the standard by which all other Hebrew can be compared.

The insufficiency of descriptive linguistics to guide the development of Hebrew reflects Hume’s is–ought problem, for how language is used can never give rise to how language ought to be used. Linguistics cannot answer these questions.

Linguistic concepts may be helpful here to disassemble language into its components. Linguists speak of a language’s lexicon (the words of the language), phonology (the sounds present in that language), phonotactics (how those sounds are ordered), syntax (meaning that arises from word order), and other aspects of grammar. I will focus only on phonology, grammar, and lexicon to avoid losing my audience.

The lexicon of Classical Hebrew is primarily of inherited Semitic stock, with borrowings from several neighboring languages including Ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, Aramaic, and Hurrian. Loanwords are not objectionable per se, as they comprise an inherent part of the character of Classical Hebrew. The error is to extrapolate from the fact that Classical Hebrew contains borrowed words that any loanword is therefore acceptable. Classical Hebrew selectively borrowed foreign vocabulary, primarily to accommodate new technologies/materials and foreign cultural concepts.

As conspicuous as loanwords from some languages are, more blatant are those which are absent. Despite their might and prestige on the seas of the late-biblical Mediterranean, Greek borrowings are notably absent from the biblical text, sans the name יָוָן ‘Greece’. This is despite extensive contact between Hebrew-speaking Phoenicians and Greeks that left an indelible Semitic mark on the Greek language. While loans from more local languages were acceptable, there was something about Greek which was not.

This observation holds in post-biblical texts. “There is no dispute that Greek loanwords were available to be used in Hebrew and Aramaic sources of the Hellenistic period. However, the point that emerges from Ben Sira and the Dead Sea Scrolls is that normally, literary Hebrew of the Hellenistic era avoided using Greek words”.4 The Hebrew of the Bar Kokhba letters follows suit, notable for its exceptionally pure Hebrew–even in casual correspondence. When the Sages composed the prayers and blessings in Mishnaic times, they intentionally avoided Greek and Latin loanwords.

“The prayers adopted by the rabbis represent the ultimate text in terms of the triumph of the Hebrew language. There is a recognizable Greek influence in rabbinic literature, indicating that the sages were aware of Greek and that some were proficient in the language. Nevertheless, this does not find expression in the prayers, as we find practically no Greek expressions or words in Jewish prayers.”5

If Miqra is the archetype of the Hebrew ideal, the Sages provide the model for how to compose in Classical Hebrew for all other purposes. Here again we return to the trifecta of phonology, grammar, and lexicon. The phonology of Hebrew is its most fickle aspect because it gradually changed throughout the spoken history of the language. The Sages here provide a life preserve because the correct pronunciation of Hebrew texts is legislated as a matter of halakha.6

Classical Hebrew vocabulary and grammar provide the backbone, although non-biblical vocabulary may be required to supplement the limited number of words that are actually attested within the biblical text. The existence of some Classical Hebrew words may be inferred to have existed within the language during biblical times despite their absence from the biblical text (or contemporaneous extra-biblical Hebrew texts7). For instance, the Mishna contains numerous terms absent from the Hebrew Bible, nevertheless inherited from Proto-Semitic through regular Hebrew sound changes8 (טְחוֹל ‘spleen’ from Proto-Semitic *ṭiḥāl- ‘spleen, milt’,9 גָּרוֺסָה ‘grist maker’ from Proto-Semitic *magarāśat- ‘grist maker’,10 מַשְׂרֵק ‘comb’ from Proto-Semitic *maśriḳ- ‘comb’).11

Except for proper names, loanwords from European languages including Greek and Latin would be replaced with an appropriate neologism according to classical principles. It is when the introduction of new vocabulary is concerned that the taste of the shapers of language is revealed to be either noble or destitute. The eloquence of Ciceronian thought bears an indisputable mark on every Latin text after him, Shakespeare’s mind molded English in yours all the same.

Do we have any similar figures? If my assertion that the language of the Torah (with the exception of the epic poems) reflects a new literary standard, then it is Moses no less than God that bears the primary attribution for canonizing the Hebrew language. If Moses was the first, he was certainly not the last great name. Scholars have picked up on the phenomenon of ezekielisms (neologisms coined by Yeḥezḳel)12 whereas many medieval coinages are so natural, it strains belief they are not older in provenance.

More recent figures, including Eliezer Ben Yehuda, deserve credit for many more brilliant coinages. The qualities that make for a good neologism are quite evident by comparing Ben Yehuda words with the slop that is endlessly churned out by the Academy of the Hebrew Language (which everyone seems to ignore, anyway). Ben Yehuda’s neologisms are largely according to classical principles and concise.

Israeli forms nouns/adjectives through European methods like compounding (stringing existing words together to form a new word), blending, and perhaps the most artificial of them all, acronyming. None of these methods are found in Classical Hebrew, which is solely composed of inherited vocabulary, borrowings, and innovative words (innovations) produced through the coupling of root + stem. Neologisms according to classical principles need to be constructed by combining roots and stems, or may be borrowed from an appropriate source (like Arabic, Aramaic, Persian).

True, the ancients didn’t have computers. But utilizing the components possessed by the ancients allows a new term to be created that fits perfectly within the inherited vocabulary. The new word מַחְשֵׁב is constructed from the classical root ח-שׁ-ב ‘to think, calculate’ (now naturally extended with the meaning ‘to compute’) according to the stem used to form terms for tools (like biblical מַפְתֵּחַ ‘key’ from פ-ת-ח ‘to open’). The novelty of מַחְשֵׁב is betrayed only by the fact that computers were nonexistent prior to a century ago. Thus מַחְשֵׁב may be classical even without being biblical.

A few principles may be collated for ascertaining the value of a new term, though I claim no comprehensiveness. Is the term necessary without a perfectly viable classical word? Immune from error? Borrowed from a legitimate source? A legitimate innovation? Concise? Culturally appropriate? Catechy? Homophonous or homographous with an existing classical word? Suitable for deriving new terms down the line, if necessary? Good words pass through these filters with a resounding “yes”, though the last one has more wiggle-room.

Classical Hebrew has a far richer soundscape than its modern imitator would lead one to believe. The authoritative rabbinic texts including the Mishna and two Talmuds imply (without significant elaboration) a rich phonology, with far more than twenty-two sounds for twenty-two letters.13 Her six normal plosives (b, d, g, k, p, t) are matched with six equivalent fricatives, which add up to nearly thirty-consonants. With the exception of sin and samekh, no two letters are pronounced alike.

But the obvious discrepancy between the lofty ideal we have developed and the reality of the language as is spoken by Israelis cannot be ignored.

What is “Modern Hebrew”? By its most ardent defenders, usually of the older generation, it is claimed to be a direct continuation of, indeed the modern manifestation of, the Hebrew of the Bible. Such a self-evaluation is absurd given the gross phonological, grammatic, and semantic changes which segregate the two languages.

Languages inevitably change over time, evolution is to be expected from the three-millenium gap between Biblical and Israeli Hebrew. But the change within that gap is not the standard change expected between two stages of a language. Under the influence of European languages, the phonological inventory has halved, the phonotactics are entirely different, spirants have been reanalyzed as independent phonemes, I could go on. This has forced grammatical changes, notwithstanding the radical lexical changes.

While Israelis certainly love to boast that they can “perfectly understand the Bible in its original language!”, this claim slams head-first into linguistic reality. The average Israeli student reading biblical texts is akin to a Japanese student reading ancient Chinese poetry. Although they may read a text and produce a coherent reading, they are imposing their Israeli phonological and semantic values onto the text. The reader receives a mirror of their language which they have imposed on the text instead of allowing the text to speak for itself.

In this respect, the Western student of Bible has an unmistakable advantage over their Israeli counterpart: they approach the text with significantly lessened semantic bias. It is also far easier to teach ancient sound values to a Western student with no prior familiarity towards the alphabet than an Israeli student who grew up speaking Israeli, and stubbornly imposes that system on how a word should sound.

Under the criteria considered under the Platonic ideal of the Hebrew language (phonology, lexicon, and grammar), Israeli Hebrew is completely different from Classical Hebrew.14 But is it different enough in form to be classified entirely distinctly from Hebrew, as some scholars have alleged?15

The politically-charged nature of what defines a language is all the more true when it comes to the Hebrew language, which authoritative sources like Wikipedia allege died in the fourth century CE and was mythically (in both senses of the term) resurrected by early Zionist workers. Though emotionally touching, this narrative is not true even in the loosest sense.

Hebrew died neither as a spoken language nor written language. Hebrew served as the lingua franca for European Jews of the Middle Ages, who needed to communicate across their varied spoken tongues. In the Renaissance medical schools, students were expected to be fluent speakers of Hebrew, as instruction was given in that language.

Ben Yehudah, which the common narrative attributes the credit for resurrecting Hebrew, himself claims quite the opposite—that he was inspired by the idea that Hebrew could once again be spoken by all of Israel by spending time in the Jewish communities of North Africa—where he communicated with local Jews in their only common tongue.

Yet the language spoken in Israel today is not Classical Hebrew, but a language that differs from Classical Hebrew in every respect in which a language could. Israeli phonology is half of that of Hebrew. Consequently, its phonotactics and grammar have changed by necessity. Its vocabulary is either lifted from European languages (largely English) or just as often reassigned to concepts of similar but disparate meaning from Classical Hebrew.

In a cultural environment where this new conlang pervades every aspect of culture and claims the mantle of Hebrew, the Real McCoy–Classical Hebrew–was displaced and denied its rightful place at the pinnacle of cultural prestige. The one-two-punch of Imperial English taking its rightful prestige with the imposter Israeli conlang stealing its reputation (and name, which goes by the same term in CH: שֵׁם) relegated Classical Hebrew to the margins. But these hyperconservative holdouts are largely dead now.

But I am implying a perhaps equally absurd conclusion. Am I trying to claim that the Israeli government has conspired with the entire linguistics profession to lie about the resurrection of Hebrew?

Yes.

The motives for both parties strongly incentivized maintaining this convenient fiction. For the Zionist movement, it served to legitimize the idea that theirs was a prophetically-implied project,16 as it states in Isaiah 19:18 “On that day, there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the language of Canaan (שְׂפַת כְּנַעַן)…” How could five cities in Egypt speak Hebrew if Hebrew was then-extinct? This was vague and abstract enough to not ruffle the feathers of the secular movement while allowing them to legitimize themselves to the religious.

For linguists, the mythological “resurrection of Hebrew” offered them a job program. Prior to the internet, linguistics degrees were largely useless. If someone would give you funding, you could study an ancient language or go out into the field in some obscure locale to record another dialect of something-or-another. But if language can be resurrected, then linguistics could sell their expertise in linguistic revival to affluent ethnic minorities wishing to revive their extinct tongues.

How successful linguistic revival has been is largely dependent on your definition of success, but there’s no doubt that it has been a smashing success at justifying state funding for linguists. Therefore, linguists have every incentive to keep their mouths shut about the “resurrection of Hebrew”, which makes it perhaps the most boring (and normal) conspiracy on Earth.

“Modern Hebrew” is no resurrected language. It is a zombie language, an unsettling linguistic form that on its surface, resembles the original language, but is in reality a parasite on the remains of its former self. The relationship between the real and zombie languages is that of a cheap imitation. Israeli may be sufficient to fool your average person, but to a scholar could never be confused with its true form.

This unavoidably implies a rather scandalous conclusion: rather than resurrecting Hebrew, Zionism unintentionally did what the Egyptians, Amalekites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines, Muslims, and Inquisitors never could. The Zionists killed Hebrew.

While conservative prudence counsels that given that linguistic revival has never been successful, it is fruitless to try, technological advances change the calculus. The ability of artificial intelligence to generate large quantities of text according to whatever standard is desired raises the possibility of tools designed to help correct bad language and teach good language.

A lexicon of Classical Biblical Hebrew must be assembled, informed by the best of modern and classical Hebrew scholarship (and with an extensive bibliography to retrace our steps). This lexicon can then be supplemented with later vocabulary as needed, avoiding the pitfalls of Israeli. For example, Miqra provides the numbers one through nine, ten, hundred, thousand, and ten thousand (myriad). The concept of zero is medieval, so the term אֶפֶס for ‘zero’ cannot be excluded. Suffice it to say, new classical terms for million, billion, and trillion must be coined.17

New and experimental pieces of software may be vibe-coded that can act as a sort of spell-correct for non-Classical vocabulary and grammar, or perhaps automatic translation tools. The democratization of the software-creation process renders this a problem of time and will, not funding. Classical texts such as those by Rav Sa`adya Ga’on on the philosophy of the Hebrew language scream out for translation, printing, and distribution such that they can influence the body politic. It is all well to build the trough, but the horse must know it exists to benefit.

Prescriptivists aren’t attempting to use an inherited language like performance art, but as a regular part of society itself. Classical languages are a continuation–not a clone–of the inherited language. The regular argument against such prescriptivism is that it is an exercise in anachronism: any ‘coined form’ never existed in the language, and therefore cannot be considered a new form. But this reasoning is oversimplified, and misses the goals of linguistic prescriptivism entirely.

To write, speak, and cultivate Classical Hebrew is as much a part of the Classical Hebrew tradition as Miqra itself. We deprive ourselves and our progeny of the opportunity to engage in our true national language, one best suited to divine speech, the language of scripture, and that of the great post-biblical compositions. An ambitious effort appropriate to an ambitious generation.

By: Rabbi Isaac Ludmir

The ancient peoples of the Near East did not expect their gods to be silent or cryptic. Unlike the gods of Iron Age Greece and Rome, the gods were not abstract subjects of debate but present, uncontestable, and active personalities which constantly, publicly, and clearly expressed their preferences, opinions, wishes, and political stances. In other words, they were as real to the average man as the President of the United States is to the common news consumer.

From ancient Mari to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Kings were in receipt of Divine messages declaring their legitimacy. Dictating new laws and decrees and reaffirming their commitment to the king and his dynasty. Prophets and seers were common and part of the royal retinue. The prophets of Israel repeatedly speak of competition by false prophets, whether those claiming to speak in the name of God or others.

To extract speech from the lips of an Ancient Near Eastern deity was not a simple task. It required specialized status and knowledge of the “mouth-opening” ceremony by which the god was said to inhabit the statue or cult item as a body and speak through it in a manner audible to the priests or king who then could proclaim the will of the god to the city.

In addition, since prophecy and divine speech were associated with the temples and royal courts, they were almost exclusively an urban phenomenon (indeed the countryside did not exist as an autonomous category since it was merely the agricultural property of the city).

The uniqueness of Israelite religion was not the presence of its prophets but in the understanding of the Divine speech they carried. Rather than being mere messengers, they believed their role to be more elevated and terrifying in proportion to how God Eternal was more elevated and terrifying than all other gods. While other gods existed as perceptions, ideals, and distant figures, the God of the Israelite prophet was a real presence and close by. He was never passive. His speech and visions, rather than being symbols of meaning, were instruments of action, and therefore, the prophet was not merely conveying communication but an active partner or envoy executing the Divine Will by the very act of giving voice to it. This is the reason that the Israelite Prophet alone, of all the seers and soothsayers of the Ancient Near East, is a miracle worker in his own right.

Thus, for instance, not merely the great miracle working prophets of the North, Elijah and Elisha, but also the geopolitical doomsayers of the South:

GOD reached out and touched my mouth, and GOD said to me: Herewith I put My words into your mouth.

See, I appoint you this day
Over nations and kingdoms:
To uproot and to pull down,
To destroy and to overthrow,
To build and to plant.

Jeremiah 1:9-10

The dedication message is clear: The prophet himself is tasked with uprooting, pulling down, destroying, overthrowing, planting, and building up whole nations. This is achieved by either the prophet himself being originally formed for purpose (the most radical option present in Jeremiah 1:5), the prophet’s speaking faculties being purified (as in Isaiah 6:5-7), the prophet consuming God’s word (as in Ezekiel 2:8-10, 3:1-3 and in Elijah’s second dedication I Kings 19:5-6), or the prophet being clothed in the divine spirit (as in the case of Elisha, II Kings 2:8, 2:13-14). In all these cases, the prophet is endowed with the operative force of God’s speech and thus can command “nature” (or rather, God’s various vassals such as rain, heavenly fire, and so forth1).

If we wish to understand the cause for such a unique class in Israelite religion, we must return to the point which we raised in the introduction: Ancient Near Eastern deities required professionals to “open their mouth” and to magically bind them to their earthly cultic items and statues. The reason is clear once we understand the simple division of the world in the Ancient Near East between the realms of Man, the gods, and death. The first two realms existed in the same physical plane but were not identical. The realm of the gods was, so to speak, on the other side of the rain, in the mists of the mountain just out of view, overlapping but not separable from the lands of man. The land of death (Mwth / Mot) was the ultimate “Yonder”. Strange, horrifying, and dangerous to gods and men alike.2 However, the most important thing to our discussion was that the gods could be, temporarily, called over to the human realm to inhabit the human side of their houses and bodies (i.e. the Temples and statues). It is important to note that this ritual is not essentially different from the ones by which witches and warlocks3 were believed to bind the spirits of men in figurines in order to gain power over them (as is evident in the text of the Maqlû or “Burning” ritual intended to “burn” the witch and unbind the victim4).

The Israelite view differed. Heaven was not some distant realm, but God was sitting in His house or tabernacle “in the lands of the living” (Psalms 116:9) where He “set a table” (Psalms 23:5) before His favorites whom He ransoms (Psalms 49:16, Hosea 13:14) or rescues (Psalms 91:15) from the “Sheol” (Underworld, “the Demanding”) and its monstrous inhabitants, and assembles to “their fathers in peace” in a condition resembling life in all things, except the Favored are largely invisible to the living. Therefore, God was near and available and so was His word. His authority was not over minor gods appointed over nature but over the very forces and physical components of the world: the foundations of the earth, the mountains, the sea and so forth. Such immediate authority could then be lent to the prophet – who takes the place of the minor gods in pre-Israelite mythology, the Qedoshim “Holy/Called Ones” and take their place “In the Great Meeting of the Holy Ones”5 as a plenipotentiary intermediary between God and Israel, who are expressly called to become the “Qedoshim” or “Holy Nation” (Goy Qadosh), and therefore can take their place as “sons of God” (Deuteronomy 14:1) instead of the minor deities of old (e.g. Genesis 6:2 and Job 1:6).

Thus we find ourselves upon the foot of a great and awesome sight: The King of the Universe does not merely allow the common Israelite to approach His mountain, His house, His table, but makes said common Israelite a member of his mythic household.

He deposits in the Israelite prophet’s hands and mouth His speech, or Spirit, which is not only both efficient for the production of wonders and the elimination of enemies and corruption, but is also satisfactory, nourishing and fertile.

It is a “fire or a hammer which breaks the rock” (Jeremiah 23:29) but also “water, wine and milk” given “free for no silver”, “rain and snow” which “comes down” freely from Heaven and which nourishes the earth and produces “seed for the sower and food for the hungry.” (Isaiah 55:1-2,10).

Let us bend our ears to listen. Perhaps the voice did not go out completely. Perhaps we can still hear the call upon the heights.

By: Ariel Yaari

The first of the commandments which Hashem commands the Jewish People is to begin calendar-reckoning. Immediately preceding the Korban Pesach, we are commanded thus: “And Hashem said to Moses and to Aaron in the Land of Egypt saying: ‘This month shall be for you head of the months. The first for you out of the months of the year.’”1 As is our wont, the historical enthusiasm to fulfill this commandment has bordered on the extreme and has generated a 3,000-year-long obsession with the calendar and its calculation.

Calendars mark important occasions and events, and adherence to them determines one’s status as either a faithful member of the community or a wanton renegade. This is why some of the most bitter disputes and the most fervent debates in halakha have been over calendrical questions. When splinter Jewish groups wished to separate themselves from the Tradition, the calendar was usually the first thing to be called into dispute. When Jeroboam wished to make a separate cultic center in the north of Israel to rival the south, its Temple, and Biblically-aligned festivals, he delayed the celebration of Sukkot to a month after its traditionally prescribed date.2 Interestingly enough, the Samaritans, the descendants of these northern rebels, continue to celebrate a month after we do.3

Even within the confines of normative Judaism, there can be near schismatic disagreement about the calendar. During the Islamic Golden Age, a dispute emerged between the Geonim of Babylon and the Land of Israel. The Gaon of the Land of Israel, Rabbi Aharon ben Meir, had made some adjustments to the traditionally accepted calculation based on the position of the astronomical bodies over the Land of Israel. He correctly calculated (800 years before the British introduced time zones) that Babylon and the Land of Israel were separated by 8 degrees and 55 minutes longitude.4 This new calculation advanced Pesach two days and began a bloody polemic in the academies of Babylon.5

Similarly, Abraham Ibn Ezra takes up the sword against Rashi’s grandson, Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir (the Rashbam), for having the temerity to suggest that according to the plain meaning of the text, the halakhic day would start at sunrise, and nightfall is a later Rabbinic injunction.6 This was so offensive to the sensibilities of Ibn Ezra that he proceeded to author an entire screed denouncing even a whiff of possibility that this was the simple meaning of the text, and cursing the scribes who would dare copy the words of the Rashbam. If it weren’t for Ibn Ezra, we wouldn’t know of this opinion at all, as the scribes seemed to take his curse quite seriously.

By way of short introduction, I have shown the importance of the calendar and its long and storied role in our history, both in regulating the day-to-day practice of civilizational life and by clearly delineating who is a member of the community. However, its importance isn’t as mere relic or historical curiosity. The communal rhythms of the Jewish People are still dictated by it.

Our perceptive, well-mannered, and incredibly attractive readers will no doubt have noticed that Hadesh does not count the date according to the standard known across the Jewish world. While in English we say the standard name along with the Gregorian year, in Hebrew we always write the month with its Biblical name (e.g. Tishrei – חודש שביעי). This isn’t random or purely aesthetic. Rabbi Yaakov Medan of Gush Etzion has previously lambasted the use of the Babylonian names for the months that we picked up during the First Exile, which are now in common use.7 Just as we wouldn’t (or rather shouldn’t) name a city in Israel after Krakow, Tehran, or New York because Jews had historically lived in those places, would it make any sense for us to persist using Babylonian names because of an Exile that took place 25 centuries ago?

An additional point of curiosity for many is the year we use. All Hadesh issues since we started publication back in Sivan (חודש שלישי) have been dated to the year 77 (ע”ז), instead of the more popular Anno Mundi dating (5786). There also lies an historical reason as to why we date such. During the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the nascent Jewish government began to mint coins that corresponded to the year of the Revolt, e.g. “Year one to the freedom of Israel”, etc.8 This practice lasted as long as the Revolt did. In our own time, with 77 years “to the freedom of Israel”, we find it appropriate to date the year in accordance with the re-establishment of our independence.

As the Jewish People have found themselves reconstituted in their homeland once again, many questions regarding Jewish civilization have emerged. Free of the constraints of Exile, a natural inquisitiveness regarding exactly how to restate our national character has pervaded the thought of many. The obvious subjects such as food, clothing, festivals, and the like have been debated extensively by many. These conversations are good and necessary. However, many other aspects have been neglected, including the very way we tell time.

Beyond the aforementioned point that the calendar serves a vital role in shaping communal boundaries, the way a nation tells its time is directly tied to its self-determination.

Time is precious as we all know, and the one who dictates it dictates the very fabric of reality. At school or work, your time isn’t your own. It belongs either to the headmaster or the boss. You couldn’t very well walk out of work an hour before quitting time. If it happens once, you’d be severely reprimanded. If you had the gall to do it twice, you’d be quickly fired. Your boss dictates the fabric of reality there. From 9-5, you have agreed to give up those precious hours of your day in order to provide labor. Now, eating and being able to afford rent may very well be preferable options over not giving up your time and living on the street.

Outsourcing our time to others means that we are content with a third-party deciding what to do and where to do it. While at a job we receive a check for doing so, when we do so civilizationally, we tacitly admit that we don’t know how to utilize our time properly and that we’d be better off if someone else did it for us. The Hebrew Calendar is currently seen by many as a cute quirk of ours. Today might very well be the 5th of Tevet, but the adults in the room all say December 25th.

Using the Hebrew Calendar seriously is vital to reclaiming ourselves more broadly. However, while it should not be used as an afterthought, it should also not be used to accentuate our “indigeneity” to the Land of Israel. When a culture is powerful, its modes and expressions come naturally. The same way someone says, “The sky is blue”, we should acclimate ourselves to the Hebrew date. Internalized matter-of-factly, not boasted of proudly.

A culture’s power lies in its hegemony, in the unassuming behaviors that people default to subconsciously. When Judaism becomes that for us, we will know that we’re on the right track.

By: Jacob Levin

In parashat Vayera, Rashi comments that Lot served the angels matza because it was Pesach.1 The destruction of Sodom was about 400 years before the Exodus– how could Lot celebrate Pesach if the events of Pesach had not yet occurred?

A rationalist answer might be that matza is very quick to make, and Lot wanted to feed his guests quickly.2 But this answer does not explain Rashi– it simply provides an alternative commentary. Maybe the rationalist could explain instead that Pesach was a Canaanite agricultural holiday before the Israelites adopted it when they left Egypt. While this is a reasonable answer, I’d like to propose a mystical answer with precedent: Each day in the Hebrew calendar has a unique spiritual potential, and Lot was acting in accordance with the potential of the fifteenth of the first month.

This is not the only time that a holiday was celebrated without fully comprehending its reason to be a holiday. God commands the Israelites to celebrate the seventh day after leaving Egypt even before they leave Egypt.3 The Israelites do not yet know of the splitting of the Sea, but begin celebrating even at the edge of the Sea itself. Only in hindsight do they feel celebratory emotions.

God commanded us to celebrate the 22^nd day of the seventh month, but nothing had happened on that day until the times of the kings.4 King Solomon had completed the Temple in the eighth month,5 but did not dedicate it until the following seventh month. He began the dedication seven days before Sukkot, the eighth of the month, so that the altar would be ready for the festival. At the end of the festival, when the altar is fully operational and the Temple is completely finished, and all Israel recognizes the establishment of the House of David and the House of God’s Name in Jerusalem, they rejoice on the 22nd of the month, on Shemini Atzeret.6 This is why the haftara of Shemini Atzeret is that episode in Kings– because Shemini Atzeret is the holiday commemorating the Temple and the Davidic dynasty.7

Hanukkah itself was a “potential holiday”. The Tabernacle was completed on the 25th of the ninth month, but it was not inaugurated until the first month, in anticipation of that year’s Pesach.8 Thus Hanukkah had potential from the Exodus, but was not “activated” until the Greek exile. Similarly, the First Temple was completed in the eighth month, but was not inaugurated until the following Sukkot. This would imply that there is a current “potential holiday” in the eighth month that has yet to be “activated”. ⁸ Maybe this holiday will commemorate the inauguration of the Third Temple.

“Potential holidays” can be “activated” negatively, too. That is, their spiritual potentials are realized but in the direction of fasting rather than feasting. The prophet Zekhariah lists four of these: the fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months. These are what we today call the Seventeenth of Tammuz, the Ninth of Av, the Fast of Gedalia, and the Tenth of Tevet. Zekhariah says that these days will become feasts in the future with the final redemption.9

The Seventeenth of Tammuz was supposed to be the day we received the tablets. A midrash subtly suggests that this would have been the Day of Judgment, as opposed to Rosh Hashana, which would’ve had a different focus.10 This would be fitting, as one can only be judged according to a law code. The reception of the law would actualize our willing subjugation to God’s justice. In the future, this may be the day that the Sanhedrin reconvenes with proper ordination (semikha), reestablishing the enactment of God’s law in the Land of Israel.

The Ninth of Av was supposed to be the day we entered the Land of Israel. Instead, because we rejected the land God gave us, and thereby rejected Him, both our Temples were destroyed on that day. There is a tradition that the Messiah will be born on the Ninth of Av.11 In general, we do not celebrate the birthdays of our heroes. There are also traditions that King David was born on Shavuot12 and Abraham on Rosh Hashana,13 but we do not celebrate those days because they are birthdays of significant figures. Rather, the fact of their births elucidates the natures of the holidays. It is possible that the Ninth of Av will be the day that our republic14 is reestablished, with a Sanhedrin, a Temple, and a king– whatever that event may look like.

The Fast of Gedalia is interesting in that it is not called by its date. Accordingly, there is an opinion that the third day of the seventh month is not the day Gedalia was assassinated– he was murdered on the first of the month, Rosh Hashana– but it is the first day we are able to fast, since fasting is prohibited on holidays.15 According to some opinions, we already feast on the day it should be, namely the second of the month, as Rosh Hashana was traditionally celebrated only one day in Israel.16 However, since the overwhelming majority of opinions contend that Rosh Hashana is two days right now, there is a great potential on the third day of the month. It is possible that this is the day the Messiah will be recognized, appointed, or coronated.

Finally, the Tenth of Tevet. This may be the most enigmatic of the four fasts, since there is relatively little that happened on that day. Whereas the other fasts have grand events like the destructions of the Temples, the breaking of the tablets, or the assassination of the final vestige of hope and communal continuity in our land, the Tenth of the Tenth is the beginning of the Babylonian siege… and not much else. Nearby days contain other, similar events: on the fifth, news of the destruction reached Babylon;17 on the eighth, the Torah was translated into Greek; and on the ninth– we don’t know, but it was bad.18 Even the nearby dates are enigmatic.

These events can be understood using my theory of exile.19 A quick refresher: Exile can be broken up into three stages. The first stage, that of Joseph, is the loss of the “national tongue”, or how a nation relates to itself and to others. The second stage, that of Judah, is when the leadership is exiled mentally or physically. The last stage is that of Jacob, when the Temple is desecrated or worse.

On the fifth, news reached Babylon, and on the eighth, the Torah was translated. News and translation both relate to the stage of Joseph, the first stage of exile, wherein the exiled nation loses its “national tongue”. Notably, another event often attributed to the Tenth of Tevet is the sale of Joseph, the archetype for that first stage of exile.20

As a microcosm of exile itself, the siege may be broken into three stages: the laying of the siege (Tenth of Tevet), the rupture of the walls (Seventeenth of Tammuz), and the final destruction (Ninth of Av). The laying of the siege is parallel to the stage of Joseph, the rupture of the walls is parallel to the stage of Judah, and the final destruction is parallel to the stage of Jacob. Thus, the Tenth of Tevet is the epitome of the stage of Joseph.

In light of this analysis, it may be that on this day we will regain our “national tongue”, and prophecy will return to Israel.

May the redemption begin immediately, and all these fasts become feasts.

By: Josh Black

The calendar is an integral part of any civilisation. James Burke points out that the ability to measure and orient oneself within time is the key which allowed man to build up a prosperous functional society. Without a calendar we have no ability to tell where we have come from and no real ability to see where we are going.

The Hebrew calendar serves all the common uses of a calendar– like being a framework for planning the future– with a few additional features. The calendar determines the unique ebb and flow of our relationship with God. One of my favorite examples of this can be seen in how the Tishrei holidays reflect the marriage of the Jewish people to Hashem.

Rosh Hashana is the time when we crown Hashem King. Surely God needs no coronation, since He’s koneh hakol, the Creator of everything! Yet Hazal say that there is no King without a people. It takes a people willing to serve Him to make Him into their King. This act of choosing Hashem as our Ruler and accepting Him into our life is akin to a bride who chooses her husband and accepts him into her life. Rosh Hashana is like the first stage of marriage, kiddushin.

Yet kiddushin is commonly understood as the groom giving something of value to the bride– how could Rosh Hashana, the day when we give something to Hashem, be parallel to the groom giving something to the bride? Interestingly, the Rambam does codify into law the option for the bride to give the groom an object of value. This only works if the groom is so wealthy that the act of accepting the gift will cause significant joy in the bride. Receiving becomes giving. Only because God is koneh hakol does our coronation of Him effect the “kiddushin”.

Yom Kippur is the time when God’s judgment is finalised. Once we have crowned Hashem King, He judges us, and those judgments are sealed on Yom Kippur. Our roles are concretised. This time is akin to nesuin, the final stage of the marriage ceremony. We and Hashem are now locked into a covenant like that of a husband and wife.

Nesuin is commonly understood as the wife entering the husband’s abode for the first time. This is why Ashkenazim have a custom to lock the newlyweds in a “yichud room”. The chuppah is considered a faux home for the blessings of nesuin to be recited. How is this realized in our relationship with God?

On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, we are the holiest versions of ourselves. We strove and struggled to perfect ourselves for the day, and we wear white or our nicest clothes. We abstain from physical pleasures, like eating or bathing, and become something like an angel. That angelic state– that’s us entering into God’s home. The Kohen Gadol would enter into the very sanctum of the shekhina, the kodesh hakadoshim. This is true nesuin.

This extends into Sukkot, seven days of chag we celebrate with God in the intimate space of the sukkah. This parallels the sheva berakhot, which are called that, not because of the number of blessings, but because of the number of days they can be recited. Others recite the sheva berakhot for the couple, paralleling the seventy nations coming to Jerusalem and praising God while Israel sacrifices 70 bulls on their behalf. The final day, Shemini Atzeret, is the culmination of the celebration of our unique relationship with God, on which only one bull is brought.

Finally, we reach Cheshvan. Cheshvan has a bad reputation, being referred to as Mar (“bitter”) Cheshvan, owing to the fact that there are no festivals during this time. This is a profound misunderstanding of the beauty of the month. It is the most special time for a newlywed couple. The sheva berakhot are over, the crowds depart, and the new couple is in the quiet intimacy of their new home. For a couple that got married for all the wrong reasons, this can indeed be bitter. But for a healthy couple, this is the happiest time.

The takeaway is that our relationship with Hashem is not stagnant. The calendar directs and channels the flow of our emotions with God. Pesach should feel like zeman cherutenu, Shavuot should feel like zeman matan Toratenu, Sukkot should feel like zeman simchatenu, in the same way that a Western child feels joy and gratitude during December. The calendar is not simply a tool of a functional society, it is an integral means of connecting to God.

The calendar serves as a conceptual benchmark for something we feel very strongly about here at Hadesh. Somewhere in Israel there is a Jew, a religious Jew. He grew up in New York, and spent a year in Israel. Inspired to return to his homeland, he made Aliyah. He keeps Shabbat, puts on tefillin, and even learns every day.

However, if you ask him when the year ends, without any hesitation he’ll tell you… December. He asks when the next Jewish holiday is. “What day is Pesach this year?” He thinks his birthday is in June. If this seems rational, then you are living in the problem.

Despite his religious lifestyle, his view of the world defaults to the Gregorian calendar instead of the Hebrew. By looking at the world and seeing December instead of Tevet, in a small way, he sees the world as a Goy instead of as a Jew.

Now this may seem inconsequential, but it is an indication that he adopted the entertainment and financial and political lenses of our non-Jewish neighbours, seeing the world through their eyes instead of through the eyes of the Torah.

This mental paradigm that many Jews are unwittingly locked into is the exilic mentality. Given that we were sent from our homeland long ago and made to wander, we found ourselves adapting, using the practices of our host countries. We did everything we could to survive, including changing the way we think. We found (and continue to find) ourselves viewing the world through the lens of the non-Jew.

Now that we have the land of Israel and are for the most part secure, it is time for us to escape the exilic mentality, or in other words, to renew our civilisation.

We need to once again not only learn as Jews, but to see the world as Jews.

By: Ariel Yaari

Before last week, I did not know who Israeli popstar Odeya was. As it happens, I am remarkably ignorant of the pop culture scene as a whole. I was in the United States and I am in Israel. When I do happen to learn something about the current cultural scene, it’s against my will, usually as I try to avoid working on something actually productive or when it matters politically.

The reason why Odeya came up on my feed is because Lior Schleien, an Israeli producer and host, was reacting to something that Odeya did at one of her concerts. What was so scandalous, so earth-shatteringly controversial, that it caused Schleien to take to the internet and post a six minute tirade about it? Odeya had sung about how she sought a husband who “kept Shabbat, kept Kashrut, blessed the Challah on Shabbat”, etc. This was such an affront to Schleien, a member of the vehemently secular Tel Aviv elite, that he felt the need to emphatically state that religion “was not sexy” and that this isn’t what should be promoted culturally.1

Boomers will be boomers, and while most might think that this outrage against a seemingly innocuous statement of wanting a partner with a traditional belief system is anywhere from pretty funny to ridiculously immature, it actually represents a far more important fault line within Israeli society: culture.

It is often assumed that culture and politics are two separate arenas of human organization. Politics manifests as those mechanisms that regulate society and keep it safe from the predations of either malicious forces within it or from external enemies without. Culture on the other hand, is that which people partake in order to give voice to their creative impulse. It is the highest form of recreation, giving those talented individuals who create art, music, etc. a distribution system through which to share their achievements and allowing the average Joe to enjoy them. The very human need to decompress and find joy in the beauty of life and the expression that is given in various art forms.

But, it is not only false that these two are separate entities, they are in fact, joined at the hip. As Andrew Breitbart famously said: “Politics is downstream of culture.” What a society finds beautiful, detestable, worthwhile, or useless will inevitably determine whom they vote for and which policies they endorse. All successful political movements have realized this point, and I think it’s time that the religious begin to have a very serious conversation about what comes next.

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was arguably one of the greatest political thinkers of the twentieth century, but massively underappreciated outside of left-wing circles, much to our detriment. Gramsci was imprisoned by the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini in 1926 for his role as head of the Italian Communist Party. His deteriorating health would permit him to gain early release in 1935 and ultimately culminated with his death in 1937. Gramsci spent his time in prison theorizing about where the communists had gone wrong and why they had failed to bring about the revolution amidst the great social upheaval in Italy following the Great War. Gramsci came to the startling conclusion that they had failed to establish hegemony.2

The Orthodox Marxists of Gramsci’s day were economic determinists. They steadfastly believed that the increasing economic pressures upon the working class would eventually cause it to rise from its stupor and popular discontent would take to the streets, bringing about the long-awaited revolution. This never happened. Even where communist uprisings had been successful, it was led primarily by an elite class that fomented the revolution.

More troublingly, in all the cases where the economic conditions had gotten worse, the masses had not resorted to communism but had more often turned to fascism.

What Gramsci realized is that there are in fact two equally important and interlocking facets: the first being the “civil” domain, that organized itself in the schools, religious institutions, high arts, journals, and social clubs. And the “political” domain where the state exerted itself through force: the police, military, and courts.

All modern regimes, he observed, had independently crafted widespread consensus through hegemony, or control of the civil domain of society. The intellectual class through permeating and forwarding its orthodoxies by way of the civil society was able to inculcate their ideas throughout the entire nation. What was desirable, what was just, and what was good were all determined by the ideas that expressed themselves in school, art, music, fashion, etc. Consensus crafted through hegemony could only be broken by way of hegemony. Any other way of organization would no doubt fail to affect any actual change.3

Gramsci was not the first political theorist to discuss these ideas. He was heavily influenced by the Italian Elite Theorists who were the first to write about how actual power lies with the elite and not with masses, as is commonly thought.4 He was the first however, to put forth an actionable plan as to how to gain hegemony.

A cadre of intellectuals (in the Gramscian imagination “intellectuals” include teachers, artists, musicians, artisans, authors, theorists, and the like) raised from a certain class and committed to waging cultural war on the existing hegemony might be able to establish a new norm. This is not a one and done process and needs additional defections from the existing intellectual class. But, through producing a beautiful and appealing new culture, enough of the old school would join the new.

With all of this in mind, it becomes painfully obvious why Odeya’s performance elicited such a vehement reaction from Lior Schleien. Schleien is one of the intellectuals of the Tel Aviv secular class. A well-known television executive and frequent guest on many popular Israeli TV shows during the early 2000s as well as hosting his own. He and his colleagues were instrumental in forming the current konseptzia as it exists in Israel. They can deal with Bibi and his cohort of coalition members governing for a decade here or there, as long as they have control of the narrative.5

A religious-adjacent singer such as Odeya promoting traditional Judaism is a direct threat to the hegemony that he and others would like to keep in place.

The Israeli Right, especially the National Religious, have taken for granted that they are assured political power within the next decade or so. Demographic trends seem to be headed that way, with a majority of Israel’s population (55%) either falling into the Masorati, Dati, or Haredi religious categories.6 It seems as if this is a no-brainer. In Israel’s case however, demographics are not destiny. As long as the secular elite continue to shape the culture, the Israeli Right may govern, but it will not rule.

There is good reason to be optimistic. Since the beginning of the war, there has been a noted uptick in religious observance throughout Israeli society. Soldiers have requested tzitzit, even those who are not religious.7 The music scene has fundamentally changed, with one of the most popular songs being “Hashem Yitbarach Tamid Ohev Oti” (G-d, the blessed, constantly loves me). This should not be an excuse to sit on our laurels. Good trends do not necessitate good outcomes. Gramsci thought that “organic crises” could cast doubt on the existing structure. October 7th was just that, with the country as a whole largely doubtful of the effectiveness of our elites. If there was ever a time to push, it is now.

If National Religious Israelis want to get serious about ruling the country and doing what is best for Am Yisrael, it MUST build the culture. Otherwise, all other exercises are futile.

By: Rabbi Isaac Ludmir

One of the most shameful sights of my lifetime (and I have seen quite a few) was the Haredi “Assembly for the Torah Students”. True to the biblical maxim that “from the wicked, wickedness shall come”1, it has supplied us with an inception-like kaleidoscopic shame. Everything from the disruption of the life of Israel’s capital, the deliberate clogging and obstruction of public transit, to the death of a 15-year-old boy.2

However, the most notable was that of a female reporter who covered the event. Now, journalistic coverage of protests is par for the course. As a matter of fact, coverage is largely seen as a positive in the eyes of the protestors since they help the protest come to public consciousness. Nevertheless, the reporter had been pelted with rocks, water bottles and other assorted projectiles and was chased by the (all-male) protestors, as reported even in sympathetic sources.3 Later, Haredi advocates attempted to excuse the inexcusable by arguing that she was “dressed immodestly” and that the crowd was provoked.4

Beyond the fact that this is monstrously unhalakhic (the Torah did not, in fact, institute a sentence of stoning or a permission to injure a Jewess over her wardrobe), and that Haredi behavior at prior events suggests this is a general pattern of behavior towards women, regardless of their religious affiliation and dress5 - it opens up a fascinating topic for us: namely the concept of צניעות, as it is understood today. Specifically, the control of dress of (mostly female) Jews.

False Accusations and False Sins

First, let us get one thing out of the way. The female reporter was not dressed “provocatively” by the standard of general Israeli society. She wore professional, climate-appropriate attire consisting of a simple, unadorned, opaque white shirt covering her entire torso and upper arms and a pair of simple, long, grey pants covering her ankles. This is the kind of attire Haredim encounter every day in Jerusalem (and indeed, in every city which has both Haredi and Hiloni populations). It’s suitable for walking and working (unlike the protesters’ jackets and fedoras) and cannot be construed by any reasonable person as conveying sexual availability or looseness.

The distinction is important since the Torah does not contain any commandment for women – or anyone! – to be dressed in a particular way, or indeed, at all.

The Interaction of Cultural and Divine Nomoi

The closest thing we have in ancient sources to הלכות צניעות – specific rules which govern female dress on the ground of their sexual provocativeness – is דת יהודית, that is, the common custom of Jewish women in a particular time and place. The Yerushalmi makes it clear that Kephaltyn (a hair net, from the Greek “Κέφαλος”, “Head”) which the Bavli6 calls קלתה שבראשה (“Her head-basket”, Rashi’s strange interpretation of it being a literal basket is tendentious) was undergoing a process of moving from being a necessary head covering for respectable women in public places to being also being required in the semiprivate settings of the common courtyard (it is important to note that in those courtyards, neighbors would mingle, thus the woman would be seen wearing her Kephaltyn by her male neighbors).

The word Kephaltyn is unrelated to the Latin “capillitium” “hair” and does not mean “a wig”. Such an explanation is supported neither by careful analysis of Tanaitic/Talmudic Hebrew (which had a native term for a wig) nor by archaeology (which shows Jewish women depicted as wearing hairnets since the 8^th century BC Judean Pillar Figurines, which are of course idolatrous items, but were produced by local artisans and are modeled after local women), nor by the socio-economic analysis of the period (Roman wigs were the luxury item par excellence, the idea that every Jewish woman could afford one and then never wore it beyond the courtyard is absurd on its face) nor by the comparison of the Yerushalmi and the Bavli (the former is using a Greek term since Koine was widely used in 3^rd century Galilee, the latter is grasping for the closest Hebrew term it could find – and “hairnet” is much closer to “basket on her head” than “wig”).

At any rate, not only is the vaunted דת יהודית a culture dependent rather than eternal standard,7 it is not a spiritual command. If Jewish women had a commandment to dress decently, יוצאת וראשה פרוע would have been in the עוברת על דת משה category. Rather, immodest clothing would’ve been considered a grievance against her husband since, throughout most of human history, a husband’s honor was tied to the decent public conduct of his wife. Indecent custom constitutes a deliberate humiliation of one spouse by the other, who cannot be reasonably expected לדור עם נחש בכפיפה אחת – i.e. to tolerate deliberate, unending psychological abuse.

The Non-Halachic Nature of Haredism

Haredism, however, is strictly un-halakhic in its outlook. It had inherited a nexus of semi-mystical, semi-pietist and mostly neurotic obsession of “tzniut” as the quintessential – indeed the only- spiritual outlet for women, “equivalent to the Torah study of men”. This is not merely an ahistoric, despiritualizing, and condescending approach, it is simply extrahalakhic in the worst sense of the word. It revokes the true function of modesty in the Halakhic mind and turns it into an idol in whose name women who fail to uphold the Beis Yaakov fabrication are fair game for violence and humiliation (and yes, perverse lust).

Let us now declare openly: These men are not the practitioners of our King’s Law, they obey not His statutes, and keep not His commandments. They have removed themselves from the Lord’s congregation, and we should likewise remove ourselves from them:

ס֣וּרוּ נָ֡א מֵעַל֩ אָהֳלֵ֨י הָאֲנָשִׁ֤ים הָֽרְשָׁעִים֙ הָאֵ֔לֶּה וְאַֽל־תִּגְּע֖וּ בְּכָל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר לָהֶ֑ם פֶּן־תִּסָּפ֖וּ בְּכָל־חַטֹּאתָֽם

I, for one, am not afraid of sounding “mystical”. I truly believe and fear the judgment of our Eternal Lord, but there is another point. If National Orthodoxy does not give Haredism a clear and clean cut divorce, it would be in danger of drifting into radicalization due to the Haredi illusion of authentic fidelity to the Torah, thus losing not only the national ideal, but the actual practice of genuine Halachah.

By: Evan Gadol, We encourage our readers to go check out Evan’s Substack!

Several years ago, during the isolation of lockdown when we were all attempting to have social lives online, I had the unexpected pleasure of engaging with several Kurdish activists discussing their identity as indigenous people in the Middle East. While Jewish indigeneity to Israel is obvious to anyone who takes time to consider it, I hadn’t spent much time thinking about how other indigenous peoples in the greater Southwest Asia-North Africa region expressed that connection.

My Kurdish friends spoke with pride about their traditional clothing—how they used the colors of their mountains to inspire their designs. On ordinary days, they dressed like most of us: t-shirts, pants, skirts. But for holidays, weddings, and important events, their traditional styles were on full display. This struck me powerfully. Jews have done an incredible job preserving our culture and connection to our homeland. We pray multiple times daily for the return of our exiles to Israel. But how many of us think about Jewish clothing? And if we do, we likely picture Hasidic garb as somehow more authentically Jewish than jeans and a t-shirt.

Realizing we’d lost to memory much of what our traditional clothing looked like started me on a journey of excavating and recreating our ancient dress. What I discovered surprised me: how we dressed both participated in and distinguished us from how the other nations around us dressed at the time. We were visibly Jewish, and that visibility was intentional, commanded, and deeply practical.

What We Actually Wore

The base garment throughout the Ancient Near East was some form of tunic. Ours, like most, typically fell to just below the knee, rising to just above the knee when belted.1 There was variation in hem length and sleeves—the Talmud suggests that sleeve length indicated both the weaver’s skill and the wearer’s social status.2 Evidence points to more respectable garments having sleeves extending to the wrist rather than just the elbow, which was common even among nobility in neighboring cultures. While it is unclear what may have been worn in centuries prior, by the Second Temple era, most people in Israel wore linen as the garment closest to the body, and Beit She’an was famous across the Roman Empire for producing the highest quality linen.3

The outer garment was a long rectangular woolen wrap that Greeks called a himation, Romans called a toga, and we called a tallit or me’il.4 Unlike modern tallitot, ancient versions were much longer and usually less wide. This wasn’t just ceremonial garb as it is today—it was multipurpose. The Torah commands us to return a garment taken as pledge against debt because the borrower might use it as his blanket.5 As someone who has experimented with these wraps, I can confirm: it works remarkably well as a blanket even for someone as tall as myself.

Wool might seem counterintuitive for the Middle Eastern climate, but the fiber’s twist actually provides insulation in both directions—keeping you warm in the cold and protecting your cooler body temperature from significantly warmer air.6 More importantly, while ancients couldn’t dye linen well or permanently, they were extraordinarily skilled at dyeing wool as we see from archeological finds of brilliantly dyed wool fabric fragments.

Here’s what made us visually unmistakable: every tallit worn by a Jewish man had tzitzit on its four corners, with one strand of each dyed with tekhelet—that precious blue-purple dye so valued that it’s likely why Greeks named all Canaanites “Phoenician,” after the Levantine traders who sold them this rare, fade-resistant color.7 That single blue thread on every corner of every Jewish man’s outer garment made us instantly identifiable across the Ancient Near East. While people could probably recognize a Moabite from other cultural signifiers, our distinctiveness was particularly obvious.

Explorations in Experimental Archaeology

Understanding this intellectually is one thing. Wearing it is another entirely.

My first experiment was a workman’s tunic—basic, sleeveless, something that would have been worn for physical labor or even warfare. I made it longer than I initially planned, hemming it below my knees. Then I wore it hiking. The strange looks I got from other hikers were mitigated by the fact that I was clearly normal enough to have friends willing to hike with me, but more importantly, I learned immediately why the hem needed adjustment—having fabric at or below my knees made taking longer strides completely impractical. I raised the hem by several centimeters and was satisfied with both the ease of movement and comfort. This wasn’t arbitrary fashion—this was functional design refined over generations. No wonder this was what men wore to war where they would need to run at full speeds.

Around the same time, I made what I called my “one-day-tallit”—something that would be a proper tallit one day. I wanted freedom to experiment with how to wear a large fabric shawl without the halakhic concerns about tzitzit yet, so my partner in this project rolled up one of the four corners and sewed it down. I’d chosen linen fabric to experiment with, and there were questions about wool tzitzit on linen, plus the additional challenge of sourcing proper linen tzitzit.

What I discovered transformed my understanding entirely. The way I currently wrap is one of many plausible ancient styles, largely depending on how much I needed my arms free for different activities. My one-day-tallit is about two meters long—a bit longer than my wingspan—which provides plenty of fabric to wrap comfortably and stay in place. Much longer would become problematic.

But the revelation was how practical it was. I took it on several hikes and discovered I could easily adjust it for more ventilation and breeze while still keeping the sun off my arms and face. In Israel’s climate, this isn’t a minor consideration—it’s essential. The design wasn’t ceremonial dress that happened to be wearable; it was brilliantly engineered daily wear that was imbued with ritual significance. Since then I’ve made formal Chag and Shabbat robes as well, which I wear often. When someone on the street asked if I wasn’t dreadfully hot, I answered honestly: I was sweating less than in my gym clothes.

Wearing these garments—feeling how the tunic moved when I hiked, discovering the multiple ways to wrap the tallit depending on whether I needed both arms free or wanted maximum sun protection, the swish of my robe around my ankles on Chag—gave me a deeper understanding that no amount of research could provide. I understood viscerally why these designs persisted for over a thousand years.

What We Discovered by Rediscovering

Here’s what struck me most powerfully: We think of our distinctiveness in terms of what we believed, how we practiced, what we ate, how we prayed. While those made us different in fundamental ways, these are invisible markers unless you’re inside someone’s home or synagogue. But in the ancient world, we were visibly Jewish from a distance from the style of our beards to the wrap of our tallitot, and of course, the highly visible brilliantly blue thread on the tzitzit.

That visibility wasn’t accidental. It was commanded. And it was practical—woven into garments that worked brilliantly for the climate and activities of daily life. We weren’t maintaining visibility despite practicality; the visibility was built into practical design.

What we’ve lost isn’t merely a historical curiosity; it’s an embodied identity. My Kurdish friends intuitively grasped something we’ve forgotten in our long exile: indigenous peoples maintain visible cultural markers. They wear their mountains in their clothing on important days. We once wore our distinctiveness every day, and that distinctiveness was beautiful, practical, and unmistakably ours.

The remarkable thing is that this is nearly all recoverable. The designs are relatively simple. The materials are available. The knowledge of how to construct these garments still exists in experimental archaeology and textile history. We can wear this again—not as a costume, but as a reclaimed inheritance.

We’ve preserved so much through exile and persecution. We’ve held onto language, practice, prayer, law, connection to land. Perhaps now that we have returned to our land, it’s time to rediscover what it means to be visibly, proudly, practically Jewish in our daily dress. Not instead of jeans and t-shirts for most days—just as my Kurdish friends do—but for Shabbat, holidays, weddings, moments when we gather as ourselves.

This is ours. It’s been waiting for us to remember.

A computer doesn’t function without some sort of operating system. Without a basic system to instruct components how to interact together, the computer could never turn on; the power button couldn’t initialize startup because there’d be no startup functions. So too with the human mind: without a basic system of thought, there could be no thought whatsoever. This is what Kant referred to as a priori. All those abilities babies seem to have from birth, like the ability to identify an object as an object, are part of a priori.

There’s another level of thought that is adopted very early on. It seems to come in at the same time as language. This is because this is the level that connects thoughts together. Once one has a thought– something simple, like table when one sees a table–, one begins to feel some way about the table. This is encoded into language. I see the table. That’s more complex. It requires an understanding of the concept of sight. (What is sight? Does one affect the object seen when one sees it? Newtonian: no; Quantum: yes.)

Also necessary is the first person pronoun: I. Who am I? Am I the table? One has to be able to identify oneself as separate to other things, and other things as separate to oneself. (Narcissists have a very difficult time with the latter clause.)

The questions rhetorically asked in the last two paragraphs are actually much more complicated than at first glance. I tried to hint to that fact through the parentheses. In Medieval Europe, it was well-received knowledge that the world was lit up by one’s eyes. Sight created the image. Then, once they got a hold of Aristotle from Muslim Spain, they discovered that light existed on its own, and that light bounces off an object, enters the eye, and thus forms the image. The world exists as other to you, independent of you: Sight is the process by which we are subjugated to objective reality.

That might seem correct to you, the reader. It is common sense today in European-dominated cultures that there is an objective reality that we discover by observing it. In the early 20th century, that was challenged to such a degree that one could return to the old, medieval understanding. According to quantum mechanics, the act of observation affects reality. By seeing, the image is created. There would be a different image if it hadn’t been seen.

All this is to demonstrate two fundamental points: (1) A system of serious, legitimate, philosophical answers is a prerequisite for forming second-level thoughts, such as simple sentences; and (2) There is more than one valid system. We know there is more than one valid system, since you, the reader, are simultaneously expected to believe quantum mechanics– the height of European Science– and the “common sense” that Science endorsed for hundreds of years, and still endorses at certain scales. The image is created, but the image is independent. These are two systems, equally valid.

Additionally, when one wishes to change the way they think– the way they form sentences– they must adopt some other philosophical answer first, and only then reject the old answer. If it were the other way around, they’d be left without a sentence to accept the new answer. Momentarily, they hold two answers to be true. This is cognitive dissonance, which can cause someone to lash out or act irresponsibly if they can’t reject the old answer, and that moment of having two answers lasts too long.

How does the baby adopt a philosophical system so young? The same way they adopt language: observation and imitation (with an a priori framework to allow for development). The baby sees everyone speaking and acting in accordance with their shared philosophical system, and subsequently imitates, adopting that very same system. The system is called civilization.

One cannot be outside civilization. It is not possible, just as it is impossible to form simple sentences without language. However, just as one can learn a new language, one can “emigrate” from one civilization to another. There is more than one civilization. Rome, China, Greece, India, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Egypt…

Egypt.

Israel left Egypt, but where did they go? They went to Israel. The Exodus was not just a physical exit from the borders of a state, but a spiritual exit from the philosophy of a civilization. Through the Ten Plagues, the journey to Sinai, the Revelation at Sinai, and the journeys through the desert, God bestows upon and teaches to the nation of the Children of Israel, the divine civilization.

By: Jacob Levin

Early in the Book of Genesis, there is an odd, seemingly superfluous statement made at the end of a confusing episode. After a long exchange between Abraham and Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, Genesis 21:33 states:

“And Abraham planted an eshel in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God.”1

What is this eshel? Targum Onkelos and Ibn Ezra identify it as a tree.2 Due to linguistic evidence, scholars, academic and rabbinic alike, identify the tree as Tamarix aphylla.3

Tamarix aphylla, also known as Athel tamarisk, is the largest species of tamarisk. Its natural range is from Morocco to India, from Kenya to Turkey. It survives well in salty conditions; tamarisks are sometimes called “salt cedars” because their leaves exude a salty substance. At night, moisture in the air condenses on the salt, providing much needed water to the tree in arid climates. Its wood is sturdy and flame-resistant. Due to its size, it acts well as shelter from both wind and sun.

But why does the Torah spend precious words on Abraham planting a tree? Why does the type of tree matter? Onkelos thought a translation of “tree” was sufficient. And why is God referred to here as “the Everlasting God”?

The tamarisk was used in Israelite literature as a symbol of political legitimacy.

There was a popular, ancient poem called The Tamarisk and the Palm.4 It is in a genre known as disputation poetry, in which two objects debate each other as to which is better. Their titles are always the names of the two disputants: The Tamarisk and the Palm, The Hoe and the Plough, The Ox and the Horse, etc. The general structure for this genre is: (1) An introduction, giving context for what is being debated; (2) The disputation, composed of multiple arguments back and forth; and (3) An adjudication, in which an authority makes a final decision.

The introduction to The Tamarisk and the Palm includes a lengthy section discussing the origins of kingship, in which the first-ever king planted both a palm and a tamarisk. Thus, both the tamarisk and the palm were considered “kingly” trees in the Ancient Near East.

Even within the Tanakh, the eshel appears twice more, both in the context of kingship.

(1) “Now Saul was sitting in Gibeah, under the tamarisk-tree in Ramah, with his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about him.”5

The terms in Hebrew for “sitting” and “standing” in the verse have connotations of oaths and justice. Similar to how in English, in the “seat” of government, the judges “sit” in judgment, while the defendant “stands” trial. Additionally, there is a clear question: How could Saul be under a tree in Ramah if he’s in Gibeah? Both locations are distinct cities, as proven from the fact that Saul travelled from Gibeah to Ramah in search of his father’s donkeys. Rather, the mention of Ramah is not literal: it alludes to legitimacy from Samuel, who judged and prophesied in Ramah.

(2) “And they took their [Saul’s and his sons’] bones, and buried them under the tamarisk-tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.”6

After Saul’s defeat by the Philistines at Mt. Gilboa, the citizens of Jabesh-Gilead, whom Saul had saved and thus secured for himself the kingship, buried him in their city.

These two verses are interesting, in that they come towards the end of Saul’s reign. The first verse comes when David begins to contest Saul openly for the kingship, and the second is the conclusion of Saul’s reign, after his death. The two tamarisks in these two verses represent the two sources of Saul’s legitimacy as king. The tamarisk in Ramah refers to the fact that Samuel appointed him as king. It is fitting, therefore, that this source of legitimacy is alluded to near David’s rebellion, since David was also appointed by Samuel. The tamarisk in Jabesh refers to Saul’s victory in his first battle, which granted him legitimacy to rule. Therefore, he is buried beneath that tamarisk, after his final battle.7

Abraham planting a tamarisk establishes his political legitimacy. The first king in Mesopotamian mythology planted a tamarisk; the first king of Israel was associated with tamarisks; and Abraham planted a tamarisk, subtly announcing his kingship. Abraham invokes God with the appellation “the Everlasting God”, the only time in the whole Tanakh that phrase is used, implying that Abraham’s kingship will last forever, as God lasts forever.

Another meaning of “everlasting” is that any amount of time to wait is no matter. Abraham is certain that his kingship will be established, so he is patient, trusting God to give the entire land of the Philistines into his descendants’ hands. The tamarisk is especially fitting, as it is a resilient tree that produces salt, another symbol of longevity.

There is a seemingly alternative interpretation of what an eshel is. In Tractate Sotah 10a, R. Yehuda and R. Nehemya disagree as to what the eshel was. One says it was an orchard, and the other says it was an inn.8 These Tannaim are not saying that “eshel” does not mean “tamarisk”– they are explaining where Abraham’s political legitimacy came from.

If it was an inn, Abraham would have been providing lodging and food to travellers and the homeless. Abraham’s legitimacy came from his kindness and charity, interacting with common folk. This is similar to Michelle Bachelet, Gandhi, or Thurgood Marshall.

On the other hand, the orchard. The word for orchard is pardes, which is a common shorthand in Rabbinic literature for learning, especially esoteric subjects like Creation. This is because the word is an acronym for Peshat Remez Derash Sod, four methods of reading text.9 Abraham’s legitimacy, if the eshel was a pardes, came from teaching. Abraham established a house of learning, disseminating his ideas.

Both the inn and the orchard fit with Resh Laqish’s derasha, which immediately follows the two opinions in Sotah:

“Do not read this word literally as vayyikra, and he called, but rather as vayyakri, and he caused others to call. This teaches that Abraham, our forefather, caused the name of the Holy One, Blessed be He, to be called out in the mouth of all passersby. How so? After the guests of Abraham ate and drank, they arose to bless him. He said to them: But did you eat from what is mine? Rather, you ate from the food of the God of the world. Therefore, you should thank and praise and bless the One Who spoke and the world was created. In this way, Abraham caused everyone to call out to God.”10

If this is the inn, the first half is emphasized: The travellers ate and drank and were taught to thank God for the food. If this is the pardes, emphasize the second half: Abraham taught them about Creation, and they learned to call out to God.

The tamarisk, a resilient, regal tree, is a symbol in Israelite literature for political legitimacy and longevity. By planting a tamarisk, Abraham demonstrates his faith in God to establish an everlasting kingship over the land of Canaan, including the land of the Philistines, with whom he had major disputes. Abraham meanwhile takes action, creating his own political legitimacy through community service and/or ideological dissemination. So too, we should be patient and trust in God that He will establish our republic, while we make concerted efforts to enact His Will.

By: Hila Oz

In the discourse surrounding the Jewish people’s status in relation to Eretz Yisrael, there is often discussion of our ownership of the land. With the more recent mainstream adoption of the title of indigenous peoples, many hasbarists misuse the word to essentially make the argument, “I was here first so it is mine and I can do what I want with it.”

Rather than accept any criticism of the State (unless the criticism targets those who are more clearly aligned with Bnei Yisrael’s national missions in the land), they throw the word “indigenous” around like a geo-political get-out-of-jail-free card. In many of Israel’s more religiously observant neighborhoods, there is an embarrassing lack of care when it comes to cleanliness and the environmental viability of certain practices.

The holy streets of Yerushalayim are littered with garbage, and yet there seems to be more outrage about the thickness of a girl’s tights as she walks through those streets than the clear neglect of the kedusha of this land. While these are two separate issues with different cultural sources, they both showcase a lack of awareness of our ideal relationship with Eretz Yisrael.

In Sefer Bereishit, we see two pesukim regarding man’s relation to the land he resides on. First, Hashem commands man to “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it” (Bereishit 1:28). After, we are told that, “Hashem settled man in Gan Eden to work it and guard it” (2:15).

These two commands seem to be contradictory. If man is meant to master the land, should he not be allowed to do whatever he wants with it? Why must he also work and guard it?

We shall first tackle the issue of mastering the land. The Torah uses the word כבשה, which connotes conquest, force, and making subservient. We are told to essentially subdue the land right after it tells us that we were made in the image of God. On the surface it seems that the Torah is telling us we are to be complete masters, or gods even, of the land, forcing it to fulfill our every whim. We may believe that we, as beings created in a Divine image, have the power and ability to take what we want and do what we want with the land we were given to conquer.

This mode of thought, however, would lead one to falsely believe something quite sinister, G-d forbid, about Hashem. Hashem did not create a universe to be Master of in order to go on a power trip and feed His ego. The Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Luzzatto) tells us in Derech Hashem that He created the universe because He is good and therefore wanted to give good. His mastery over the universe is a vehicle for his love of it.

Liberal Zionism, in its adoption of western values, has unfortunately misconstrued what it means to be a master of this land. The goal of כיבוש הארץ, conquering the land, is so holy, but if that conquest is for the sake of exploitation or ego, the holiness of the mission is lost. Not only that, but it is an extremely colonial mindset, which is often seen by our critics as a negation of our indigenous status. According to our prophets and sages, mastery and kingship are never meant to be tyrannical. Malkhut is the lowest of all the sefirot because true kingship is being a public servant.

Hashem expresses His Kingship over the universe by providing every being with its every need to fulfill its purpose and receive the best possible reward from their existence. It stands to reason, then, that if Hashem’s dominion over us is really Him taking responsibility and caring for us, that when we, in the Divine image, are told to have dominion over the land, it is a call for us to care for and take responsibility over it.

There is a similar concept when it comes to Jewish marriage. The Mishna in Kiddushin begins by telling us that, “a woman is acquired (נקנית) in three ways” (1:1). Rabbi David Fohrman explains that while it seems backwards and misogynistic to acquire or buy a woman through marriage, the real understanding of the passage is entirely different. He relates the acquisition of a wife to the acquisition of Torah mentioned in Pirkei Avot 6:6. “We think acquisition is about owning things, about controlling them–and to some extent, when acquisition is about things, maybe it is… But how would you translate ‘acquired’ in this context?

Do I, the one who learns Torah, control it? If anything, it controls me! The Torah demands a certain lifestyle of me–and yet I ‘acquire’ it! This kind of acquisition has very little to do with control. It seems, instead, to be about responsibility. I don’t ‘control’ the Torah–that would be an act of defilement. The Torah that I learn is mine, perhaps, in the sense that it ‘completes’ me, and my responsibility is to treasure it, to appreciate it for what it is, and to keep it safe.”1

The Land of Israel is our soulmate and we have been charged with her wellbeing. In the same way a man does not own or control his wife or the Torah he learns, our acquisition of the land is marked by our responsibility to it, not force or conquest of it. Therein lies the obligation to work it and to guard it.

On the other side of the spectrum, with communities who do not recognize our political sovereignty over the land (imperfect as it may be), we face a different issue. Rav Cherki, in his article on Judaism and Nature,2 brings down different mishnayot which show an obligation to clean and beautify the land. He quotes the Ran who says that this obligation to beautify only applies within Eretz Yisrael and Rabbi Yosef Karo who adds that it also does not apply if Eretz Yisrael is under foreign occupation.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus among the Jewish people as to what constitutes foreign occupation. From my earlier argument, we see the danger in believing that we are masters of this land if we do not recognize the responsibilities that come with it. If one does not recognize the state as legitimate Jewish governance, though, they may falsely believe that it is okay to trash the land since they still believe it to be in exile (whether they are correct or not).

So, how can we reconcile these two worldviews and fix the mistakes on either side? I believe that the answer lies in Sefer Vaykira. “But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me. Throughout the land that you hold, you must provide for the redemption of the land.” (25:23-24)

Here, Hashem is telling us something absolutely crucial. We do not, nor have we ever, nor will we ever own the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel owns us. Even when we create governments and have kings, there is no true sovereign over the Land of Israel but Hashem. Our ability to freely live in our land comes from our dedication to treating it according to the standards set by Hashem.

If we act immorally, the Torah tells us we will be exiled. More than that, however, is that there is an obligation to redeem it. If the land is not being kept by its proper guard, something is deeply wrong. Hashem tells us, לארץ תתנו גאלה, give geula to the land. Rav Yosef Karo is not saying that we should neglect the land.

Rather, it seems to me that he is saying there is something wrong–the land is under foreign occupation–which prevents us from properly beautifying it. By becoming complicit in its foreign occupation by vandalizing the land with garbage and environmentally irresponsible practices, we refute our obligation to give the land geula.

May we all merit to beautify, guard, protect, and thereby master our land through the ultimate governance of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

By: Dr. Jon Greenberg, Biblical and Talmudic Ethnobotanist, TorahFlora.org

The growth and dynamic creativity of Israel have promoted experimentation in the revival and reinterpretation of ancient and modern Jewish culture, agriculture, and religion. The resulting innovations carry new risks, benefits, and questions. Here, I will address some of these developments in the areas of holiday observance and the re-centering of agriculture and residence in Israel in our understanding of Jewishness.

Tu b’Shvat began as the end of the fiscal year for the calculation of ma’aser (tithes) and bikkurim (first fruits) of tree fruits.1 Its late-winter timing ensures that the previous year’s fruit crop is finished, and the new fruits have not yet formed, making it easy to identify the new crop for calculating its tithe.2 After the destruction of the Second Temple, there was no opportunity to donate ma’aser or bikkurim, and Tu b’Shvat became a memorial for the Temple and the land of Israel. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Tu b’Shvat acquired a new meaning as a celebration of Jewish agriculture in Israel. A huge Tu b’Shvat picnic for schoolchildren organized by the Israel Teachers’ Association in 1910 was a major event in this redefinition. Today, Tu b’Shvat is widely understood as a celebration of the land of Israel and its trees and fruits. Since the 1970s, activists have also attempted to enlist Tu b’Shvat for various causes, including environmentalism and feminism.

Tu b’Av (the fifteenth of Av) is midsummer’s day, halfway between Pesach and Sukkot. It began as a festival of national unity, a function that has recently returned in modern form. The earliest source for Tu b’Av is a Mishna.3 The Gemara4 explains the celebration of Tu b’Av with a list of events that occurred on this day. Notably, most of them promoted Jewish unity: The end of the ban on intermarriage between the tribes of Israel, the removal of the northern kingdom’s border guards who blocked festival visits to Jerusalem, and the end of the war against the tribe of Benjamin.5 It is also the time when olives begin to accumulate oil. The olive tree is unusual in that its fruit ripens within a two-week window in all of Israel’s highly diverse climatic regions. This fact and the olive’s connection to Tu b’Av made it a symbol of Jewish national unity. Following the Maccabean civil war, when Israel was in urgent need of reconciliation, the appeal of this symbolism was so strong that the olive-oil chanukiyah displaced an earlier symbol of Chanukah.6 Thus, the large menorah in front of the Knesset building can be understood as a sign of national unity.

The Talmud7 also relates that when intertribal marriage was forbidden, people who could not find a match within their own tribe would meet when women would dance in the vineyards on Tu b’Av and Yom Kippur to find a spouse. In recent years, this tradition has reappeared in the form of Tu b’Av mixers and other singles events. Since 2022, Neot Kedumim Biblical Gardens near Modi’in has hosted an annual Tu b’Av evening. About 300 people came this year dressed in white (as single women did when they danced in the ancient vineyards) for a moonlit walk and a harp concert.

Other revived or reconceived ancient holiday customs include the late twentieth-century popularization of visiting Jerusalem or praying at the Kotel on major festivals, in memory of the mitzvot of aliyah l’regel and re‘iyah (holiday pilgrimage to the Temple). Contemporary efforts to restore the religious and cultural status of Israeli agriculture also include attempts to revive the cultivation of frankincense used in the Temple incense8 and ancient Israelite varieties of grapes9 and dates.10

More broadly, we see the reinvigoration of the importance of the land, state, and residence in Israel as central to both Judaism and Jewishness. This is not only a consequence of the success of the Zionist movement. It also reflects the steady increase in the portion of the Jewish people living in Israel over the last 70 years. By 2020, about 46% of the world Jewish population was living in Israel, a larger share than that of any diaspora national community.11 As Israelis become the majority of world Jewry, several longstanding assumptions may change.

First, the difference between Jews and Israelis, and therefore between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, will become less meaningful and more difficult to justify. This was demonstrated as early as the 1976 Entebbe airline hijacking, when terrorists separated all Jewish passengers from the others, regardless of citizenship, and as recently as the 2019 and 2023 Hamas calls for worldwide attacks on Jews.

Second, the status of several mitzvot and customs may change dramatically. The Torah predicates several mitzvot on the Jewish people’s residence in their land. Among these is the mitzvah of challah,12 reserving part of each batch of bread that we bake for a Kohen.13 For many centuries, this Torah obligation has not applied, because most Jews lived outside of Israel, but the practice of taking challah has been preserved as a custom, with the Kohen’s portion burned to prevent its forbidden consumption by non-Kohanim.

There is some debate over whether challah will once again become a Torah obligation when the majority of Jews are Israeli. Many poskim hold that this can only happen if each tribe of Israel has been restored to its ancestral lands, an unlikely prospect. Even highly Zionistic rabbis are generally cautious about the revival of challah as a Torah obligation, perhaps out of reluctance to return significant status and authority to the Kohanim.

The ability to reconceive both Jewishness and Judaism is one of the great accomplishments of modern Israel. However, it carries both promise and hazards. Certainly the social, political, economic, and military strength and critical mass of Jewish population continue to promote confidence, experimentation, and creativity in adapting Jewish life for this new reality. In many ways, Israeli Jewry is arguably more robust today than it has been anywhere since Temple times. The examples of Tu b’Av and Tu b’Shvat, holidays with few halachic requirements, show how an opportunity for flexibility attracts innovation and experimentation. The agrarian ideal has a messianic dimension as well, with the renewed attention to challah, terumah, and ma’aser raising the profile of a potential Third Temple economy administered by a resurgent priesthood.

Nor is the agrarian ideal limited to Israel’s explicitly religious sector. Ben Gurion spoke for much of the nation when he cautioned against an economic development strategy that would lead to a primarily urban society. Despite the widespread economic shift from agriculture to advanced technology, love of the land and concern with its natural history and conservation remain strong in Israel.

The appeal of helping to usher in the messianic age is powerful, and our history cautions us to appraise new claimants and movements skeptically. However, faith in a future messianic age and hope for its arrival are not simply erratic fringe impulses.

They are core Jewish beliefs, codified in the Rambam’s Thirteen Principles and ubiquitous since antiquity in our liturgy, history, and national aspirations. The challenge today is to sift wisely through our many options for those that will best help the nation of Israel to survive, flourish, and be a kiddush haShem for many years ahead.

By: R. Isaac Ludmir

There is no more enduring, intriguing and versatile appellation of God in Israelite literature than that of God as king. This very imagery was used both in rejecting kingship during the period of the Judges1 as well as justifying the monarchy. A common theme throughout both the monarchic and republican narratives is that rulers are not legitimated by their own power, but by submitting to the King of Kings - God Almighty.

We see the motif of God’s regality throughout the Torah itself. The Ark is understood to be the metaphorical Throne of God, whose Divine Presence rests on the Cherubim. Unlike non-Jewish kings whose rule is enforced by strength alone, Jewish kings must submit to God as a prerequisite for legitimacy. The throne of David is often called “The Throne of God”, reminding the erstwhile monarch that it is God who truly rules.

During Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew year, all three of the major holidays emphasize crowning God as King over the world. The Torah itself does not describe Rosh Hashanah as anything other than a holiday on which to blow the Shofar.2

Rather, many scholars speculate that the practices of the holiday directly parallel the ancient Akitu festival of Babylonia.3 During the Akitu festival, the chief god of the Babylonians - Bel/Marduk, would be recrowned as king over the Mesopotamians and sit in judgement over the world. As he would sit in judgement, the people would beseech his forgiveness and purify themselves. It was during the era of the Judges, Akitu was reinterpreted through a monotheistic lens. On Rosh Hashanah, God is crowned King and is judged with the rest of the world. Proceeding to Yom Kippur, it repents for its sins and is purified and finally on Sukkot, God accepts our purification and judges us favorably.4

In the Ancient Near East, it was a matter of fact that gods dwell, like kings, in concrete, inaccessible, lavish dwellings. Such premises were represented and accessible through the Temples, which, mystically, were collocated and/or mystically identical to these mythic premises. Thus, all the “Houses of Baal” were one and the same as Baal’s mythic residence on Mt. Saphon. Only expert priests could approach the icon of the god dwelling in the inner sanctuary, serve it, and beseech it.5

Israel, if anything, was the outlier: The God of the Bible is a revealed one. One who accompanies His people, both collectively and individually, in their daily life, that is, if the Israelites keep His Law. If they do not, then they understood that certain acts can drive God to withdraw and “conceal His face” from them.6 In the same way other Ancient Near Eastern peoples did. In effect, God allowed Himself to be made, instead of a hidden king, a co-citizen in the Israelite community.

But such a renunciation of God’s royal status and nature carries with it a paradox: If God gives up the royal quality of concealment, Man might be tempted to treat Him with casual disdain. In effect, He runs the risk of emptying from Man’s life the feeling of the sacred and awesome, the special trembling in the Presence. For that reason, He makes it clear that not only would defilement cause Him to withdraw, but, in effect, once a year the people are made to experience that withdrawal. God is enthroned, that is, He conceals Himself in His sanctuary and reveals that the indulgent Father is, in fact still the mighty and dreadful Lord of Israel.

Sound, just like taste, smell, and sight in the Ancient Near East was both cultic and political. It was the evocative, piercing, and sudden sound of the ram’s horn – the sound which silences all others – which was associated with the god (and the king) being revealed. In ancient Israel in particular, the shofar signified both a practical alarm for war and a ritual summoning of God to the “ranks of Israel”.7

This is not due to God being particularly warlike – in fact El/Y-H-W-H is consistently presented both by Scripture and the mythic language of the Temple ritual as a peaceful king. Rather, because war by necessity, is the ultimate test of two societies pitting all they – and their gods – have to offer against each other. A society who loses a war to another, in the logic of the Ancients (including the Israelites) must have had gods which are weaker than the victors or that have been abandoned by their gods due to some great impiety. Thus, war was the ultimate test of Divine revelation and presence – or of concealment and abandonment. This is the reason for the ancient Israelite practice of taking the Ark to war and accompanying it with the sound of shofar.8

The sound of the Shofar on Rosh HaShanah should be understood as a mark, or a summoning, for God to end His concealment and restore the normal relationship with His people. It is therefore quite telling that Yom Kippur was conducted in almost pure silence. God had deigned to end His concealment, and therefore, His people and the Earthly home He shares with them (the Land) must be purified in preparation of His coming.

Only once the purification ends and the sins of Israel are sent out of the camp, can the High Priest enter the Sanctuary and invite God to quit His concealment and partake in the Hag (Sukkot) – the Festival, “the time of your joy” – whose high point is the Assembly (Atzeret/Haqhel) in which they reenact the historic “Assembly” at Sinai. Man joyfully reaccepts God’s Kingship by inviting him to rule over him.

He is made a willing recipient of God’s word. He hears, and he obeys. The rebellious vassal-son have been subdued and restored to the King’s service and grace, and they now can walk and feast together lovingly, quietly, and joyously.

By: Jacob Levin

The Constitution of the United States is an awe-inspiring document, in that it was the first in the Western World to delineate the structure, obligations, and boundaries of a government, such that the government would not infringe on the lives of man. However, it is not the first such document outside the West.

The entire book of Devarim functions as a constitution for the Israelite civilization. However, Devarim does not stop at defining a government. It defines the entire republic. The word republic has changed drastically since its coining. Today it refers to a particular system of government. It comes from the Latin res publica, “public thing”, and, as evidenced by the nebulous word “thing”, referred to some amalgamation or abstraction of state and society. In that ancient sense I use the word republic, signified by italics.

The first three parashot, Devarim, Ve’Etchanan, and Ekev, act similarly to the Preamble to the Constitution. They summarize the republic’s purpose: to live in the land of Israel, keeping the commandments to have a relationship with God. The second triad of parashot, Re’eh, Shof’tim, and Ki Tetze, details the government and society of the Israelite republic. The third triad of the book, composed of Ki Tavo, Netzavim, and Vayelekh, describes the fruits of the republic, its implementation, and its transmission. The final two parashot– Ha’azinu, Ve’zot Ha’Berakhah– relate fundamental, illegislable elements: wisdom and character.

As much as I would like to spend a thousand words on each parasha, proving each phrase and clause of my assessment above, I only have a thousand words for all the parashot. So please excuse the hand-waving arguments below; maybe in the future, I can devote an entire article to each parasha, as they deserve.

The parashot of Devarim– the actual breaks in the text, not the weekly portion– are five: (1) An introduction to the book and recounting of the sin of the spies; (2) encountering Esau; (3) encountering Moab; (4) encountering Ammon; and (5) the war against Sihon and Og, and the tribes of Gad and Reuben conquering and settling their territory. The first parasha is about how we rejected the land.1 The middle three parashot are about how the other nations inherited their own land.2 The fifth is that Gad and Reuben are inheriting theirs,3 and now the rest of Israel should inherit theirs, rectifying the sin in the first parasha.

If our goal is to inherit the land, how do we accomplish that? By keeping the commandments.4 Do not stray to idolatry,5 and do not forget your identity.6 Remember always the foundation of our Law,7 and repeat it constantly.8

But do not think that actions alone acquire the land.9 Rather, it is because of a relationship with God,10 for only He grants victory.11

That victory is the usurpation of the land from its previous inhabitants, and is detailed in the second triad. In Re’eh, Moshe instructs that the land should be cleared of evil influence.12 Do not let anyone revert to evil ways.13 Instead, fill the land with good,14 and sacrifice in one place.15

Parashat Shof’tim is filled with laws of government. Establish courts and their officers.16 Establish a High Court,17 and appoint a king.18 When a court can’t administer justice, the king ensures evil is crushed and good prevails.19 He expands the borders of the republic to fill the world with justice.20

Ki Tetze answers the deepest questions about the society of the republic: how we treat each other in difficult, unfortunate situations. How could civilians be enemies, and how do we treat them?21 What a tragedy it would be for a wife to be despised, and how should her husband relate to her? To her son– his son?22 Grapes and wheat were never meant to be together, but here they are: what do we do?23 In an imperfect world, how do we cope? In a world with ‘Amaleq, how do we survive?24

If we follow the laws, implementing the republic as it has been described until this point, we enjoy the fruits of our labor.25 That’s the subject of Ki Tavo. If, however, we do not implement the republic, society collapses. The government fails. Our own brothers treat us with contempt, and we treat God with contempt. Our entire civilization evaporates, and we are exiled, to be ridiculed and defiled.

How important it is then to accept the mandate from God to build this republic. In Netzavim, we are taught that the decision is in our hands, now, to create what God intended us to build.26 The Torah is on Earth27 to actualize its teachings in the form of the republic.

And we must ensure that successive generations will not treat the republic lightly. To instill in our children a love of God, a love of His Torah, and a love of His land. To that end, Moses appoints Joshua, in Parashat Vayelekh. The next generation, our children, must be taught to hold firm to the Torah, to be strong and brave.28 To have a “new Jew” attitude in establishing the republic. Every seven years, the entire nation congregates to study “the Book of the Republic”, even the children– especially the children– so that every generation will be in awe, and hold fast to the good that God gives us in the form of the republic.29

The republic, at this point, would be successfully transferred to the next generation. What more is left?

There are some things that cannot be legislated. The Constitution of the United States did its best, but without the proper “cultural aeroponics” and maintenance, the republic is destined to devolve. One such illegislable thing is wisdom. A wise society rejects the fashions and whims of advertising agencies, preferring the peace produced by sages. Talmidei hachamim, or students of the Sages, generate peace.30 Imagine an entire population of talmidei and talmidot hachamim. Not every member of that society needs the stores of knowledge of a sage; they need only internalize Hillel’s patience and Shammai’s respect.

Wisdom– this is the subject of Ha’azinu. Moses begins his lesson with a praise of God, lauding His justice and morality, directed at the unwise nation that caused destruction.31 The nation has to be told to remember and to receive knowledge from their elders32, two quintessential elements of wisdom and its acquisition. The nation’s beginnings were sweet, but after generations it grew fat and abandoned the trustworthy knowledge of God.33 “They are a nation who destroys good advice, and they themselves have no understanding. If they were wise, they would contemplate this, and understand what their end will be.”34

The final parasha could be understood as federalism, the sharing of political powers between a national government and state or tribal governments. Considering that each tribe is blessed individually, and a king (i.e., a central government) emerges when the tribes unite,35 this reading is entirely valid and plausible. However, such an assessment would make this parasha better suited for the second triad, not the end of the book. Instead, the concept of the parasha is character– tribal identity.

Who today instinctively feels the cultural differences between Connecticut and Rhode Island? Between Delaware and Maryland? Their early histories and cultures were so different, but today, one would be excused for wondering why they are separate states altogether. The same cannot be said for the tribes. Tamar Weissman’s and Fishel Mael’s books, among countless others, are proof of that.

The entire book of Devarim is about the republic, and it seems the final parasha includes a name for that nebulous concept: eshdath, the Fire of the Law.

By: Ariel Yaari

It is never easy to offer a diagnosis. When a physician informs their patient of their terminal illness, the family views them as the harbingers of doom. Nonetheless, the doctor has a very important job. Only once a diagnosis is made can a treatment begin. While trials and tribulations may lay ahead, the road to recovery can begin. The earlier something is found, the earlier it can be treated. With any luck, the patient can return to his life as it was, with his time in hospice fading into the sands of time. Therefore, for the good of my people who I care so deeply about, I must issue a diagnosis of my own:

Jews are weak.

Weakness is not fundamental to Jewishness. In fact, it is antithetical to our very nature. Our God and our Law require strength of will and character.1 The Torah is for the bold, for the proactive. Joshua took action against the Canaanites. Yael took action against Sisera. David took action against Goliath. Esther took action against Haman. This is the true reflection of Jewish nature.

Jews became weak in Exile. Nearly all accounts of Jews in antiquity describe us as a remarkably bellicose people who were ready to go to war after increased provocation. Many know of the Great Revolt that brought an end to Jewish independence, and the Bar Kochba Revolt which followed it, but do not know about the three other Jewish-Roman Wars. We waged a total of five,2 in addition to us joining our Samaritan cousins during their revolts against the Empire.3 Even in Babylon, when the Sassanids adopted a persecutory form of Zoroastrianism which made Jewish life impossible, the Exilarch Mar Zutra II rebelled against them and founded a Jewish city-state at Mahoza.4

No one understood this better than the early Zionists. From Leon Pinsker to Theodor Herzl, all of these early Zionists shared similar backgrounds. They were largely bourgeois, “enlightened” Jews who were firm believers in Europe’s promise of emancipation.5 Since Napoleon, hadn’t valiant strides been made to ameliorate the material condition of the Jews in their host countries? Finally, after 1900 years of suffering in the ghettos, we would be liberated from our cages and join our fellow man in being noble citizens of the countries in which we lived.

The continuous reneging of this promise by various governments,6 accounting for the vicious antisemitism that came from the rank-and-file European, it soon became evident to all but the most “enlightened” Jews that emancipation was a cruel joke. The only way Jews would ever be free from the chains put upon them was by exercising strength to determine our own destiny. In the words of Herzl:

“We are a people – One people. We have honestly endeavored everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of our surrounding communities, and to preserve only the faith of our fathers. It has not been permitted to us. In vain are we loyal patriots… in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow citizens…”7

Our salvation will not come from without. Reliance on the nations of the world to ensure our security and common good is a futile and foolish endeavor. Only through national action can we save ourselves.

The most recent generation of Zionists forgot this fundamental principle of Jewish nationalism. How many times have you seen Jewish influencers, celebrities, professionals, administrators, and politicians complain or request help from the “international community”? It is nothing short of embarrassing. Antisemitism is rising in the world, of this there is no doubt.8 Why is it the collective responsibility of foreign governments to help solve this problem? Antisemitism is not an existential threat to America or Britain. It is an inherently Jewish problem and thus Jews should deal with it. Why are we asking others to solve our problems for us?

Like the “enlightened” Jews of old, there is a certain progressive cadre among our own that unwaveringly believe in the continuous progress of mankind toward toleration and pluralism. People are inherently good and as progress continues, the promise of universal toleration will liberate us from our chains, whether self-imposed or put upon us by others. Israel will become a hub of Middle Eastern cross-cultural mixing and Israel will be just one state among a broader Middle Eastern family.9

We have essentially reinvented the assimilationist Jewish argument for the modern era. History hasn’t been kind to assimilationists so far and I doubt that it will this time around.

Even where reactions against this kind of neoliberal/progressive politics have come about, they have always been sustained by grievance politics. We can’t rely on the nations of the world, yes, but the reason our state is legitimate is because we were wronged and deserve recompensation for being wronged. Sometimes you hear it as a justification for Israel’s founding after the Holocaust. Other times, it takes the form of an indigeneity argument, “We were colonized by such-and-such empire and therefore we have a right to be here.”

Recompensation and rights are tricky because they are almost always granted by someone else on behalf of a supplicant. Courts demand recompensation be paid to a victim. Governments grant rights. Who has granted us the right to live in Israel? God himself does not hand it to us, but tells us to take up arms and fight for it.10 The UN didn’t grant us it in 1947, but told us: “You can have this if you survive. Good luck.”

Rights did not guarantee us anything. The rifle’s crack did. Organizing power in institutions did. Statecraft did.

America is the most powerful nation on Earth today. America is sovereign, meaning that it defines the rules of the game for itself. America is agriculturally self-sufficient.11 It has the resources to produce its munitions at home.12 This is why for all the UN resolutions in the world, for all the finger wagging by the Europeans, America has been able to act with impunity despite them. Sovereignty is what sets the standard. The standard is tacitly dictated, but not followed when necessity demands something else. The sovereign is he who decides the exception.13

Jews must stop outsourcing our sovereignty. To bat our eyes at the nations of the world and proclaim that “Woe is us, look at how persecuted we are!” is not bound to elicit any respect, especially when we demand actions of others to maximize our security.

In Christian folklore exists a figure called “the Wandering Jew,” who due to some offense committed against Jesus, is cursed to wander the Earth aimlessly until the Second Coming, when he will be absolved of his sin and be allowed to rest.14 Many of us have been content to make ourselves “Wandering Jews,” hoping for the final day of universal equality that has been promised by the modern era. I, for one, am not content with this existence. The reason Jews have remained a distinct people is because we did not buy into the false promises of universal acceptance at the end of history. A promise first made by the Church, now by international institutions.

As we have done in the past, we must reject this siren song and return to the most fundamental of Jewish principles – Strength.

By: Joshua Black

Judaism is not a religion. Rather, it is a lost civilization. Ancient Israel had law and sacred rituals, like a religion, but it also had poetry, music, art, cuisine, agriculture, and more, all the pieces which comprise a civilization.

When the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed by the Babylonians, we lost all that. Only the law remained. Every civilization has its own versions of law, poetry, music, etc. It’s what differentiates China from Rome, and vice versa.1

Love is not something one would categorize as an aspect of a civilization. After all, love is part of the collective human experience. Everyone experiences love, whether it is the love between spouses, parents and children, or siblings. So, how could love differ between civilizations?

While love may not be experienced differently across civilizations, the way each civilization expresses love, manifested by its laws and customs, are unique. Controlling and regulating love may sound strange, but that is exactly what marriage is. It makes the relationship exclusive and in-so-doing, one is able to build something that spans eternity.

Traditional systems regulating love are more than necessary– they are integral to civilization. Nearly every culture ever recorded has had some version of marriage.2 In the West, we are currently witnessing what happens when we don’t regulate these forces. A civilization that commodifies love rather than sanctifies it, faces a strong possibility of depopulation.3

Traditional marriage institutions are a civilizational means of directing and channeling love, allowing us to transform a selfish urge, our own hedonistic pleasure, into something positive, a partnership rearing the next generation, who will continue to build up the world. The nuanced differences between these control mechanisms are what distinguishes love between civilizations.

In the Israelite civilization we have unique laws that channel the emotion of love between husband and wife. The laws of Niddah4 prohibit physical contact during specific times. This creates an ebb and flow within a Jewish marriage: a time of closeness followed by a time of separation. In fact, when the laws of tum’ah and taharah were more strictly kept, the wife would often have an entirely separate building to herself, so as not to impure the regular household items. That has a massive impact on the nature of the love and connection between a Jewish husband and wife. This is an aspect of the civilizational structure of Israelite love, and is arguably one of the untouched aspects of our civilization.

The topic of Israelite civilizational love must include a discussion on the love between Hashem and Am Yisrael. One of the ways the Jewish people relate to Hashem is through the intimate relationships we have in our own lives. He is referred to as our Father, our Husband, even our Son.5 Although Hashem, being infinite, is beyond any of these roles, we cannot conceptualize a relationship with infinity; we therefore emotionally relate to Hashem through these roles, while intellectually understanding that He is beyond any single one of them. We will focus on the idea of Am Yisrael being Hashem’s wife.

In discussing the idea of Am Yisrael being Hashem’s wife we must understand the interplay between a husband, a wife, and a home.

The Bayit is the place of the relationship between a husband and wife; an intimate relationship requires an intimate space.6 This is one of the reasons that Jews are married beneath a Chuppah. A Chuppah is symbolic of a Bayit, where the relationship happens. The Beit Hamikdash is also referred to as a Bayit. It is where we engage in an intimate relationship with Hashem. Inside the Beit Hamikdash lay the Tablets, the ketubah between us and God,7 outlining the parameters of our relationship. When we discuss the idea of love in the Israelite civilization, we think of ourselves, Am Yisrael, in the Bayit, the Beit Hamikdash, with our husband, Hashem, engaging in an intimate relationship.

Post-destruction, the nature of that relationship has shifted drastically. We entered a state of impurity, and we were sent out of our home. A husband and wife need a home, a place for their relationship. We have lost that space.

Not only did we lose the Beit Hamikdash, but we also lost all those other aspects of civilization. Those aspects were tools used by Am Yisrael to engage in our relationship with Hashem. We don’t have those tools anymore, so we adapted to express our love differently. For example, we bring tefilla instead of korbanot. We are a husband and wife without a home. The relationship is different. There is a greater distance between us and Hashem than previously.

We do however have our land back, and this represents an opportunity to renew aspects of our civilization.

We currently stand in a strange time and place. We have our land back, yet exile is not over. We have Jews running the land of Israel, yet we have no Sanhedrin and no king. The Baal Teshuva movement has taken the world by storm, and there has never been more Torah learning, yet most Jews today remain disconnected. We hold the Temple Mount in our hands, yet we are not with our husband, and our home is still in ruins. We are in a time of contradiction, an unprecedented time where the state of our relationship with Hashem has shifted into the murky grey area between exile and redemption. We have finished our count of clean days, and we just need to immerse ourselves.

The Talmud Bavli in Niddah states that on the night of a Jewish wife’s ritual immersion, her husband feels the same love he did for her on the day of their marriage.8 Love does not change. Is there a distinction between the nature of ancient Israelites’ relationship with Hashem and our relationship with Hashem? Yes there is, but only in the expression of love. They had a close, intimate connection in the home, whereas we long for that connection, pining from a distance.

This article began with a statement that there is a base form of love that all people have, and that it is civilization which causes distinction. So too, there is a base level of love between Hashem and the Jewish people, and whether it manifests in the intimate actions within Hashem’s Bayit or in the longing of exile, the base level of love does not change.