Devarim - A Dvar Torah By Eric Mendelsohn

Devarim: A D'var Torah by Eric Mendelsohn

Parashat Devarim Deuteronomy 1:1-3,22 I once, tongue in cheek, summarized the Pentateuch as 1) Genesis - Everything happens. 2) Exodus - one big thing happens. 3) Leviticus - nothing happens. 4) Numbers - we are not quite sure what happened. 5) Deuteronomy - Let me tell you what happened. Let me tell you what happened is a process known as narrative. It is a presentation of our story, not of history. A selective reading of history, fable and popular belief constructed into a coherent directed whole. Most of which goes as history in grade school and high school is narrative not history. Narratives can compete, or coexist, but narratives are told for a purpose and believed for a purpose. An example of competing narratives are the different Turkish and Armenian stories of the events that took place in the early twentieth century, or the narrative that says the Japanese taught written language to the Koreans while scholarship points to the opposite. A set of competing narratives with which we are much concerned with are that of the Israeli War of Independence and the Palestinian Naqba. Perhaps they will become co-existing narratives. Competing narratives can eventually become co-existing narratives. An example of this is the story of Tories of the American revolutionary war and the United Empire Loyalists of the Canada -- those same traitors, thieves, and immoral no-goodniks chased out by the revolutionaries are the people who founded three of the four founding colonies of what became the Canadian confederation. While visiting Fredricton, New Brunswick, my son-in-law was surprised to find that its founders were from the same area of Maryland where he was born and grew up. I remember the awe some 55 years ago when our public school class consisting of Jews, Ukrainians, and Scots and Irish who came in the 19th and 20th centuries were told, and the teacher made a fuss about it, that one little girl had insisted on the hereditary right to place the letters U. E. L. after her name, signifying she was a direct descendant of Loyalists. (This practice has since faded almost completely). Here we have coexisting narratives which are contradictory and enhance both perspectives. What I wish to present is the competing narratives of the Deuteronomist and that of contemporary biblical scholarship and show how both can co-exist and enhance our lives as Reconstructionist Jews. What does the Deuteronomist wish to enhance by the narrative which begins with:

"These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan." 1) That all Israel wandered from slavery in Egypt to this place. 2) There were 12 united tribes in a single confederacy. 3) That the B'nai Israel had one God and they were punished for disobeying Him . 4) That the land of Israel was divinely promised and must be conquered. 5) That B'nai Israel were monotheists. 6) That there were no other gods. 7) That God of Israel was ethical. 8) That the moral and civil law were dictated by God. 9) That God intervened to punish both nations collectively and as individuals. 10)That God rewarded moral behavior. 11)That the God of Israel was the God of all humanity. 12)That Israel were a people chosen by God. 13)That Israel entered into a covenant with God. Of these 13 attributes of God and Israel's relation to God none are supported by modern scholarship and its narrative, any more than the existence of Adam and Eve in the garden, Abraham and the Patriarch tales, the Exodus, or almost everything about King David (who, if he existed, was a minor character) and almost all of the Solomon legends. But modern scholarship's narrative can co-exist with this narrative and add to it a most miraculous tale of a people and their God. It is the genius of the ancient interpreters in the years between 586 B.C.E. and 600 C.E. (The Babylonian exile to the closure of the Talmud), with the most important parts taking place between 70 C.E. and 200 C.E., who took varied and fragmented texts and constructed a narrative which has at its core ethical monotheism and preserved it through the generations as an open text for us to study and from that glean new bases for these principles. When we finish reading the Torah we start again. When we finish a chapter of Talmud we say "O (whatever chapter it is) we will return to you". We have a different d'var Torah on every parashah every week of our lives. Franz Rosenzweig, commenting on the documentary hypothesis which postulated authors J, the Yahwist, E, the Elohist, P, the priestly writer, D, the Deuteronomist and R, the final redactor of the Torah, remarked that R stands for Rabeinu. Over a century ago it was recognized that the genius was in the redaction not the text.

So let me tell you what happened to produce the central idea of Israel and its lone single God. I am conflating and simplifying for the sake of this d'var Torah. Let us go back to the period of the late bronze, early iron age when the fertile plain was occupied by agricultural peoples with iron implements and the hills were controlled by a loose group of bronze age herders who were beginning to cultivate the lower reaches of their territory and wanted very much to conquer and occupy the plains. The period described in the book of Judges and Samuel. We know that these people suffered from raids from the valley peoples and could not displace them. We know that one tribe would be angry that another failed to defend them and some tribes like Reuven disappeared. "In those days there was no king in Israel and each man did what was right in their own eyes". In order to achieve victory or at least defend themselves they needed to unite. However they could not trust any one tribe to be leader or emperor. They came to a unique solution. In fact in all that I have read or studied no one else came up with a similar solution except once in medieval Europe when a group in Malta made the Blessed Virgin Mary their temporal ruler, as others could not understand a ruling council with no ruler. These tribes made their God their emperor or Suzerain. With this arrangement when a navi (prophet) or shofeit (chieftain/judge) issued a call to arms all within the covenant must respond. What did making God your Suzerain imply then and what did our wonderful rabbis do with it: 1) The Suzerain was far away but knew what was going on. - God cannot be seen or felt but is omniscient. 2) The Suzerain demanded that you serve no other empire -- You shall have no other Gods before me. It is much later that it develops that there are no other gods. 3) The Suzerain created a covenant of rewards and punishments – God rewards and punishment according to God's covenant and not according to God's whims. 4) The Suzerain wanted his civil law obeyed within your realm. Here is the stroke of brilliance that creates ethical monotheism. In all non-Abrahamic religions, God or the gods give the emperor power (what the Chinese call the mandate of heaven) and the emperor creates the laws and rules. This accident allowed our Rabbis to say the moral and civil law is God's, not human. This is the foundation of ethical monotheism. 5) All were part of the Suzerain's family of tribal estates and must defend each other. (All Israel are responsible for one another) 6) The Suzerain demanded taxes be paid and his representatives be supported. (You are divinely commanded to give Tzedakah for the support of the community, its poor, and its institutions.) 7) The Suzerain would defend you if you followed the law and leave you to your enemies if you didn't. The main thrust of the Deuteronomist -- look at the passages following the Shema in next week's parashah, which are in the siddur as part of thrice daily prayer.

This practical compromise enabled the Canaanite tribes we call B'nai Israel to eventually move down from the hills and exploit and settle the land flowing with milk and honey. Behold what the accidental side effects of this practical decision for mutual defense became, when its fragmentary texts were redacted and made part of the canon by the Jewish people through the brilliance of the rabbis and teachers and the people's desire to preserve this teaching. These narratives can and should coexist in the definition of the Jewish people. The one from scholarship does not contradict the core values of our people, but gives them an historical underpinning which enhances the wonder of peoplehood of the Jews and the religious civilization in which we live and contribute. Erick Mendelsohn

Added August 5, 2008

Eric Mendelsohn is a member of Congregation Darchei Noam, Toronto and was a commentator for the Kol Habeshamah siddurim.