In Moscow for a conference during the last days of the Cold War, I managed to attend Shabat services at the nearest synagogue, and told a curious Russian Jew who had never been out of Russia but was eager to emigrate to Israel that if he came back to my hotel, he could meet Shulamit Aloni, a celebrated human rights activist and, at the time, an Israeli cabinet minister. His response: "Her problem is, she doesn't know the Arabs." When I told her of his uninformed impertinence, she said, "if he makes aliyah, he'll fit right in." (I might add that after in living Israel for the rest of his life and never meeting an Arab, he'll still be convinced that he knows better)
In tomorrow's Toah reading (Sh'lah, Numbers 13-15), 12 spies set out to reconnoiter the Promised Land, and come back with a mixed report: the land is lush and fertile, but its inhabitants are fierce; bottom line, all but Kalev, who is later joined by Yehoshua, believe the enemy cannot be vanquished. The Israelites, discouraged, begin to complain and consider returning to Egypt. God threatens to get rid of them, and Moses manages to bring God to stick with them, but God will keep them in the desert for 40 years till this entire generation dies off, only bringing the next generation into the Land. The desert narrative is suspended during chapter 15, which provides seemingly unconnected ritual commandments; the Haftarah, from Joshua 2, retells a similar spying expedition, and this time, the result is an endorsement of the planned invasion.
The commandment to attach fringes on the outer clothing, tzitzit (Numbers 15:37-41) is the pivotal passage here: the fringes function paradoxically: seeing them will make the Israelites remember the commandments and perform them, and keep them from straying after their desires (to go back to Egypt) and what the eyes have seen (a hostile land), because the commandments come from YHWH, who took them out of Egypt to be their God. The Haftarah features Rahab, the righteous prostitute, to indicate that some straying from the norm can be useful, thus adding an ironic if not subversively antinomian rabbinic flourish to tomorrow's service.
Diaspora Jews will resonate with the assignment the spies received: what kind of land will they find if/when they come, and how fierce are its inhabitants? The animosity that confronts the immigrant is not restricted to hostilities between Jews and Arabs; there's plenty of aggession to go around, but somehow, luckily or not, many visitors don't pick up on it. It's in the eye of the beholder, and even more so, in the itinerary that a tour follows; people quickly establish comfort zones that mark the boundaries of the familiar, beyond which spin and stereotypes tend to prevail. And what binds up the package is faith: the 10 discouraging spies forgot to factor divine providence into their report.
What could count for divine providence in the Middle East for us today? Is it in the acquisition of the latest weaponry that does not distinguish between combatant and civilian? Could it be in discriminatory policies that impverish the indigenous population with the hope of forcing it to emigrate, but actually only breed a hard line and violent resistance? Christian Zionists? I'd rather see divine providence as that which has us overcoming our fear and seeking our partners, sharing the land and harvesting the peace.
The three closest pizza venders to my flat here in Berlin are all Lebanese, which inevitably means that their parents were Palestinian refugees from '48, and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have never seen it -- the modern equivalents of Moses and his generation. I imagine relatives who remained and satellite television and internet deliver their reports, and I wonder what keeps them going. My heart pounds louder when I greet them in beginner's Arabic, but my inner dialogue is in mamma loshen, what I drank with my mother's milk: vih'yitem k'doshim leyloheychem; be holy, be faithful, to your God (Numbers 15:40).
Shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
