Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

The Book of Genesis, known in Hebrew as בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית, is as its name suggests, about beginnings: the birth of the universe, the origins of humanity and the opening chapters in the story of the Jewish people. However, there is another topic that appears and reappears within the book at regular intervals that demands a great deal of reflection and inquiry, the interaction between the early Hebrews and their neighbours.

Genesis is a book that somehow proceeds from one relationship to the next – many of these are personal and complex, and I include a list that is not exhaustive but illustrative of just how many are mentioned in the book’s 50 chapters: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his offspring, Abraham and Lot, Abraham and Pharaoh, Abraham and Abimelech, Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Esau, Jacob and Lavan, Jacob and Joseph, Joseph and his brothers, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, Joseph and Pharaoh etc.

However, beyond these inter-personal relationships, the book also describes the many occasions when the Hebrews interacted with other nations in and around Canaan. These passages describe Abraham forming alliances with the local inhabitants and at other times appearing in conflict against them. In the worst case, Abraham went to war against some of the other nations in order to recover hostages amongst whom, was his own nephew, Lot. During Isaac’s time, the Hebrews had strained relationships with some of the locals, which only intensified later on in the time of Jacob, as his sons and the inhabitants of Shechem fell out over the treatment of their sister, Dinah.

Also in the book are references to the varied, but often awkward relationship between the Hebrews and a number of other nations: the Philistines, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Arameans, the Ishmaelites, the Edomites and the Egyptians.

Bereishit anticipates these complex relationships by declaring on more than one occasion that the other nations of the world will be blessed as a result of Israel’s unique relationship with God and their distinctive role among the pantheon of nations. Whether the other nations bought into this promise is doubtful. They may well have seen the Hebrews as interlopers who had their origins in a completely different part of the Middle East and had no legitimate claim to what is now known as the Land of Israel.

They may have understood that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had promised this tract of land to their descendants – but these peoples had their own gods – and they did not endorse this prophecy! So why should they make room for these itinerant settlers?

Given that much of international conflict over the years has been the result of territorial dispute, it is not surprising that a number of years ago a secular scholar by the name of David Clines, wrote a book entitled The Theme of the Pentateuch. His conclusion was that the single overarching theme of the Five Books of Moses, (I would say – in particular, the Book of Genesis), is the promise of the land. That is surely the case. There are sub-themes, but this dominates all others. Seven times in Bereishit God promises the land to Abraham, once to Isaac, and three times to Jacob. Given that there were a whole host of ‘indigenous’ peoples already there, and that the great empires to the north and south looked upon Canaan with some longing, it is understandable how and why there was tension between the Hebrews and the other nations.

This is what makes the opening verse of this week’s sidra so compelling. It is a statement of ‘arrival’ and fulfilment.

וַיֵּ֣שֶׁב יַֽעֲקֹ֔ב בְּאֶ֖רֶץ מְגוּרֵ֣י אָבִ֑יו בְּאֶ֖רֶץ כְּנָֽעַן:
Jacob dwelt (וַיֵּ֣שֶׁב) in the land where his fathers had previously roamed (מְגוּרֵ֣י).
Genesis 37:1
The two verbs in the verse are indicative of a complete change in status. גור implies transience, impermanence, ephemerality – a sense of not really belonging and consequently living with insecurity. For such people long-term planning is extremely difficult and change is the default situation.

By sharp contrast, ישב means to settle permanently, put down roots, seek continuity and live as equals with others in society, even those who had lived there for many years before one’s arrival.

The irony of course is that within a generation, Jacob was forced out of his home due to famine. The descent into Egypt and the ensuing enslavement meant that the family’s return to the land was delayed by hundreds of years and on re-entering under Joshua, the Israelites were once again seen as interlopers, invaders and colonizers.

Such unfortunate circumstances re-occurred following the destruction of the First Temple when Ezra and Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem but fell-foul of the neighboring Samaritans, and then yet again after the fall of Judea under the Romans.

On this final occasion the gap between leaving and returning was almost two thousand years and as could have been predicted, on their ‘return’ the Jews were accused of entering and colonizing another’s land. How disappointing that this accusation is in fact the precise opposite of the truth. In the 1880’s the Jews began to return home only to be challenged by the Arabs, who had colonized this land in the 7th century CE. The early Muslim conquests also known as the ‘Arab Conquests’, were a series of wars initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad the Prophet. He established the first Islamic state in Medina, which then expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in Muslim rule being established in Asia, Northern Africa, and Southern Europe over the following century.

Historian James Buchan even remarked that “In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting.” At their height, the territory that was conquered by the Arabs stretched from Iberia to the west and India to the east. Muslims controlled Sicily, most of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the Caucasus and Central Asia. Nevertheless, paradoxically, it was the Jews returning home in the 19th and 20th centuries, who were accused of stealing land from the ‘indigenous’ population.

American scholar Fred McGraw Donner suggests that Muhammad’s establishment of an Islamic state in Arabia, coupled with ideological coherence and mobilization, constituted the main factor that propelled the early Muslim armies to successfully establish, in the timespan of roughly a century, one of the largest empires in history. Estimates of the total area of the combined territory held by the early Muslim polities at the conquests’ peak have been as high as 13 million square km, approximately 5 million square miles. (For the record, the State of Israel occupies an area of 22,000 sq. km.)

With the spread of Islam in the Levant and Christianity in Europe, it left few opportunities for the Jews to experience self-determination. It was this perpetual sense of homelessness and hopelessness that became the unending condition of the Jewish people; one that plagued the descendants of Jacob for millennia. They not only were forbidden to return in large numbers to their own land and reconstruct their home, they were forced to live in what was collectively described as a diaspora – a word of Greek origin meaning ‘scattering’.

Being unable or unwilling to merge with the host population in commercial, social, religious and cultural endeavors, the Jews felt completely excluded from general society. This was both negative and positive – on the one side it created the setting in which Jews could all too easily be marginalized and persecuted, but it also helped the Jews preserve their identity as a distinct people, years after the Romans had eliminated Judea as a political entity in the year 135 CE.

In his book, The Holocaust, David Engel suggests that the precariousness of the Jewish situation began to recede in the late seventeenth century, particularly in Western Europe. The appearance of capitalism with its emphasis upon individual freedom and initiative, the spread of rational philosophy and the notion of religious tolerance, the emergence of centralized state administrations in place of the medieval system of corporate estates – led these various elements of European society to rethink their attitudes towards Jews.

But while this improved the position of Jews particularly in progressive, liberal countries like England and its colonies, including the United States of America, there were other factors at work that played a critical role in the future of the Jewish nation.

The unification of city-states or smaller regions into larger political entities led to dramatic changes over the past 250 years. Citizens of these places pledged allegiance to the new authority and felt a renewed sense of belonging and nationalistic fervor. That jingoism often led to disputes between countries; nowadays, fortunately, we see it more often on the sporting field than on the battlefield.

For example, England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland became the United Kingdom on January 1, 1801. The unification of Italy was driven by key figures like Count Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi. The process involved wars as well as political maneuvering leading to the declaration of a unified Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The unification of Germany was achieved in 1871 through a series of Prussian-led wars and political maneuvers orchestrated by Otto von Bismarck. Nor should we forget that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was only the first stage in the unification of a number of different regions which eventually formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on December 30, 1922.

Perhaps most famous of all were the American colonies, which after declaring independence from Great Britain in 1776, formed a loose confederation, until in 1789 they became the United States of America.

Even the British colonies in the southern hemisphere followed this same trend, as six separate colonies, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania became a single country, namely – the Commonwealth of Australia, on January 1st 1901.

The Jews never felt part of this process – these cities, regions, states and colonies had never been their lands – they were at best tolerated, generally speaking excluded, and often persecuted. The writing was on the wall as antisemitism took hold in France, Germany, Austria and Russia in the 19th century – it reached its awful climax during the Shoah. How then did the Jews react? They understood nationalism and were inspired by the concept of unification – and so it was that they sought to recreate a Jewish homeland and in so doing re-unite an ancient people from its global diaspora.

Medinat Yisrael was the direct result of this process. Herzl’s dreams followed by the Zionists’ determination, culminating with the Yishuv’s ultimate sacrifices made Israel a reality – and finally the scattering was over and once more the Jews could recite the opening verse of Vayeshev with genuine hope that the interminable wanderings of countless generations had become an established home from where no Jew could be denied entry and from which no Jew could ever again be expelled.

Finally after two thousand years of exile and separation Jews could announce to the world with conviction and with confidence:

וַיֵּ֣שֶׁב יַֽעֲקֹ֔ב בְּאֶ֖רֶץ מְגוּרֵ֣י אָבִ֑יו בְּאֶ֖רֶץ כְּנָֽעַן:
That after two thousand years of wandering, of homelessness and of insecurity, Jacob has returned to dwell permanently in the land. This is a miracle of Biblical proportions for as Rabbi Sacks taught us:
The Jews have taken a barren land and made it bloom again. They have taken an ancient language and made it speak again. They have taken the West’s oldest faith and made it young again. They have taken a shattered nation and made it live again.
This verse reminds us that Israel is our ancient home, and we have made it new again.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Freedman