Al Reguel Ajat

The menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, is undoubtedly the oldest Jewish symbol, even older than the shield of David, which is more recent. Not only is it older, but its design is also specified in the Torah, unlike the shield of David, which is not mentioned in the Bible.

In chapter 25 of the Book of Exodus, God commands the construction of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. And in verses 31-40 of the same chapter, He orders the making of a candelabrum for the Mishkan, which was to be hammered from pure gold, with seven branches, one in the center and three on each side, decorated with cups shaped like almond blossoms, apples, and flowers. Verse 40 says: “See that you make it according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.” Chapter 31 tells us that God chose Bezalel, the son of Uri, from the tribe of Judah, to build the Tabernacle, including the seven-branched menorah.

In 1000 BCE, King Solomon built the first Temple in Jerusalem. It is written in chapter 7, 48:49 of the book of Kings: “Solomon made all the furnishings that were in the house of the Lord,… and the lampstands, five on the right side and five on the left side, in front of the sanctuary, of gold.” The lampstands remained in the Temple until 586 BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. When the Temple was rebuilt 70 years later, a new menorah was crafted with the same design. In 70 CE, after destroying the Second Temple, Roman soldiers took the menorah to Rome, just as it is depicted on the Arch of Titus. The earliest known representation of the menorah appears on the coins of Antigonus Mattathias II (40-37 BCE), the last of the Hasmoneans. Ida Huberman tells us: After the destruction of the Temple, the menorah became a central figure in Jewish art. Professor Erwin Goodenough lists at least 182 examples of seven-branched candelabra among his finds. The menorah shape was depicted on synagogue doors and portals, and was incorporated into designs on mosaic floors, clay lamps, crystal goblets, and bracelets. The menorah shape has also been discovered carved in stone. Its use as a decorative motif was equally prevalent in Israel and in the Diaspora.

The menorah soon became a simple, often schematic, yet meaningful figure, a symbol that maintained its central position in Jewish tradition for centuries, even into modern times. German Jews placed menorahs in their homes, much as Christians placed crosses in theirs. In the 19th century, with the rise of Jewish nationalism, the seven-branched menorah re-emerged as a Zionist symbol, and since 1948 it has served as the emblem of the State of Israel.

An ancient midrash states that: «Three things presented difficulties to Moses, until the Blessed Holy One showed Moses with His finger: … the menorah.» According to another ancient tradition, not God, but the angel Gabriel drew a picture so that Moses could see in image what God was representing in words. Undoubtedly, the menorah was designed by the Great Architect.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Article by Ida Huberman, Encyclopaedia Judaica, and other sources.

In 1954, when he was Prime Minister of the State of Israel, David Ben-Gurion wrote to the rabbi of the Sephardic Jewish community of Amsterdam, Salamon Rodrigues Pereira, asking him to revoke the decree of excommunication (in Hebrew, «jerem») issued almost 300 years earlier, in 1656, against the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Obviously, Rabbi Rodrigues refused to do so.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was born in Amsterdam, the son of Jewish immigrants from Portugal, where they had been forced to convert to Catholicism and were able to return to their former faith thanks to the relative safety and tolerance they found in Holland. His father, Miguel, a wealthy merchant, was a member of the governing committee of the synagogue and the school his son attended. The young Spinoza received a traditional education in the Talmud and Torah, in addition to self-studying the classics of medieval Jewish philosophy. He spoke Portuguese, Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, and Latin. His father died when he was 21.

Spinoza broke with traditional dogmas. Steven Nadler says: “The God Spinoza presents in his book Ethics is a far cry from the traditional God of monotheistic religions. What Spinoza calls ‘God or Nature’ (Deus sive Natura) lacks all the psychological and ethical attributes of a providential deity. His God has no personal will, emotions, or preferences; he formulates no plans, issues no commands, has no expectations, and makes no judgments. Spinoza’s God is neither good, nor wise, nor just. For him, it is a mistake to think of God in normative or value terms. What God is, for Spinoza, is Nature itself.” Therefore, for Spinoza, there is no Divine Creation, no free will, nothing after death, no divine reward or punishment, no revelation on Mount Sinai, no reason to pray or supplicate, etc. He argued that belief in a divinity had created an immense superstructure of habits, institutions, and rituals—the entirety of organized religion—which, in turn, had led to the enslavement of the human mind. His books were also placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books.

Excommunication meant that Spinoza lost all ties with other Jews, including his family. He was able to maintain contact with a handful of them, but lived the rest of his life in the company of Christian humanist intellectuals. His work reflects a keen concern for the Jewish question and is a constant dialogue with the Torah, the prophets, the rabbis, and philosophers such as Maimonides. He never converted to Christianity, but took the Latin name Benedict instead of Baruch. Spinoza was a kind and gentle soul, calm, benevolent, and gregarious, who rarely lost his temper. His critics admit that, despite disagreeing with his philosophy, he was one of those rare individuals who demonstrated that one can live a holy and secular life without God.

The importance of Spinoza’s ideas would be seen centuries later with the arrival of the Enlightenment in Europe, especially in the Jewish communities of Germany. The new Reform Jews, the secular Zionists, the enlightened European Jews, even the Yiddishists, all saw in Spinoza’s ideas the theoretical justification for their positions. Why did Ben-Gurion want to abolish the cherem? Because for him, Spinoza represented the ideal Jew, the secular Jew who is completely detached from rabbinic Judaism. Because Spinoza was, without a doubt, the first secular Jew.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Articles by Steven Nadler, Steven B. Smith, Daniel B. Schwartz, and other sources.

During World War II, Columbia University anthropologist Ruth Benedict, in a study commissioned by President Roosevelt, popularized the idea that Japan was a «shame culture» unlike the West, which was a «guilt culture.»

Paul G. Hiebert characterizes the «shame culture» as follows: Shame is a reaction to other people’s criticism of oneself, a strong concern about our failure to live up to what others expect of us. In shame-oriented cultures, each person has a place and a duty in their society. Individuals maintain their self-esteem and «honor» by doing what is expected of them and not necessarily doing what is right according to their conscience. In a shame culture, we seek to be thought well of by others. In this sense, shame is always seen and recorded by the community. Social shame, a bad reputation, as well as honor, a good name, are visible to all.

On the other hand, Paul G. Hiebert himself defines the “guilt culture” as follows: Guilt is a feeling that arises when we violate the standards of morality within us, when we violate the values ​​dictated by our conscience. A person may feel guilty, and no one else may even know of their misconduct. This feeling of guilt is relieved by asking for forgiveness and making appropriate restitution. A true guilt culture relies on one’s own conscience as the driving force of good behavior and does not rely on what others will say.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains that the first biblical sin, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, is actually a story about the difference between guilt and shame. He quotes Bernard Williams, who says that shame is essentially a visual problem. Adam and Eve were ashamed of being “seen” naked. Guilt, on the other hand, is a hearing problem. Adam knew he had violated what the voice of God had told him. You can hide from shame, just as Adam did. Not so much the voice of your conscience, the voice of God, for it is within you.

Rabbi Sacks continues: The story of Adam and Eve is not about original sin or the «knowledge» of good and evil. It is about choosing between acting on the basis of what our eyes see or acting by listening to the ethical principles of the Torah. Judaism, the religion of the God who cannot be seen, but can be heard, bases its values ​​on a culture of guilt, not shame.

Unfortunately, a culture of shame has infiltrated Judaism, especially in extremely religious groups. For its members, the important thing is to comply with what their social group expects of them, not so much with what their conscience dictates. I comply with the rules, especially those that are clearly visible, primarily out of fear of being excluded, rather than because of my ethical judgment. Their actions are under rabbinic «supervision.»

Sacks says, “You don’t have to be religious to be moral. Every social group should have a code of conduct that enables its members to live constructively and collaboratively.” The question is how you do it: out of conscience or shame.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Jonathan Sacks, “Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible” and others.

It is written in the Talmud (Yoma 9b): «Why was the Second Temple destroyed? Because of sinat chinam, the senseless hatred of one Jew toward another.»

The Midrash Eichah tells us that when the Romans besieged Jerusalem (1st century CE), there was enough grain in its warehouses to last 20 years. Most of its inhabitants thought they could hold out and not have to go out and fight the Roman army. They felt safe and well protected within the walled city. However, the Zealots, a group of Jewish fanatics, insisted on fighting, so they burned the granaries inside the walled city, forcing the people to seek sustenance outside the city. This resulted in a direct confrontation with the Roman legions and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Many Jews were killed, and the survivors were sent into exile. This group of fanatics felt that their way was the only way.

Our sages explain that the people of the Second Temple generation were «pious» and intensely involved in Torah study. However, they were not «upright» in their relationships with others, whether in their actions, thoughts, or manner of expression. Therefore, due to the unjustified hatred each had for the other, one would often falsely accuse another of heresy simply because the other’s way of expressing themselves religiously did not agree with their own path. Those whose path was different were therefore labeled as nonbelievers and considered outside what they considered «authentic Judaism.»

Judaism in the Second Temple period was divided into several groups: the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Zealots, the Sicarii, and others. Some sources speak of up to 24 different groups. But the problem was not and is not plurality, but rather the lack of tolerance of one group toward the other. The Bal Shem Tov said: Why did the men of the Great Assembly specifically word the language of the prayer in the Amidah with the following apparent redundancy: «The GOD of Abraham, the GOD of Isaac, and the GOD of Jacob?» Because each of the three patriarchs had their own path to connecting with Him.

Some scholars have found a great similarity between Judaism in the Roman era and today. In both, there is a plurality of approaches to understanding the practice of Judaism, but also a marked intolerance of fanatic groups toward others. For those, like the Zealots, their way is the only way.

Hatred is a natural human reaction when their person, property, self-esteem, or beliefs have been unjustly attacked. Therefore, «sinat chinam» is understood as gratuitous, unfounded, or senseless hatred, since there is no apparent aggression from one person toward the other. Someone taking a different path should not be considered aggression toward the other. Unless, deep down, you have doubts about your own path. Then your hatred does make sense, because, deep down, the other person made you doubt your own.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Jewish Encyclopedia and other sources.

There is a widespread belief that the Jewish diaspora began during the Roman rule, when they destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE and defeated Bar Kokhba and his men in 135 CE. This is incorrect. The Jewish diaspora began in 733 BCE with the exile of the ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians and continued with the exile to Babylon of part of the population of the Kingdom of Judah in 597 BCE. In 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, conquered Babylon and issued a decree allowing the return of the exiles from Judah to the land of Israel, but many chose to remain in Babylon.

The Persian Empire was replaced by the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great, and upon his death in 323, it was divided in two, led by two generals: Ptolemy and Seleucus. The former governed the southern part, which included Egypt and the Land of Israel, and during his reign, many Jews went to Egypt as mercenaries, while others sought their fortune. By the second century BCE, according to Flavius ​​Josephus, nearly a million Jews lived in Egypt, and their presence extended as far as Cyrenaica, in present-day Libya. Soon, the Land of Israel fell into the hands of the Seleucids, who also ruled Syria, causing a migration of Jews to that territory. With the Maccabean Revolt, the Jews achieved a degree of autonomy, but in 63 BCE, the Romans invaded Jerusalem, and the Jewish people lost their independence and sovereignty. The Roman response to the Jewish rebellion included many being taken as slaves to Rome, where a significant Jewish community already existed.

As early as the middle of the second century BCE, the Jewish author of the Third Sibylline Oracle, a collection of prophecies, speaking of the Jews said, «Every land and every sea is full of you.» Strabo, a Greek geographer, Philo, Seneca, Luke, Cicero, and Flavius ​​Josephus all mention the existence of Jewish populations in the Mediterranean basin, in addition to communities in Mesopotamia. King Agrippa I, in a letter to Caligula, listed the provinces where the Jewish diaspora was located, and these included both Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries in the East. Only Italy and Cyrene in Libya were missing.

Daniel J. Elazar tells us: “The way in which Jews, as a community in the Diaspora, created their own way of life, with a calendar with each day clearly specified, which established a distinct rhythm of Jewish life and separated them from their neighbors, deserves further study. In parallel, it is possible to study how Jews were excluded from Christian and Muslim societies, through a combination of anti-Jewish attitudes and measures, on the one hand, and the mutually acceptable principle that Jews were a nation in exile and therefore deserving of corporate autonomy, on the other.”

The displacement of the great centers of Jewish life, from the Land of Israel to Babylon, then to Spain and North Africa, then to Europe, especially Poland and neighboring countries, and then to the United States and other countries in the Americas, until reaching the present-day State of Israel, gives us the image of a people on the move. These constant migrations were, on the one hand, disruptive, but on the other, they offered Jews the opportunity to renew their lives and adapt to new conditions. The Diaspora is a process of constant renewal for Judaism.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Daniel J. Elazar, “The Jewish People as the Classic Diaspora: A Political Analysis,” and other sources.

The Encyclopaedia Judaica defines “minhag” as: “a custom which, through accepted practice over a period of time, has become binding and assumes the force of halacha in areas of Jewish law and practice.” The Jewish Encyclopedia defines it as: “an ancient and general usage, or religious practice, not based on any particular biblical passage, and which, by force of long observance, has become as sacred and binding as the laws instituted by religious authorities.”

After the completion of the Talmud, Jews settled in increasingly remote locations from the Babylonian yeshivot, so their customs became increasingly divergent. Local customs developed in each location, which were highly valued by each community. The Geonim themselves, who had a strong influence on Diaspora Jews between the 7th and 11th centuries, did not wish to change the local minhagim, even if they did not like them. Rabbi Moses Isserles, in his gloss on the Shulchan Aruch, says that the ancient customs practiced by our ancestors should not be abolished.

«Custom precedes law,» is written in Soferim 14:18. And this is true not only of laws prescribed by the rabbis in the Talmud, but also of biblical commandments. Furthermore, even when a halachic commandment was established, in many cases its practice in daily life was defined by custom. However, a minhag cannot annul biblical or Talmudic provisions, and the latter cannot be transgressed for the sake of the former. In fact, any minhag that violates halacha is considered void (Piskei Riaz, Pesachim 4:1-7). Furthermore, our sages say that when a person arrives in a new place, they must adapt to the customs of that place.

There are different types of customs in Judaism, depending on their origin: customs of each country, each city, ethnic origin (Sephardic and Ashkenazi, for example), different denominations (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, etc.), certain families, the degree of observance (very or slightly observant), scholars, women, non-Jews, and ordinary people. For example, in Syria, it is customary for only men to attend funerals, and in that country this is a practice for both Jews and non-Jews. Celebrating Pesach, the Jewish Passover, is a Torah commandment, but the details of how it is customary to do so can vary by country, place, and even family. The study of minhagim is a very complex task. In general, there are minhagim that are directly related to a commandment, others that resolve a conflict between several commandments, others that have nothing to do with a commandment, and finally, those that are part of the tradition of a place or a family. But they all have one thing in common: their antiquity. And that antiquity is the essence of Jewish identity in every community. That is why our sages teach us: Observe the customs of your fathers.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Article from the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the Jewish Encyclopedia, and other sources.

In the Bible, in no verse do we find an explicit commandment that obliges us to «believe» in something, for example, in the existence of God. There isn’t one, and there is no punishment for not believing. Some would say that belief in God is implicit in the commandments that say, «I am the Lord your God» or «You shall love God,» but that idea is not presented explicitly.

Neither in the Bible nor in the Talmud do we find a systematized list of beliefs or dogmas. The structure of the Bible is based on accepting the fact that God exists and that He has a relationship with humanity, especially with Israel. We could say that these are the two basic dogmas implicit in the biblical text. For their part, the sages of the Talmud did not deal much with the subject, except in a few cases, such as in the tractate Sanhedrin, which states: «These are the men who will be excluded from the world to come: He who says there is no resurrection of the dead, he who says the Torah was not received from heaven, and the heretic (apikoires).» The Midrash also speaks of believing in the coming of the Messiah and of God rewarding or punishing.

In the Middle Ages, dogmas were a topic that many of our sages began to address, perhaps due to the influence of Islam and the Karaites. One was Saadia Gaon, who in his book «Beliefs and Opinions,» listed five dogmas, which, two hundred years later, Maimonides included in his list of thirteen dogmas. This list was initially rejected by some sages, such as Nachmanides, but over time it was accepted by all, to the point that today it is included in prayer, along with the Ygdal, a frequently sung hymn. In modern times, some theologians, such as Mendelsohn and Leo Baeck, rejected the idea that Judaism has dogmas and that listing them is contrary to what the Bible and the sages of the Talmud teach.

Maimonides’ thirteen principles of faith can be grouped into four groups: the first is the belief that God exists, that He is one, that He has no physical body, that He is eternal, and that He is the only one we should worship. The second is belief in the prophets, that Moses is the greatest of them, that the Torah was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and that the Torah is immutable. The third is that God knows human actions and rewards or punishes them accordingly. And the fourth is the belief in the redemption of the Messiah and the resurrection of the dead.

We might question, as many have, why these thirteen dogmas and not more, or fewer, or none at all? Salomon Schechter tells us: the important thing is not whether the list is complete or not; the important thing is the fact that our sages took care to prepare it to make us think and so that man is not only capable of doing what is right but also of thinking what is right for each of us.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Salomon Schechter: Studies in Judaism, Chapter VI, First Series.

Haim Nahman Bialik (1873-1934), one of the leading poets of modern Hebrew, was born in the village of Radi, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. At the age of six, his family moved to Zhitomir. A year later, his father died, and Bialik went to live with his paternal grandfather, who gave him an Orthodox education. At first, he studied with the traditional teachers of the heder, the religious school for boys, but from the age of 13, he was self-taught. He studied alone in the increasingly empty yeshiva on the outskirts of the village. While studying rabbinic literature, he began reading about medieval theology and the Haskala, the Jewish Enlightenment.

At the age of 15, he convinced his grandfather to send him to study at the Volozhin yeshiva, where he began to read Russian poetry and European literature on his own and wrote his first poem, «El Hatzipor,» «To the Bird.» He soon joined a secret student society that sought to integrate Zionism and the Enlightenment with the Orthodox tradition, following the teachings of Ahad Haam.

In the summer of 1891, he moved to Odessa, attracted by the intellectual circle that had formed around Ahad Haam. He sought to prepare for admission to the Modern Orthodox seminary in Berlin. To support himself, he taught Hebrew while reading Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Gogol. He learned German grammar and read Schiller and Lessing. He persuaded Ahad Haam to read his poems and have them published in the first volume of Ha Pardes. In early 1892, he learned that the Volozhin yeshivah had been closed and returned to Zhitomir to find his dying grandfather. He didn’t want him to know he had abandoned his studies.

In 1893, he married Manya Averbuch. Bialik used the time he spent in the forests, working for his father-in-law’s lumber business, to write poems that blended images of the old tradition with the new Israel. Between 1897 and 1900, he worked as a teacher in Sosnowiec, a town near the Prussian border. There, he began writing short stories and also writing in Yiddish. In 1900, he found work as a teacher in Odessa, where he met notable figures such as Mendele Mojer Sforim, Simon Dubnow, Haim Tchernowitz, and others. He translated Mendele’s works from Yiddish into Hebrew, as well as works by Shakespeare, Schiller, Cervantes, and Heine. In 1903, after the terrible pogrom in Kishinev, he wrote the epic poem «In the City of Slaughter,» in which he condemned the massacre, but also the passivity of the victims. In 1908, with Yehoshua Ravnitzky, he edited «Sefer Ha Agadah,» a compendium of legends from the Talmud and Midrash. He lived in Odessa until 1921, when he was able to leave for Berlin thanks to Maxim Gorky and then, in 1924, emigrate to Israel. He was a member of the governing board of the Hebrew University. He died in 1934.

Bialik loved the traditional religious Judaism he learned from his grandfather. He also believed in Zionism, especially the cultural approach of Ahad Ha’am. He understood that the social problem of Jews in the Diaspora had to be solved, having witnessed the tragedy of the Kishinev pogrom with his own eyes. He knew that Yiddish was part of Jewish culture, but also that Hebrew was the language of the future. With the Haskala, he realized that Judaism could not be isolated from the secular culture of the world. And through his poetry, he integrated all these identities into one. Bialik is an example of how one can have a multifaceted Jewish identity.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.

It is written: “And Abel tended sheep, while Cain worked the land. Afterward, Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel brought to the Lord the best of his flock, the firstborn with their fat. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was distressed and his head was downcast. And the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you distressed? Why are you downcast? If you do well, will you not be honored? And if you do not do well, sin is at the door. Yet his desire will be yours (it is up to you), and you will rule over him (and it is up to you). Cain spoke with his brother Abel, and while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.’” (Genesis 4:1-8)

Being a farmer requires a certain intellectual capacity and a great deal of discipline, understanding that bread comes from grain, developing the necessary tools, protecting crops from the environment, waiting the necessary time to harvest, settling in a place, and being self-sufficient in obtaining food so as not to depend so much on nature. The farmer is bold and self-confident. On the other hand, the shepherd leads a simple life that requires little ingenuity and effort. The flock roams the countryside and naturally produces wool and milk, and the shepherd contributes little to that. He has no control over the process and is entirely dependent on nature. The shepherd’s life is simpler; the farmer’s is more complex.

We all know that Cain committed the first murder. But few recognize that he was also the first farmer, the first to make an offering to God, the founder of the first city, as well as the progenitor of a line of men who invented the arts, including music and metallurgy. God told Adam that he would eat the plants of the field and that with the sweat of his brow he would eat bread, and Cain obeyed the divine command, unlike his brother Abel, who dedicated himself to tending a flock. In the story, Cain experiences simultaneously: shame that his offering was not as well received as his brother’s, anger at his wounded pride, and a feeling of injustice because God did not recognize his efforts as a worker of the land.

Leon R. Kass says: “The episode of Cain and Abel presents fundamental elements of human existence: a) the first family home, that is, the first human institution and thus the first element of society; b) the first attempts, through sacrifice, of a relationship between man and God; c) human passions: wounded pride, anger, jealousy, and fear; d) violent death, crime and punishment, and the rudiments of natural justice; e) the emergence of agriculture and settlements, arts and crafts. The story introduces in twenty-six verses many of the essential elements of a natural anthropology.”

The stories of the Bible always have a profound ethical message at their core. But why convey the message using stories that are sometimes difficult to understand? Why not simply state it directly? Because, as Marshall MacLuhan said, the message is in the medium.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Leo R. Kass, “Farmers, Founders, and Fratricide: The Story of Cain and Abel” and other sources.

Upon the death of King Solomon, the ten northern tribes refused to accept his son Rehoboam as king. They separated from the southern tribes to form the Kingdom of Israel and elected Jeroboam as their king. The two southern tribes formed the Kingdom of Judah.

In 722 BCE, the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel, exiled its inhabitants, scattered them to other parts of their empire, and forced them to assimilate with the local population, while bringing in Assyrians to colonize their new territory. After a century and a half, all that remained of them was the legend of “the 10 lost tribes of Israel.” On the other hand, the kingdom of Judah managed to escape the Assyrian threat, but was successively conquered by the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and finally by the Babylonians, who took Jerusalem in 588, destroyed the Temple, and took the elite to Babylon.

Fortunately, the Babylonian exile didn’t last long, because in 539 BCE, Cyrus, king of Persia, conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to the land of Israel. Between 520 and 515 BCE, the second Temple in Jerusalem was built, and by 450 CE, the canonization of the Torah and half the books of the Bible began, which make up what Yoram Hazony calls the «History of Israel,» from Genesis to the Book of Kings.

Hazony explains: the «History of Israel,» the first half of the Bible, was conceived to stem the hemorrhage of the exiled communities and build a nation amidst exile. They feared that if they did nothing, they might suffer the same fate as their northern brethren. The text would serve as a repository for memory, a reminder of what had been and what had been lost. By reading it, the Jews would have a source of national pride. It would also be a record of returns from other exiles and a preparation for one day finally returning to their homeland. The Exodus from Egypt is the best example of a narrative of a successful return, and from this stems its constant presence in the Bible.

But the central point that the «History of Israel» teaches us, says Hazony, was that the God of Israel was not only the benefactor of that people, but was the Creator of all humanity, and therefore cared for all of His creation. The Hebrew Bible questioned the nature of the moral and political order of all humanity, not just the Jewish people. The Greeks called this questioning «philosophy,» and the Jews called the Torah the philosophy of Judaism.

Hazony asks: Why did the Jewish people, whom Moses called the least of the peoples, refuse to disappear among the peoples where they lived and always seek to restore themselves as a nation? The answer is a bit daring but simple: The Jewish cause is worthwhile, because it is ultimately the cause of all humanity.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Yoram Hazony “The Philosophy of the Hebrew Bible” and other sources.