#Jacob Neusner

[apenitentialprayer]

are there any Jews who view Jesus in a positive way (aside from like messianic Jews who, as far I’ve understood, are considered evangelical Christians by all other Jews)

Okay, ah, to answer this question simply: to my knowledge, as far as Jewish communities who (1) self-identify as Jewish, (2) consider themselves practicing Judaism, and (3) deny that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah go, none of them have an "official" stance on Jesus. Jesus may be a false Messiah, but this is only a "doctrine" in Judaism the same way that the fact that Vissarion of Siberia is a false Parousia of Jesus is a "doctrine" in Christianity — which is to say, not so much an actually asserted belief, but a natural corollary to more deeply held beliefs.

That being said, individual Jewish people have held a variety of beliefs about Jesus of Nazareth. Some of them are, well, quite negative. For example, one Hasidic story tells of how the Baal Shem Tov saw Jesus and Sabbatai Zvi (both false Messiahs) stuck in the same level of Hell together; the infamous Toledot Yeshu, a parody gospel, certainly does not paint Jesus or His Mother in a particularly good light; Maimonides doesn't even use the usual "may his name be blotted out" as he would when talking about an enemy of Israel, but instead uses "may his bones be ground to dust" after citing Jesus by name.

There are relatively sympathetic views among those whose views are negative too, for the record; for example, there's a story of a Rabbi, Yehoshua ben Prachya, who was said to have been incredibly cruel to a student, and by the time he chose to relent that student had already gone off to form his own idolatrous sect. Struck by the consequences of his harshness, he would go on to emphasize the importance of kindness and giving people the benefit of the doubt. Though the timeline doesn't match up (Yehoshua lived two hundred years before Him), some commentators identified this student as Yeshu the Nazarene.

But, let's actually answer your question. You will find a spectrum of relatively positive views. Bob Dylan technically falls outside the parameters I listed above because he does seem to believe Jesus is the Messiah, but I'll use him as the extreme example, because he continued to be active in his Orthodox Jewish community after his conversion. You also have Leonard Cohen, whose Jewishness was very important to him, who could at least understand the importance of the mystical connection to Jesus that Christians claimed as their own — "the figure of Jesus, nailed to a human predicament, summoning the heart to comprehend its own suffering."

You have some scholars, like Amy-Jill Levine; in the work she did in The Misunderstood Jew, The Historical Jesus in Context, and The Jewish Annotated New Testament, she tries to emphasize the idea that the Person of Jesus is something that can bring Christians and Jews into closer ecumenical dialogue; that if Christians could get more comfortable with the Jewish context of Jesus, and if the Jewish community could see the New Testament as a corpus of texts that isn't non-Jewish, but rather a particular type of first century Jewish, then there could be ground for both groups to better understand each other.

During the early modern period, there were attempts by some Jewish thinkers to reclaim Jesus. Rabbi Jacob Emden argued that Jesus never meant to abolish the Law, and that He has actually "done a double kindness in the world" by increasing veneration of the Torah and bringing light to the Gentiles, if only the Gentiles could learn how to properly interpret their own Scriptures (talk about flipping the script!). Moses Mendelssohn also claimed that Jesus never meant to abrogate the Law, and suggested that Jesus and the early Christian community could be models that modern 19th century Jews living among oppressive Prussian authorities could emulate.

The above paragraph was about Jewish individuals who tried to distance Jesus from traditional Christian understandings of Him. So I'm going to end, I think, with Rabbi Jacob Neusner, who engaged the Gospel on its own terms. In 1993, he published A Rabbi Talks with Jesus. In this book, Rabbi Neusner imagines himself as a first century Jewish man and tries to earnestly listen to and consider the words of Jesus as depicted in the Gospel of Matthew. This work places the words of Jesus in conversation with the Rabbinic tradition, and ultimately ends with Neusner being unconvinced and unable to follow Jesus as His disciple. Pope Benedict lauded this work as an authentic exercise in interreligious dialogue, and cites it frequently in his own Jesus of Nazareth.

[nashvillehotchicken]

i'm sorry?

[mental-mona]

To be a Jew is to know that over and above history is the task of memory. As Jacob Neusner eloquently wrote: “Civilisation hangs suspended, from generation to generation, by the gossamer strand of memory. If only one cohort of mothers and fathers fails to convey to its children what it has learnt from its parents, then the great chain of learning and wisdom snaps. If the guardians of human knowledge stumble only one time, in their fall collapses the whole edifice of knowledge and understanding"… More than any other faith, Judaism made this a matter of religious obligation. Pesach is where the past does not die, but lives in the chapter we write in our own lives, and in the story we tell our children.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt"l, "History and Memory," The Jonathan Sacks Haggadah

[wesleyhill]

You Will Love

A homily on Mark 12:28-34 preached in a service of Holy Communion at Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan, on the Friday after the Third Sunday in Lent 2023

A few moments ago, I announced that the portion I just read from Mark was “the Gospel of the Lord.”

Gospel is one of those churchy words that sounds theological and religious to most of us, probably, but in the world of the New Testament, it was an ordinary word that just meant “good news” or maybe something like “happy announcement.” It’s like that thing that never seems to happen on internet news sites: a headline that makes you say “hooray!”

So here is the question: how is our reading for this morning good news? Is it good news?

One way we might be tempted to answer is that Jesus is showing us a better interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, what we Christians call “the Old Testament,” than the legalistic, nit-picky, fastidious interpretation of his Jewish opponents. If they are fixated on ritual purity, animal sacrifices, and separating themselves from sinners, then Jesus is saying, “No, it’s not about being ‘holier-than-thou.’ It’s about love. Love God, love your neighbor. That’s it. That’s what true religion is all about.”

That’s how a lot of us understand Jesus, I imagine. He came to simplify things. His teaching is about majoring on the majors. He came to say, “Forget about purity culture. Give up offering sacrifices. Stop worrying about religious observances. Just love. Love people. Be kind. Be good to each other.” Or maybe, “Do better,” as we often say to myopic legalists today.

The problem with this way of understanding Jesus, though, is that it uses Judaism as a foil for his supposedly more enlightened religion. But in his response to the scribe, Jesus was not saying anything other than what Jews already believed. Rabbi Akiva, whom the Talmud calls the Chief of the Sages, said the same thing: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself… This is the encompassing principle of the Law.” Jacob Neusner, in his book A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, says that when Jesus sums up the Law as commanding love of God and love of neighbor, he “simply reviews well-known teachings of the Torah of Moses… With that and much else that is good Torah-teaching, no faithful Jew would want to argue.”

The point, then, is that we can’t hear our Gospel reading today as “good news” by saying that it’s good only as it contradicts Judaism.

So in what sense is it “good news,” if it is?

I want to suggest that, in a certain sense, we need to hear it as bad news before we hear it as good news. The great preacher and writer Frederick Buechner, who I know means a lot to a lot of folks in this room, says that “the Gospel must be heard as tragedy first before it can be heard as a comedy.” I think that’s exactly right, and my guess is that you may have already been hearing it that way this morning.

Jesus says in our Gospel, Love God, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. This is, in a very real and important sense, not good news at all. Because when I hear those words, one of the first things I realize is all the ways I haven’t loved God and my neighbor — all the ways I don’t love God and my neighbor.

I’m painfully aware of my indifference toward God, my neglect of prayer and praise and gratitude. I think of all the ways I fail to love my family, how I ignore my godchildren’s need for attention. I think of how I’ve failed to love you, my students and colleagues, by preferring my own agendas or comforts or private projects.

I want to do what Jesus says here — I want to love God, and I want to love you, my neighbor — but often I don’t. In a few moments, we’re going to say these words to God: “we confess that we have sinned against you… by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.”

The Gospel is a tragedy before it is a comedy.

But the Gospel — this Gospel we have read today — is also a comedy, a happy piece of news, an announcement that will make you glad.

Martinus de Boer has pointed out that the verbs here are in the future tense, which means that we could translate the Greek like this: “You will love the Lord your God with all your heart… you will love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus says these are “commandments,” they’re imperatives that we are supposed to do, and we’d expect imperatives to be in the future tense. But they are also, from a theological vantage point and in a very real and reassuring way, promises of what will be true of us, by God’s gracious determination. God promises us: “You will love me, and you will, by my Spirit, love your neighbors. I will see to it that you do.”

In just a few moments, we are going to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus, the one who spoke these words and who lived them out utterly, to the end, loving God his Father and loving all of us, his neighbors, all the way to death. 

God has promised to put Christ’s life into us, to help us each day to become more and more like Jesus who loved... and loves. 

Here is what C. S. Lewis called “big medicine and strong magic.” Come, taste and see that he is good.

Amen.

[ccs-super-stores]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: World Religions in America :An Introduction by Jacob Neusner 2003 Paperback Book.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

In the recently published letters of T. S. Eliot, the poet notes that there are two ways to develop a reputation as a writer: a) have your name and work appear everywhere and as often as possible, or b) have your name and work appear so rarely that anything you do is considered to be good. John Creasey clearly chose the former route.

[retro-ramblings]

just picked up some books at my schools library!

(i’m not going to read them in this order it’s just the order i picked them up in)

The Essential Talmud by Adin Steinsaltz

What the Jews Believe by Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein

Understanding American Judaism II: Sectors of American Judaism edited by Jacob Neusner

[theexodvs]

Judaism is a REACTION TO Christianity, not its source.

“My son, be careful to fulfill the words of the Sages even more than the words of the Torah…with respect to the words of the Sages, anyone who transgresses the words of the Sages is liable to receive the death penalty…”

-Eruvin 21b

“The [Babylonian Talmud] has formed the definitive statement of Judaism from the time of its closure (around 500 AD) to the present day.”

-Rabbi Jacob Neusner, The Sacred Chain: A History of the Jews, p. 112

“[The notion that Judaism is the religion of the Old Testament] is of course, a fallacious impression…[W]hoever would seek to compare the classic Jewish tradition with the biblical word of faith and life would find some startling contrasts. The Bible conceives of all Jewish worship as centered sanctuary in Jerusalem, where the service is to consist of animal sacrifices presided over by an order of hereditary functionaries, priests, and Levites. The Bible knows nothing of the synagogue, of prayer service, of the office of the rabbi, of a festival like Hannukah. Much of what exists in Judaism is absent in the Bible, and much of what is in the Bible cannot be found in Judaism.”

-Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, Judaism and the Christian Predicament, p. 59

“witHout JUdaISm THerE wouLD Be No cHrISTianitY!”

-Philosemitic knuckleheads

[freedomforeverybody118]

Turkish:

Başkaları moralini bozmalarına izin verme. Kendine inan, kendini koru ve kendine güven.

- Jacob Neusner

[ryanadham]

Midrash

Midrash (/ ˈmɪdrɑːʃ /; Ebraico: מִדְרָשׁ; pl. Ebraico: מִדְרָשִׁים midrashim) è l'esegesi biblica delle antiche autorità giudaiche, usando un modo di interpretazione prominente nel Talmud. La parola stessa significa "interpretazione testuale", "studio".

Letture midrash e rabbiniche "discernono il valore di testi, parole e lettere, come potenziali spazi rivelatori", scrive la studiosa ebraica Wilda C. Gafney. "Reimmaginano letture narrative dominanti mentre ne elaborano di nuove per affiancare, non sostituire, le letture precedenti. Midrash pone anche domande sul testo; a volte fornisce risposte, a volte lascia il lettore a rispondere alle domande."

Vanessa Lovelace definisce il midrash come "un modo di interpretazione ebraico che non solo impegna le parole del testo, dietro il testo e oltre il testo, ma si concentra anche su ogni lettera e le parole lasciate non dette da ogni riga". Il termine è anche usato per un'opera rabbinica che interpreta la Scrittura in quel modo.

Tali opere contengono prime interpretazioni e commenti sulla Torah scritta e sulla Torah orale (legge parlata e prediche), nonché letteratura rabbinica non legalistica (aggadah) e occasionalmente leggi religiose ebraiche (halakha), che di solito formano un commento corrente su passaggi specifici nella Scrittura ebraica (Tanakh). "Midrash", specialmente se in maiuscolo, può fare riferimento a una raccolta specifica di questi scritti rabbinici composti tra il 400 e il 1200 d.C.

Secondo Gary Porton e Jacob Neusner, "midrash" ha tre significati tecnici: 1) interpretazione biblica giudaica; 2) il metodo utilizzato nell'interpretazione; 3) una raccolta di tali interpretazioni.

[apenitentialprayer]

Jesus understands himself as the Torah — as the word of God in person. The tremendous prologue of John's Gospel —"in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1)— says nothing different from what the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount and the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels says. The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel and the Jesus of the Synoptics is one and the same {...} Neusner comments: "He [Jesus] and his disciples may do on the Sabbath what they do because they stand in the place of the priests in the Temple; the holy place has shifted, now being formed by the circle made up of the master and his disciples."

Pope Benedict XVI (Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, pages 110-111, 108)

[nashvillehotchicken]

i love writing back arguments at whoever annotated this book before me. we're having a conversation :)

[bk-lostintranslation]

Review: The Bhagavad Gita & Personal Choice

At once a down-to-earth narrative and a multifaceted spiritual drama, the Gita bears a concrete timelessness, with its magnetism lying in the fact that it is a work not of religious dogma, but of personal choice.

For years, the Bhagavad Gita has distinguished itself as a masterpiece of spiritual and philosophical scripture. Beautifully condensing Upanishadic knowledge, the Gita traverses a number of subjects – from duty as a means toward liberation (moksha), to the risks of losing oneself to worldly temptations, to the dichotomy between the lower self (jiva) and the ultimate, eternal Self (atman) – as well as detailing a vast spectrum of human desires, treating them not as one-dimensional abstractions, but as the complex combinatorial dilemmas they are in real life. Written in the style of bardic poems, the Gita bears a concrete timelessness, with its magnetism lying in the fact that it is a work not of religious dogma, but of personal choice. 

Recounting the dialogue between Arjuna, the Pandava warrior-prince, and Lord Krishna, his godling charioteer, the text covers a wide swath of Vedantic concepts which are then left for Arjuna to either follow or reject. This element of personal autonomy, and how it can lead to self-acceptance, environmental mastery and finally the spiritual path to one's true destiny, is an immensely alluring concept for readers today. But Arjuna's positioning is the real crux of the Gita: his conflicts between personal desire and sacred duty are the undercurrent of the tale, and the text offers equally spiritual and practical insights in every nuance.

The Gita begins with two families torn into different factions and preparing for battle. The sage Vyasa, who possesses the gift of divine vision, offers to loan the blind King, Dhritarashtra, his ability so the King may watch the battle. However, Dhritarashtra declines, having no wish to witness the carnage – particularly since his sons, the Kauravas, are arrayed on the battlefield. Instead, the sage confers his powers to Sanjaya, one of Dhritarashtra's counselors, who faithfully recounts the sequence of events as they unfold. From the start, readers' introduction to the Gita is almost sensory, with the battlefield stirred into action by Bhishma, who blows his conch horn and unleashes an uproarious war-frenzy, "conches and kettledrums, cymbals, tabors and trumpets ... the tumult echoed through heaven and earth... weapons were ready to clash." These descriptions serve as marked contrasts to the dialogic exchange that follows between Arjuna and Krishna, which is serene and private in tone, the two characters wearing the fabric of intimate friendship effortlessly as they are lifted out of the narrative, suspended as if in an aether where the concept of time becomes meaningless. 

Arjuna – whose questions carry readers through the text – stands with Krishna in the heart of the battlefield, between the two armies. However, when he sees the enemy arrayed before him, "fathers, grandfathers, teachers, uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons and friends," he falls into the grip of a moral paralysis. His whole body trembles and his sacred bow, Gandiva, slips from his hands. He tells Krishna, "I see omens of chaos ... I see no good in killing my kinsmen in battle... we have heard that a place in hell is reserved for men who undermine family duties." As Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton remark in the book, Altruism in World Religions, "To fight his own family, Arjuna realizes, will violate a central tenet of his code of conduct: family loyalty, a principle of dharma." The concept of dharma holds an integral place in Hindu-Vedantic ethos, with Sanatana Dharma (eternal and universal dharma) regarded as a sacred duty applicable to all, and Swadharma (personal and particular dharma) sometimes coming into conflict with the former. It is this inherent contradiction that catalyzes Arjuna's self-doubt. "The flaw of pity blights my very being; conflicting sacred duties confound my reason." 

It is Krishna who must inspire him to fight, through comprehensive teachings in the essentials of birth and rebirth, duty and destiny, action and inertia. There is an allegorical genius here that will appeal tremendously to readers. The military aspects of the Gita can easily serve as metaphors for not just external real-life battles, but internal battles of the self, with the two armies representing the conflict between the good and evil forces within each of us. In that sense, Krishna's advice to Arjuna – the seven-hundred slokas – becomes a pertinent, pragmatic guide to human affairs. With each verse, both Arjuna and the readers are offered perspectives and practices which, if followed, can allow them to achieve a robust understanding of reality. 

With the spiritual underpinnings of the wisdom known as Sankhya, Krishna explains different yogas, or disciplines. Readers slowly begin to encounter all the components of humanity and the universe, through the lens of Arjuna, whose moral and spiritual weltanschauung undergoes a gradual metamorphosis – from, "If you think understanding is more powerful than action, why, Krishna, do you urge me to this horrific act? You confuse my understanding with a maze of words..." to "Krishna, my delusion is destroyed... I stand here, my doubt dispelled, ready to act on your words." 

We are introduced in slow but mesmerizing detail to the wisdom within Arjuna himself; an omniscience that eluded him because it was hidden beneath illusion, or maya. Indeed, Krishna makes it clear that the very essence of maya is to conceal the Self – the atman – from human understanding by introducing the fallacy of separation, luring individuals with the promise that enlightenment springs not from within but from worldly accouterments: in sensual attraction, in the enticements of wealth and power. However, Krishna makes it clear that the realm of the senses, the physical world, is impermanent, and always in flux. Whereas he, the supreme manifestation of the divine and the earthly, the past, present and future, is there in all things, unchanging. "All creatures are bewildered at birth by the delusion of opposing dualities that arise from desire and hatred." 

Although these themes are repeated often throughout the Gita, in myriad ways, not once do they become tiresome. Although Krishna's role in much of the Mahabharata is that of a Machiavellian trickster, invested in his own mysterious agenda, he does eventually reveal himself to Arjuna as the omniscient deity. Yet never once does he coerce Arjuna into accepting his teachings, though they are woven inextricably and dazzlingly through the entirety of the Gita. Rather, he gives Arjuna the choice to sift through layers of self-delusion and find his true Self. This can be achieved neither through passive inertia, nor through power-hungry action, but through the resolute fulfillment of duty that is its own reward. In order to dissolve the Self, the atman, into Brahman and achieve moksha, it is necessary to fight all that is mere illusory temptation. Just as Krishna promises Arjuna, victory is within reach, precisely because as a Kshatriya-warrior, it is his sacred duty – his destiny – to fight the battle. More than that, the desire to act righteously is his fundamental nature; the rest is pretense and self-delusion. "You are bound by your own action, intrinsic to your being ... the lord resides in the heart of all creatures, making them reel magically, as if a machine moved them." 

Although the issues that Arjuna grapples with often become metaphysical speculations, never once does it dehumanize his character. His very conflict between the vacillations of the self and sacred duty assure his position as something greater and more complex than a mere widget fulfilling Krishna's agenda. It is through the essence of Arjuna's conflict that he grows on a personal and spiritual level. Conflict so personal and timeless is inextricably tied to choice. In Arjuna's case, the decision to shed the constraints of temporal insecurities and ascend toward his higher Self – freed from the weight of futile self-doubt and petty distractions – rests entirely in his hands. Krishna aids him through his psychospiritual journey not with a lightning-bolt of instantaneous comprehension, but through a slow unraveling of illusions so that Arjuna will arrive at a loftier vantage, able to reconnect with his true Self, and to remember his sacred duty. The answers are already within him; the very purpose of Krishna's counsel is merely to draw it out. "Armed with his purified knowledge, subduing the self with resolve, relinquishing sensuous objects, avoiding attraction and hatred... unposessive, tranquil, he is at one with the infinite spirit."

At its core, the Bhagavad Gita is timelessly insightful and life-affirmingly human, an epic that illustrates the discomfiting truths and moral dilemmas that continue to haunt modern-day readers. Despite its martial setting, it is fueled not by the atrocities of battle, but overflowing with the wisdoms of devotion, duty and love. Its protagonist is inclined by lingering personal attachments, but compelled by godly counsel, to surpass both the narrow private restrictions of self-doubt and the broad social framework of family, in order to reconnect with his pure, transcendental Self. However the Gita does not offer its teachings as rigid doctrine, but as a gentle framework through which readers can achieve a fresh perspective on the essential struggles of humankind. At once a down-to-earth narrative and a multifaceted spiritual drama, the Gita bears a concrete timelessness, with its magnetism lying in the fact that it is a work not of religious dogma, but of personal choice.

[yesjanetaudrey]

Walk the Talk

On the Easter Trail

Rabbi Jacob Neusner has observed that “‘Take up your cross and follow me’ is not the same thing as ‘study the Torah that I teach, which I have studied from my master before me.'” The situation is at once simpler than that, whilst being more complicated. Yet, the Rabbi was succinct: Only God can command us, and that the Jew looks for cultural markers to guide the social…

[ccs-super-stores]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: World Religions in America :An Introduction by Jacob Neusner 2003 Paperback Book.

[yeshrakhabaruchhu]

REMEMBER, DON’T FORGET

The Politics of Memory Eikev 5779

In Eikev Moses sets out a political doctrine of such wisdom that it can never become redundant or obsolete. He does it by way of a pointed contrast between the ideal to which Israel is called, and the danger with which it is faced. This is the ideal:

Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in His ways and revering Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land – a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you. (Deut. 8:6–10)

And this is the danger:

Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe His commands, His laws, and His decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery…. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms His covenant, which He swore to your forefathers, as it is today. (Deut. 8:11–17)

The two passages follow directly on from one another. They are linked by the phrase “when you have eaten and are satisfied,” and the contrast between them is a fugue between the verbs “to remember” and “to forget.”

Good things, says Moses, will happen to you. Everything, however, will depend on how you respond. Either you will eat and be satisfied and bless God, remembering that all things come from Him – or you will eat and be satisfied and forget to whom you owe all this. You will think it comes entirely from your own efforts: “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” Although this may seem a small difference, it will, says Moses, make all the difference. This alone will turn your future as a nation in its own land.

Moses’ argument is brilliant and counter-intuitive. You may think, he says, that the hard times are behind you. You have wandered for forty years without a home. There were times when you had no water, no food. You were exposed to the elements. You were attacked by your enemies. You may think this was the test of your strength. It was not. The real challenge is not poverty but affluence, not slavery but freedom, not homelessness but home.

Many nations have been lifted to great heights when they faced difficulty and danger. They fought battles and won. They came through crises – droughts, plagues, recessions, defeats – and were toughened by them. When times are hard, people grow. They bury their differences. There is a sense of community and solidarity, of neighbours and strangers pulling together. Many people who have lived through a war know this.

The real test of a nation is not if it can survive a crisis but if it can survive the lack of a crisis. Can it stay strong during times of ease and plenty, power and prestige? That is the challenge that has defeated every civilisation known to history. Let it not, says Moses, defeat you.

Moses’ foresight was little less than stunning. The pages of history are littered with the relics of nations that seemed impregnable in their day, but which eventually declined and fell and lapsed into oblivion – and always for the reason Moses prophetically foresaw. They forgot.[1] Memories fade. People lose sight of the values they once fought for – justice, equality, independence, freedom. The nation, its early battles over, becomes strong. Some of its members grow rich. They become lax, self-indulgent, over-sophisticated, decadent. They lose their sense of social solidarity. They no longer feel it their duty to care for the poor, the weak, the marginal, the losers. They begin to feel that such wealth and position as they have is theirs by right. The bonds of fraternity and collective responsibility begin to fray. The less well-off feel an acute sense of injustice. The scene is set for either revolution or conquest. Societies succumb to external pressures when they have long been weakened by internal decay. That was the danger Moses foresaw and about which he warned.

His analysis has proved true time and again, and it has been restated by several great analysts of the human condition. In the fourteenth century, the Islamic scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) argued that when a civilisation becomes great, its elites get used to luxury and comfort, and the people as a whole lose what he called their asabiyyah, their social solidarity. The people then become prey to a conquering enemy, less civilised than they are but more cohesive and driven. The Italian political philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) described a similar cycle: People, he said, “first sense what is necessary, then consider what is useful, next attend to comfort, later delight in pleasures, soon grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad squandering their estates.”[2] Affluence begets decadence. In the twentieth century few said it better than Bertrand Russell in his History of Western Philosophy. He believed that the two great peaks of civilisation were reached in ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy, but he was honest enough to see that the very features that made them great contained the seeds of their own demise:

What had happened in the great age of Greece happened again in Renaissance Italy: traditional moral restraints disappeared, because they were seen to be associated with superstition; the liberation from fetters made individuals energetic and creative, producing a rare fluorescence of genius; but the anarchy and treachery which inevitably resulted from the decay of morals made Italians collectively impotent, and they fell, like the Greeks, under the domination of nations less civilised than themselves but not so destitute of social cohesion.[3]

Moses, however, did more than prophesy and warn. He also taught how the danger could be avoided, and here too his insight is as relevant now as it was then. He spoke of the vital significance of memory for the moral health of a society. Throughout history there have been many attempts to ground ethics in universal attributes of humanity. Some, like Immanuel Kant, based it on reason. Others based it on duty. Bentham rooted it in consequences (“the greatest happiness for the greatest number”[4]). David Hume attributed it to certain basic emotions: sympathy, empathy, compassion. Adam Smith predicated it on the capacity to stand back from situations and judge them with detachment (“the impartial spectator”). Each of these has its virtues, but none has proved fail-safe. Judaism took, and takes, a different view. The guardian of conscience is memory. Time and again the verb zachor, “remember,” resonates through Moses’ speeches in Deuteronomy:

·        Remember that you were slaves in Egypt…therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Shabbat day. (Deut. 5:15)

·        Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years…(Deut. 8:2)

·        Remember this and never forget how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the desert…(Deut. 9:7)

·        Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam along the way after you came out of Egypt. (Deut. 24:9)

·        Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. (Deut. 25:17)

·        Remember the days of old, consider the years of ages past. (Deut. 32:7)

As Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi notes in his great treatise, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, “Only in Israel and nowhere else is the injunction to remember felt as a religious imperative to an entire people.”[5]Civilisations begin to die when they forget. Israel was commanded never to forget. In an eloquent passage, the American scholar Jacob Neusner once wrote:

                        Civilisation hangs suspended, from generation to generation, by the gossamer strand of memory. If only one cohort of mothers and fathers fails to convey to its children what it has learned from its parents, then the great chain of learning and wisdom snaps. If the guardians of human knowledge stumble only one time, in their fall collapses the whole edifice of knowledge and understanding.[6] The politics of free societies depends on the handing on of memory. That was Moses’ insight, and it speaks to us with undiminished power today. Shabbat Shalom

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   22 August 2019