Some Words About Israel
We’re back in the desert this week, at the start of BaMidbar, known in English as Book of Numbers, because it begins with a census of the entire Israelite community. Finding themselves in a vast nothingness, wandering from Sinai to Canaan the long way ‘round, as punishment for the Golden Calf, the Israelites took stock of themselves, and their strength, by the fighting men from each of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Counting is a theme throughout this week’s Torah portion, and it’s not the first time the Israelites have conducted a census. In Parshat Ki Tisa, back at the base of Mt. Sinai, G-d orders Moses to conduct a census of the Israelites. Ki Tisa is also the Torah portion that includes the Golden Calf story, the very reason the Israelites find themselves in the desert this week, counting their numbers as they continue their long journey.
A couple of months ago I spoke about the negativity often associated with counting, especially counting people, in Judaism, citing the story of how King David cause an outbreak of pestilence in the Israelite kingdom by conducting an unauthorized census.
This week, as the Torah returns to the theme of counting, the world seems to have more to count than ever—infection rates to be sure, but also global vaccine programs. And if you’re focused on Israel you might be tracking rockets fired from Gaza, interceptions by the Iron Dome. Of course, you might also be tracking Palestinian casualties in Gaza and the West Bank, the number of seconds you have to chuck a teargas canister before the vapors envelope you, and the number of houses demolished by Israel, to make way for new Jewish neighborhoods.
I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to say anything about Israel on this podcast. It’s just so divisive. But I was encouraged by a favorite quote of mine, from Pirkei Avot, attributed to Rabbi Tarphon.
“You are not obligated to finish the work of repairing the world, but neither are you free to neglect it.”
So here it goes.
Last week the Torah offered the laws of shmitta, including the Jubilee cycle, when debts are forgiven and land is returned to its ancestral holders every 50 years. The Jubilee year is specifically mentioned in the Torah.
Leviticus 25:8
You shall count off seven weeks of years—seven times seven years—so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years.
Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month—the Day of Atonement—you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land and you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family.
I want to be clear, there are no easy solutions to the ongoing crisis in Israel. It didn’t start overnight, and it won’t be solved overnight. An unlimited right of return for Palestinian refugees does nothing to address the similarly systematic losses Arab Jews sustained in the decade after 1948. It does nothing for the Soviet refugees who came in the 90s, or the Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees who came this century. And ultimately it does nothing to rectify the generations of loss Palestinians have endured, both at the hands of Jews and the State of Israel, and at hands of Arab nations who too often use the Palestinians as pawns to further their own goals.
Still, Jewish law makes it clear that land ownership is temporary and that even the most onerous debts are to be forgiven rarely but regularly.
There is, of course, a loophole, and it’s the reason the Jubilee is not currently part of modern Jewish practice, and might never come back into practice.
To quote Chabad, which I don’t often do:
According to biblical law, the Jubilee is only observed when all twelve tribes of the Jewish nation are living in Israel, as is derived from the verse, “And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live on it,” which implies that the Jubilee is only sanctified when “all who live on it”—meaning, all who are meant to be living there—are in the Land of Israel. Furthermore, the Jubilee is only observed when every tribe is living in the specific part of the land which it was allotted when the Land of Israel was divided.
And this, predictably, is the point where I just lose it. Because I love shmitta, and I love the Jubilee even more. There’re among my favorite parts of Jewish law, and my little progressive liberal heart, which is still burning for Bernie by the way, skips at beat when I think about a society willing to transfer wealth on such a scale, so regularly, so long ago. But since the Assyrians invaded the northern Kingdom of Israel, and 10 of the 12 tribes were lost to history, conquered and assimilated into other civilizations, the Jubilee year hasn’t been part of Jewish life. And what, I ask, is the point of having such high minded ideals if you box them in until they’re of no practical use to anyone?
What’s the point of having a State of Israel at all if we’re not able to bring the best of Jewish values to the world stage, and display our cherished ethics, our compassion, our desire to build on what came before, to question what feels wrong, and repair what feels broken?
This summer will be the 54th anniversary of the Six Day War, and the start of what at the time didn’t seem like an occupation, but more than half a century later has become one. And this episode will be released on the 73rd anniversary of David Ben Gurion’s Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.
Tradition holds that Ben Gurion held everyone in the room, as Shabbat drew near, using the deadline to force compromise that until that moment seemed impossible. The words of the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel aren’t heard often enough. This week, as rockets fly from Gaza to Tel Aviv and back again, it seems a fitting place to end, with the ideals set forth by a nation just being born, one still struggling today to live up to those very same ideals. I won’t read it all, just my favorite paragraph, one which speaks to the highest ideals of the Jewish people, then and now.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
Happy Birthday, Israel. Time to start living up to our own ideals as Jews. It’s the only part of this entire situation we can reasonably control, and it’ll have an outsized impact on that eternal goal that we’re not obligated to complete but to keep pursuing—repairing the world to finish the work of creation.
Shabbat shalom