European Judaism

Jews were designated as the ‘People of the Book’ in the Qur’an and we have been happy to adopt the title. It meant that, like Muslims, we had been the recipients of a divine revelation cast in the form of the written word. The designation is correct, but we might argue about what precisely that ‘book’ is. In one sense it is the Hebrew Bible, or more specifically, the written Torah, the Five Books of Moses. However from its outset rabbinic Judaism drew its authority from another ‘book’, originally perceived as the ‘oral Torah’, the oral tradition that accompanied the revelation at Mt. Sinai. It found its concrete expression within the Mishnah and Talmud, recording the arguments and decisions of emerging rabbinic Judaism. So the Talmud is the ‘book’ of received tradition that defined what constituted the Hebrew Bible itself, and virtually every aspect of Jewish life.

Foreignness is a given factor in Esther. It is also one of its main themes. Which is to say that, in Esther, foreignness is both an a priori condition and a problematised issue. Indeed, foreignness must be present in an empire of ‘one hundred and twenty-seven’ spatial, social and political components. It cannot be overlooked in a plot that foregrounds otherness. The ethnic, gender, political, religious and cultural admixture is present from the first chapter onwards: in the nomenclature, the language, the plot lines, the issues addressed. Although the story is a comedy – at least if we take the side of the victorious Jews, which is certainly the readerly response expected of us – the question remains: Is the problem of foreignness resolved at the end of the story? If it is – then how? To what extent? For whom? How is it dealt with?

The book of Esther, a popular tale of group loyalty in the face of hostility, is read on Purim, the spring-time carnival feast of revelry, fancy-dress, role reversal, charity and drinking. The purpose of this paper is to ask whether the book would be as popular if we thought carefully about its depiction of Jewish relations with host cultures. Should we discount this as an historical curiosity? Or is it essential to what the book and the feast have to offer?

He appeared at the end of the day. Suddenly. Out of nowhere. I had seen my last patient. I was ready to go home. The end of another day. Thank God. I opened the door to leave my consulting room – and there he was. Standing still, staring – or so it seemed to me – fixing me with that gaze, that look I came to know, and hate. And love. Those eyes which looked inside me until I could not bear it any longer. The emptiness. The loneliness. The endless horror of it all.

In this paper I would like to explore the subject of truth and lies, and to ask the question: who is a true prophet? My intention is to use the text of Jeremiah together with my psychoanalytic framework of thought to show an interesting interplay of ideas between the two sources which may stimulate discussion and reflection on the subject.

When I began to study at the Leo Baeck College I was very much influenced by our lecturer in Bible Dr Ellen Littmann. In fact I owe to her my own interest in the Hebrew Bible. At her urging I went on to do doctoral studies so that I could eventually succeed her at the College. Bible was not her first field of study. Instead it was history and she belonged to that circle around Ismar Elbogen and Leo Baeck who were such significant figures at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin and indeed for all of German Jewry before the war. She was brought to England from Israel by Rabbi Dr Van der Zyl the main architect in the creation of the College.

Of the many strange, symbolic acts performed or described by the prophets of Israel, surely the most scandalous was the marriage of Hosea. For us, the scandal probably lies mainly in the way Hosea seems to have treated his wife and children – using those under his care and control as a theological object-lesson, giving his children horrible names, and possibly, depending how we read the prophecies in chapter 2, subjecting his wife to violent humiliation. For ancient and medieval authors, however, the scandal lay elsewhere – in the idea of a prophet marrying a woman of low character and, even worse, of God ordering him to do so. Classical rabbinic literature, broadly speaking, contains three responses to this scandal.

Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of the dry bones contains what may well be the most powerful and memorable images of a book overflowing with powerful and memorable imagery. Readers, Jews and Christians alike, have traditionally found in this vision an extraordinary sign of hope concentrated in the idea of resurrection; even the dead can live. For me, however, it signifies something very different, though equally extraordinary: the depth of God’s desire that people should empathise with Him, and the extent of His willingness to help them reach that goal.

The Jewish Sages of the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods had an ambivalent attitude towards the prophet Ezekiel, which was particularly pronounced in relation to the first chapter of his Book. The visual audacity and dexterity of this chapter, which describes Ezekiel’s call to prophecy through his vision of the heavenly chariot and throne, was compared by the Sages to Isaiah’s restrained revelation (6:1–4), in their well-known saying (Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah, 13b): ‘All that Ezekiel saw Isaiah saw. What does Ezekiel resemble? A villager who saw the king. And what does Isaiah resemble? A townsman who saw the king’.

The Book of Kings opens with a dramatic power struggle for the throne of the aged King David. Chapter one raises the key question of who will sit upon the throne of David (vv. 20, 27) and then answers it decisively: ‘Long live King Solomon!’ (vv. 34, 39).

Some time ago my wife and I were invited to join a week of Jewish-Christian study workshops at Hedwig Dransfeld Haus in Bendorf, Germany. This is an ecumenical centre where people from different faith traditions study together and attend each other’s religious services. The study text for the workshops consisted of the opening six chapters of the prophet Ezekiel.

Basically, to justify the redeployment of a known theme or figure in the work of another era, there has to be established a perceptible link between the contemporary situation and the point of reference. Why move to imagine the other, if that other has no resonances or significance? Likewise, the contemporary insight and setting will bear implications for that initial source. In other words, the two worlds must illuminate each other.

With the exception of a brief ‘golden age’ in the days of the United Monarchy in the tenth century BCE, ancient Israel was a minor actor on the world scene. This pattern was set by the successors of King Solomon, the latter of whose disastrous internal policies led to the split of his father David’s kingdom into the rival states of Israel and Judah (1 Kgs. 12). Caught between various mighty empires and petty national entities, the kings of Judah and Israel attempted to maintain their semi-independence through a constant game of shifting political alliances. The first to succumb was the kingdom of Israel in 721 BCE (2 Kgs. 17). It had counted on Egyptian aid in the attempt to shake off the shackles of Assyrian authority. However, as recorded in 2 Kings 18:21 and Isaiah 36:6, Egypt was a ‘broken reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of the one who leans on it’. Those deported from Israel as a consequence of its defeat were to disappear from history and to enter into legend as the ‘ten lost tribes’.

Within the framework of Deuteronomy, there is an underlying theme of unity: One God, who causes His name to dwell in one place, has chosen one people, Israel, to enter into a covenantal relationship. The Deuteronomic covenant focuses on the individual as a member of the covenantal community and mandates an exclusive allegiance to God through observance of the law. It is the premise of this author that the covenant is the source of unity in Deuteronomy. It not only defines the relationship between God and Israel, it is the force that unifies the people of Israel as a nation, and elucidates the nature of the singular God whom they serve. Hence, this essay will explore the theme of unity in Deuteronomy from the perspective of the covenant between God and Israel.

Mysteries of the Bible

Hard by Old Jewry

Dusk, the Old World Darkening

Skins

Ballard’s Lane

Untitled

Autumn Near Minsk, 1882 The Fiddler’s Trance

Sounds Through the Window The Music Centre, Jerusalem

Chimes

In memoriam Rabbi Menachem Fitterman

In Memory of Simon Halkin

Qui Es In Caelis Some Melodious Tear

Touching Hakotel

Letter to God

Abraham: A Symbol of Hope for Jews, Christians and Muslims, Karl-Joseph Kuschel, London, SCM Press Ltd, 1995, £14.95. ISBN 0826408087

Moses Mendelssohn Gesammelte Schriften, Jubiläumsausgabe Bd. 22: Dokumente 1, bearbeitet v. Michael Albrecht, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt, F. Frommann Verlag/G. Holzboog, 1995, 374 pages, DM 234, ISBN 3-7728-1519-7

Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment, David Sorkin, London, Peter Halban Publ., 1996, 214 pages, £20, ISBN 1870015 27 4

The Goldapple Guide to Jewish Berlin, Andrew Roth/Michael Frajman, Goldapple Publishing, 1998, 181 pages, ISBN 3-9806356-0-0

Alfred Wiener and the Making of the Holocaust Library, Ben Barkow, London, Vallentine Mitchell, 1997, 211 pages, Cloth £35.00/Paper £17.50, ISBN 0 85303 329 3

Moses Mendelssohn, Porträts und Bilddokumente, Gisbert Porstmann, 1997, 401 pages, DM145, ISBN 3-7728-1521-9.