31 Dec The Cycle of Anti-Semitism
I. Whose Revenge?
Throughout the ages, many gentiles have hated Jews. We were expelled from many countries, including those which claim to be bastions of refined civilization. What can we do to stop this cycle? A midrash offers a surprising answer that seems to have been refuted by the modern experience.
G-d commands Moshe to exact Israel’s revenge (nikmas Yisrael) on Midian, punishment for their enticement of the Jews to idolatry and immorality (Num. 31:1). For important reasons beyond our current scope, Moshe passes this command to other but in slightly different language. He commands the people to take G-d’s revenge (Num. 31:3). Whose revenge is it, G-d’s or Israel’s?
Medieval commentators offer three answers, two directly based on varying opinions in the midrash. Abarbanel (and Malbim) offers a non-midrashic, pseudo-Brisker approach. He explains that the revenge has two aspects — G-d’s revenge for the enticement to idolatry and Israel’s revenge for the punishment they received due to the enticement. Rashi and Onkelos offer a simpler approach. They suggest that this is G-d’s revenge; anyone who attacks the Jews does so as an attack on G-d.
II. Three Solutions to Anti-Semitism
Chizkuni takes the opposite approach; this was Israel’s revenge. However, the Jews complained to G-d that they were only attacked because they followed His laws. Had they abandoned His Torah, they would never have been attacked. Therefore, they placed some of the blame for the attack on G-d. Chizkuni’s source is Bamidbar Rabbah (22:2; parallels in Tanchuma, Matos 3; Yalkut Shimoni ad loc.), which describes the complaint as follows: “If we were 1) uncircumcised, 2) idol worshipers or 3) rejectors of the laws they would not hate us or chase us. It is because of the Torah and commandments You gave us. Therefore it is Your revenge.”
The three elements of this surprising attribution of anti-semitism to Jewish behavior deserves careful study. It does not state that if Jews would assimilate into gentile populations, they would not suffer persecution. If so, the last two parts do not conform to this concept. The midrash seems to say that even if we remain a separate nation but worship idols or merely fail to observe the commandments, we would be free from anti-semitism. Understandably, our unique, at least in ancient times, devotion to a solely incorporeal G-d separates us from other people. Our refusal to take part in any aspect of their religions may offend. Additionally, our unique eating habits and other religious behaviors also set us apart from other nations. But does this midrash imply that if we jettison those behaviors we will be accepted? If we act like the majority culture, take part in their religion and behave like them — i.e. assimilate — we will avoid anti-semitism?
III. The Failed Modern Experiment
The modern experience seems to disprove this contention. After over two centuries of emancipation and wide-scale assimilation, Jews still face hatred. While overt discrimination is illegal in most civilized countries, hatred can never be legislated out of existence. Many still see Jews as an “other” to be feared. Jews who intermarried and hid their identity learned in the Holocaust the futility of this failed experiment of assimilationist survival.
Arguably, the midrashic complaint could be claiming that if every Jew would assimilate then anti-semitism would vanish. This is the mid-twentieth century philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s solution to the problem of anti-semitism in his Anti-Semite and Jew. Michael Walzer, in his preface to the 1995 edition of Sartre’s book, summarizes the author’s view of the ultimate Jewish fate: “The Jews will assimilate into this [classless] society, leaving nothing behind, without regret, giving up their Jewishness just as the worker gives up class consciousness for the sake of universality” (p. xviii).
However, the complete disappearance of the Jewish people is biblically untenable and midrashically impossible. G-d’s biblical promises to the Jews in the desert, of entering and settling the land of Israel, preclude the possibility of the nation’s disappearance at that time. And the messianic promises of the prophets demand a surviving remnant. The Talmud (Bava Basra 115a) records a divine promise that each tribe of Israel will remain eternally extant, even if temporarily unrecognizable in the mixed multitude of Jewish communities (see Tosafos, Gittin 36a sv. bi-zman).
IV. The Cause of Anti-Semitism
Perhaps the midrash is explaining the cause, and not the resolution, of anti-semitism. The Netziv (19th century, Russia) devotes a good deal of thought to the cause of anti-semitism (in the supplement to his commentary on Song of Songs and in his haggadah commentary to “ve-hi she-amdah“). In exact contradiction to common sentiment, when Jews try to assimilate that is precisely when anti-semitism grows. The refusal to cling to Jewish tradition and to remain separate in many ways from other nations, the rejection of some or all of Judaism, is the true cause of anti-semitism.
The midrash may be sending precisely this message. Even soon after accepting the Torah, before gentile prejudices could even develop, the Jews blamed their troubles on religion. At the very beginning, before the concept even made sense, we blamed anti-semitism on our different behavior. Clearly this approach is wrong. After many centuries, the modern experience has confirmed this midrash’s message.
We should not blame other Jews but look to ourselves on how we can improve on our own flaws. Our response to anti-semitism must be the opposite of the three midrashic claims: strengthening our unique appearances (expanding on the theme of circumcision), greater devotion to G-d alone (rejecting idolatry in its broadest sense) and greater care for the Torah’s laws.