(Originally delivered at Temple Israel on November 6, 2010.)
As a rabbi, I am always looking for lessons that can be learned from the grammatical oddities of the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew of the Torah in particular.
And, as a grammar buff, I am also drawn to the regular “On Language” column that appears in the New York Times, the one that up until the past year was written by William Safire (alav ha-shalom), but all the more so to the Jewish version of this column that appears in the weekly Forward newspaper. This latter one is written anonymously under the pseudonym of Philologos, although I have it on good authority that Philologos’ true identity is noted author and translator Hillel Halkin, author of Letters to an American Jewish Friend: A Zionist’s Polemic, and a recent biography of Yehuda Halevi.
About three years ago at around this time of year, Philologos took up the question of foreign words adopted into Modern Hebrew. There are many such words, since the corpus of Biblical and rabbinic Hebrew that Modern Hebrew draws on is lacking in many terms required by modern life. Some of these adopted words are more “Hebraized” than others:
“Lesabsed,” for example, means “to subsidize.”
“Ektzentri” means “eccentric.”
“Pluralizm” means (I know this is hard to believe) “pluralism.”
Philologos points to, among others, the Modern Hebrew word “historiya,” which means, of course, history. “Historiya” is a Greek word which arrived in English via Latin as “history,” and is derived from the Greek term for learning.
Now, if you are thinking critically at this point, you might be wondering, “Why did Hebrew need to borrow a Greek term for history? Is there no original Hebrew word?”
I’m so glad you asked! After all, history is central to Jewish life and learning. It does seem surprising that the language of the Torah, and for that matter, all of rabbinic literature does not include such a word.
And yet, as Philologos points out, the correct form of “historiya” when used in construct with another noun (construct: like birkat ha-mazon, the blessing of food, or keri’at ha-Torah, the reading of the Torah) is not “historiyat ha-yehudim.” Rather, the first word of the construct changes entirely, replaced with “toledot.” As in, Ve-eleh toledot yitzhaq, which were the opening words of our parashah this morning. Our translation renders this as, “This is the story of Isaac.” To modern Israeli ears, these words sound more like, “This is the history of Isaac.”
The word “toledot” seems to be a form of the shoresh (root) “yod-lamed-daled,” child, and from which all forms of begetting and begotten are derived. It seems to mean history, but literally, it means, these are the generations of Isaac. When used, however, it is not merely about who begat whom - it is also used to introduce important details of the lives of Biblical characters. The same word, by the way, introduces the second Creation story in Genesis as well, the one that includes the intrigue of Adam and Eve in Gan Eden - not generations, but history.
As Jews, we constantly, actively relive our history. From week to week, as we observe the Shabbat, or throughout the yearly cycle as we celebrate the range of Jewish holidays that tell the story of one ancient happening after another, we are invoking our history.
We are here today because God rested on Shabbat, and our ancestors have always done so. We built our Sukkot six weeks ago because our ancestors wandered through the desert. In another month we will kindle the Hanukkah lights to commemorate the Hasmonean military victory over the Hellenized Syrians in middle of the 2nd century, BCE. And so on.
So while you can make the case (as some scholars do) that “historiya” is a modern idea, you cannot deny that the Jews have always been committed to retelling the past - celebrating the victories, and recalling the low points to avoid them in the future.
History is central to who we are. And all the more so as Conservative Jews. What we today call “the Conservative movement” was originally called “the positive-historical school,” referring to a group European Jewish scholars of the mid-19th century who were positive toward Jewish tradition and law, but also historically-inclined. That is, they saw Judaism as a developing tradition and studied it in the historical and cultural context of the wider cultures in which it has existed, and were likewise committed to halakhah, Jewish law, in its own historical arc.
We in this movement like to think historically, something that often differentiates us in particular from large swaths of Orthodoxy. We know that Abraham did not daven on the other side of the mehitzah from his wife Sarah, because both daily prayer and mehitzot are much later developments in Jewish tradition. We understand that Moses never heard anything from God about putting hekhshers on apples.
It is only through the historical lens that we can truly understand who we are and where we are going. Judaism in all of its richness is best appreciated on a timeline - from the destruction of the first Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, and a whole range of dates and places and kings and rabbis and interpreters and wars and exiles and migrations. And so forth. We as a people, perhaps more than any other nation on this earth, have been shaped by our collective experience along the span of this timeline.
Welcome to the present. Here is where our long view becomes even more important. We Jews, and particularly Conservative Jews, must play an essential role in the unfolding of the next chapter in world history.
The author George Santayana said, somewhat famously, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We are living in a time in which historical memory is painfully short. Who has to remember anything anymore, when everything you could ever possibly need to know is a few swift keystrokes away?
I am going to ask you to consider two items, examples regarding which we need to draw on history to evaluate:
Item #1. On Tuesday there was a ballot question in Oklahoma regarding shari’a law. Did you all hear about this? 70% of voters in Oklahoma voted to “ban” the use of Muslim law, known as Shari’a, by judges in Oklahoma. Now, there are obvious legal problems with this measure, and they will surely be worked through in court.
Shari’a, like halakhah, is an internal Muslim religious matter. It is not binding on non-Muslims, just like halakhah is not binding on non-Jews. The subjects that shari’a law addresses are similar to those addressed by halakhah - religious observances such as diet and prayer, areas of criminal law, torts, family law, and so forth. The Muslim courts that deal with shari’a are similar to what we call in Judaism a “beit din.” The very word shari’a means “the way” or “path,” which is exactly what halakhah means in Hebrew.
Now, how would we feel as Jews if New York State were to “ban” the use of halakhah? I know, it sounds ridiculous, right? But that is, more or less, what the state of Oklahoma has done. Until now, no judge in an Oklahoma court has used shari’a in a court decision, and this law would prevent them from doing so in the future.
The Torah teaches us explicitly not to murder. As does halakhah. Now, I’m no lawyer, but I presume that New York State law forbids murder as well. It would be ludicrous to propose that New York State is out of line by drawing on the Ten Commandments. It is apparent to me, and should be obvious to everybody that this new Oklahoma statute is simply borne of prejudice.
As Jews, we should know, given our long view of history, our oppression at the hands of non-Jewish rulers all over the world, and our struggles in East and West to be accepted as human beings, that any government that seeks to enact laws about religion, any religion, is a tyrannical one.
Item #2: the package bombs addressed to two Chicago-area synagogues that made their way onto airplanes a week ago in Yemen. They were (thank God!) intercepted in Dubai and London before they exploded. The authorities are saying that they were the work of Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, a Yemeni terrorist group whose “spiritual leader” is Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born and educated radical imam. (Maybe you heard that Mr. al-Awlaki’s videos were taken down by YouTube. He is savvy with new media, and speaks fluent English, lending to his power and influence.)
Now here is a real threat. This is the menace we should pursue, not the non-existent implementation of shari’a law in Oklahoma. Our resources should be devoted to countering the influence of radical preachers such as al-Awlaki, and seeking out and prosecuting his henchmen, not publicly denouncing or defaming anybody’s religious practice. As Jews we can distinguish actual enemies from fear-mongering.
Aside: I spoke yesterday with Rabbi Devorah Marcus, the assistant rabbi at Temple Beth El, up the street. She told me that the placement of the “suspicious package” that appeared last Shabbat morning and prompted the evacuation of their building may indicate that this was a trial run to see how effective it might have been had it been an actual bomb.
The threat by people who want to destroy us is real. And we must be vigilant. Not scared, but vigilant. Israelis live with a very real terrorist threat on a daily basis, and as such they are paying attention. We need to pay attention as well. And not just to the possibility of suspicious packages, but also to the events that are taking place on the world stage.
That is the subject, by the way, of today’s Shabbat talk by Holocaust survivor Irving Roth, who will be speaking about how the delegitimization of Israel today echoes the lead-up to Kristallnacht in the 1930s. Don’t miss it.
We as Jews know and understand history, and as the wider world drifts into an ahistorical stew of digital mindlessness, we cannot let the bad actors in this world on either side hijack the upright path.
We must continue to take the long view:
We must keep tabs on the true enemies, and give strength to the oppressed. We know and understand both, because that is our history.
Isaac’s story, toledot yitzhaq, is our history, and so is everything that follows, right up to the events of last week.
As Or La-Goyim, a light unto the nations, we are the guardians of history. That is what we teach our children, and that is what we bring to the world.
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