Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Promised Land

Judaism is unique among the three monotheistic religions unique in the way real estate, a carefully defined piece of land in a specific part of the planet, is part of the core belief system. In fact, Judaism is probably unique in this respect among all world religions (probably, because I do not know all of them).

Christianity has inherited from its mother religion Judaism the concepts of Promised land, Mount Sion and Jerusalem and these are often mentioned when reading the Bible. But the New Testament gives a new interpretation both to being a Jew and to these concepts. New Jerusalem, Sion and Promised Land have spiritual rather than earthly geographical contents.

Islam is a global religion that reaches for all humanity and it has no geographical core comparable to the Promised Land of the Jews - all the world belongs to Allah and the believer faces Mecca wherever he or she is at the time of the prayer.

Judaism is an ancient religion - older than for example Buddhism - but this does not explain the peculiarity of its geographical orientation. Ancient Near Eastern religions do not show such features, not in Egypt and not in Mesopotamia or Canaan. Surely, city gods and country gods lived in their sanctuaries and took care of their people.

But the command to Abram to leave his home country to another country and to sojourn there as a stranger waiting that his children will inherit the land is quite unique. We can compare it to the other sojourner at the beginning of Middle Bronze Age, Sinuhe, whose heart is burning to return back home and to be properly buried in Egypt.

Denying the important of the Land is according to rabbi Moses ben-Maimon, Maimonides or Rambam, equal to denying the existence of God.

Tanakh shows how living in the Promised Land is an integral part of being a Jew, the people of Covenant obey the Law of Sinai and God gives them peace and prosperity in the Land. Breaking the Covenant by evil deeds and especially by worshiping other gods means destruction of the people and expulsion from the Land. This central line of faith is particularly clear in the Deuteronomy.

And Biblical history was rough especially in this regard. The Assyrian empire moved much of the local population away from the Northern Kingdom and also created the Samaritan mixed people by bringing inhabitants from elsewhere to live among the survivals. Thus ten of the twelve tribes of Jacob have disappeared from history (the search goes on).

For those exiled by the Babylonians from the Southern Kingdom the prophets promised return to the Promised land but apparently many Jews stayed in Mesopotamia and Persia, modern Irak and Iran, some families living there until modern days.

For the past 2000 years since the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Roman soldiers it has been impossible to return to the Land. Longing back home is expressed in the Passover Seder with hopeful words l'shana haba'a biy'rushalayim that is Next year in Jerusalem.

....
The essential importance of the Promised Land to being a Jew is difficult for non-Jews to grasp because this element of religion is unknown even in Christianity and Islam that build on the Tanakh. Justifying the conquest on religious terms has therefore not been in the front line of modern Zionism.

...
For the Jewish religious leaders the challenge of the divinely commanded Conquest of the Promised Land is a new and difficult problem. While the rabbis have a long history of interpreting Torah according to changing times - not all adulterers are stoned today as the divine Law commands - there is no such tradition with the divine command of capturing the Land from its non-Jewish inhabitants, for destroying Amalek.

State of Israel is not a theocracy and the founders of the modern state were not particularly religious Jews. Rather, David Ben Gurion and others represented Russian socialist and communist ideas and the establishment of the state was largely a result of the horrific events in Europe during the Second World War. United Nations wanted to give a home to the remnants of the utterly persecuted Jewish people.

But now times are changing. The Zionist left is in deep decline and rightist nationalism and religious Judaism are gaining strength. There are varying responses to God's call to take the land - some follow the example of polite Abraham who bargained with locals while buying the Cave of Machpelah as a burial for his wife Sara, some follow the genocidal Joshua and King Saul following the commands of God and the rules of Iron Age warfare in Ancient Near East.

Both are true to the Bible and the most basic tenant of Judaism - the Promised Land.

We will look in another blog at the Biblical borders of the Land promised to Abraham and his children.

2 comments:

  1. As a non-Jew I agree with you that the importance of the concept of promised land for the Jewish people is difficult to understand.

    Yet, is it so simple?

    History is piled on the bodies of nations and conquerers who believe that 'land' was a key element not only to ensure their existence but many other reasons. Be it on account of a notion of birthright, Christian missions, resources and power: examples I am thinking of are the early Feudal lords, the Crusaders, lebensraum of 1930s Germany, British colonialism, or the Spanish conquests.

    Therefore, I guess the question I am wondering while reading your work is whether it really is unique to the Jewish people?

    I could argue that their testament is an ideology. Zionism, as you rightly pointed out, was a political project one of nation-building and identity formation. If, then, it is an ideology can we ever justify their actions or allow room to understand them and their supporters?

    Looking at the revolutions across the Middle East today and the independence of former colonial states or even WWII, even more so, the rise of the ideas of democracy and liberty against feudal and aristocratic regimes, what will this mean for Israel? or more precisely the promised land?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree that land has importance in other religions too, for example Christian Crusader conquest of Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem or Islamic conquest of the world for the true religion. Holy shrines obviously are casus belli in Hinduism. Yet, none of the other religions incorporate land to the core of their faith in the way it is done in Judaism.

    For early Zionism it was important to keep distance to the religious Jewish leadership - which in general said that King of Israel, Messiah, will restore the land, not the human efforts of the atheist communist Jews in Russia or Poland. Building of the homeland "in a land without people for people without land" was argued in modern secular terms with strong references to prevalent anti-semitism in Europe and Russia.

    Only in recent years there has been a marked decline of the "leftist" Zionists and almost a witch-hunt and the nationalistic right-wing Zionism has adopted also strong religious tones from the supporting rabbis, especially from the settlement endeavour.

    Here is where I see the rising problems of interpreting the Holy Scriptures in modern times - the need to come to terms with the partly genocidal religious texts in the Bible.

    ReplyDelete