November 17th: Toldot
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
When Moses says, “I was a stranger in a strange land” (Exodus 2.22), his words resonate with much of the Jewish experience. As a people dispersed in every corner of the world, we have had to figure out the mores and social currency of the people among whom we have dwelled. This has always been a subjective endeavor—with both judgment and speculation.
Take my cousin who died from wounds he received on Kristallnacht some eighty-five years ago. Ferdinand Levy’s family had been in Germany for centuries, and his grandfather Philipp Levy and father Wilhelm Levy had both served in the Prussian Army. When it was Ferdinand’s turn, he fought for his country in the Great War, serving at Verdun and on the Eastern Front and receiving the Iron Cross for bravery. After the war, he became a kosher butcher, married, fathered three children, and served as a vice-mayor of Neuwied in the Rhineland. One would think that being a good citizen would garner safety and acceptance, and it did until it did not.
In the Torah, we see a variety of strategies for surviving encounters with neighbors—some more successful than others. When Abraham and Sarah visit Egypt (Genesis 12) and later Gerar (Genesis 20), Abraham is concerned that the locals will kill him to get his beautiful wife, Sarah. So, they inform everyone that she is his sister. The problem, in both places, is that this beautiful “sister” is conscripted into the king’s harem. Fortunately, God protects Sarah—afflicting the Egyptians with “mighty plagues” (which the Midrash identifies as national impotence) and giving Abimelech the king of Gerar a warning dream. In both cases, when the local ruler realizes that Sarah is Abraham’s wife and not his sister, he is aghast that he might have committed adultery and sends Abraham off with compensatory damages for the afront. Maybe Abraham was wrong; maybe they would not have killed him for his beautiful wife. Or, maybe he was right, and the kings feigned morality in the face of God’s protective power.
In this week’s Torah portion, Isaac and Rebekah have a similar experience (Genesis 25.1-11):
“There was a famine in the land…and Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines in Gerar…When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, ‘She is my sister,’ for he was afraid to say, ‘my wife,’ thinking, ‘The men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah for she is beautiful.’ When some time had passed, Abimelech king of the Philistines, looking out of the window, saw Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah. Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, ‘So she is your wife! Why then did you say that “she is my sister?!”’ Isaac said to him, ‘Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.’ Abimelech said, ‘What have you done to us! One of the people might have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.’ Abimelech then charged all the people, saying ‘Anyone who molests this man or his wife shall be put to death.’”
Is Isaac correct in fearing immorality and murder as a Philistine possibility? Or does he not recognize “God-fearing” people from a different culture?
In last week’s portion, Chayay Sarah, as Abraham seeks a gravesite for his beloved wife, he realizes that his status as “a resident alien” puts him at a disadvantage. In the absence of courthouse records, how can he buy property and have that possession secure for future generations? As the commentary on Genesis 23 explains, Abraham’s strategy is to pay Ephron the Hittite far more than the market price for the cave of Machpelah: the story of the Hebrew who paid 400 shekels for a much less expensive piece of property would reverberate through the region and be told again and again. Living among strangers, Abraham figures that an outlandish, tellable story will establish his ownership as a well-known fact.
These stories, though tense, never get too conflictual. However, things get very dramatic in Genesis 34 (Parshat Vayishlach, which comes in two weeks). Returning from some twenty years in Paddan Aram, Jacob/Israel, his family, and his tribe settle for a while near Shechem. When Israel’s daughter Dinah “goes out to visit the daughters of the land,” she is sexually assaulted by the local chieftain’s son, Shechem son of Hamor. The young man offers to marry Dinah, but Israel’s family is divided on how to respond. Some think that agreement will bring peace. Others think that agreement will set the Israelites up for continuing disrespect and eventual subjugation. Their strategy—agreeing to the marriage but insisting that the whole Gentile tribe get circumcised—turns out to be a ruse. When Hamor’s tribe is writhing in pain after submitting to circumcision, Simeon and Levi—two of Dinah’s full brothers, “each took his sword, came upon the city unmolested, and slew all the males. They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword, took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went away.” The other Israelites plundered the town “because their sister had been defiled.”
Back at the Israelite camp, Jacob/Israel is horrified. “You have brought trouble on me, making me odious among the inhabitants of the land.” But Simeon and Levi answer, “Should our sister be treated as a whore?” Loosely translated, I think they mean, “Nobody will dare mess with us again.” (Or as an old rewrite of Psalm 23 goes, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest @&#*@& in the valley.” )
For over 100 years, there has been an active discussion among Jews about how best to deal with Arabs. Some say that we should treat Arabs as we would like to be treated ourselves. Be respectful. Recognize their inherent value as human beings and their rights, and the respect we show will be returned to us in kind. Others have the opposite view. They say that Arabs see kindness and respect as weakness—that treating them nicely provokes a natural aggressiveness and violence. Better to treat them harshly: remind them who the meanest %#(&@#& in the valley is. That’s the only way to protect ourselves.
As much as many of us see the Two State Solution as the long-hoped-for answer to the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, sometimes I wonder if it is more a pipe dream. Are there really any Arab “partners for peace?” Are there really enough Palestinians to make a Palestinian State a peaceful neighbor? Or is the Two State Solution merely a ruse, a temporary stage while the Palestinians bide their time before driving the Jews into the sea?
Israel lives in a dangerous neighborhood. It is, in many ways, a stranger in a strange region. Even though it is our homeland, the surrounding hostility forces Israel to calculate the same kind of survival strategies our people have sought for thousands of years. Are we paranoid, or are they really out to get us? As we have recently seen, too much trust and naivete can prove deadly.