The Love of Jewish Self-Hatred

Laurent Cohen has an interesting article on Jewish self-hatred in Eretz Acheret:

According to Lessing, Jewish self-hatred stems from two chief sources: Jewish internalization of antisemitism and the Jews' ethical-megalomaniac aspiration to redeem the world.

"Ethical-megalomaniac" - a nice turn of phrase. Then we have Kafka:

If Kafka became so closely drawn to his Judaism, is there any point in further discussion about his “self-hatred?” The answer is yes. His letters, stories and personal diaries bear witness to the fact that he viewed himself as a person without any hope of salvation. He unremittingly despised the fatal flaw that the “exile of the soul” had imprinted on him. “The fear of life,” the camouflage, the schism – all these characteristics were etched into his spirit. Let us conclude by noting that Kafka never deluded himself. He summed up his effort to study Judaism and thereby acquire for himself a new identity quite pessimistically: “It is like chasing a dream. How can one find outside that which should come from the inside?” He concludes on a more mystical note: “I am still a slave in Egypt. I have not yet crossed the Red Sea.”

Of course, Moses never made it to the Promised Land either. He pointed the way for others. Kafka is the modern Moses of metaphysical Mitzrayim.

Where Jewish history is concerned, and even more so in the historiosophy that explains how Jews interpreted and understood themselves, there is far too little discussion of the existence of an immanent negative factor, that which is defined in Lessing's writings as “the refusal to be a Jew.” In terms borrowed from the world of psychoanalysis, we might say that alongside its vital, constructive strengths, since its inception, the Jewish people has also been plagued by a death instinct, which often prevails, playing a crucial role in Jewish fate. . . .

The refusal to be Jewish and its initial consequence, self-hatred, begins with the Jews. It can be viewed as an engine, an inherent tendency of the national self. Dathan and Abiram, Korah's partners in the mutiny against Moses, are customarily noted as the archetypical symbol of the Jews' inner resistance to the “Israeli project.” But we must not forget that the Bible is replete with conflicts of exactly this kind. God Himself, so it seems, is stunned by His people's recalcitrant determination. He tells Ezekiel, “But the house of Israel will not consent to hearken unto thee; for they consent not to hearken unto Me; for all the house of Israel are of a hard forehead and of a stiff heart (Ezekiel 3: 7).

Jews are the only people to ever make canonical the record of their own shortcomings. Yet our internal "culture of critique" is, I believe, as much an engine of survival as a death instinct. Egypt might have survived (and not simply as a notch in Araby's belt) if it had acknowledge prophets as well as pharaohs.

According to Abravanel, what the people of Israel did “when they decided that they would have a king is what engendered three thousand years of grief, what brought about the destruction and exile.” As for the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the Talmud acquits the nations of the world and places all the blame on the Jews: Its idolatry and baseless hatred is once again evidence of its refusal to become the “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” In order to “prove” how potent the self-destruction in the family story of the Jews is, the Midrash maintains that Nebuchadnezzar was of Hebrew extraction, a scion of the dynasty of King Solomon. The Midrash's intent here is clear: Solomon built and his descendant destroyed.

Nebuchadnezzar was of Hebraic descent! So, some say, was Hitler. So, almost certainly, are many of the Palestinians. History is a comedy. I only hope it is divine.

The “refusal to be Jewish” did not disappear during the time of the exile; it turned into a norm of sorts, one that became almost “legitimate”: Every generation had its recalcitrant Jews, those that crossed over to the other side. Today, some believe that the greatness of the Jews lies in this very characteristic: the constant temptation to nullify oneself as a Jew, the ability to refuse to accept one's fate, and thereby rise up against and trample all the codes of one's community.

Abraham nullified his fate as an Iraqi, and all the codes of the idolatrous community. We must follow his example when our own community becomes idolatrous, but in the name of an authentic past, not a Pauline-Marxian messianic nightmare. That is the fundamental "progressive conservative" (to borrow a Canadian political term), prophetic-priestly essence of Judaism.