States of Exile

Besides, large-scale general plans : 1) they will seek to break the bonds between earth and heaven, doing their best to spread, on a large scale, atheistic and materialistic theories, degrading the Romanian people, or even just its leaders,...... to a people separated from God and its dead, they will kill them, not with the spear, but by cutting the roots of their spiritual life ; 2) they will then break the links of the race with the soil, material spring of its wealth, attacking nationalism and any idea of Fatherland and homeland ; determined to succeed, they will seek to seize the press ; 4) they will use any pretext, since in the Romanian people there are dissensions, misunderstandings, and quarrels, to divide them into as many antagonistic parties as possible ; 5) they will seek to monopolise more and more the means of existence of Romanians ; 6) they will systematically drive them to dissoluteness, annihilating family and moral force without forgetting to degrade and daze them th...

It is as if, cast out of the world, into the error of infinite migration, [Kafka] had to struggle ceaselessly to make of this outside another world and of this error the principle, the origin of a new freedom. . . . He already belongs to the other shore, and wandering does not consist in nearing Canaan, but in nearing the desert, the truth of the desert—in going always further in that direction. . . - Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature Nothingness opens on to everything. The city closes man in on himself; the desert opens him up to the Other. The polytheist prefers the vegetal, embellishments and valleys; his despiser prefers the mineral, abrupt canyons, limestone cliffs limned with geological phantasmagoria. The mountain, which is the desert on high for people of the plain, offers a variant of that ageless affinity evidenced in more clement climates. . . . in a temperate country, one can place one's Sinai in the snow, provided that it be set apart, combining sterility and s...

Daniel Landes' review of Arthur Green's Radical Judaism: Rethinking God and Tradition reminds me of my own tension with Orthodoxy: Green admits, "(partly in sadness!) that it no longer suffices for me to limit my sense of spiritual fellowship to those who fall within the ethnic boundaries that history has given us." He is, indeed, prepared to say: "I have more in common with seekers and strugglers of other faiths than I do with either the narrowly and triumphally religious as the secular and materialistic elements within my own community." Thus Green calls for a broader "Israel," imagining "an extended faith-community of Israel, a large outer courtyard of our spiritual Temple." Although Green himself is a person who is clearly attached to the Jewish people, the logic of his position is disturbing. It leads him to privilege people possessing the proper spiritual consciousness, "my Israel," over the actual people of Israel. So G...

Several aphorisms of the Baal Shem Tov on the notion of metaphysical exile and return: It is written, "For you (the people of Israel) shall be a desirable land, says G‑d" (Malachi 3:12). Just as the greatest explorers will never uncover the limits of the great and valuable resources which the Almighty has placed within the earth, neither will anyone ever discover the limits of the great treasures which lie buried within a Jew - G‑d's "desirable land." "And Moses said: Let me move from here..." (Exodus 3:3). Even a completely righteous individual such as Moses is not to be content with his spiritual achievements; he, too, must constantly ascend from "here" to "there." "Conceal shall I conceal My face on that day" (Deuteronomy 31:18). Galut (the Exile) is a twofold concealment, wherein the concealment itself is concealed. So great is this concealment, that one is not even aware of the concealment; one may even come to thi...

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 dre...

I wish synagogue was this cool!

Norman Bedchinskey writes in a fascinating article : History is always written by the victors. Rome vanquished Greece, mostly peacefully, and absorbed much of the Greek legacy - mythology, philosophy, and laws. Two other rivals, however, were crushed in a series of violent wars - Israel and Carthage. These two shared much of a common Semitic heritage in language and did not accept Rome's claims to a superior civilization. The Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon had been close allies of the ancient Israelite kingdom and helped King Solomon build the First Temple. Migrants from these two Phoenician cities founded Carthage and preserved their language (originally called Phoenician and later Punic), which was very similar to Hebrew. The noted Israeli writer Amos Kenan gave expression to this link between ancient Israel and Carthage - Rome's bitterest opponents. In a article entitled "Envy Tyre," he wrote: "I always had an attraction to this wonderful phenomenon called Tyre...