As much as Jewish history has been defined by its faith, it has also been shaped by its response to tragedy. Despite continuous and prolonged persecution it has contributed so much to civilization. The dynamic of Jewish history is unique, not only because the Jewish people have been subjected to so many attempts to destroy it, but because it has survived against overwhelming odds.
Jews maintained their distinctiveness within foreign cultures while for the most part adapting to their host countries and even adopting cultural variations. Yet they did not compromise basic Jewish values and traditions despite widespread assimilation. No other group of people was able to do that over such long periods of time.
From the time that Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians until today, their response to tragedy has been survival as a people, and a creative energy that marks them both for admiration and annihilation.
Despite 3,500 years of persecution, the Jews are not only still very much present, but once again occupying their ancient homeland, and, even more amazing, defending it. The fulfillment of biblical prophesies leads us towards the potential both for greatness and for disaster. The paradox that infuses Jewish history, therefore, has been there from the beginning, and will remain until its destiny has been worked out. Strengths can make one vulnerable, yet vulnerabilities give us strength. Catastrophies, therefore, often carry within them the seeds of future growth, as if the threat of annihilation nurtures new forms of survival.
This pattern, marked by seven critical periods, is evident in the course of Jewish history and perhaps provides a clue to the uniquenes of that historical process. The seven periods are not arbitary; the number conforms to a historical pattern set out in Leviticus, Chapter 26: 18-24:
"And if you will not listen to me I will continue to chastise you seven times more for your sins... and if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins... and if you will not be reformed by me, by these things but will walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you and I will strike you seven times for your sins... Then I will walk contrary to you also in anger, I even I, will punish you seven times for your sins..."
Why is this specific number, seven, given and why is it repeated four times? Perhaps this hints to a pattern of epochs and exiles to which the Jewish people were submitted.
This perspective, when applied to biblical, archaeological and historical sites in Israel, can serve as a paradigm for Jewish history. It provides a systematic frame of reference that gives continuity and meaning to actual places. Because its scope does not include the very early period of Jewish history, sites from the time of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, like Mamre and the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, are not included. The following demonstrates how this approach can be utilized.
(1) The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt provided the impetus for receiving the Five Books of Moses the sacred scriptures the return to Eretz-Israel, and the flowering of the prophetic tradition.
Beginning with the settlement of Israel under Joshua, the first place to visit would be Tel Jericho. On the outskirts of the city, in Gilgal, the Israelites, children of slaves, encamped and celebrated their first Passover in Eretz-Israel. According to legend, it was here that Joshua composed the aleynu prayer, which declared the ultimate purpose of the Jewish people: to bring an awareness of God to the world, to fulfill the divinely inspired mission of establishing a society based on ethical monotheism. No other people and no other conquest ever expressed such a spiritual direction. Jerichos capture represents, therefore, not the physical power of the Jewish people, but their creative purpose and redemptive vision.
A similar message was demonstrated when the Israelites came to Shechem (modern Nablus), at the twin mountains of Ebal and Gerizim. During the period of the Judges, the struggle between the Jewish people and the Canaanite and Philistine peoples focused primarily on survival, not only physically (for example, the story of the prophetess Deborah in the area of Hazor), but when threatened by assimilation, (as in the story of Samson in Beit Shemesh and Gaza, and Naomi and Ruth in Bethlehem.)
The importance of Shilo as a priestly ritual centre (the Ark of the Covenant remained there for three and a half centuries) and the rise of Samuel as the greatest prophet of his day parallels the growing conflict with the Philistine armies and culminates in the appointment of Saul as king. Under his successor, David, the tribes united, defeating their enemies decisively, establishing Jerusalem as their capital. The area of Mount Moriah, where Abraham had brought Isaac nearly 1,000 years before, was purchased and sanctified. With prophet, priest and king in place, the stage was set for a monumental development. The building of the First Temple on Mount Moriah under King Solomon reflects the pinnacle of Jewish history: it was a symbol of peace and reconciliation and manifestation of the divine presence.
The subsequent spiritual conflict and decline, epitomized at Tel Dan, indicate the power of idol worship and impending disaster. Jewish civilization struggles against internal corruption, the Assyrian invasion and apparently widespread assimilation. Despite brief periods of renewal during the time of Hezekiah and Josiah, and great prophets like Isaiah, it decays rapidly. Even the prophet Jeremiah could not prevent the imminent destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians.
(2) Despite exile and captivity, the Jewish people, led by their prophets and later by rabbis, flourished in Babylon. Seventy years later, after Persia conquered the Babylonian Empire, and the Jews were given their freedom, many thousands returned to Eretz-Israel led by Ezra and Nehemia to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and construct the Second Temple. But many stayed. In order to avoid a schism, the men of the Great Assembly, 120 of the leading sages of the time, instituted a systematic structure for Jewish life and practice. In exile, and far from the Temple, they had to create prayers and institutions that would fill the void and maintain common beliefs and practices throughout the Diaspora. It was at this time that the Bible was canonized.
Jewish civilization flourished during the centuries preceding the Hasmonean period when it was faced with internal strife and corruption. Under Herod the Great, the city and the Temple became objects of beauty. Eventually, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, and later, Masada, the ultimate symbol of stubborn resistance to Roman rule.
(3) The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and subsequent exile compelled the reorientation of daily life away from ritual offerings and Temple ceremonies towards communal and individual forms of spiritual activity. In spite of brutal Roman persecution, Jewish life did not disintegrate. At Yavne, Yochanan ben Zakai assembled the surviving sages, and they began to compile the Mishna, and later the Talmud. Sixty years later, led by Shimon Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva, the Jews revolted again. From Bar Kochbas headquarters in Betar, the Jews launched a devastating guerrilla war. The Emperor Hadrian decided to finish what his predecessors had begun; he killed or enslaved so many Jews that for the first time in centuries, there was no longer a Jewish majority in Eretz-Israel.
The centre of Jewish life shifted north to the Galilee and Golan, where, in towns like Tsippori (Sepphoris) and Bet Shearim, Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi directed the compilation of the Mishna. One hundred and fifty years later, the Jerusalem Talmud was completed in Tiberias. By then the Byzantines had succeeded the declining Roman Empire. Nevertheless, despite persecution, Jews not only survived, but endured; farming and building villages, many with beautiful synagogues. These vivid examples of flourishing Jewish life also reflect the delicate position faced by the Jews. While maintaining their steadfast adherence to Judaism, they struggled desperately to be left alone as loyal subjects of foreign rulers, to survive as Jews. Under the early Moslem conquerors, Jews were treated less harshly and, sometimes even decently. But the respite did not last long.
(4) In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem, indiscriminately slaughtering both its Jewish and Moslem inhabitants. On their way to the Holy Land, the Crusaders destroyed hundreds of Jewish communities with devastating cruelty. But the Crusaders for the most part did not come to live in Eretz-Israel, but came to conquer it. Their castles were fortifications against the local population; their churches, symbols of a brutal religious power struggle.
In 1187, the Kurdish general, Saladin, defeated the Crusaders decisively in the battle of the Horns of Hittin, near Tiberias, and, although several other Crusades were launched, they were unsuccessful. The horrors perpetrated by the Crusaders nearly destroyed the Jewish people. Not only were whole towns wiped out, but the literary backbone of Jewish learning went up in flames. Suddenly the main core of Jewish life was at risk.
Maimonides (Rambam 1135-1204) was the greatest philosopher and physician of his day. His codification of Jewish law (halacha) made the framework of Jewish life more accessible. According to tradition, his tomb is in Tiberias. Nachmanides (1194-1270), who re-established a Jewish presence in Jerusalem, wrote important scholarly and philosophical works that helped preserve Jewish life and thought in the 13th century amidst new dangers: anti-Jewish riots had begun in Spain, Jews were expelled from England in 1290, from France beginning in 1306 and continuing throughout the 14th15th centuries, and ravaged in Germany, and a new Moslem power ruled the Middle East from its capital in Egypt.
The Mamluks, originally converted slaves, seized power in the mid-13th century, halted the Mongol armies from Asia Minor in their tracks, finally defeated the Crusaders, and inter alia, persecuted Jews. Their distinctive architecture can still be seen throughout Israel, particularly in Ramleh, which became their provincial capital. They were defeated by the Turks in 1517, led by Suleiman the Magnificent, who was responsible for building the present walls around Jerusalem.
(5) The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 had a major effect on Jewish settlement throughout the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands and Eastern Europe, but especially in Eretz-Israel. The Ottoman Turks were basically friendly towards the Jewish refugees from Spain fleeing persecution. Jews were welcomed back to their ancestral homeland, and they responded eagerly. They flocked to Safed and Hebron, for example, bringing with them a form of mystical Judaism, kabbalah. By the middle of the 16th century, Safed had become the centre of kabbalism, a movement that would change Jewish life and thought. They posed a haunting question: Where was God when the Jewish people were suffering? And they provided a profound answer.
The kabbalists surmised that the Jewish people were akin to the Temples sacrificial offerings, korbanot, whose purpose was to atone for and ultimately repair the fracturing of the world. Through their pain, the world could be made whole. Their suffering, therefore, was not senseless nor in vain, but was, at least, a measure of redemption. The real test of faith was in suffering, and out of that would come the days of the Messiah. By perfecting oneselves, it was possible to alter the balance of the world. Persecution was not arbitrary, but part of a divine plan, and Jews were the manifestation of its divine light. In prayer and song one could sanctify Gods name.
Using secret codes imbedded in the Zohar ("The Book of Splendour"), a copy of which appeared in Spain in the 12th century (based on the work of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a sage who lived in the second century and is buried in Meron), the kabbalists in Safed believed they were on the verge of a breathtaking and revolutionary moment. Through the teachings of kabbalah, they could rectify the world, cleanse it of evil, and open the way for the Ultimate Redemption. As Jewish suffering was the test of that, the return of the Jews to Eretz-Israel was its proof.
Simultaneously, in Safed, Rabbi Yosef Caro wrote a new codification of Jewish law, the Shulhan Aruch, providing a clearer and more systematic rendition of what had been available previously. Finally, the rabbis of Safed proposed the re-establishment of the Sanhedrin, one of the institutions (together with the Monarchy and a Temple), that preceed, or accompany, the coming of the Messiah. Not since the fifth century ce, when the Sanhedrin and Patriarchate were abolished by the Byzantines had anyone dared suggest this. Though this step was not accepted by other authorities, it indicates the intensity and conviction of the rabbis of Safed in their belief that they were on the verge of transforming the world.
(6) A century later, pogroms, especially in the Ukraine, and a wave of religious fervour, stimulated the appearance of false messianic preachers, like Shabtai Zvi, and the debacle that followed prepared the ground for the hassidic movement founded by Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer the Baal Shem Tov. These small communally-centered movements, led by charismatic rabbis, protected the insular Jewish world from physical and spiritual onslaught by providing messages of hope and faith in the wake of destruction and assimilation. In the 19th century, both religious and secular Zionists envisioned Eretz-Israel as another form of salvation.
(7) In our own day, the Holocaust can be intimately linked with the creation of the State of Israel, for only in the aftermath of that terrible trauma was the world ready to accept a Jewish state. Although, it is claimed, some six million Jews have intermarried since the end of the Second World War, many thousands of secular Jews have become observant. Now, almost half the Jewish population left in the world lives under the potential threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons by some Moslem countries.
Ultimately, however, politics cannot transcend history: the Jewish people have arrived at the final stages of the meta-process of engaging the world. If Israel is attacked and goes up in flames, the rest of the world is likely to be drawn into the vortex of destruction.
For many, the establishment of the State of Israel was a sign that the days of redemption were at hand. At the time, perhaps for that reason, again some suggested that the Sanhedrin be re-established. Although the idea was rejected, the fact that it was proposed is significant. Not since the days of the kabbalists in Safed had the idea been seriously considered. The return of the Jews to the Land gave inspiration to that great vision.
The process of return, physically to the Land, and spiritually to what makes it the focus of Jewish existence, is at the core of a transformation which offers a clue to what Jewish history is and how it works.
Jewish history is delineated by belief in the perfectibility of man and his environment and a steadfast adherence to a vision, a sense of purpose and mission, rooted in the Bible. Jewish history cannot be understood as a collection of individual achievements, as impressive as they may be, but as a dedication to preserving Jewish identity. Without a commonly accepted set of beliefs and practices, Judaism would not have survived, and Jewish history would have ended. It is not only Jews who made Jewish history, therefore, but the Bible, written documents, historical records that authenticate the past and provide continuity to future generations.
The dream of return and rebuilding the Land of Israel, the historic ingathering of Jews that has been a central theme throughout Jewish history is part of a process of redemption that fulfills ancient prophecies. That is Jewish destiny. One can only stand in awe at what has been accomplished, even with all the problems. But it is not in the realm of practical things and technological innovations that Jewish history can claim some special recognition. The rebirth of Israel is both transcendent and immanent it contains aspects of both the miraculous and the mundane.
For Jews, the concept of holiness transforming the world into its spiritual essence was not an abstract ideal to be accomplished in future worlds, but a present-day reality, manifested in every conscious act. It was not only common belief that held Jews and Judaism together, but teaching its practice to children, and building families on its sturdy supports. A world of messianic proportions could be created by the simplest of deeds, the most common courtesies, the observance of natural beauty. The task of creating holiness in the world was not the unique responsibility of Jews; however, the idea of how this was to be done, is. And that is what makes the history of the Jewish people unique.
The Jewish people maintained a self-perception that they and history had a purpose, enshrined in the Bible, explicated in the Talmud, inspired by prophetic vision, and emulated in the home. It was not just monotheism that was important, but a system of life in a God-centered universe. This system shifts responsiblity from God to Mankind. Because we have free-will, we not God create holiness. We have the potential to achieve the ultimate form of human existence: a radical transformation of the physical world into its spiritual form.
The establishment of an independent Jewish state in 1948 signalled the beginning of a process of ingathering that echoes the deepest longing of the Jewish people throughout its history. The evolution of a divine plan transforms particular history into the realm of the universal. This perspective weaves a consistent pattern of development that confronts and explains the mystery of not only how the Jewish people survived, but why. For better or worse, the State of Israel has redefined the terms of Jewish existence, and perhaps for humanity as well.