Timeless Torah

Once again the specter of a Jewish army flexing its considerable muscle against fellow Jews is front page news. However, this time it’s not Gush Katif, it’s Chevron; and it’s not a settlement at the edge of the country, it’s the City of the Patriarchs in the heartland itself. According to the Israeli papers some 4,000 security personnel will be mobilized to evacuate 8 Jewish families who are living on Jewishly owned land.

With no intent to offend, I simply raise this question: Is there a red line that a government (even a democratically elected one) can cross in the Holy Land that renders the decisions of that administration unholy? Is there ever a situation that allows, perhaps even demands, some form of civil disobedience? Naive, I’m not. Merely asking such a question rubs certain people the wrong way. I am also fully cognizant that the following insight from Torah will be misconstrued. Nonetheless, I offer these thoughts merely to point out our long-cherished history of fighting injustice.

Pharaoh’s plan of slow genocide involved the midwives, Shifra and Puah. The midwives however “feared G-d and they did not do as the Egyptian king had spoken.” Who were Shifra and Puah? Midrashic tradition identifies them as Yocheved and Miriam. However, in describing them the Torah uses an ambiguous phrase, hameyaldos ha’ivriyos, which could mean either the Hebrew midwives or the midwives to the Hebrews. According to the second interpretation, they may not have been Hebrews at all, but Egyptians. Indeed, this is the view taken by Abarbanel and Luzzatto. Their reasoning is simple: could Pharaoh realistically have expected Hebrew women to harm their own?

One of the landmarks of modern law was the judgment against Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg trials of 1946. This established that there are certain crimes to which the claim, “I was obeying orders” is no defense. There are moral laws higher than those of the State that one is morally bound to disobey. This principle, attributed to the American writer Thoreau in 1848, inspired those who fought for the abolition of American slavery and those who struggled for civil rights in the 1960s.

In earlier societies rulers had absolute authority. It was not until the seventeenth century that theories of liberty, social contract, and human rights developed. Until then, even religious thinkers justified existing structures of power. That was the function of the ‘divine right of kings.’ In such cultures, the idea that one might challenge the king or that there might be moral limits to his power was unthinkable.

The Exodus was a revolution thousands of years ahead of its time. More than the liberation of slaves, it was a redrawing of the moral landscape. If the image of G-d was to be found, not only in kings but in every individual, then all power that dehumanizes was ipso facto an abuse of power.

Thus when G-d told Moses to say to Pharaoh, “My son, My firstborn Israel,” He was announcing to the most powerful ruler of the ancient world that these people may be your slaves but they are My children. The Exodus and its plagues not only affirmed that the Creator ruled nature; it declared that the sovereignty of G-d defends and guarantees the rights of every man.

In such a worldview, the idea of civil disobedience is not unthinkable but self-evident. It is no wonder than that social criticism and the rise of kings in Israel occurred simultaneously. Jewish kings who abused their power, even righteous ones, were not above the condemnation of prophets sent by G-d. As the Talmud put it, “If there is a conflict between the words of the master and the words of the disciple, whose words should one obey?” No human order overrides the commands of G-d.

How telling therefore is it that the first recorded instance of civil disobedience, predating modern thinkers by more than three millennia, is the story of two women defying the mighty Pharaoh. Their refusal to obey an immoral order was the world’s first Declaration of Human Rights.

A final note: Quite often the ethically-bound hero pays for his defiance with his life. Thankfully, the story of Shifra and Puah does not end in tragedy. In fact it concludes with the curious phrase, “He made them houses.” Rashi sees the phrase not as a reference to buildings, but to the dynasties that G-d helped them establish; Shifra became the ancestress of the Kohanim and Levites, while Puah gave birth to the family of Kings (the dynasty of David).

Without a doubt, these eight families and the majority of their peers settled the Land primarily for religious reasons. Today the government of Israel wants them to leave for political ones. Does politics trump religion? The midwives said no, and the prophets agreed. Who will triumph? This past summer, the government won the first round. But whose legacy will persevere? The Torah posits that the houses that withstand the test of time, are those established by His word alone. But until then, may we have peace in our home, for a house divided against itself will certainly fall.