Out of Egypt: Lot, Michah & the Ten Lost Tribes

This is the final installation of a three-part series on the Biblical roots of Jewish assimilation in exile - and the long-term consequences thereof. Begin the series here. 

In the previous post we cited the Talmudic tradition that the Jews brought "Michah's Idol" with them across the Red Sea (Sanhedrin 103b). Who was Michah?

The Book of Judges tells the story. Generations after the Exodus, a man named Michah established a pagan temple in Northern Israel after his mother commissioned a silversmith to forge an idol (Shoftim 17:1-5). Although Michah's idol obviously did not literally cross the Red Sea, nonetheless, the Vilna Gaon believes that the Talmud is referring to this very same idol. When the Talmud says that Michah's idol crossed the sea, it means the pagan theology of Egypt crossed the sea. And many years later, this imported Egyptian paganism found expression in Michah's idol. 

This, says the Vilna Gaon, is what Moshe was referring to when he questioned the nation just before they entered Israel. 

"You know how we lived in the Land of Egypt and how we passed through the midst of the nations that you crossed. You saw their disgusting things, their idols of wood, stone, silver and gold that they had. Perhaps there is a man, a woman, a family or a tribe amongst you whose heart is turning away from Hashem our God today to go and serve the gods of those nations? Perhaps there is amongst you a root growing gall and wormwood?"  (Devarim 29:15-17) 

Moshe's concerns were well-founded. A poisonous root was growing among the Jews - the idolatry of Michah (Aderes Eliyahu ad loc.).

The temple founded around Michah's idol was located in the territory of the tribe of Dan and it stood there for centuries. It was a pagan house of worship until גלות הארץ, "the exile of the land" (Shoftim 18:30), when the Assyrian king Sancheriv invaded Northern Israel and exiled the Ten Tribes (Rashi ad loc.). 

The implication is clear. The exile and ultimate disappearance of the Ten Lost Tribes was due to paganism. But not just any paganism. This paganism was foreign and ancient. The Jews picked it up during their long stay in Egypt and then they transported it from Egypt to Israel. "Michah's Idol crossed the Sea." Unwilling to cleanse themselves of Egyptian culture, the Jewish return to Israel was flawed from the get-go, and the seeds of a future exile were planted even before they returned to their homeland.

All of this tragic history was foreshadowed by the character of Lot. Like Yaakov and his sons, Lot was forced by famine to leave Israel and move to Egypt. As we saw in part-one, Lot was seduced there by Egyptian materialism and he carried his new-found desires back with him to Israel. His longing for the Egyptian lifestyle draws him to Sodom and ultimately proves to be his undoing. Despite Avraham's best efforts to save his nephew, Lot is lost forever. Such was the cost of Lot's visit to Egypt and such was the cost of the Ten Tribes' visit to Egypt. This gives us a new appreciation for the prophets' comparison of the Jews to the people of Sodom (cf. Yeshaya 1:9-10; Yechezkel 16:48-49).

This parallel between Lot and the Ten Tribes is all the more compelling in light of the fact that Lot was in the running to be one of the forefathers of the Chosen Nation. It wasn't just Lot's shepherds who thought so (cf. Rashi to 13:7). Lot's descendants, the nation of Moab, thought the same. That is why they, more than other nations, were so frustrated with the selection of the Jews as the Chosen Nation at the Exodus. אילי מואב יאחזמו רעד - "Moab's heroes were seized with trembling" (Shemos 15:15; Gur Aryeh ad loc.). The truth of this notion is further indicated by Lot's granddaughter Ruth who converted to Judaism and became the matriarch of King David. (For more on Moab's claim, see this post.) Lot was supposed to be part of our people, just like the Ten Tribes. But he, like they, was lost.

When Sodom is conquered by the armies of the four kings and Lot is taken captive, Avraham goes to war, quickly overrunning the enemy. וירדף עד דן - "He pursued [them] until Dan" (Bereishis 14:14). "There [at Dan] his strength was drained, for he foresaw that in the future his descendants would set up an [idol in the form of a] calf there" (Rashi ad loc.). Here the forces arranged against Lot are related to the future idolatry of Dan! This is no coincidence, for Lot is indeed the predecessor of both Michah and the Ten Tribes. Both were guilty of importing Egyptian ideology to Israel, both were taken captive by invading armies, both could not be saved by their brethren, and both are ultimately doomed to disappear from the pages of Jewish history. 

Lot and those who follow in his footsteps, surrendering to the natural forces of assimilation, are doomed to fall before the natural forces of attrition. Like all peoples and all societies of the earth, it is only natural that they will be erased by the winds of time. But those who follow the footsteps of Avraham and Yosef, transcending nature and maintaining their identity in the face of foreign influence, such people merit the blessing of historical transcendence - membership in the eternal nation of Israel.

Out of Egypt: Yosef's Bones & Michah's Idol

Part-one of this post dealt with the foreshadowing of our story back in Parshas Lech Lecha. Read it here.

When the time comes for the Jews to leave Egypt, the state of their spiritual health is the question of the hour. After so many years of slavery, what remains of their faith and identity? Actually, this is the central question for all the rest of Chumash. How much damage has Egypt inflicted on the soul of the Jew?

The answer is sad. At the Red Sea, the angels of heaven famously questioned God, "Both the Jews and the Egyptians are idolators! Why are You saving the Jews and killing the Egyptians?!" The Jews were so assimilated, even the angels couldn't tell them apart from Egyptians. But in order for the Jews to merit an Exodus from Egypt, they must first get Egypt out of their system. How is this going to be accomplished?

First, they will have to disavow Egyptian culture. Second, they must affirm their Jewish identity. And indeed, Hashem commands them to do these two things before they leave the country. First they were commanded to slaughter a sheep - an animal sacred to the Egyptians - and place its blood on their doorposts (12:6-7). In this way, they rejected Egyptian paganism. And then they were told to circumcise themselves, affirming their identity as Jews (12:48). It was due to the merit of these two mitzvos that the Jews were able leave Egypt (cf. Rashi to 12:6).

As we have seen, this was unfortunately insufficient. At the Red Sea the angels still couldn't tell the difference between the Jew and the Egyptian. For the sea to split, the merit of an even greater rejection of Egyptian culture was needed and this was found in none other than the bones of Yosef.

"The Sea saw and fled" (Psalms 114:3). It saw the coffin of Yosef descending into the sea. Hashem said, "Flee before the one who fled!" As the verse states, "He left his garment with her and fled and went outside" (Bereishis 39:12). (Yalkut Shimoni 873)

Like his forefather Avraham before him, Yosef was a man of steel, uninfluenced by the fleshpot of Egypt. And in the end, it was the bones of Yosef HaTzaddik, the bones which withstood the seductions of exile, that split the sea.

It is perfectly natural to be seduced. But when man refuses to be assimilated into his environment and transcends his nature, then man is truly free - and nature itself will transcend its laws in his service and deliver him to freedom.

But the bones of Yosef was not the only unusual baggage the Jews carried across the sea. The Talmud tells us that the spoils of Egypt included some contraband as well.

"A rival crossed the sea..." (Zechariah 10:11). R. Yochanan said, "This refers to idol of Michah."

Sanhedrin 103b

The Red Sea was not amused.

The administering angels were astounded. "People who worship idols walk on dry land in the midst of the sea?!"

How do we know that even the sea itself was filled with anger? For the verse states והמים להם חמה  - "The water was a wall for them" (Shemos 14:29). Don't read it חומה, "wall," rather read it חימה, "anger." ["The water was angry at them."]

Mechiltah; see Baal HaTurim ad loc. that the anger was due to the presence of Michah's idol.

[The word for wall - חומה - is spelled here in abbreviated form without a ו (as opposed to just a few verses earlier (14:22) where it is spelled with a ו). This allows the word to be vowelized in a way which transforms its meaning from "wall" to "anger."]

We learned that the sea split before the bones of Yosef, for Yosef withstood the seductions of Egypt. The Red Sea is willing to violate the laws of nature in deference of one who transcends human nature, but it is rightly incensed to have to stand as a wall before Jews who succumb to paganism and dare carry the idols of Egypt across its seabed.

Read part-three here.

Out of Egypt: Avraham vs. Lot

This is the first installation of a three-part series on the Biblical roots of Jewish assimilation in exile - and the long-term consequences thereof.

Soon after Avram's arrival in Israel a famine forces him to head for Egypt in search of food. After a brief - and traumatic - stay in Egypt, Avram, Sarai and Lot return to Israel. At this point in the story, it would be fair for us to wonder what effect, if any, their trip had on them. The Torah does not disappoint.

Avram went up from Egypt, he and his wife... and Lot was with him... He journeyed on from the south to Bais El to the original site of his tent between Bais El and Ai, to the site of the first altar that he had made. And Avram called there in the name of Hashem.  (Bereishis 13:1-4)

The Torah goes out of its way to emphasize the fact that Egypt had absolutely no effect on Avraham. Despite exposure to the indulgences and immorality of Egypt, despite the drama in the King's palace and despite his new-found wealth and power, Avraham returns to his humble tent in desert and continues in his mission of teaching monotheism as if nothing happened. His nephew Lot, however, is another story.

Lot raised his eyes and viewed the entire Jordan plain. It was completely fertile - this was before Hashem destroyed Sodom and Amorah - like a garden of Hashem, like the land of Egypt... Lot chose the entire Jordan plain for himself...  (13:10) 

How could the Torah, in the very same breath, compare the region of Sodom and Amorah to both the Garden of Eden and the land of Egypt?! I heard the answer to this question from Lisabeth Kaplan o"h in the Hillel House of UCSC. She explained that the Torah here is not describing reality. It is describing what Lot saw when he "raised his eyes." And after his trip to Egypt, Lot was one confused individual.

Lot missed Egypt. He loved the time he spent there and on his return to Israel he was searching not only for the Garden of God, but for the fleshpot of Egypt too. He wanted both, and when he saw the blessed, fertile plains of Sodom and Amorah he found exactly what he was looking for - or so he thought. Thus did Lot depart from his uncle Avram to meet his doom in Sodom.

Lot's conflicted value system comes to the fore when a mob surrounds his home and demands that he hand over his two guests for sodomy. Lot refuses their demands and valiantly protects his guests - offering the mob his two daughters in their place! (Apparently, Lot learned from Avraham the proper care and treatment of guests, but never learned the wisdom of Jewish parenting, for he left Avraham's home before Avraham had children.) Here we can see the influence of Egyptian promiscuity (cf. Rashi to 12:19) on Lot's behavior. Another example, no less troubling, is Lot's consensual incest with his second daughter (cf. Rashi to 19:33).

Avram's descent into Egypt and his return to Israel foreshadows the future national exile of the Jewish people in Egypt and their subsequent Exodus and return to Israel (cf. Ramban to 12:10). (This is obviously more than a mere literary device. As the Midrash says, "The events of the forefathers are a sign for the descendants.") If we can take this idea one step further, it stands to reason that the diametrically opposed behaviors of Avraham and Lot - behaviors which ultimately tore them apart - parallel divergent attitudes of Jews at the time of the Exodus. Unfortunately, this is indeed the case. Not all the Jews wanted to leave Egypt (cf. Rashi to Shemos 10:22). And even among the Jews who did want to go, there were those who wished to take Egypt with them... but we are getting ahead of ourselves. The second half of our story must wait for Parshas B'shalach.

Read part-two here.

I'll Pass on the Cocoa

"Turn Back Turn Back Perfect One, Turn Back Turn Back That We May Observe You"
"What Can You Offer the Perfect One that Equals the Circling of the Camps?"
(Song of Songs 7:1)

It's that time of year when our mailboxes are flooded with catalogs selling enough nostalgia to make Norman Rockwell a bit cynical. Happy children on a rug in front of the fireplace playing with their new found gifts, parents in cozy sweaters smiling at each other... the perfect family... Rockefeller Center skating, Macy's window on Fifth Ave... even the snow, an extra shade of white.. in the spirit of the purity of the day...the holiday songs seemed to be playing at Temple Starbucks before the turkey was even carved ... it's just so beautiful.

So alluring is this image that one bright Jewish chap and his girlfriend decided to keep the commercialized version of the Holiday last year and write about it in the New York Times. The article was labeled "silly", "stupid" and "sad" by most reader's, but this year Id like to call it what it is - a sickening betrayal.

In the not too distant past Jews would surely bolt their doors and hide, for when Christmas Mass was over - the angry mobs were ready to avenge the death of their Lord's only son. Over the course of history the blood of hundreds and thousands of Jews spilled like water, the ground ran deep with the blood of our own . Old helpless men and woman struck down and beaten to death, young men and their sons were slain, woman and their daughters raped and killed... there was no mercy for our people .. no mercy for our people .. no mercy at all.... the cocoa drinkers celebrated the birth of their saviour by avenging his death... from people that lived thousands of years later...

Yet we, less than two hundred years after the slaughterings of our own family, forgive and forget... for what? For the promise of hot cocoa and a cashmere sweater...

Am I calling for revenge, shall we G-d Forbid take swords in our hands and strike babes from their mother's arms and slit their throats as the mother's cry in horror only to join a similar fate moments later - as was done to us - NEVER!! G-d Forbid!

But how dare we forget the darkness of the day - the impurity of the day.. in an age of multiculturalism we are all expected to hold hands and sing... Less than sixty five years ago.. the church sat by and let your grandfathers, your grandmothers, your uncles and your aunts be led to the slaughter in the Camps. They sat by in front of the fireplace drinking cocoa in cashmere sweaters with sweet holiday songs playing joyfully in the background... so beautiful... while the cries of six million, think about the number, six million were slaughtered. Their cries ignored by a church that knew quite well what was going on... holy night... peaceful night....

So what is this crazy blogger saying? Whats his point? He's a fanatic, he's old fashion, he's just trying to be shocking. Givald I'd love to be able shock some people from their crazy hypnotic slumber... I'm begging you that this year on Dec. 25 perhaps after dark ... take your children, and tell them our story of this night... how Zeidys and Bubbys were slaughtered after Midnight Mass but they died with the name of Hashem on their lips...how the modest daughters of Zion in protection of their purity jumped from windows rather than be defiled by the animals... how young scholars died clutching their seforim, their holy books... tell your children how lucky we are to live in this land, how grateful we must be to the United States and to G-d, that tonight we can wear a kippa, tzitzis and learn Torah.... then open any Jewish book of your choosing and learn for five little minutes... learn in memory of those killed by the sword.. so we wont have to mourn those lost to the promise of hot cocoa and cashmere sweaters...

In the verse sited above... the commentator Rashi explains that it refers to the nations of the world asking the children of Israel to turn back from the service of G-d and promising us peace and honor- We answer "what can you offer us that equals the circling of the camps" - to me tonight the meaning is - the Camps of Auschwitz and Burchanu. What little trinkets, what imagery can you lure us with when we saw what you truly let happen to us... when we were round up like animals, shot, gassed, burned and eliminated like dung - cast into pits. Tonight we'll stay with our G-d and with our own people, and for the memory of Zaidy and Bubby, the six million, and the thousands throughout history that died at the cross - I'll pass on the cocoa tonight.

The Fourth Generation

The chief rabbi of England, Rabbi Sir Johnathan Sacks, sent out an email last night that dovetails nicely with my article on the "Pottery Barn Jew." Being that some have questioned the validity of my point, I am posting his piece here.

For several generations, indeed for more than a century, Jewish education was not at the forefront of our concerns…. Nevertheless, nothing devastating happened as a result. Jews continued to identify as Jews. They joined Synagogues. They married other Jews. They had Jewish children and raised them as Jews. Jewish life continued on the basis of habit, memory and tradition regardless of the fact that little was being done to renew it by Jewish study. If it could continue in this way for a century, why not longer, and indefinitely? We have only belatedly discovered that this is an illusion. What has changed? Why is this generation different from all other generations? The answer lies in what I call the fourth-generation phenomenon.

My grandparents were not born in this country. Many, even most, of the Jews in Britain had grandparents who came here in the great wave of immigration from Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1914. We are Anglo-Jews of the third generation.

It is an almost universal law that inherited wealth lasts three generations, not more. The same applies to inherited Judaism. Ours is the last generation that can remember booba and zeida from the heim with their fluent Yiddish and undiminished Yiddishkeit. Ours is the last generation for whom Jewish identity can be sustained by memory alone.

The Rebbe of Ger once pointed out that the 'four sons' of the Haggadah represent four generations. The wise son is the immigrant generation who still lives the traditions of the 'home'. The rebellious son is the second generation, forsaking Judaism for social integration. The 'simple' son is the third generation, confused by the mixed messages of religious grandparents and irreligious parents. But the child who cannot even ask the question is the fourth generation. For the child of the fourth generation no longer has memories of Jewish life in its full intensity.

Our children are children of the fourth generation. Already, it is clear that what we took for granted, they do not. They do not take it for granted that they will belong to an orthodox synagogue or indeed any synagogue. They do not take it for granted that they will marry, or that they will marry another Jew, or stay married. They do not take it for granted that they will have Jewish children or that it is important to do so. Nothing can be taken for granted in the fourth generation, least of all in a secular, open society in which even a common moral code is lacking.

The 'fourth-generation phenomenon' explains what is otherwise inexplicable, namely that the crisis of Jewish continuity has occurred in a single generation. The intermarriage rate among young Jews in the United States has risen from six per cent in 1960 to 57% in 1985. The rise in mixed marriage, non-marriage and divorce, and the corresponding fall in religious observance and Jewish affiliation, have occurred suddenly and with astonishing speed. There is no obvious explanation. There have been no dramatic shifts in the diaspora in respect of tolerance on the one hand, anti-Semitism on the other. The environment in which Jews live has not significantly changed. Why then have Jews changed? The answer is that the Jews who have chosen not to remain Jews are the great-grandchildren of those who arrived in Britain and America to escape the pogroms of Eastern Europe in the 1880's. They are the Jews of the fourth generation.

(From 'Will we have Jewish Grandchildren?' Published by Vallentine Mitchell 1994 – Pages 60-61)

The Pottery Barn Jew

“I blame the Pottery Barn holiday catalog for the fact that my husband and I, both Jews, spent last weekend in Home Depot picking out a Christmas tree.”

So begins an article printed in the New York Times this week. Although it is wonderful to hear that some Jews are still marrying Jews, the article succeeds admirably in its attempt to disturb. The writer mocks the consumerism of Christmas in America and assures us that the appeal is purely aesthetic, but that does little to assuage the revulsion of those of us with an iota of religious sensitivity, Jewish pride or even just an awareness of history.

The sad truth is, her story is probably far more common than we would like to admit.

Why is American Jewry so shallow? Why is their connection to their heritage so tenuous? The answer can be found in this week’s parsha.

Yaakov is old now, but he is journeying to Egypt to see his long lost son Yosef before he dies. On the road out of Israel, Yaakov receives a prophecy.

I am G-d, the Lord of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt for I will make you a great nation there.

Presumably, G-d would only tell someone not to be afraid if they were. What was Yaakov afraid of? Egypt’s a great country! It’s got exotic restaurants, tourist attractions, boating on the Nile… and Yosef runs the place! What could be bad?

The answer is that these are precisely the things that make Yaakov nervous. Yaakov is afraid of assimilation. And he was right – the Jews very nearly lost their identity during their stay in Egypt. This is why G-d came to Yaakov, to reassure him that his descendants would not vanish in the Egyptian melting pot. (R. Yaakov Kaminetzky, d. 1986)

Yaakov does not rely on miracles; he takes matters into his own hands.

[Yaakov] sent Yehuda ahead of him to make preparations (l’horot) in Goshen. (Bereishit 46:28)

L’horot is translated as “preparations” (Kaplan), but literally the word means to legislate or to teach. Rashi says the following:

According to the Midrash, l’horot means to set up a house of study.

This was Yaakov’s plan to ensure Jewish survival. Before he brought his family to Egypt, he set up Jewish schools. After he got there would have been too late.

Yaakov arrives in Egypt and is reunited with his son, but there is no time now to catch up on lost years. Some important business must be taken care of first. Pharaoh will want to meet the family and Yosef needs to prime them.

To his brothers and his father’s family, Yosef said, “I will go and tell Pharaoh. I will say the following to him: ‘My brother’s and my father’s family have come to me from Canaan. These men deal in livestock and are tenders of sheep. They have brought along their sheep, their cattle and all their possessions.’
“When Pharaoh summons you and inquires as to your occupation, you will tell him, ‘We and our fathers have dealt in livestock from our childhood until now.’ This is in order to ensure that you settle in the Goshen district, since all shepherds are taboo in Egypt.” (Bereishit 46:31-34)

What is going on here? Why the politicking? Who cares where they live? Was livelihood a problem for the brothers of Yosef? If shepherding was taboo, would it not be prudent for new immigrants to find a different line of work?

The real intent of Yosef and his brothers is not hard to figure out. The family had no emotional attachment to sheep; they just wanted to be left alone. The Egyptian distaste for shepherding was being used as a convenient excuse for living apart.

This is the story of the Jews in all of their exiles. Our fathers and the fathers of our fathers always preferred to tolerate the [anti-Semitic] decrees and persecutions of the nations of the world, just as long as they would not have to have a relationship with them. (Reb Yerucham Levovitz, d.1936)

This week’s parsha illustrates the traditional Jewish plan for survival in exile. It starts with a healthy fear of assimilation, followed by the early creation of Torah schools and clearly defined Jewish communities. This was obviously not the model for Jewish immigration to the United States and now we suffer the consequences.

Today our brothers and sisters joyously embrace the religions of America, whether it be Christianity, Secularism, Materialistic Consumerism or some bizarre combination of the three. They are lost to our people and don’t even know it yet. But don’t blame them or the Pottery Barn catalogue. Blame the grandparents who came to these shores without fear.