The evolution of Judaism

How do you reconcile the tradition of Passover with today's political realities?

The Straight Goods Cyber Forum
with Larry Solway

Commentary:

  It is Passover this week. Jews worldwide remember the Exodus, the flight of Moses from the forces of the Pharoh, and freedom from Egyptian bondage. Except it may not be true.
  Judaism, in spite of the rigidity of many orthodox scholars, is a fluid, changing, accommodating set of beliefs. It is constantly evolving. But so is any liberal branch of Christianity. Any reasonable theologian knows that it is nonsense to cling to religious dogma as fact in the face of scientific discovery and archaeological advances. Bishop Wilberforce fought Charles Darwin with all his might. The battle still rages between "creationists" and evolutionists. It is nonsense. Darwinism is no longer a "theory". It is fact and it is history defined and proved by the sciences of geology and paleontology. But I don't want to debate theology.
  The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism has published a new version of the Torah, our sacred five books of Moses. The accompanying commentary includes what is newest in archeology and anthropology. Abraham the patriarch and founder of Monotheism (he really wasn't but Jews like to think so) may never have existed. Nor did Moses and his dramatic battle against Pharoh and the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. It may not have happened the way the Book of Exodus says it did.
  It may not have happened at all. That's what Conservative and Reform pulpits are saying, much to the dismay of the Fundamentalist Jews, who like their Christian counterparts, believe that holy writ is writ holy.
  So when we have our Passover Seder this week, I will, as usual, lead a secular service. There will be prayers with a reminder that I am not a believer, that I am only repeating a tradition of thousands of years. The fact that we no longer have history on our side doesn't matter.
  Believing every word that is "written", as gospel, is part of what ails Israel today. Whether it is "written" in Torah or Koran, I believe the Palestinians have been poorly treated. I also believe their leadership is duplicitous, and that their mindless support of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad is unforgiveable. Israel wants to live, in whatever kind of armed peace they can get, with their Palestinian neighbours, who want to see Israel disappear and all it's inhabitants scattered or downed.
  At the core of orthodox belief is the insistence that "This is the land God gave to us", which is why they settle in Palestinian areas and provoke the always-simmering anger of those poor people. The fact that these zealots quote Biblical text to justify the settlements is absurd. Elderly Jewish scholars wrote the Bible several thousand years ago. What else would a group of old Jewish men say but that the Land is Promised to Us?
  So as I observe the Exodus, even though it may never have happened; even though I will prepare a seat for Elijah, the prophet of the Diaspora; even as I repeat the words my forefathers spoke - I will feel for those who still suffer. I will feel for the innocent who have been slaughtered by suicide bombers. I will grieve for those who have been blown apart by Israel tank cannons.
  I read a piece by an Israeli dissident. With apologies I lift part of what he wrote: "Should I be angry with the Arab kids I played with 20 years ago in the fields between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Some of them have probably grown up to be terrorists - or 'resistance fighters' or 'martyrs', if you ask them. I understand their grievances, yet every guy who blows himself up and kills civilians is hailed as a saint. I have a problem with that. But I don't expect much from their side; events have washed away their agreements with us. They irritate me less than the pompous Israeli ministers and parliament members. Our so-called leaders declare that 'Israel will not give back an inch of the Holy Land' and they travel in their shining armored cars from one interview to another. We, on the other hand, sit on the bus, wondering whether an explosion is about to launch us right into prime-time television as, to borrow a phrase government officials often use at funerals, 'victims of vicious terror acts committed by the cruel enemy'."
  I anguish over the Palestinians, not because they are under constant bombardment by superior Israeli forces, but because they have become hapless pawns in the geo-political and religious struggle in the Muslim world. If you think the Saudis care a hoot for the Palestinians your brain has turned into a turnip. The grotesque truth is that for more than fifty years, a time span unheard of in history, the Palestinian "exiles" have maintained refugee status. No one has stepped forward to resettle the people who have now morphed into second and third generation inheritors of refugee pariah status. Those camps continue to exist as a constant irritant to the state of Israel. Even when Palestinians manage to emigrate they are a lower form of life. They do the heavy lifting in oil-rich and pampered Kuwait; they have been outcasts in Jordan where they threatened to outnumber the Jordanians. These poor people feed on anger and alienation added to mindless religious zealotry.
  The Passover Haggadah proclaims: "Next year in Jerusalem". Now we are there. Has it really made a difference?

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