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Dennis Geller
Behold how pleasant it is to live in a country of wealth and influence. There is so much of jealousy and hatred between nations that to be safe and secure in a strong land is a blessing. To finally be able to exert strength against enemies that stoop to genocide and forced evictions – not to mention what they’ve been known to do to pregnant women – gives a wonderful feeling of security. On top of this, to have a leader who is strong and well liked, responsible for defense of the homeland and calculated attacks against the nation’s enemies, one looked up to by allies and treated gingerly by those whose friendship is not so firm – well, this has to be a great time to be alive. And when a new voice is raised in the media, predicting doom and destruction for the nation’s enemies, that voice is naturally going to command attention. So it was in 782 BCE in the Kingdom of Israel, the northern one of the two remnants of the great kingdom of David and Solomon. Israel was the stronger of the two, certainly because of its size. Another factor may have been that its traditions had been the self-reliance of the days of the Judges – more in tune with the idea of a commonwealth of tribes electing their leader than with the hereditary monarchy that Samuel argued against but which was beloved of the Southern tribes. (And, in fact, Samuel’s home base had been Shiloh, north of the hilltop village on the border between the North and South that David had captured and made the capital of the united monarchy.) After the split Israel
had become great under King Omri, but when Omri married his son Ahab to
the Phoenician Jezebel about 90 years ago things began to go downhill.
Jezebel brought in the worship of Baal, which led to the rebellion. The
rebellion was instigated by the prophets Elijah and Elisha, but led by
the soldier Jehu. Jehu’s purge of the line of Omri weakened the kingdom,
and laid it open to attack by Syria. But some 35 years later the Syrians
were beaten by the Assyrians. Then Assyria became preoccupied with other
matters, and Israel was able to recapture its lost land. By taking advantage
of its position at the focus of many trade routes, the nation was able
to achieve unprecedented wealth.
So here’s this new commentator. He calls himself Amos. Maybe we should go listen to him. I hear he was a shepherd, from a tiny village called Tekoa down in Judah, the southern kingdom. He says that God spoke to him, and now he’s come here to preach his message. That makes sense, there’s no point staying in that backwater kingdom with the other sheep. And Amos’ message is music to our ears. Listen to what he’s saying: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Damascus I will turn away its punishment, but for the fourth I will not turn away its punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron. [Amos 1:3]Listen to that! He says that God won’t punish them on their first evil act. He gives them three strikes -- more than California will in two and a half millennia – and only on the fourth time they do evil does he raise his mighty hand against them. And now he’s saying the same thing about Gaza, and Tyre and Edom and the Ammonites. Oh, yes, and Moab too. I like what this Amos has to say. I can hardly wait for God to wipe out al of those annoying little countries. Here, have another lamb kebob, and try one of these persimmons. They’re just terrific. Wait! What did he just say? Thus says the Lord; For three transgressions of Judah I will turn away his punishment, but for the fourth I will not turn away his punishment; because they have despised the Torah of the Lord, and have not kept his commandments; and their lies, after which their fathers walked, have led them astray; But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem. [2:4-5]Well, that’s too bad. I have cousin in Judah. But I guess that shows where God has his heart. It’s really true that our tribes, the descendants of Joseph himself, are the truly chosen people. That’s a showstopper, isn’t it? The Chosen People. As members of a multicultural society, as survivors of the savagery of a different kind of chosen people, who called themselves the Master Race, that phrase is like ashes in our mouth. Not to mention the frisson of fear it causes, because we know that it has been a weapon leveled against us over the ages. Unfairly, of course, since this chosenness has more to do with us being an example than with us being promised all the goodies. Not that we don’t have a lot to be proud of. Many Jews have done great things – many people in this room are pretty impressive, in fact. How much of our success – our ability to survive – is genetic, how much cultural, how much just damned stubbornness is impossible to answer – and possibly meaningless to ask. But we, as modern Humanistic Jews, don’t need to belittle others to enjoy our own heritage. There are people in this room whose mothers were not Jewish who are also pretty impressive, and in this world we live in no one people or nation has a monopoly on wisdom, or righteousness, or caring, or anything else. Some, to be sure, have not taken paths that lead to excellence according to Western values, but so what? The human race is greater than the narrow set of values, however praiseworthy some of them may be, that have been developed in the last few hundred years. Are we not completely beyond the primitive idea of a chosen people? If we are, and I’m not completely sure that the notion hasn’t left some remnants in our collective psyche – remnants to cherish, perhaps – it may be because of this farmboy-turned-columnist, Amos. Listen to what he’s starting to say now, to the affluent and self-satisfied Israelites: Thus says the Lord; For three transgressions of Israel I will turn away his punishment, but for the fourth I will not turn away its punishment; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the humble; … Behold, I will press you down in your place, as a cart full of sheaves presses down. Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, nor shall the mighty save himself; Nor shall he stand who handles the bow; and he who is swift of foot shall not save himself; nor shall he who rides the horse save himself. And he who is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day [2:6-2:26]Amos brought his message to the capital city, Samaria, to the sanctuary at Gilgal, and finally to Beth-El, the principal sanctuary of the Northern Kingdom, whose name alone indicates its historic association with God. For a year or two he preached a message that permeated Jewish thought, and indeed went further to become one of the most significant philosophical issues in the developing Christian Church. Today we might file Amos’ message under the category “faith vs. good works.” Amos stands firmly on the side of good works. I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell the sacrifices of your solemn assemblies. Though you offer me burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; nor I will regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the noise of your songs; for I will not listen to the melody of your lutes. [5:21-25]Amidst all the plenty of the land, Amos sees that the forms and trappings of the religion hide a multitude of evils. [You] hate him who rebukes in the gate, and […] loathe him who speaks uprightly. […] you trample upon the poor, and you take from him exactions of wheat, you have built houses of cut stone… For I know your many transgressions, and your mighty sins; you who afflict the just, you who take a bribe, and turn aside the poor at the gate. [5:10-12]“In Palestine the ordinary brook is a raging torrent in the rainy season1.” According to Amos, God enjoins us to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” His accusations against the people of Israel show a society that has lost its heart in the class divisions created by wealth and the thoughtless search for it. His accusations include the use of false measures – the proverbial thumb on the scale, the inflation of prices and deflation of the quality of goods, judges who take bribes, even the taking of the outer garment of a poor person as collateral. Amos eventually debates with the priests and is expelled from the land. He probably went back to his native village, where he wrote his story – Amos was not the first of the Prophets, but he was the first to write down what he had to say. Among the beautiful poetry – if such a fiercely chiding message can be called beautiful – comes what one author calls the most famous “therefore” in history. Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, Only you have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. [3:1-6]For Amos, and for his successors, the people had taken the traditional notion of chosenness as “a refuge, an escape. They had to remind the people that chosenness must not be mistaken as divine favoritism or immunity from chastisement, but, on the contrary, that it meant being more seriously exposed to divine judgement and chastisement.2” Amos makes it clear that God is not exclusively interested in Israel. Don’t think that you’re so special, he has God say: Are you not like the Kushites to me, O people of Israel? says the Lord. Did I not bring Israel out of the land of Egypt? And the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir […] Pass to Calneh, and see; and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or are your borders greater than their border? [9:7; 6:2]While Judah, the Southern kingdom, is condemned for straying from Torah, what is the charge against the other nations? Most were condemned for crimes against other peoples. Not only were they not bound by the Mosaic law, which had never been given to them, there was at this time no sense – no speck – of an international law. Amos says, therefore, that there is a higher law than the law of treaties and contracts. A moral law, from which all contracts derive their validity. And this same moral law even supercedes the Torah. Amos does not say that God accuses the Israelites of failing to follow the religious laws. They are condemned because, while piously following the letter of the law, “they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes.” The chosenness of the people, then, comes not in their immunity, their gifts, their wealth, or their superiority. Some suggest that chosenness comes from the “special obligations 3 ” that are laid upon Israel by God. I’m not sure that this is the right conclusion to draw from Amos. All peoples are responsible for their behavior, whether it is ignoring the Torah, preying on their neighbors, or denying the poor in times of plenty. The chosenness, perhaps, lies only in the intimacy of the relationship between God and this people. Or perhaps in the – terribly unfair notion, I suppose – that of all peoples, God bothers to tell us when we’re doing something wrong. In fact, as Amos points out, God first sent less direct messages – famine, drought, blight, pestilence and war to Israel. But nobody realized these plagues were messages. Whatever chosenness meant to the Israelites, or to the prophets, we know that there is no God to choose us. Yet we are not free to not be chosen. Our cultural imprinting has clearly taken to heart Amos’ message that there are two major kinds of sin – the social sin of inequity that creates oppressors and oppressed, and the personal sin of “haughtiness and arrogance, emptiness and exaggerated self-confidence.4 ” We have, I think, learned to combat the personal sin through the same mechanism we use to survive the oppression of others, our sense of humor and reverent irreverence. The former sin we as a people take to heart, and put our efforts against in myriad ways. As a people and a culture we have a strong tradition of tzedakah – recall that the highest form of tzedakah is said to be helping someone anonymously – and we have a strong commitment to justice both on the individual and collective levels. Again, I repeat that we are not unique, as a people or as individuals, in having these concerns, in expressing them in our literature and liturgy, or in sometime failing to live up to them. Justice is not a contest between cultures. It is in part a human imperative, and in part a choice that every individual, every people, every nation, can choose. For us, that choice was made with the help of a simple shepherd, who saw more clearly, perhaps, than anyone ever had before how the lack of social justice would lead to the destruction of a rich and powerful culture, and set out to preach a message that he had to know would fall largely on deaf ears. Yet in time some chose to listen to him, and from their choice springs a firm and clear moral lesson that stands at the root of modern ethical thinking. That Amos was our biological ancestor may give us a warm feeling, such as when a third cousin whom we’ve never met becomes famous. That his moral teachings guide our lives is a choice that all of us, whatever our genes, can make. And have. We are not, ultimately, a chosen people but rather we are a choosing people. And, in making the choice to recognize the existing of overriding moral laws, we become the spiritual and ethical disciples of the shepherd from Tekoa who was the first to preach the lessons of social justice. - - - Heschel, Abraham. The Prophets.
Harper and Row, N.Y., 1962.
1 [Winward, p 41]
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