On the seventh day of the recent Passover holiday, we read about the miracle of the splitting of the Yam Suf.
Prior to the sea splitting, the Egyptians were bearing down on the Israelites with their 600 chariots. The Children of Israel panicked, crying out to Moses:
Firstly, it is one of the early examples of humor in the Torah, albeit of a gallows variety. The Children of Israel exclaim to Moses "was it for want of graves in Egypt", a country famous even at that time for her fixation on death with their Book of the Dead, pyramid burial vaults and complex mummification processes, "that you brought us to die in the wilderness?"
On a deeper level, the response of the Israelites to the 600 Egyptian chariots is perplexing considering their situation. The Ibn Ezra wonders why the Israelites with 600,000 armed men panicked rather than face the Egyptian forces who they greatly outnumbered. He answers with a deep psychological insight about the Israelites. When pitted against their Egyptian oppressors, the Hebrews exhibited a "slave mentality", reverting back to their position as slaves, powerless to fight back against their former masters.
According to Ibn Ezra, this was not just a one time occurrence but was emblematic of the entire Israelite sojourn in the desert. The Children of Israel's "slave mentality" explains why they did not fight back against the Egyptians at the sea and later would not stand up to the small band of Amalekite marauders until Joshua led the troops and Moses raised his hands on the hilltop. Throughout their wanderings in the wilderness, the Children of Israel constantly complain for food, water, always turning to Moses rather than attempting to help themselves. For this reason, Ibn Ezra states, the current generation would die during their 40 year stay in the desert to be replaced by a new generation of free men and women freed from the psychological bondage of slavery, ready to conquer the land of Canaan.
In a post on my TechRav blog, I observed that this is an early example of functional fixedness, "a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used." The Hebrews were fixated on their function as slaves and were not capable of seeing themselves and behaving as fully freed individuals.
When I discussed this idea over the last days of Passover with my chavruta, he observed that this paradigm shift from the "slave mentality" of the Israelites when they left Egypt to the free men and women when they entered the promised land 40 years later, could also be utilized to explain the rise of the Zionist movement in the last 150 years leading to the miracle of the modern State of Israel, whose 70th birthday we will be celebrating in a few short weeks.
The early Zionists, were mostly secular Jews who pointedly rejected traditional Judaism with the goal of creating new Jewish pioneers, halutzim, to resettle the barren land of Israel. They felt that the response to European ani-Semitism was to remove the Jew both physically from the shtetl, the small religious towns throughout Europe where predominantly observant Jews lived, and spiritually from the mentality of the shtetl by abandoning religious observance.
Many rabbinic personalities, even those inclined towards the goals of Zionism, rejected Zionism due to its anti-religious leanings. Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook Zatzal bucked this trend.
In his seminal essay, המספד בירושלים The Eulogy in Jerusalem, Rav Kook provides a religious justification for the rise of Zionism specifically from non-religious and often anti-religious sources through a comparison to the roles of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in ancient Israel. While the kingdom of Judah always provided the religious leadership of Eretz Yisrael with the Temple in Jerusalem as its focal point, the kingdom of Israel, although idolatrous, often provided stronger political and military leadership. This is personified by the wicked King Achav, the most notable of the Israelite kings, who although an idolater who allowed his wife to hunt down the prophets, nevertheless heroically died in battle defending the land of Israel.
Once the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were exiled throughout the world, they continued to cleave onto the Torah of Israel as the focal point of Judaism but often neglected their national Jewish identity since they were far removed from their homeland. It is the role of the (mostly) secular Zionists, Rav Kook posits, to bring the Jewish people back to a close connection with the land of Israel. In the process of bringing back the national Jewish identity to Am Yisrael by removing the mentality of the shtetl from the people, these leaders (temporarily) reject the importance of the Torah of Eretz Yisrael. Rav Kook states that this is represented by Moshiach Ben Yosef. Eventually, with the completion of the redemption, Moshiach Ben Yosef will be replaced by Moshiach Ben David, a nation wholly devoted to the land and the Torah of Israel.
You can view a presentation below that I created summarizing this essay.
Below is a flipped class video which I gave presenting Rav Kook's essay.
It is my hope that we will soon see the completion of the redemption when the paradigm of Israel and Judah will once again be joined together to form a nation of Israel in the land of Israel following the Torah of Israel as we read in Ezekiel 37:19.
The Slave Mentality of the Children of Israel
Prior to the sea splitting, the Egyptians were bearing down on the Israelites with their 600 chariots. The Children of Israel panicked, crying out to Moses:
"Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?” - Exodus 14:11-12I find the response of the Israelites to be fascinating on two levels.
Firstly, it is one of the early examples of humor in the Torah, albeit of a gallows variety. The Children of Israel exclaim to Moses "was it for want of graves in Egypt", a country famous even at that time for her fixation on death with their Book of the Dead, pyramid burial vaults and complex mummification processes, "that you brought us to die in the wilderness?"
On a deeper level, the response of the Israelites to the 600 Egyptian chariots is perplexing considering their situation. The Ibn Ezra wonders why the Israelites with 600,000 armed men panicked rather than face the Egyptian forces who they greatly outnumbered. He answers with a deep psychological insight about the Israelites. When pitted against their Egyptian oppressors, the Hebrews exhibited a "slave mentality", reverting back to their position as slaves, powerless to fight back against their former masters.
According to Ibn Ezra, this was not just a one time occurrence but was emblematic of the entire Israelite sojourn in the desert. The Children of Israel's "slave mentality" explains why they did not fight back against the Egyptians at the sea and later would not stand up to the small band of Amalekite marauders until Joshua led the troops and Moses raised his hands on the hilltop. Throughout their wanderings in the wilderness, the Children of Israel constantly complain for food, water, always turning to Moses rather than attempting to help themselves. For this reason, Ibn Ezra states, the current generation would die during their 40 year stay in the desert to be replaced by a new generation of free men and women freed from the psychological bondage of slavery, ready to conquer the land of Canaan.
In a post on my TechRav blog, I observed that this is an early example of functional fixedness, "a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used." The Hebrews were fixated on their function as slaves and were not capable of seeing themselves and behaving as fully freed individuals.
A Modern Adaptation of this Paradigm
When I discussed this idea over the last days of Passover with my chavruta, he observed that this paradigm shift from the "slave mentality" of the Israelites when they left Egypt to the free men and women when they entered the promised land 40 years later, could also be utilized to explain the rise of the Zionist movement in the last 150 years leading to the miracle of the modern State of Israel, whose 70th birthday we will be celebrating in a few short weeks.
The early Zionists, were mostly secular Jews who pointedly rejected traditional Judaism with the goal of creating new Jewish pioneers, halutzim, to resettle the barren land of Israel. They felt that the response to European ani-Semitism was to remove the Jew both physically from the shtetl, the small religious towns throughout Europe where predominantly observant Jews lived, and spiritually from the mentality of the shtetl by abandoning religious observance.
Many rabbinic personalities, even those inclined towards the goals of Zionism, rejected Zionism due to its anti-religious leanings. Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook Zatzal bucked this trend.
In his seminal essay, המספד בירושלים The Eulogy in Jerusalem, Rav Kook provides a religious justification for the rise of Zionism specifically from non-religious and often anti-religious sources through a comparison to the roles of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in ancient Israel. While the kingdom of Judah always provided the religious leadership of Eretz Yisrael with the Temple in Jerusalem as its focal point, the kingdom of Israel, although idolatrous, often provided stronger political and military leadership. This is personified by the wicked King Achav, the most notable of the Israelite kings, who although an idolater who allowed his wife to hunt down the prophets, nevertheless heroically died in battle defending the land of Israel.
Once the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were exiled throughout the world, they continued to cleave onto the Torah of Israel as the focal point of Judaism but often neglected their national Jewish identity since they were far removed from their homeland. It is the role of the (mostly) secular Zionists, Rav Kook posits, to bring the Jewish people back to a close connection with the land of Israel. In the process of bringing back the national Jewish identity to Am Yisrael by removing the mentality of the shtetl from the people, these leaders (temporarily) reject the importance of the Torah of Eretz Yisrael. Rav Kook states that this is represented by Moshiach Ben Yosef. Eventually, with the completion of the redemption, Moshiach Ben Yosef will be replaced by Moshiach Ben David, a nation wholly devoted to the land and the Torah of Israel.
You can view a presentation below that I created summarizing this essay.
Below is a flipped class video which I gave presenting Rav Kook's essay.
It is my hope that we will soon see the completion of the redemption when the paradigm of Israel and Judah will once again be joined together to form a nation of Israel in the land of Israel following the Torah of Israel as we read in Ezekiel 37:19.
דַּבֵּ֣ר אֲלֵהֶ֗ם כֹּֽה־אָמַר֮ ה׳ אלוקים הִנֵּה֩ אֲנִ֨י לֹקֵ֜חַ אֶת־עֵ֤ץ יוֹסֵף֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּיַד־אֶפְרַ֔יִם וְשִׁבְטֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל חברו [חֲבֵרָ֑יו] וְנָתַתִּי֩ אוֹתָ֨ם עָלָ֜יו אֶת־עֵ֣ץ יְהוּדָ֗ה וַֽעֲשִׂיתִם֙ לְעֵ֣ץ אֶחָ֔ד וְהָי֥וּ אֶחָ֖ד בְּיָדִֽי׃
Answer them, “Thus said the Lord GOD: I am going to take the stick of Joseph—which is in the hand of Ephraim—and of the tribes of Israel associated with him, and I will place the stick of Judah upon it and make them into one stick; they shall be joined in My hand.”