{"id":39033,"date":"2018-09-01T23:26:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T20:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=39033"},"modified":"2022-03-27T21:00:44","modified_gmt":"2022-03-27T18:00:44","slug":"the-jewish-need-to-self-critique-is-nothing-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-jewish-need-to-self-critique-is-nothing-new\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jewish Need to Self-Critique Is Nothing New"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An oft-lamented tendency of Jews is to be self-critical. Isn’t it enough that everyone else is against us? Do we really need to point out our own faults with greater zeal than our enemies do?<\/span><\/p>\n

When the rabbis mined the barren landscape of chapter 36 for meaning, there are many things they could have focused on. You wouldn’t think that self-criticism is one of them. It’s a chapter with only one incidental reference to Israel. All the rest discusses Esau’s family, his kings and his neighbors, and a careful reading of Esau’s convoluted family tree suggests rampant incest. If any criticism is hinted at here, it should be of <\/span>them<\/b>, not <\/span>us<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Certainly, when Amalek, the Jewish people’s arch-enemy, makes his first appearance, we would expect some words of condemnation from the rabbis. And indeed we find them. But remarkably, their accusing finger is squarely pointed inward, at the fathers of the Jewish nation. This takes a fair amount of ingenuity and creativity, so hang on and listen closely for a wild exegetical ride.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rabbinic midrash (<\/span>Sanhedrin 99b<\/span><\/i>) notes that Amalek’s mother Timna, a concubine of Elifaz, appears a few verses later as the sister of Lotan, a prince of Se’ir. In and of itself, this is not a resounding condemnation of the Jewish people. If anything, we’d expect the rabbis to highlight the genesis of the evil of Amalek as the result of intermarriage. Instead, they imagine Timna as a sincere would-be convert who is rejected by Abraham’s family. Undeterred, Timna’s great determination to attach herself even distantly to this godly family leads her to sacrifice her lofty stature as a princess to be a mere concubine of Elifaz. Amalek, the Midrash continues, is the embodiment of the bitterness born of this rejection and this sacrifice. The eternal thorn in the Jewish people’s side, then, is a monster of our own making, created by the unwarranted insularity of our founding fathers!<\/span><\/p>\n

You can call it self-criticism. I call it an unquenchable thirst for assuming responsibility. 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