{"id":55029,"date":"2019-05-06T22:01:20","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T19:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=55029"},"modified":"2022-11-29T15:04:21","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T13:04:21","slug":"chronic-inter-generational-amnesia-and-betrayal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/chronic-inter-generational-amnesia-and-betrayal\/","title":{"rendered":"Chronic Inter-Generational Amnesia And Betrayal"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[405,428],"acf":{"old_id":"55029","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34245,"related_cahpter":"213","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"And some unexpected lessons on parenting","content":"

In Judges 1, the Israelite tribes started disconnecting from each other, busying themselves with their separate concerns. In Judges 2 they disconnect from their shared past: \u201cAnd there arose another generation\u2026 that knew not the LORD, nor yet the work which He had wrought for Israel.\u201d (Judges 2:10)<\/span><\/p>\n

This ignorance proves fatal — and chronic. Like the new Pharaoh who \u201carose\u201d in Egypt and \u201cknew not Joseph\u201d (Exudus 1:8), the new generation of Israelites acted badly: ignorance led to ingratitude, and ingratitude to betrayal. They abandoned God and He abandoned them in turn. He did relent eventually and sent a judge to deliver them, only to watch the same loss of memory occur again, leading to yet another episode in a seemingly endless cycle of ignorance-betrayal-subjugation-deliverance.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is tempting to focus on the unique particulars of each of these episodes: Ehud\u2019s left-handed maneuvers, Deborah\u2019s vision, Gideon\u2019s tricks. But the repetitive moment when each episode gives way to another \u2013 when, after God\u2019s deliverance, the next generation forgets Who saved them and dooms itself to suffer \u2013 deserves attention. How could they forget such monumental victories?<\/span><\/p>\n

The text does not explicitly address this question. But it offers us an opportunity to reexamine and reframe it in Judges 10-12, where it focuses on the way generations affect each other in a particular case. Jephthah, a bastard, was cast out by his brothers upon his father\u2019s death. Later, however, his people beseeched him to return and lead them in war against the Ammonites, just as they beseeched God, whom they abandoned earlier for idols, to aid their war. Both God and Jephthah initially refused. Why should we, they asked, deliver those who abandoned us?<\/span><\/p>\n

By placing Jephthah\u2019s abandonment in parallel to each generation\u2019s abandonment of God, the text portrays the Israelites\u2019 chronic loss of memory as an act of betrayal. But who is the traitor?<\/span><\/p>\n

The description in Judges 2 seems to imply that each generation is responsible for its own ignorance. But Jephthah\u2019s story draws our attention to the role parents play in their children\u2019s fate. After Jephthah was restored to his place amongst his people, he made a careless vow that doomed his only daughter. Like his own father, Jephthah \u00a0failed to guarantee his child\u2019s place in the community. Perhaps this failure, and not the loss of memory itself, is a better key to understanding the chronic inter-generational disconnectedness in Judges. Perhaps instead of asking \u2018how could they forget\u2019 we, as parents and educators with our own children to raise, should rather ask \u2018why did they fail at passing their memories forward.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: <\/span>\u00a0Study for the Daughter of Jephtha. 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