{"id":75129,"date":"2020-05-24T13:28:14","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T10:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=75129"},"modified":"2020-05-24T13:28:42","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T10:28:42","slug":"dont-abhor-the-edomites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/dont-abhor-the-edomites\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Abhor The Edomites"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/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":[],"acf":{"old_id":"75129","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64460,"related_cahpter":"487","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"On the importance of not holding onto old hatreds\r\n\r\n","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The animosity between the brothers Jacob and Esau has a long afterlife in Jewish literature. Esau is understood to be the progenitor of the nation of Edom, with which the Israelites were often in conflict. In Rabbinic thought, Edom becomes conflated with the leviathan of the Roman Empire; then, because of the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of Rome, in medieval Jewish thought Edom became the symbol of Jewish oppression by Christians. At least some of the bitterness here was due to the sense of familial estrangement: Christianity and Judaism sharing roots, as did Jacob and Esau, but differing bitterly over who is the rightful heir.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the 35th chapter of Ezekiel, the prophet turns to castigate the Edomites for their cruel opportunism in the downfall of the Israelites. Edom \u201charbored an ancient hatred and handed the people of Israel over to the sword in their time of calamity,\u201d during the Babylonian invasion (35:5). This act of betrayal is remembered in other Biblical texts as well, such as the psalm which contains the anguished petition that God \u201cRemember\u2026against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem\u2019s fall; how they cried, \u201cStrip her, strip her to her very foundations!\u201d (Psalms 137:7) Moments like this, coupled with the aforementioned tendency to conflate Edom with later enemies of the Jewish people, fed a reluctance to give up this rivalry even though the Edomites as a people have long since vanished from history.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In light of this seeming inability to forget the past, it is worth attending to a moment in Ezekiel\u2019s prophecy against Edom. The Edomites are condemned because they \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">harbored an ancient hatred<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and handed the people of Israel over to the sword\u201d (35:5). It was this careful cultivation of a grudge\u00a0 which led the Edomites to the cruelty they displayed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. Such grudge-keeping is ultimately deleterious, corroding the character of the one who refuses to forget, if not to forgive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is worth noting that the Torah itself actually forbids holding grudges against those whom we might be most disposed to do so: \u201cYou shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your kinsman. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land\u201d (Deuteronomy 23:8). Other grievances (such as those with the Amonites, Moabites, and with Amalek) are treated more unforgivingly, leading to places in the tradition which evince discomfort: finding a way to accept the Moabite Ruth as the ancestor of King David, for example, or transforming the mitzvah to wipe out Amalek into a call to purge ourselves of the cruel opportunism of which Amalek is made a mere symbol. Taken together, these moments constitute a powerful testimony to the importance of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">not<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> holding on to and nurturing our ancient hatreds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":75130,"id":75130,"title":"ez35-reconciliation","filename":"ez35-reconciliation.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/ez35-reconciliation.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/dont-abhor-the-edomites\/ez35-reconciliation\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ez35-reconciliation","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":75129,"date":"2020-05-24 10:28:02","modified":"2022-06-30 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