Responses to Jew-Hatred

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Midrash is a special kind of Jewish biblical literature. What it tells of is not necessarily in the Bible, but is derived from the Bible or is based on the Bible—in a way, a commentary on the Bible. It is post-biblical, although there are hints of midrashic technique already in the Bible itself, as we shall soon see.

The Midrash is a huge corpus of literary creativity produced by the rabbis of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. It is held together by Scripture, to which the rabbinic mind always returned, seeking old answers to new questions raised by changing times and circumstances.

As a way of introducing Midrash and midrashic method, we will examine it briefly in one small respect—the way it dealt with and understood Jew-hatred, what we would today call anti-Semitism.

Midrashic literature, or that part of it that has been preserved in numerous collections,¹ was composed from the Hellenistic period, beginning in the late fourth century B.C.E.,^a to the Moslem conquest of Eretz Yisrael a thousand years later, in the seventh century C.E. This millennium witnessed all possible varieties and forms of Jew-hatred, many of which are reflected in the midrashic texts.

But I should say at the outset, we will not be looking for history here, although the vast midrashic literature does indeed constitute a rich quarry from which historical information can be extracted—from antiquity to medieval times.² Our purpose here, however, is not to dig up historical evidence of Jew-hatred in the rabbinic sources, but to try to understand midrashic method in terms of its comprehension of and responses to the Jew-hatred that has, unfortunately, so often been a condition of life for the Jewish people.

The midrashic response to Jew-hatred is especially interesting because it is not “disputation” material to be used at public debates between Jews and their opponents (although this too can be found in the Midrash).³ What we will focus on instead is a Jewish response that was produced primarily for “internal consumption.”

Before looking at examples, a few words about Midrash in general are in order. Most midrashic texts are attributed to well-known rabbis. While the texts are now written down, they began as part of an ongoing oral tradition. In the beginning they were a kind of commentary on the “portion of the week,” that is, the scriptural reading assigned for the synagogue service in any given week.⁴ According to ancient custom, after the public reading, a rabbinic preacher would then expound on the text or a part of it. He would also conduct a dialogue with the congregation that included both men and women. The congregation would come not only with the expectation of being taught Torah (Scripture), but also of becoming informed about worldly affairs; of being entertained at least intellectually; and of being given the courage to go on living for another week under the sometimes unbearably difficult circumstances in which Jews often found themselves. So the creation of Midrash was an 037interaction between rabbi and congregation based on Scripture.

The homilies, originally delivered in hundreds of synagogues in Judea and Galilee, were eventually written down to make up the body of midrashic literature. In Jewish scholarship, the genre is known as aggada—literally, “tale” or “lore”-in contrast to halacha, which is the term applied to laws, legal discussions and legal literature.

The Midrash served as a powerful weekly excursion into another reality, a different cosmos in which not even the sky was the limit to its imaginative flights of fancy. The only parameters were those of the Bible, which was the sole concrete element in this midrashic-aggadic cosmos, beyond which little else mattered.

This enchanted world of Midrash or aggada transcended time and space. It was composed, in Isaac Heinemann’s words,⁵ of “creative historiography” and “creative philology” in which “organic thinking” deliberately disregarded gaps of time and space. History was not viewed as a lineal listing of chronological “facts,” nor were words monolithic in their meaning. Both historiography and philology could be stretched as far as the rabbi’s creative imagination could take him. Thus, it is not at all surprising to find the patriarch Abraham striking up a conversation with Queen Esther, or Moses carrying on a dialogue with King David—and we listen in on all of them.

Let us now look at some of this midrashic material as a reflection of how Jews responded, internally, to the Jew-hatred they so often encountered, first from heathen peoples and later from some Christians and Mohammedans who believed that the “mother” religion must fade away or be put to death now that the “daughter” religions had superseded an earlier understanding of the divine. The question here is not what the Jews said to their opponents or even how they acted toward them, but how the Jews themselves viewed the situation.

Whatever the Midrash tried to understand was always approached in terms of biblical precedents. A biblical typology was created. In this case, Jew-hatred in its variegated manifestations was typified—or typologized—in the animosity between the twin sons of the patriarch Isaac—Jacob and Esau. For the rabbis, the struggle between these two brothers was inevitable. Although they were the issue of the same mother, Rebecca, and of the same father and were to this extent born equal, the animosity between them was not totally irrational. But neither were its causes “explainable” as racial, economic or the phobia of the alien, etc.

A famous second-century sage, Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai, is quoted in the Midrash as saying “It is a well known legal rule [halacha] that Esau hates Jacob” (Sifrei, Behaalotcha, 9). Why is it a legal matter? What Rabbi Simeon is trying to establish is that the animosity between Esau and Jacob is axiomatic and often inevitable—it cannot be changed, just as any firmly established religious law (halacha) is not subject to change.

The struggle between Jacob and Esau is in fact prenatal. According to Genesis 25:22, “The children struggled in her womb, and she said, ‘If so, why do I exist?’ ” What does Rebecca’s exclamation mean? The Hebrew itself is unclear. But obviously she is distraught. She senses that trouble is imminent, for the very next line of the text tells us, “She went to inquire of the Lord” (Genesis 25:22).^b

The Lord answers her and tells her that the unborn children she is carrying are not just two innocent babies; they are in fact two nations:

“Two nations are in your womb,

Two people apart while still in your body;

One shall be mightier than the other,

And the older shall serve the younger.”

(Genesis 25:23)

Thus, the Bible provides the basis for the metaphor; the two infants in Rebecca’s womb are two rival peoples. The biblical incidents that follow provide the basis for extending the metaphor: Esau, under duress, sells his birthright to Jacob (Genesis 25:29–34); Jacob obtains his father’s blessing instead of Esau (27:1–45). The twin brothers have very different personalities; one (Esau) is a hunter, fond of the outdoors; the other is a mild man who stays near their home (25:27). In the end, the antagonism rises to the surface: “Esau hated Jacob” (27:41); he plans to kill Jacob (ibid.). With his 038mother’s help, Jacob flees to another country to live (27:42–46, 28:1–5).

Years later, Jacob returns with his family and retinue, not knowing whether Esau’s anger has subsided. But when they see each other, “Esau ran to meet him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him and they wept” (Genesis 33:4). The story has what seems to be a happy ending: The two brothers, now well-established heads of their own large families agree to go their separate ways: “So Esau returned that day to his way unto Seir. And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and made booths for his cattle” (33:16–17).

The biblical story appears to conclude here, in a kind of idyllic mood. At least we hear no more of the interaction between the two brothers. This is not true, however, of the midrashic literature. There the tale is spun out in an ongoing drama that takes it not only down to the present day but even into the remote eschatological future.

In the midrashic stories, the relationship between Jacob and Esau becomes the typological representation of the confrontation between Jews and gentiles down through the ages. Jacob and Esau become the two archetypes—both of the same race and the same breed, children of the same mother and father and yet representing contrasting worlds.⁶ Their juxtaposition is not a one-time affair or an antiquated myth; it is enacted and re-enacted anew every day.

In the world of the Midrash, Esau is the progenitor of Edom, or is even Edom himself.⁷ Does it not say so explicitly in Scripture: “Esau is Edom” (Genesis 36:8)? (The full verse is “And Esau dwelt in the mountain-land of Seir—Esau is Edom. And these are the generations of Esau the father of Edom in the mountain-land of Seir” [36:8–9].) Furthermore, Esau is also the grandfather of Amalek (36:12), another attacker of Israel.

In the Midrash, Edom is the false neighbor/brother who pretended to represent brotherly love, but, as the Bible records, did “violence against your brother Jacob…and stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth” (Obadiah 1:10–12). In the Midrash Esau becomes identified with Rome and, later, with Christianity. The outer historical trappings change, but Esau/Edom remains the same.

In his extreme form Esau is also Amalek, who keeps reappearing in brutal confrontation with Israel. At the climax of the Exodus Amalek is there, and, for no apparent reason, attacks Israel in an attempt to block its way to the Promised land (Exodus 17:8–16).

A thousand years later Esau/Amalek is there again. He is Haman,^c the mastermind behind a diabolic “final solution,” a plan to exterminate the entire Jewish people, as recounted in the book of Esther; the plan, as we learn there, was thwarted by the efforts of the Jewish queen, Esther, and her Uncle Mordechai.

In the Midrash, the fates of the two—Esau/Edom/Amalek, on the one hand, and Jacob/Israel, on the other—are forever intertwined. Jew-hatred—or anti-Semitism in all its various garbs—is just one of the expressions of the bond between the two, according to the Midrash. This Jew-hatred does not warrant an explanation in terms of cause-and-effect. It is unavoidable, irrevocable; it is just there. It begins even before the birth of Jacob/Israel and Esau/Edom.

According to the rabbis who created the Midrash, this same struggle is involved in the biblical story of Jacob’s wrestling with the mysterious “man”—sometimes identified as an angel—who attacked Jacob in the darkness of the night. They wrestled with each other until the break of day. The “man” could not prevail against Jacob, so he twisted Jacob’s thigh. Jacob emerges from the struggle limping—henceforth he is lame—but he also emerges with a new name: Israel; “he wrestled with God and with man and overcame” (Genesis 32:25–30). Henceforth it would be Jacob/Israel’s destiny to journey through history lame, to struggle and to prevail. These would be his distinguishing marks. Who was it that set this all in motion? According to the Midrash, it was Esau, for the man who fought with Jacob that dark night was, in the Midrash “the guardian angel of Esau” (Genesis Rabbah 73:3).

The feud between Jacob and Esau as related in the Bible is part of history, but as created in the Midrash it is part of that “other reality.” In one reality, historical stages come and go, but in the “other reality” the scene is always dominated by the “other world” of Jacob and Esau. These two worlds, the mundane and the aggadic, are never completely detached from one another; nor does the midrashic reality represent a complete escape 039from the actual world. On the contrary, the two different worlds fortify each other. The midrashic reality provides the proper perspective from which to view the entire scene and to acquire that insightful self-understanding of phenomena in their totality.

An examination of a midrashic text already cited and known as Genesis Rabbah will serve to illustrate the foregoing generalities.⁸ These passages ostensibly deal with the historical biblical figures of Jacob and Esau, but actually Jacob and Esau represent, beneath the surface, an attempt to understand the phenomenon of Jew-hatred in the generation of the rabbis to whom the texts are attributed, between the second and fourth centuries of the Common Era. Those years saw many remarkable changes, including Rome’s switch from pagan religions to Christianity. Yet the relationship between Jew and gentile as reflected in the Jacob-Esau typology underwent hardly any substantial change.

The texts do not read in the straight-forward manner we are accustomed to in modern literature, but are rather in the clipped, abbreviated style of rabbinic discussion, dialogue and debate. Nevertheless, even though the reader may be unaccustomed to this arcane style, we shall be able to extract meaning from the texts.

The first text starts at the beginning of the biblical story. It is in the form of a commentary on the biblical text, when Jacob and Esau are still in the womb.

“AND THE CHILDREN STRUGGLED TOGETHER WITHIN HER [Genesis 25:22]. Rav Yohanan and Resh Lakish discussed this. Rav Yohanan said: ‘Each ran to slay the other.’ Resh Lakish said: ‘Each annulled the laws of the other.’ Rav Brechiah observed in Rav Levi’s name: ‘Do not think that only after issuing into the light of the world was he [Esau] antagonistic to him, but even while still in his mother’s womb his fist was stretched out against him’ ” (Genesis Rabbah 63:3).⁹

Here we are sitting in on a discussion by three famous sages who were among the great minds of their generation (200–275 C.E.), Rav Yohahan, Resh Lakish and Rav Brechiah. (Rav is a tide corresponding roughly to “Learned Sir” in the first case, and “Head” of an academy of study, a yeshiva, in the second case. Some say that “Resh” in this instance is an abbreviation of the tide Rav and his first name, Shimon, which together form “Resh.”) These are not simply three men just sitting around, chatting and musing over another verse of the Torah. What we have here are actually three different views to account for Jew-hatred. But the discussion is couched in the typology of Jacob and Esau. How is their animosity to be explained?, the sages ask.

According to Rav Yohanan, “Each ran to slay the other.” The verb wayyithrozazu is derived from raz, to run, and razaz, to crush. For Rav Yohanan, it is part of human nature to clear the ground of competition, even at the price of murder, and so Jacob and Esau were out to kill each other from the beginning, as part of a struggle for “space.”

Resh Lakish is of another opinion: “Each annulled the laws of the other.” More than a struggle for space is involved here. The two infants represent a clash of cultures, two conflicting world-views. They annul each other’s taboos. According to Resh Lakish, coexistence between the two cultures is impossible.

The third sage, Rav Brechiah, seems to reject both of these views. For him there is simply no rational explanation for Jew-hatred. It is something inherent in the very nature of the two brothers, even before they appeared in this world.

A fourth, anonymous, view immediately follows our text in the Midrash:

“They sought to run within her [in Rebecca’s womb]. When she passed near a synagogue or houses of learning, Jacob struggled to come out…while when she passed idolatrous temples, Esau eagerly struggled to come out.”

Here, the conflict is depicted as a religious struggle. Cultural pluralism may be possible, but religion demands exclusivity, the text seems to be saying.

The text goes on to tell us that Rebecca was terrified at the prenatal struggle going on inside her. She did not know she was carrying twins. She wondered how one infant could identify simultaneously with both pagan temples and with synagogues (never mind that there were no synagogues in Rebecca’s day). Rebecca is comforted somewhat when she is told that there are two children within her. She nevertheless sorrowfully realizes that her two offspring will never be able to live in peace 040with each other.

None of these midrashic views regard Jew-hatred simply as a deplorable act committed by gentiles who are out to attack or to kill Israel. Moreover, the phenomenon in these midrashic views is not one-sided. The Jews try their best to respond. Rather, Jew-hatred is seen as an inevitable reality that we must learn to live with; it is no use crying over it or trying to “correct” it. Yet, learning to live with the conflict is not simply to accept things passively, but it means trying to find internal ways, as well as subtle external ways, of reacting.

The texts that follow probe further into the essence of the Jacob/Esau confrontation as it emerges within its post-biblical historical context:

“TWO NATIONS ARE IN THY WOMB [Genesis 25:23]. Two proud nations are in thy womb, each taking pride in his world, and each in his kingdom. Two rulers of nations are in thy womb: Hadrian of the gentiles and Solomon of Israel. Another interpretation: Two peoples hated by the nations are in thy womb; all heathen hate Esau and all heathen hate Israel.”

Here, the anonymous rabbi who expresses this view is transferring the weight of the confrontation from the cultural and religious to the political; there are, he says, two superpowers in the world. Hadrian and Solomon, although centuries apart, stand together as two examples of great sovereigns.¹⁰ Moreover, both are hated by the rest of the world. The Jews may be hated by the gentiles, but Rome, the conquerer of the world and subjector of many peoples, is also hated.

In another midrashic text, this one from the Babylonian Talmud, we read:

“Caesarea [representing Edom/Rome] and Jerusalem: If one says to you that both are flourishing, do not believe him; if he says Caesarea is waste and Jerusalem is flourishing, or that Jerusalem is waste and Caesarea is flourishing, you may believe him. I SHALL BE FILLED, SHE IS LAID WASTE (Ezekiel 26:2); if this one is filled that one is laid waste, and if that one is filled, this one is laid waste” (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 6a).

The text in effect places Israel on the same proud level as imperial Rome, two equal rivals, and not simply a mighty imperium vis-à-vis an insignificant fringe state.

According to Rav Brechiah in another text, the words “from thy womb” in the biblical text indicate that Jacob was born circumcised; in other words, Jacob is irrevocably tied to Jewish fate and to Jewish destiny; he has no choice in the matter.

In its own way, the Midrash tries to fight back against the attacks leveled at Jews. Although the Jews have no real power, they can respond on other levels of consciousness and expression, Here is one example:

“Rev Phinehas said in Rav Levi’s name: You find that Abraham lived 175 years; Isaac, 180…God withheld these five years from Abraham’s life because Esau violated a bethrothed maiden and committed murder…Rav Berachiah and Rav Zakkai the elder said: He also committed theft…Said the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He: I made a promise to Abraham, assuring him, ‘Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace.’ Is this a good old age when one sees his grandson practicing idolatry, immorality and murder? Better that he leave this world in peace!”

Rav Phinehas, not so subtly, is, in effect, identifying the corruption of the Roman empire and the church’s treatment of the Jews with Esau’s immorality. But it is done in the context of a grandfather (Abraham) embarrassed at the behavior of his grandson (Esau).

The rabbis often use irony, a rather sophisticated sword, to cut their opponents down to size. Here is an example:

“HE [ISAAC] CALLED HIS ELDER (GREATER) SON ESAU [TO HIM] [Genesis 27:1]. Rav Eleazar Simon said: ‘This may be compared to a country that needed to recruit a bodyguard for the king. Now a certain woman there had a son, a dwarf, whom she used to call “Tallswift.” Said she, “My son is tall and swift; why then do you not appoint him?” “If in your eyes he is tall and swift,” they retorted, “in ours he is but a dwarf.”

“ ‘As his [Esau’s] father called him great, so his mother [also] called him great: AND REBECCA TOOK THE CHOICEST GARMENTS OF ESAU HER ELDER (GREATER) SON [Genesis 27:15]. Said the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He, to 041them: “If in your eyes he is great, in mine he is small,” as it says, “[THUS SAYS MY LORD GOD CONCERNING EDOM]: BEHOLD I MAKE THEE SMALL AMONG THE NATIONS” [Obadiah 1:2].’ ”

Edom and all it represents may be “great” in the eyes of its mother who sees Edom as “tall and swift,” but that does not make Edom that way in actuality, especially in the “other reality” of the Midrash, which is the world that really counts. There, in the eyes of the Lord, he is found to be (relying on a prophetic text) small.

The biblical text describing the meeting of reconciliation between the two brothers can be read two ways, according to the rabbis of the Midrash. It is customarily read (Genesis 33:4): “And Esau ran to meet him [Jacob], and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And they wept.” The letters in the consonantal Hebrew spelling of the word for “and he kissed him” (wayyishakehu) can also be read “and he bit him.” According to the Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 78:9), a miracle occurred and Jacob’s neck turned into marble so that Esau’s bite could not hurt him. Thus the following phrase “and they wept” refers to Jacob weeping over the pain in his marblized neck and Esau weeping over his teeth aching from trying to bite into the marble. Musings like these gave partial comfort to the Jews as they tried to maintain their pride in a world where their assailants had all the power.

Even more important, teachings like this conveyed the hope that some day, perhaps not so far in the future, things may be turned around:

“AND AFTER THAT HIS BROTHER [JACOB] CAME FORTH [FROM THE WOMB] [Genesis 25:26]. A Roman prefect asked a member of the family of Salu: ‘Who will enjoy power after us?’

“[In reply] he [the member of the family of Salu] brought a blank piece of paper, took a quill and wrote upon it, ‘AND AFTER THAT HIS BROTHER [JACOB] CAME FORTH, AND HIS HAND HELD ON TO ESAU’S HEEL’ [Genesis 25:26].

“Upon this the comment was made: See how ancient words become new in the mouth of a sage! Moreover, it teaches how much suffering was endured by the righteous man [Jacob].”

In this passage, the answer to “the question” is not given by a rabbi but by a layman, a member of the family of Salu. He did not dare say aloud what he was thinking, so he wrote it down on a slip of paper, hinting, by completing the biblical text, what will be in the future: Jacob will grasp Esau’s heel—the tables will be turned!

In this way, we can read the Jewish people’s response to the Jew-hatred that swirled about them, an ever-present condition in their daily lives. Proud, controlled, self-assured, this kind of response, hidden in the texts of the Midrash, enabled countless generations of Jews to survive. In this way, they learned “how ancient words become new.” While realizing “how much suffering was endured by the righteous,” they did not succumb to the pressures of disintegration. Instead, they sublimated their response through the Midrash, creating their own “other reality.”

Midrash is a special kind of Jewish biblical literature. What it tells of is not necessarily in the Bible, but is derived from the Bible or is based on the Bible—in a way, a commentary on the Bible. It is post-biblical, although there are hints of midrashic technique already in the Bible itself, as we shall soon see. The Midrash is a huge corpus of literary creativity produced by the rabbis of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. It is held together by Scripture, to which the rabbinic mind always returned, seeking old answers to new questions raised by […]