The last few weeks Mainstream News has highlighted the supposed atrocities of Israel to the Palestinians. And many have trumped up a lot of antisemitic hatred even to those Jews who live in the diaspora and have nothing to do with Israel. And we ask why are Jews being accused and why after thousands of years do we continue to suffer? Why is antisemitism rampant, why are Arab terrorists threatening to kill all Jews and take the land of Israel for themselves? This question has been asked by Jews and Gentiles alike. Rabbis and other scholars have written much on this topic.

My Jewish Learning* (http://www.myjewishlearning.com) shows possible views ending up with the accusation that the Holy ONE, Blessed be He, has broken His covenant with Israel and that is why we cannot expect to see miracles anymore* (see below). REALLY?

The argument is based upon the assumption that Jews, at least the most observant ones, are keeping their part of the covenant. Yet, are we really keeping our part of the bargain? I see at least two things that fly in the face of what the Bible says:

The majority of Jews do not believe they have to live in the Land of Israel to be good Jews. As long as the traditions of the Oral Torah are observed, the exile mentality can continue anywhere and at any time.

Rabbinic Judaism teaches that the rabbis received the authority through a divinely appointed chain of command to interpret the Torah based on their own majority view;

They state: “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly.” (http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/pirkei-avot-ethics-of-the-fathers-3/) The chain of transmission was then passed on to the sages and on to the rabbis of our day.

This transmission is based upon:

Ex. 23:2 “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou bear witness in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to pervert justice;” JPS Tanakh (So, this is not given as a positive command, rather a negative one, yet this is the justification for following the consensus for rabbinic decrees and interpretations of Torah.)Thus it is that today we find many instructions that are not found and often not even alluded to in the written Torah.

And why should we take exception to this? Because it is stated in the written Torah and in the book of Joshua:

• Deuteronomy 4:2: Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
• Deuteronomy 12:32
  What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.
• Joshua 1:5-7
  No one shall stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so will I be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall give these people the inheritance of the land that I swore to their fathers I would give them. Above all, be strong and very courageous. Be careful to observe all the law that My servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may prosper wherever you go.”

Why did Hashem again make a point to instruct Joshua that he must not turn to the right or to the left, regarding the Torah, i.e. was not to add to nor diminish it as originally commanded in Deuteronomy? And if Joshua was now free to interpret it as he felt it needed to be given, why is he reminded that it is the law “that My servant Moses commanded you”? And so on down the line, how now do the Rabbis justify their creation of laws and fences, claiming they are based upon the original laws of Moses? And how is it that we can now change it on the basis of one simple Torah statement (Ex 23:2) clearly misinterpreted and taken out of context; how can we add insights to the Torah based on this Oral transmission?

And what about building fences? “They, (the men of the Great Assembly) said three things: Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Torah.” Pirkei Avot, ch 1. At Sinai God told Moses to put barriers around the mountain that the people not be able to break through to Him. The assumption that this is equivalent to putting a fence around the Torah does not seem to add up.

Here is the commentary from My Jewish Learning, mentioned at the first of this article showing the rabbinic leaning to the concept that God has abandoned His part of the covenant with Israel:

*Israel as Estranged Wives and Widows
(https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/israel-as-estranged-wives-and-widows/)
By Jeffrey Spritzer

Isaiah 50 1 – The metaphor of Israel as the wife of God receives several potent and shocking midrashic reinterpretations as the rabbis reflect on Israel’s suffering and persecution.
Although the biblical book of Job presented a radical critique of the covenantal theology that suffering is punishment for sin, the rabbis, in general, chose to maintain a belief in the covenant. The most common rabbinic approach to the problem of suffering, and in particular, the suffering of the people of Israel in exile, involved relocating reward and punishment to Olam haBa, the next world. Even so, the rabbis could hardly escape the reality of the pain that people experienced in this world. In order to explain the failure of the covenant between God and Israel, the rabbis sought the closest analogue: the occasional failure of the human covenant between husband and wife. 

Love on the Rocks – When the covenant seems to work, the rabbis imagined the covenant as a love story. Most notably, the rabbis transformed the love poetry of the biblical book of Song of Songs into the love story of God and Israel. Yet, if Song of Songs Rabbah and the Targum (Aramaic interpretive translation) of Song of Songs preserve the love story, then a peculiar midrash ic collection known as Midrash Song of Songs (edited by Eliezer Greenhut) presents the story of “love on the rocks.” The one known manuscript of this midrash was apparently copied (or maybe even written) during the Crusades and was then lost during the Holocaust.

“‘Show me your countenance’ (Song of Songs 2:14). This is like a man who had an ugly wife whose name was Hannah. She honored her husband greatly, but he was sad, because although she had a good name and beautiful deeds, her face was ugly. A dream maker came and asked why he was distressed, and he explained why. ‘Do you want her to be beautiful?’ ‘Yes,’ came the reply. In the morning, she became beautiful. She saw herself and she began to lord herself over her husband. In the night, the dream maker came again and asked what he wanted. ‘Please make Hannah ugly again.’ ‘For your voice is pleasant and your face becoming’ (Song of Songs 2:14). The Holy Blessed One said to Israel, ‘When is your voice pleasant to me? When you are pressed down by persecution…’” (Midrash Song of Songs Greenhut 2:14).

The flip side of the biblical and rabbinic suspicion of wealth and good times (“You will eat and be satisfied. Be careful lest your hearts stray,” [Deuteronomy 11:16, and cf. Deuteronomy 8:11-20]) is the belief that bad times and, in particular, suffering and persecution somehow foster the kind of relationship that God wants from Israel. Suffering, according to this view, leads to Israel’s devotion and even to a perverse beauty.

Israel as Loyal Widow – Although the previous passage does not reveal any bitterness or irony, that is not the case with other uses of the husband-wife metaphor. The book of Lamentations begins “How has the city, so full of people, become k-almanah, like a widow!” For the rabbis, the interpretive crux becomes the single letter-word, k-almanah, like-a widow. How is Israel like a widow without actually being one?

“‘How has the city, so full of people, become like a widow!’…R. Hama bar Ukba and the rabbis [disagreed]. R. Hama bar Ukba said: She is like a widow who chose continued support (in the house of her deceased husband) rather than her ketubah (her marriage settlement which would have required her to find a new husband)…”

R. Hama’s approach needs a little explanation. According to the Talmud (Ketubot 52b), a woman has two choices upon the death of her husband. The common choice is that she receives the ketubah settlement that would support her for a year or so until she could be remarried. Instead, Israel is seen as a widow who chooses to stay in the house of her deceased husband rather than go somewhere else.

Although Lamentations mourns the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem, R. Hama’s analogy raises the specter of what, in modern times, would be seen as a metaphor for the death of God. Israel’s continued faithfulness to the land and religion of Israel, is seen as the widow who maintains a posthumous fidelity towards her husband. Yet, Israel’s God/Husband is not really dead, so Israel is only like a widow and not one in reality.

God as Abusive Husband – The rabbis’ parable, however, takes the understanding of “like a widow” and not really a widow in a totally different direction.  “The rabbis said: It is like a king who was angry with his matron and wrote out her divorce document, but then got up and snatched it from her. Whenever she wished to remarry, he said to her, ‘Where is your divorce document?’ And whenever she demanded monetary support, he said to her, ‘But have I not divorced you?’”

“Similarly, whenever Israel wished to worship idols, the Holy Blessed One said to them, ‘Where is your mother’s divorce document?’ (Isaiah 50:1); and whenever they wished that God should perform miracles for them as in the past, the Holy Blessed One, said to them, ‘Have I not already divorced you?’ That is what is written, ‘I sent her away and I gave her divorce document’ (Jeremiah 3:8)” (Lamentations Rabbah 1:1.3).

For the rabbis in this midrash, God’s behavior is that of a wicked husband who takes advantage of the inequity in Jewish law which puts the power of divorce exclusively in the hands of the man. Although the woman in this parable is divorced and not widowed, as in the biblical verse, the woman is only “like a widow” in that she lacks the support of a husband and yet, she lacks the freedom of the widow to remarry. Israel suffers, and lacks the support of God who does not even allow Israel the freedom to depart and join with other gods.

Together Forever – A final example of the rabbinic response to suffering, however, contrasts sharply with this last vision of a powerless Israel. R. Joshua of Sikhnin reports this parable of R. Levi:

“R. Joshua of Sikhnin said in the name of R. Levi: ‘I am the man’ (Lamentations 3:1); I am the one who has learned from suffering. Have I benefited from what you thought fit?!”

“It is like a king who got angry at his wife and forced her out of the palace. She went and pushed her face up behind one of the pillars, [staying in the palace, but hiding]. The king saw her as he was walking by and said ‘Such impudence!’ She responded, ‘My lord king, this is the right and appropriate thing for me, since no other woman besides me has accepted you.’ He retorted, ‘Only because I disqualified all other women [from marrying me] for your sake.’ She said to him, ‘If that is the case, why did you go to that house on that street if not to meet with a woman who ended up rejecting you?’”

“Similarly, the Holy Blessed One said to Israel, ‘Such impudence!’ But Israel said, ‘Master of the Universe, it is right and proper for us since no other nation besides us has accepted the Torah .’ God retorted, ‘Only because I disqualified all other nations for your sake.’ Israel said, ‘If that is the case, why did you offer the Torah to all of the nations, only to have them reject it!’” (Lamentations Rabbah 3:1.1)

Although the Temple was destroyed, Israel remains attached to God. But she is far from powerless. Like the woman of the parable, ejected from her home, Israel can turn to God and say, “You may be angry with us, but we’re all You’ve got!” This translation follows the reading of R. Samuel ben Isaac Jaffe, the sixteenth century author of the commentary Yefeh Anaf. Jaffe comments:

“‘I am the man’ who has suffered as a result of having accepted Your Torah. Instead of You doing good for me, You have done me evil; had I not accepted Your Torah, then I would be free and I would not have suffered for having not fulfilled it.”

Rabbi Jaffe affirms the theology of the covenant, but nevertheless bemoans the consequences. Other rabbinic texts present God in ways that are even more transgressive of the basic terms of the covenant, including describing God as a wife-batterer.
Later theologians developed different kinds of theologies to explain suffering in this world; in comparison to modern theological responses, the rabbinic repertoire seems rather limited. Nevertheless, working from within the covenantal theology that suffering is punishment for violation of the Torah’s norms, the rabbis found effective ways to subvert and rework the metaphor of covenant to express their own theological discomfort, and more importantly, their own voices of protest to the suffering which they saw as a violation of a divine covenant.”

So what is the consensus? Is it possible that the rabbis led us on a path away from the covenant so far that we ourselves stand before the Holy One, blessed be He, as guilty of covenant breaking? And what covenant would that be? Have we added to His Words which He expressly forbade? Have we observed mitzvot that were never commanded of Hashem? Have we deleted anything? Or as Hashem instructed Joshua, not turned to the right or the left?

If we really read what Torah says, many of the mitzvot can only be observed in The Land. Why then are Jews still remaining in the exile keeping Shavuot (for example) while they are not IN THE LAND? (Lev 23:9), and why are they keeping Succot when it specifically says IN THE LAND? (Lev 23:39)

Why are we not all striving to be IN THE LAND? Experts calculate that only 2 percent of the Jews returned from Babylon at the time they were released by Cyrus to build the 2^nd temple. How many are waiting in America and Europe and every other country on the globe and for one reason or another put off returning to THE LAND—The only land where Jews are under any kind of Divine protection?

And there are other mitzvot that may only be kept when there is a Temple and a Priesthood. So why do we attempt to keep these things rather than actively take back the Temple Mount and begin construction of Ezekiel’s Temple?

So we have several things to do to get ourselves right with Hashem, get back to Israel, and dig deeply to find what the Torah really says, discarding all that has led us to the right hand or to the left. Then we will see a Divine return to Hashem’s part of the covenant!