From the Kingdom of Memory (5 page)

Thus ends the description—intense and allegorical—of that most important moment in the destiny of our people. If we are what we are—if we are attached to a past which envelops so many years of yearning and so many centuries of exile—it is because on that fateful night, shrouded in secrecy, God and Abraham concluded a covenant which may be viewed as a prefiguration of all that was to follow—until the end of time.

This passage in Scripture is disquieting, notwithstanding its beauty and meaning; its mystery is enhanced by its imagery. What began as vision ended as theater, deserving our scrutiny.

Biblical commentators have all felt that the text was puzzling on more than one level.

First of all, psychologically, Abraham—at this moment of his life—does not need to be reassured; he has just defeated the mightiest kings in the region; he is respected, feared, and loved as well as powerful and rich.

God said, “Do not worry. I shall protect you.” Do not worry? If ever Abraham could live without worry, it is
now
.

Then how does one explain Abraham’s sudden insecurity? Did the first believer doubt God’s pledge to the point of demanding proof? Did he have to remind
God that he had no successor? Didn’t God know that?

Also, what is the significance of God’s stage directions? The animals, the birds, the smoking furnace, the burning torch—what do they all mean?

And then—when was Abraham awake and when was he asleep? This is not clear in the text. The scene is composed of three parts. It opens with Abraham hearing God’s voice in a vision; it develops with God telling him to go out. Out of where? And where to? And it ends with Abraham’s anguish—while he is asleep—when God foretells both exile and redemption. Was the covenant only a dream? A hallucination? Did Abraham sleep while God spoke?

More important, why did Abraham accept the terms of the covenant? Why didn’t he protest against sending his children into exile? Why did he accept suffering on their behalf? Why were they to become strangers?

The Talmud and Rashi—and countless commentators—felt so disturbed, and so moved, by this striking episode that they had to try to explain it.

One explanation was that Abraham was afraid precisely
because
he had been so victorious—afraid of having exhausted his credit. So God had to restore his self-confidence: Do not worry, this is only the beginning, more rewards will come to you.

Why did Abraham demand proof? Rabbi Hiyya, son of Hanina, said that this demand shows his humility
and not his arrogance: he wanted proof that he, Abraham, would be worthy of his future. The sacrifices? A hint of future rituals in the Temple. The darkness? The long night of exile. The smoking furnace and the flaming torch? Symbols of punishment, but also of glory and royalty.

Secular scholars offer their own interpretation. For them, the spectacle is nothing but a reflection of ancient pagan rituals, quite common in that region, vestiges of which survived until the time of Jeremiah.

The text is especially important because here, for the first time, the term “stranger” is used: “And your descendants will be strangers in foreign lands.…”

Why is the term “stranger” linked to a promise? Why is it part of a covenant? What kind of promise is it anyway? Furthermore, who is a stranger? What is a stranger? When does someone become a stranger—and for how long? What must he say, do, or feel—or make another feel—to be so called? And then, is he to be fought or befriended?

Man, by definition, is born a stranger: coming from nowhere, he is thrust into an alien world which existed before him—a world which didn’t need him. And which will survive him.

A stranger, he goes through life meeting other strangers. His only constant companion? Death. Or God. And neither has a name. Or a face. Are they strangers to him too?

Indeed, no topic, no problem is as urgent to our
generation, haunted by a pervasive feeling of loss, failure, and isolation. Once upon a time, past civilizations were remembered for their temples and works of art, or for their pyramids and idols. Ours may well be remembered for certain words and expressions: uselessness, absurdity, alienation.

Existential philosophers use such terms to illustrate their concept of contemporary man as empty, desperate, and estranged from both the world and himself. According to this view, there is between man and society a wall never to be demolished, between man and his conscience an abyss never to be bridged. He can neither love nor hate—neither help nor be helped. He is not free to define himself as mortal among mortals; he is not free—period. His very existence lies in doubt. Whatever he may do, he will do as a stranger; whatever his hope may be, it will perish with him.

Our generation flirts with madness and death—our own, and not only our own. We try anything—nihilism, mysticism, escapism, violence and antiviolence, solitude and communes—to awaken, to attain a sense of belonging, of sharing, of participating: of being alive.
I want to exist
is the leitmotif in modern literature.
You hear me? I want to exist
There are so many dead in our past that we sometimes feel that we are among them. So what? Better to belong to the dead than to no one.

Meursault, the stranger in the classic novel by
Camus, kills so as to prove that he is alive. Better to be punished than to be ignored. Thus suicide has become a romantic temptation—a protest against an indifferent society.

Gradually, knowledge has replaced love, machines have killed imagination. No wonder that in his rare moments of lucidity, man is seized by fear and anguish:
Who
am I? And
where
am I?

For the Jew, the problem is particularly pertinent and poignant. No elaborations are necessary. Since our beginnings, with rare exceptions, we have been considered strangers. We have come to exemplify—by our very existence—other peoples’ prejudices toward their strangers. We know their attitude toward us—what is our attitude toward them? And how are the two linked? Are we to remain strangers forever?

W
HO IS A STRANGER
? What is a stranger? Scripture offers three terms which could serve as definitions: ger,
nochri
, and
zar
. The same three notions have undergone dramatic change in Talmudic literature.

In the Bible,
ger
and
nochri
indicate legal and geographical factors, while
zar
is related mainly to spiritual and religious ones.

A
ger
is the stranger who lives among Jews, meaning, on Jewish land, in Jewish surroundings, in a Jewish atmosphere; but he has not adopted the Jewish faith although he has acquired Jewish customs, values, and friends.

A
nochri
is a
ger
who, for reasons of his own, wishes to remain aloof or separated. The
ger
adjusts and even assimilates, while the
nochri
wants to remain different, an outsider—though a friendly one.

As for the
zar
, he is even further removed. He is not only different but hostile.

Hence, in our ancient tradition, we were extremely hospitable toward the
ger
and even the
nochri
—and extremely severe with the
zar
, who, by the way, was not really a stranger, for while the terms
ger
and
nochri
refer to Gentiles,
zar
applies to Jews.

The
ger
seems to have been a special person, endowed with all kinds of gifts. He was frequently found in the good company of the Levi—the Levite—who ranks just below the priest. Both enjoy exceptional privileges. One must be as charitable to the
ger
as to the Levite. One must not reject the
ger
or cause him harm or loss or distress; one must extend more assistance to him—or her—than to the average person; one must make an effort to understand the
ger
and make him feel welcome, at home; one must love him—or her. The term
veahavta
—and you shall love—is used three times in Scripture: And you shall love your God with all your heart; you shall love your fellow man; and you shall love the
ger
, the stranger.

In Scripture, it develops into almost an obsession. It is stressed again and again—persistently, endlessly—that we must love the
ger
. And we are told why: we have all been strangers in Egypt. That is precisely what
Abraham heard in his vision of the covenant. In other words: we must not treat others the way we have been treated. We must show them compassion, charity, and love. Above all, we must not make them
feel
like strangers. All the Jewish laws, with very few exceptions, apply to the
ger
. Those of
Shabbat
, of holidays, of Yom Kippur—yes, he must fast on the Day of Atonement. He must not feel left out. He is protected, perhaps overprotected, by the law. He must be given special treatment, special attention, special consideration; he is someone special. So much so that in time the term
ger
came to mean convert or proselyte, a
gertzedek:
a just convert, or perhaps a convert
to
justice; someone who joins our people not lightheartedly, for superficial reasons, but out of conviction, out of belief that despite the suffering and persecutions, or because of them, Judaism is inspired by truth and embodies the supreme quest for justice.

Thus, in Talmudic literature, which discourages conversion, the
ger
is generally praised and even exalted, honored, and rewarded. He is made into a superior person to whom nothing is denied. We offer him not only a past—our own—but eternity as well. We assure him that on Passover eve, at the Seder, he may declare—for all to hear—that his fathers and forefathers were slaves in Egypt; and that, like all of us, he was freed by Moses; like all of us, he stood at Sinai and received God’s word and His law. We go so far as to declare that our God favors him over us. And Rabbi
Shimon ben Lakish explains why. We Jews accepted the Law under duress; we had no choice—while the convert comes to God on his own.

The
ger
’s position was so privileged in the Talmud that Moses objected: Why compare him to the Levite? Why does he deserve such honor? And again, God used the argument of the
ger
’s purity of heart: What didn’t I have to do to persuade the people of Israel to accept my Law? I had to free them from bondage, feed them in the desert, protect them from their enemies, impress them with continuous miracles, one greater than the other, one more astonishing than the other—while the
ger
, the convert, didn’t need all these signals—I didn’t even call him, and yet he came.

And so he occupies a higher position than the born Jew. There are things we may not do to him—or even say to him. We may not remind him of his past—so as not to embarrass him. Anyway, his past is now the same as ours. The
ger
can achieve whatever God chooses not to do: he—and he alone—can change his past.

Furthermore, every
ger
may claim direct kinship with Abraham—the first convert, the father of all converts—whose greatest virtue was to expose other people to his faith. The
ger
is even linked to the Messiah, who, as the son of David, will be a descendant of a convert—Ruth.

Abraham’s mission was to attract
gerim
—that’s why he traveled so far and wandered so often. The
Midrash compares him and his wanderings to a bottle of perfume: it must be shaken to spread its fragrance. Later, the Talmud says, Jewish exile had a similar motivation: while wandering through the world, driven from city to city, from village to village, the people of Israel disseminated God’s words, God’s truth.

But Abraham was not only a
ger
in the religious sense; he was also a stranger in the geographical sense—the first
Jewish
stranger—one who, because of his
Jewishness
, had to endure the hardships of alienation and expatriation. No wonder, then, that in his vision of the covenant he anxiously saw his people become a people of refugees to whom others would
not
be charitable.

Quite the contrary.

For there exists a fundamental difference between the Jewish attitude toward strangers, and that of other peoples.

T
HE STRANGER
, on the sociological and human level, is someone who suggests the unknown, the prohibited, the beyond; he seduces, he attracts, he wounds—and leaves; he is someone who comes from places you have never visited—and never will—sent by dark powers who know more about you than you know about them, and who resent you for being what you are, where you are, or simply—for being. The stranger represents what you are not, what you cannot be, simply because you are not
he
. Between you and him no contact seems possible,
except through suspicion, terror, or repulsion. The stranger is
the other
. He is not bound by your laws, by your memories; his language is not yours, nor his silence. He is an emissary of evil and violence. Or of death. Surely he is from the other side.

Thus in many traditions he was, in fact, rejected, isolated, condemned. He was the nomad looking for water and wine; the Gypsy asking for a place to sing; the beggar searching for a roof; the fugitive seeking shelter; the madman haunted by shadows. Whether seeking consolation or forgetfulness, the stranger was sent away or somehow disposed of. The tribe wished to stay closed—unified. Pure. The stranger, bearer of an evil omen, could only undermine the established order. He had to be expelled. Or exorcised. Or even killed.

Or, in more enlightened civilizations, he had to be absorbed, meaning—assimilated. Disarmed, undressed, transformed. He would be welcome to stay, but only after giving up his name, his past, his memories, his bonds with his own people; a Jew, for example, had to become Christian, or Moslem, or Communist—or whatever. He would be offered the possibility of living, and living happily, provided he paid the inevitable
rite de passage
, which was a kind of metamorphosis or transsubstantiation. You wish to be with us? Be one of us.