Not in God's Name (30 page)

1.
Mishnah, Avot 2:5.

2.
For literary analyses of the Joseph narrative, see Eric I. Lowenthal,
The Joseph Narrative in Genesis
, New York, KTAV, 1973; Uriel Simon,
Joseph and his Brothers: A Story of Change
, trans. David Louvish, Ramat Gan, Israel, Lookstein Center, 2002; James L. Kugel,
In Potiphar’s House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts
, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1994.

3.
Gen. 24:67.

4.
Gen. 29:18, 20, 30.

5.
Gen. 37:3, 4; 44:20.

6.
Rashi, Commentary to Gen. 37:2, on the basis of Genesis Rabbah 84:3.

7.
R. Hayyim of Kossov, Torat Hayyim to Gen. 37:18.

8.
See previous chapter,
note 6
.

9.
See Rashi, Commentary ad loc., who attributes this phrase to ‘the holy spirit’. The classic Jewish commentators are unused to the concept of irony. On the use of irony in the Bible, see Edwin M. Good,
Irony in the Old Testament
, Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1965.

10.
See Ephraim E. Urbach,
The Sages, their Concepts and Beliefs
, trans. Israel Abrahams, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1987, pp. 462–71.

11.
See especially Rom. 7:7–24.

12.
See Urbach,
The Sages
, pp. 471–83; Solomon Schechter,
Aspects of Rabbinic Theology: Major Concepts of the Talmud
, New York, Schocken, 1961, pp. 219–343.

13.
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Teshuvah, 2:2.

14.
Ibid., 2:1.

15.
Esau had earlier said, ‘The days of mourning for my father are near;
then I will kill my brother Jacob’ (Gen. 27:41). Apparently, fraternal revenge was not permitted during a father’s lifetime.

16.
I am indebted for these examples to Bill Bryson,
Mother Tongue
, London, Penguin, 1991, p. 63.

1.
See David Diringer,
Writing
, New York, Praeger, 1962;
The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind
, New York, Funk & Wagnalls, 1968;
The Story of the Aleph Beth
, New York, Yoseloff, 1958; Robert K. Logan,
The Alphabet Effect: A Media Ecology Understanding of the Making of Western Civilization
, Cresskill, NJ, Hampton Press, 2004; John Man,
Alpha Beta: How our Alphabet Changed the Western World
, London, Headline, 2000; David Sacks,
The Alphabet: Unravelling the Mystery of the Alphabet from A to Z
, London, Hutchinson, 2003. On early semitic scripts, see Joseph Naveh,
Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography
, Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 1982. On Hebrew letters, see Marc-Alain Ouaknin’s delightful
Mysteries of the Alphabet: The Origins of Writing
, trans. Josephine Bacon, New York, Abbeville Press, 1999. On the impact of literacy on consciousness, see Walter J. Ong’s masterly and suggestive works,
The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History
, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1967; and
Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word
, London, Routledge, 1991. See also Jack Goody,
The Domestication of the Savage Mind
, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977;
The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society
, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986;
The Interface between the Written and the Oral
, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.

2.
There are many biblical examples. Every seven years the king was commanded to assemble the nation and ‘read aloud this Torah before them in their hearing’ (Deut. 31: 10–13). When ‘the book of the law’ was rediscovered in the reign of King Josiah, ‘He went up to the temple of the Lord with the men of Judah, the priests and the prophets – all the people from the least to the greatest – and read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the Temple of the Lord’ (2 Kgs 23:2). In the historic gathering of those who had returned from Babylon, Ezra ‘read [the Torah] aloud from daybreak till noon, in the presence of the men, women and others who
could understand, and all the people listened attentively to the book of the Torah’ (Neh. 8:3).

3.
Nahmanides and R. David Kimche, Commentaries ad loc.

4.
Targum Onkelos and Rashbam, Commentary ad loc.

5.
Ibn Ezra, Commentary ad loc.

6.
R. Naftali Berlin, Ha’amek Davar ad loc., suggests that Leah was unable to go out with the flocks because the bright sunlight hurt her eyes.

7.
Genesis Rabbah 70:16; Midrash Sekhel Tov (Buber), 29:17; 30:7.

8.
There is a rabbinic tradition that the patriarchs kept the commands of the Mosaic covenant before it was given to the nation at Mount Sinai. Nahmanides explains, however, that they did so only in the land of Israel. Jacob’s deathbed blessings were uttered in Egypt. See Nahmanides, Commentary to Gen. 26:5.

9.
Rashi to Gen. 22:1.

1.
Jonathan Haidt,
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
, New York, Pantheon Books, 2012.

2.
One of the most powerful of all stories of role reversal is, however, a religious one. After King David has fallen in love with Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, he sends her husband into battle knowing that he will be killed. He then marries her. Nathan the prophet approaches the king, ostensibly to seek his advice. He tells him the following story. There are two men in a certain town, one rich, the other poor. The rich man has large flocks and herds, the poor one only a single lamb which he cherishes as if it were his child. A traveller arrives, and the rich man, preparing a feast for the visitor, is reluctant to kill one of his own animals, so he takes the poor man’s sheep instead. As the story proceeds, David gets more and more angry, until he bursts out, saying, ‘The man who did this deserves to die.’ Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man.’ The story is told in 2 Samuel 11–12. It is the most effective example of role reversal I know.

3.
See Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi,
Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory
, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1982.

4.
See Julia Kristeva,
Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art
, New York, Columbia University Press, 1980; Michael Fishbane,
Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel
, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1985.

5.
Talmud Yerushalmi, Rosh Hashanah 3:5.

1.
Samuel Huntington,
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1996, p. 310.

2.
The Talmud Yerushalmi, Megillah 1:11, 71b, records a dispute between R. Eliezer and R. Johanan, on just this question. One holds that Gen. 10 describes the situation after Gen. 11. The other maintains that the two chapters are in correct chronological sequence.

3.
J. Richard Middleton,
The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1
, Grand Rapids, MI, Brazos, 2005, p. 224.

4.
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Melakhim 9:1. See David Novak,
The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: An Historical and Constructive Study of the Noahide Laws
, New York, E. Mellen Press, 1983;
Natural Law in Judaism
, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

5.
I say this mindful of centuries of criticism of the idea. See, for a recent example, Clifford Longley,
Chosen People: The Big Idea that Shaped England and America
, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 2002.

6.
Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5.

7.
Rabbinic tradition speaks of Abraham making disciples, but that is oral tradition, not written, explicit text.

8.
R. Abraham Isaac Kook,
Orot haKodesh
, vol. 3, 15.

9.
Tosefta, Sanhedrin 13:2.

10.
Mishnah, Avot 3:14.

11.
The title of an article by B.S. Lewis puts it bluntly: ‘I’m right, you’re wrong, go to hell’,
The Atlantic Monthly
, May 2003.

1.
William Blake, ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ (c. 1818).

2.
Sanhedrin 71a.

3.
Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 49a.

4.
Shakespeare,
The Merchant of Venice
, Act 1, scene 3.

5.
Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 28a.

6.
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Melakhim 5:4.

7.
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Melakhim 6:5.

8.
See Rabbi N.L. Rabinovitch,
Responsa Melomdei Milchamah
, Maaleh Adumim, Maaliyot, 1993, pp. 22–5.

9.
Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev,
Kedushat Levi
, Jerusalem, 2001, section on Purim; Gerald Cromer, ‘Amalek as Other, Other as Amalek:
Interpreting a Violent Narrative’,
Qualitative Sociology
, 24.2, 2001, pp. 191–202.

10.
See David Cook,
Understanding Jihad
, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005.

11.
Mishnah, Shabbat 6:4.

12.
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 63a.

13.
Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 30b.

14.
Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 10b.

15.
Bamidbar Rabbah 13:15.

16.
Maharsha, Chiddushei Aggadot to Berakhot 58a.

1.
Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86b.

2.
See the interesting essay on Josephus as survivor in Elias Canetti,
Crowds and Power
, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1973, pp. 274–82.

3.
Josephus,
The Jewish War
, trans. G.A. Williamson, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1959, chs. 9–23.

4.
Tosefta, Chagigah 2:9.

5.
The Jewish War
, p. 264.

6.
Ibid., p. 135.

7.
For a balanced survey of the subject, see David Biale,
Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History
, New York, Schocken Books, 1986.

8.
Abraham Lincoln, ‘Second Inaugural Address’, in Andrew Delbanco (ed.),
The Portable Abraham Lincoln
, New York, Viking, 1992, p. 321.

9.
Stephen Toulmin,
Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity
, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992, p. 55.

10.
Alexis de Tocqueville,
Democracy in America
, abridged with an introduction by Thomas Bender, New York, Modern Library, 1981, p. 185.

11.
Ibid., pp. 187–88.

12.
R. Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (Netziv), Ha-amek Davar to Gen. 11:4.

13.
Karl Popper,
The Open Society and Its Enemies
, vol. 1, new edn., London, Routledge Classics, 2002.

14.
Aristotle,
The Politics
, ed. Stephen Everson, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, 1261a16-23, p. 21.

15.
For a good summary, see Harry Redner,
Ethical Life: The Past and Present of Ethical Cultures
, Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield, 2001, pp. 68–85.

16.
1 Sam. 8:7.

17.
Thomas Paine,
Political Writings
, ed. Bruce Kuklick, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 3.

18.
Oliver Goldsmith,
The Traveller
(1764), l. 427.

19.
Michael Novak,
The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
, London, Institute of Economic Affairs, 1991, p. 53.

20.
Rousseau called his secular substitute ‘civil religion’. J.-J. Rousseau,
The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings
, ed. and trans. Victor Gourevitch, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

21.
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 88a; Avodah Zarah 2b.

22.
Eric Voegelin,
Order and History
, vol. 1,
Israel and Revelation
, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1956, p. 37.

23.
Graeme Wood, ‘What ISIS Really Wants’,
The Atlantic
, March 2015.

24.
The classic work on the subject is Norman Cohn,
The Pursuit of the Millennium
, London, Paladin, 1972.

25.
Matthew Arnold, ‘Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse’ (c. 1850).

26.
J.L. Talmon,
The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy
, Harmondsworth, Peregrine, 1986.

27.
Michael Walzer,
Exodus and Revolution
, New York, Basic Books, 1985, p. 145.

28.
Talmon,
The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy
, p. 253.

29.
Maharal,
Be’er haGolah
, Jerusalem, 1972, pp. 150–51.

30.
John Stuart Mill, ‘Utilitarianism’,
On Liberty, Considerations on Representative Government
, ed. H.B. Acton, London, Dent, Everyman’s Library, 1972, p. 85.

31.
Kierkegaard actually said, ‘The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.’