Disrupting the Land Narrative Forgotten Rabbinic Voices and Their Consequences on the Identitary Temptation in Contemporary Jewish Politics of Messianism David Meyer

Abstract. — Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and in particular since the Six Day War in 1967, messianism has been re-introduced to the forefront of many contemporary rabbinic discourses. An agressive messianism in which the possession of the land of Israel has become the key factor in defining a binary logic of “insiders” and “outsiders,” with dire consequences not only for the Palestinian pop- ulations in the land, but also for Jews who do not adhere to the political and religious “official narrative” of the time. But does any messianic reference to the Land infer a decisive concept, fostering identitary temptations? This article, after contex- tualising the emergence of a theological narrative of the land that harbours violent binary discourses, will argue that one can discover other rabbinic ways to evoke the land and its messianic promise. Teachings from the past that, as the paper will argue, could profoundly disrupt the official narrative about the land and its binary outcome. In particular, this article will unearth and explore an important teaching of Bar Hiyya, a 11th-century rabbinic figure, whose teachings and potential midrashic sources on the notions of the land and messianism could be of great relevance for those interested today in defusing any identitary temptation. The article will highlight in particular the potential of a midrashic metaphor comparing the Land of Israel to a book, thus paving the way for the construction of a new rabbinic theology of the land of Israel where the dialectic of hermeneutical discourses could diffuse the identitary and binary triggers too often embedded in the messianic land narrative.

“For My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations,”1 thus prophesied Isaiah in one of the most compelling eschatological discourses recorded in the Bible. His words encapsulate a truly universal and peace- ful vision of the messianic era when, united by a common humanity, nations will have renounced the binary logic of a world where the us, that is the insiders, are defined by their constant struggle and opposition

1. Isaiah 56:7. 290 DAVID MEYER with the others, the them. Yet, messianism can be deceptive. Indeed, in the biblical and subsequent rabbinic tradition, the eschatological vision of unity is preceded by a daunting “Day of the Lord”2 promising judg- ment, vengeance, violence and a final war between Israel and its historical enemies.3 The perceived dread of the day is such, that the Tal- mud, not without a certain irony, dares to declare by the voice of Ulla: “May he [the Messiah] come, but let me not see him.”4 In that context, we will start by considering how a wide perspective on the nature of Jewish messianism can be seen as fertile ground for a binary logic of opposition between insiders and outsiders. We will then elucidate more precisely how references to the possession of the land of Israel have, in some emblematic rabbinic teachings, crystallised the pivotal role of the land in the binary logic of messianic thinking, fostering dangerous identitary temptations. Reviving a forgotten teaching from the past attributed to Abraham bar Hiyya (11-12th century), we will attempt to disrupt this land narrative and see how a more creative understanding of the notion of the land of Israel in messianic time could pave the way for a non-binary reading of religious history, in particular in light of a renewed Jewish presence in the land as typified by the modern state of Israel. Could such a disruptive reading offer a new perspective capable of emancipating contemporary Judaism from its own binary logic, where an Israeli/Jewish presence in the land and possession thereof leads to the prospect of a never-ending war and a perpetual violence?

I. Jewish Messianism Today as Fertile Ground for Binary Logic

Gershom Scholem, in 1958, famously wrote, in the very first lines of his essay “Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism,” that “[…] Messianism is a delicate matter, for it is here that the essential conflict between Judaism and Christianity has developed and continues to exist.”5 Thus, in no uncertain terms, Scholem recognized that the

2. Various expressions of the reference to this “Day of the Lord” are found in the Bible. See for instance Isaiah 2:12; 13:9; Amos 5:18,20; Joel 1:14; 2:1,11; 3:4; Zeph- aniah 1:7,14; Obadiah 1:15; Malachi 3:23 and Daniel 12:12. 3. The tension between these two perceptions of messianism corresponds to what Scholem describes as the two aspects of the messianic idea in Judaism, the “catastrophic and destructive nature of the redemption” and the “utopianism of the content of realized Messianism.” See Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schoken Books, 1995), 7. 4. Bavli, Sanhedrin 98b. 5. Scholem, The Messianic Idea, 1. DISRUPTING THE LAND NARRATIVE 291 messianic idea had, over the centuries, been a real factor in infusing a binary logic to religious identities, defining Jews and Judaism as an us radically opposed to the existence of the others, here the Christian world with which Scholem was familiar. Striking a rather different theological tone, Martin Buber, thirty years before Scholem – in 1928 –, proposed a more nuanced perception of the issue under discussion. Speaking about Christian messianism and contrasting it with what he perceived was a classical Jewish vision, he wrote, after having pointed out a certain commonality between the two traditions that your expectation is directed towards a second coming, ours to a coming which has not been anticipated by a first […] Pre-messianically our destinies are divided. Now to the Christian, the Jew is the incomprehensibly obdurate man, who declines to see what has hap- pened; and to the Jew, the Christian is the incomprehensibly daring man, who affirms in an unredeemed world that its redemption has been accomplished. This is a gulf that no human power can bridge.6 Indeed, the proposition is more nuanced as, despite the deep gulf so concisely evoked by Buber, the explicit reference to the expectations of both Judaism and Christianity is powerfully indicative of what one could term “a convergence of horizons” uniting our common perception of a fully realised messianic future. Both Judaism and Christianity, at least until recently, shared a common horizon of time for the fulfilment of the divine promise of messianism. Indeed, between these two thinkers, it is the very concept of identitary temptation as typified and amplified by the messianic idea, that we are called to examine. Both Buber and Scholem lived in a time of relatively muted messianic expectations, when the prospect and then resurgence of a Jewish sovereignty over the physical land of Israel was still either an utopian and eschatological vision or at best a secular and socialist ideal.7 The same cannot be said of our own time. Indeed, since the creation of the modern State of Israel and since the evocation of the rē’šît ṣĕmîḥat gêulātēnû, “the beginning of the emergence of our redemption,” to define the

6. Martin Buber, Israel and the World: Essays in a Time of Crisis (1948; repr., Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 39-40. 7. A detailed analysis of the ideological articulation of a secularised and socialist vision of a messianic return to the land can be found in Jacob Katz, “Israel and the Mes- siah,” in Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History, ed. Marc Saperstein (New York and London: New York University Press, 1992), 475- 491. Of particular interest is the analysis proposed by the author on the thought of Moses Hess advocating a secularised return to the land that would “release the spiritual energy embodied in petrified religious institutions.” See ibid., 481-482. 292 DAVID MEYER

religious function of the state of Israel,8 messianism has become an active concept in contemporary Judaism, more specifically since the end of the Six Day War in 1967.9 The theological, ideological and psychological trigger of the 1967 military conquest certainly needs to be understood in its wider historical perspective. Indeed, classical forms of Jewish messianism,10 as well as repeated historical experiences of persecutions, in particular the pogroms of the 19th century,11 proved to be strong catalysts to the Zionist enter- prise, fostering a strong ideological and practical desire to settle the land.12 The experience of the Shoah, the “nadir of Jewish powerlessness,”13 added a sense of urgency to the unfolding Jewish political and ideological claims to the land.14 However, the mystical and messianic land ideology that

8. The formula is attributed to first Israeli Ashkenazi Rabbi, Rav Herzog and sec- ondarily to Agnon. The prayer was first published in Hatzofe dated 20 Sept 1948, p. 2. 9. As an extreme formulation of this idea, Zvi Yehudah Kook (1891-1982), the spiritual leader of the settler movement and son of Abraham Isaac Kook the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine (1865-1935), famously wrote: “The State of Israel and its governing structures are holy.” See Shlomo Aviner, ed., Sihot HaRav Tzvi Yehudah (Beth-El: Sifriah Havah, 1993), 269. 10. A particular noteworthy expression of a messianic desire to return to the land (before the emergence of Zionism as a political movement) is that of the immigration of the disciples of the Vilna Gaon (1720-1797), many of whom settled in Palestine between 1808 and 1847, motivated by clear messianic vision and activism. See Arie Morgenstern, “Messianic Concepts and Settlements in the Land of Israel,” in Essential Papers on Messianic Movements, ed. Saperstein, 433-455. 11. An interesting description and analysis of the ideological and practical impact of the pogroms in Russia and more generally of the plight of East European Jewish communities on the policies of the Zionist movement and its intent to foster mass Jewish immigration can be found in Margalit Shilo, “The Immigration Policy of the Zionist Institutions 1882-1914,” Middle Easters Studies 30, no. 3 (1994): 597-617. 12. Beyond this desire to settle the land, many, across the spectrum of Jewish religious belonging, were defiant of such an ideological turn, advocating instead the duty of loyalty to one’s national citizenship. On the Orthodox side of the spectrum, certain writings of Samson Raphael Hirsch provide an interesting perspective on this issue (see Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Nineteen Letters about Judaism, ed. and trans. Joseph Elias, 2nd ed. [Jerusalem: Feldheim Publishers, 1996], 224-225). On the Reform and Liberal side of the spectrum, powerful ideological debates between Rabbis Friedländer, Joël and Geiger cast an informative picture on the topic (see Jakob J. Petuchowski, ed., Prayerbook Reform in Europe: The Liturgy of European Liberal and Reform Judaism [New York: The World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1968], 277-283). 13. Abraham J. Edelheit, “The Holocaust and the Rise of Israel: A Reassessment Reassessed,” Jewish Political Studies Review 12, nos. 1/2 (2000): 97-112, 97. 14. While Edelheit posited that the “Holocaust acted as a catalyst which considerably speeded up the attainment of Zionist goals” (ibid., 108), the assumptions underlying such an understanding of the relationship between the Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel has been the subject of intense debates for years. See for instance Evyatar Friesel, “The Holocaust: Factor in the Birth of Israel?,” in Major Changes within the Jewish People in the Wake of the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Ninth Yad Vashem International Historical Confer- ence, ed. Israel Gutman (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Publication, 1996), 519-544. DISRUPTING THE LAND NARRATIVE 293 enveloped the Jewish and Israeli world after the victory of 1967,15 appears to be of a rather different nature and not just the result of an exacerbated unfolding of past desires and attachements to the land. At stake was undoubtedly for some, the newly discovered feelings of ownership towards the places of the biblical narrative at the core of Jewish religious identity now under Israeli sovereignty, as well as a sense of messianic active redemption at play in the miraculous survival of the nation, coming out victorious from its recent daunting confrontation with the mighty armies of the enemies.16 Jewish messianism became for many firmly rooted not only in real history but in the politics of the State. The Jewish messianic hope, which for two millennia had been relegated to the realm of eschatological utopia, was suddenly thrust into the very present of history, amidst seemingly infinite war, violence and hatred.17 Undoubtedly, the occupation of the land – for many the very land of the divine promise evoked by the biblical narrative18 – is the prime culprit of such violence. Its possession has become the symbol of an identity superiority, opposing in radical terms the victorious us to the defeated them. It is literally on the land that a binary typology of redemptive proportion is shaping not only the future of the Middle East but also that of Judaism.

II. Land Possession and Identitary Temptation

Biblical references to the messianic return of the Jewish people to its ancestral land are scarce. Mostly, the few verses from Deuteronomy 30:3-5 and even earlier in the prophecy of Balaam in Numbers 24:17-18 – read through later rabbinic lenses – serve as the strongest anchor to the messianic restoration of a Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel.

15. A description and analysis of the roots of this post 1967 messianic surge, not limited to the religious spheres of the Israeli society but including also additional secular ideological trends (Revisionist Zionism) has been detailed and substantiated in Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 (New York: Times Book, 2006). 16. Leyla Gürkan, The Jews as Chosen People: Tradition and Transformation (Lon- don and New York: Routledge, 2003), 173. 17. Uriel Tal, “Foundations of a Political Messianic Trend in Israel,” in Essential Papers on Messianic Movements, ed. Saperstein, 492-503. In particular, the author defines the events of the Six Day War as propelling Israel’s politics into a “transcendental” mode. Ibid., 492. 18. Genesis 17:8; 26:3; 35:12 for the promise of the land to the patriarchs. The promise is re-iterated in the book of Exodus (Exodus 6:8) and later in the book of Deuteronomy where the promise is conditioned by the proper ethical conduct of its inhabitants (Deuteronomy 28:58-63). 294 DAVID MEYER

Thus, Maimonides19 in the “Laws of Kings and Wars” of the Mishneh Torah, codified in no uncertain terms, the return to the land as an undis- puted prerogative of true messianism: The King Messiah will arise and re-establish the monarchy of David as it was in former times. He will build the Sanctuary and gather the dispersed of Israel. […] For the Torah has given testimony about him saying, “And the Lord your G-d will turn your captivity and have compassion with you. He will return and gather you from all the peoples…If any of you should be dispersed at the ends of Heaven, from there G-d will gather you, from there He will fetch you. And the Lord, your G-d will bring you…”20 […] It is even written in the Chapter of Balaam who prophesied about both the Messiahs. The first Messiah was David who saved Israel from its adversities. The final Messiah will be from his sons and will deliver Israel from the hands of the descendants of Esau.21 What is truly remarkable about this passage is the way in which the land and the battle between Israel and the nations are constantly intertwined. It is back in the land that the Messiah and his armies will smite the enemies and restore Israel’s sovereignty. Reading the prophecy of Balaam in light of subsequent events of biblical history and more particularly in reference to the Davidic kingship and its military reign over the land,22 Maimonides attributes to the land of Israel a specific redemptive function,

19. Maimonides, or Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon), 1135-1204, is considered as the most authoritative legal thinker of Judaism. His code of Jewish law (the Mishneh Torah, also known as the Sefer Yad Ha-Hazakah is the code of Jewish law, summarising the essence of all the talmudic debates), while initially received by many with certain hostility, became with the passing of time a text of reference and authority in rabbinic circles. See Moshe Halbertal, Maimonides: Life and Thought (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), 162-196. 20. Deuteronomy 30:3-4. 21. Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings and Wars, 11:1. See: Maimonides, The Laws of Kings and Wars: Translated from the Rambam’s Mishne Torah, trans. Reuven Brauner (Raanana: Talmudic Books - Reuven Brauner, 2012), 32. For a more critical translation see: The Code of Maimonides – Book Forteen: The Book of Judges, trans. A. M. Hershman (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1949). 22. Ibid.: “There it says, ‘I shall see him, but not now’ (Numbers 24:17) – this refers to David; ‘I behold him, and not soon’ (ibid.) – this is the King Messiah; ‘A star from Jacob shall step forth’ (ibid.) – this is David; ‘and a sceptre shall arise out of Israel’ (ibid.) – this the King Messiah; ‘and shall smite through the corners of Moab’ – this is David; and so it says, ‘And he smote Moab and measured them with a rope’ (2 Samuel 8:2); ‘and break down all the sons of Seth’ (Numbers 24:17) – this is King Messiah of whom it says, ‘and his dominion shall be from sea to sea’ (Zechariah 9:10); ‘and Edom shall be a possession’ (Numbers 24:18) – this is David, as it says, ‘And Edom shall become slaves to David’ (see 2 Samuel 8:6 and 8:14); ‘Seir also, even his enemies, shall be a possession’ (Numbers 24:18) – this is King Messiah, as it says, ‘And the saviors shall come upon Mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau…’ (Obadiah 1:21).” DISRUPTING THE LAND NARRATIVE 295 as the physical place where the final retribution of Israel’s enemies will take place. Thus, the land becomes the catalyst of a binary identitary logic of redemption.23 While the tone is definitely set by Maimonides,24 it is mainly with the political return of the Jewish people to its homeland at the turn of the 20th century that, activating anew a messianic impulse, the question of the sovereignty over the land of Israel became the symbol of an identitary temptation that appears to relegate to oblivion most of the ethical and universal teachings of the rabbinic tradition. In this regard, the religious thought of Tzvi Yehudah Kook (1891-1982), in the footsteps of that of his father, Abraham Kook (1865-1935), is an unavoidable voice that should guide our exploration.25 Both father and son wrote consist- ently, yet differently, about the intrinsic “sanctity” of the land of Israel, emphasising the religious obligation to settle all parts of the “promised land” and to keep “every inch” of it under Jewish sovereignty.26 Indeed,

23. While the messianic context of redemption undoubtedly exacerbates the relationship between land possession, binary temptation and violence, it is important to remember that the biblical narratives, at times and in various settings, are already witnesses to the existence of a potential relationship between the promise of the land and violence. Suffice to recall the seemingly infinite violent descriptions of the conquest of the land of Canaan in the book of Joshuah, or even, in the historical context of the return to Zion after the Babylonian exile, where a binary identitary temptation is clearly exposed. See in particular Ezra 4:3. 24. In the historical context of Maimonides (12th-century Spain and then mainly Egypt) as well as for most of the diasporic reality of the rabbinic period, statements and teachings pertaining to the return and centrality of the land of Israel and its messianic function must be considered as mostly ideological and with no concrete consequences for the lives of the nations subjected to the divine and messianic wrath. Indeed, this is what Scholem termed – while referring to the classical hope embodied by Jewish messianism – “a life lived in deferment,” where the messianic idea is nothing but a “real anti-existen- tialist idea,” where nothing concrete is really accomplished. See Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, 35. By opposition, Shai Held has pointed out how it is precisely this refusal of a perpetual deferment, the refusal to wait, that characterises the spiritual revival of messianism in the wake of the Zionist settlement in the land (in particular for Held, in the writings of Tzvi Yehudah Kook). See Shai Held, “What if Zvi Yehudah Kook Wrought: The Theopolitical Radicalization of Religious Zionism,” in Rethinking the Mes- sianic Idea in Judaism, ed. Michael L. Morgan and Steven Weitzman (Bloomington, IN and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015), 229-255, 229. 25. An importance that became more acute as of 1974 when the Gush Emunim, a political and ideological movement of settlers, was created by students of Tzvi Yehudah Kook. For a detailed analysis of the condition of the creation of Gush Emunim (and its impact on the political reality of Israel), see Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Jewish Messianism, Religious Zionism and Israeli Politics: The Impact and Origins of Gush Emunim,” Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 2 (1987): 215-234. 26. See in particular the sermon Kook delivered to his students on the eve of the Six Day War. http://www.israel613.com/books/eretz_anniversary_kook.pdf. Consulted on January 21, 2019. 296 DAVID MEYER

Abraham Kook’s theological posture drew on the teachings of earlier Jewish medieval philosophers as well as of classical Kabbalah. In particular, the attachment to the land, so characteristic of his theological posture, bares important ressemblance to that of Yehudah Halevi (1075- 1141), while also departing from it and attaching itself to more mystical and kabbalistic notions.27 But if Abraham Kook crafted his thought in mostly theoretical terms where a Jewish return to the land remained compatible with a wider vision of a universal redemption,28 no such restraints were shown by the son who “turned the ideas of his father into an operative and very influential factor in the Israeli political arena,”29 and becoming by the same token, one of the most virulent and uncompromising advocates of a full and never-to-be-negotiated Jewish sovereignty over the biblical land of Israel. His political stand stemmed from his own spiritual vision of the ontological and theological nature of the relationship between the land of Israel and the people of Israel. Thus, his students and disciples recall: “Only after we have returned to the land, and are influenced by its special transforming powers, are our true, healthy spirits renewed.” […] “To understand this process, we have to understand the essence of this Land,” Rav Tzvi Yehudah said. The Rosh Yeshivah would return to this theme again and again. […] Eretz Yisrael [the land of Israel] is something else entirely. Yes, it has mountains and rivers, but these mountains and rivers are part of us, inseparable from our being and from our national task of uplifting mankind to a knowledge of Hashem [God]. Eretz Yisrael is Kadosh [Holy] […].30 This brief recollection of Kook’s thought allows us to perceive how rev- olutionary and far-reaching his theological views about the intrinsic holiness of the land have been for a whole generation of Jews in search of a meaningful understanding of the spiritual significance of the re- establishment of a Jewish state. But the love of the land, taken in its newly exacerbated messianic moment, quickly turned to a violent binary logic of segregation between the us and the them, when the notion of holiness of the land was suddenly coupled with an equally intrinsic

27. For a full description of the relationship between Halevi’s philosophy, Kab- balistic teachings and the theology of Kook concerning the sanctity of the land, see Held, “What if Zvi Yehudah Kook Wrought,” 233-236. 28. Eliezer Don-Yehia, “Messianism and Politics: The Ideology Transformation of Religious Zionism,” Israel Studies 19, no. 2 (2014): 246-247. 29. Ibid., 247. 30. Shlomo Aviner, ed., Torat Eretz Yisrael: The Teaching of HaRav Tzvi Yehuda HaCohen Kook (Jerusalem: Torat Eretz Yisrael Publications, 1991), 101-102. DISRUPTING THE LAND NARRATIVE 297

chosenness of the people, independent from any ethical personal behav- iour. Thus for Kook and his followers: The time has come to return home. Whether we want to or not; whether we recognize this truth, or whether we want to run away from it. “And I will bring you back to their land.”31 Hashem [God] has decided that the time has arrived.32 On reading these lines, our attention is drawn towards the absence of intentionality on the part of the people. God has decided, whether the people want it or not, and it is the special holiness of the land that con- fers to the people its unique spiritual dimension. Hence for Kook, the wholeness of the Jewish people appears only in Eretz Yisrael. The Divine value of this great nation appears only when it is situated in its own land, in all of its land and stature.33 Once the Jewish people became, as it were, freed from its covenantal ethical obligations to attain its wholeness, its holiness being solely dependant on its presence on the land and possession thereof, Kook had in effect set the tone for a typology in which, because of the land, the Jewish soul becomes radically differentiated from the non-Jewish soul.34 A generation later, among the followers of Kook’s theology and political activism, this binary logic became radicalised, setting the ground for violent political actions and theological thinking. Such a turn of events and attitudes did not suddenly emerge in a vacuum, and should be recasted, even if only succinctly, in the wider context of an ongoing multifaceted inner-Jewish debate. These debates focused on issues of religious identity and loyalty to the State and to the land, and of a secular and liberal identity and loyalty to the Jewish people. While an extensive analysis of the terms of the debate is beyond the scope of this paper and outside of its central

31. Ezekiel 36:24. 32. Tzvi Fishman, “In Memoriam: The Teachings of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Called the Father of the Return to Judea and Samaria, a True Torah Leader with Vision and Courage,” Arutz Sheva, 12th March 2017, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ Articles/Article.aspx/20269 (accessed January 23, 2019). 33. Ibid. 34. In this sense, Kook does refer to the “impurities of the Gentile nations” that he contrasts to the holiness of the Jewish people in its land. On many occasions Kook evokes the “supreme source that is the holiness of the Jewish/Israelite nation.” See Aviner, ed., Torat Eretz Yisrael, 106. We note with interest that on this particular point, Tzvi Yehudah Kook seems to depart greatly from the teaching of his own father, Abra- ham Isaac Kook (although he claimed to have scrupulously followed the spiritual path of his father). Indeed, Abraham Isaac Kook, does not reject the existence of holiness in all nations of humankind (see for example, the letter written by Kook titled “A Call for Unity”: Ben Zion Bokser, ed. and trans., The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook [Teaneck: Ben Yehuda Press, 1988], 22-24.) 298 DAVID MEYER perspective, one might recall on the one hand the epic polemics between Leibowitz and figures like Moshe Zvi Neriah (1913-1995) and Ernst Simon (1900-1988),35 and on the other hand the ideological binary perspective of the secular left as famously coined by Amos Kenan,36 to ade- quately grasp the intellectual atmosphere of the time. Yet, to truly face how radical the ideology of Kook and its binary logic has become in the contemporary Israeli context, we must turn our attention to some of the more radical heirs of Kook in the settler movement, the authors of the Torat Hamelekh in 2009. Written by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira and Rabbi Yossef Elitzur from the settlement of Yitzhar, the book is essentially an halakhic work detailing what its authors perceived as being the rules of Jewish conduct concerning the permissibility of killing non-Jews in the land of Israel, both in time of peace and in times of war. The six chapters of the book detail the various halakhic circumstances and conceptions of the essence of the non-Jew that render permissible such acts of violence. By its very structure, and culminating in chapter 4 – entirely devoted to the existential dichotomy perceived by the authors between the Jewish soul and the non-Jewish soul – the book is indeed a radicalised expression of the core teachings of Kook on the intrinsic value of Jewish souls, thus absolutely differentiated from non- Jewish souls.37 Hence for the authors, “in any situation where the existence

35. A particularly insightful description of this inner-Jewish religious dimension of the debate can be found in Avi Sagi, Tradition vs. Traditionalism: Contemporary Per- spectives in Jewish Thought (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2008), 43-51. 36. Amos Kenan (1927-2009) notably wrote, while addressing the Arab population in the wake of the Six Day War: “Until you agree to have peace, I shall give back nothing. And if you force me to become a conqueror, I shall become a conqueror. And if you force me to become an oppressor, I shall become an oppressor” (Amos Kenan, “A Letter to All Good People – To Fidel Castro, Sartre, Russels and All the Rest,” Mid- stream [1968]: 35). Such a discourse is highly suggestive of a binary identitary temptation whereby, while the possession of the land is not the concern of the author, the loyalty to the Jewish people (the us) to the detriment of the Arab population (the them) certainly is. Interestingly, Kenan is even quoted by Emil Fackenheim in support of his own theological writings, thus rooting a certain binary logic at the heart of a religiously liberal perspective. See Emil Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History (New York: New York University Press, 1970), 92. 37. Shai Held has coined an interesting concept to encapsulate this particular trend of thought in earlier and classical rabbinic writings. Evoking the “Ontological Essentialism,” the author opposes the thoughts of thinkers such as Yehudah Halevi (according to Held, “not shy about declaring the superiority of the Jewish people”) to that of Maimonides whom he considers as an anti-Essentialist approach, focusing mainly on “‘difference in faith’ rather than a ‘difference in essence’.” See Held, “What if Zvi Yehudah Kook Wrought,” 230-231. Our own perception is more nuanced as we are tempted to see, even in the writings of Maimonides, the roots of a binary logic radically opposing the Jews to the non-Jews in the unfolding of the messianic event. DISRUPTING THE LAND NARRATIVE 299 of a non-Jew endangers the life of a Jew, it is permissible to kill him.”38 Thus, the argument reaches its dramatic conclusion: the unquestionable sanctity of the land when thought of in the framework of messianic redemption, carries the potential for a dramatic identitary temptation when violence against the non-Jewish-others becomes not only permissible but also part of the messianic agenda.

III. Disrupting the Land Narrative: The Creative Thinking of Abraham bar Hiyya

Faced with such a potential for radicalism, threatening not only the very lives of the non-Jewish-others present in the land but also the cred- ibility of the existence of an ethical Judaism,39 can one return to the past and uncover a disruptive teaching about the land of Israel in its full messianic dimension that would avoid the pitfall of an identitary temptation and its contagious violence? The need to focus our attention on the search for a disruptive teaching responds to three important rabbinic considerations. Firstly, because the spirit of rabbinic learning is always found in the maḥĕlôqet, the fruitful confrontation of opinions stands as the basis of any talmudic and midrashic debate. Secondly, because disrupting the thought of Maimonides (or any other

38. The authors are here alluding to how talmudic and halakhic rules pertaining to cases of ransom and forced captivity. In particular they point to the difference in halakhic ruling if, in a surrounded city, the attackers are asking for the life of one particular individual in order to spare the lives the others. In such a context the talmud does rule that if the captives are all Jews, one is forbidden to deliver the individual in order to save the group, while if the same situation arises in a non-Jewish city, the non-Jews can deliver to their enemy one of them (although innocent) in order to save the majority. See Tosefta of Terumot 7:13 as well as Rambam (Maimonides), Yessodei Ha-Torah 5:5 and Shulkhan Arukh and its commentaries on Yoreh Deah 157:1. 39. This important problematic has been extensively covered by various writings of Yeshayahu Leibowitz. In particular, Leibowitz maintained, indeed in a polemical way, that the reality of the occupation would not only define the nature of state but radically estrange Israel from the teachings and concerns of Judaism: “Even if the Arabs do not become the majority, the state will no longer be a Jewish State. Its problems, needs, and functions will no longer be those of the Jewish people in Israel and abroad, but those arising from the specific tasks of government and administration of this strange system of political domination.” Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State, ed. and trans. Eliezer Goldman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 234. Many years before Leibowitz, Martin Buber expressed similar concerns: “We do not aspire to return to the Land of Israel with which we have inseparable historical and spiritual ties in order to suppress another people or to dominate them.” Martin Buber, A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs, ed. P. Mendes-Flohr (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2005), 100. 300 DAVID MEYER thinker) serves as a powerful reminder that rabbinic Judaism is first and foremost a pluralistic and certainly not a homogenous system of thought. Thirdly, and maybe more importantly, because a key halakhic principle stipulates that “a unanimous verdict by the Sanhedrin must be thrown out and the defendant must be exonerated,”40 thus high- lighting the indispensable function of disruptive opinions in any life and death situation. Clearly, given the inclination towards violence and death that surrounds the messianic nature of land possession and sovereignty in the political context of the state of Israel, a disruptive argument is, at present, much needed. Exploring some of the diverse thoughts on the messianic function of the land of Israel, it is a rather unknown and often forgotten rabbinic voice that I would presently like to revive. Abraham bar Hiyya (1065/70 – 1136/48), was a Spanish Rabbi, philosopher, astronomer and mathe- matician.41 Very well versed in the scientific knowledge of his time, Bar Hiyya seems to have lived in both Muslim and Christian surroundings in the Iberian peninsula, and possibly as well in France. Most of his works deal with astronomy and calendrical issues but also, very interestingly, with geometrical questions relating to land surveying.42 Thus, fas- cinated by both calendrical messianic questions and by land measure- ments, it is no surprise that Bar Hiyya developed an original thought on the nature of the land of Israel in a messianic context.43 More specifically,

40. Bavli, Sanhedrin 17a. 41. Very few details are known about his life. See Leon Stitskin, Judaism as a Philosophy: The Philosophy of Abraham bar Hiyya (New York: Bloch Publishing Com- pany, 1960), 15-33. See also Hannu Töyrylä, Abraham bar Hiyya on Time, History, Exile and Redemption: An Analysis of Megillat Ha-Megalleh (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), 19-28. 42. See in particular, The Book of Measurement and Trigonometry, published in 1116. The book was later (1145) translated into Latin by Plato Tiburtinus: Liber Emba- dorum. The Hebrew title of the book is clearly a play on words based on the double meaning of the word mĕšîḥah indicative of both “measurement” and “messianism.” In his own introduction, Bar Hiyya emphasises the necessity to master the calculation of surfaces in order to apply fairly the issues pertaining to the division of the Land in the Torah as well as those pertaining to the the laws of land inheritance. See: Abraham bar Hiyya, Hibur Hameshikhah Ve-Hatishboret (Berlin: Mekitzei Nirdamim, 1912), 1-5. For a complete exposition of Bar Hiyya’s scientific works, see: Shlomo Sela, “Abraham bar Hiyya’s Astrological Work and Thought,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 13, no. 2 (2006): 128-158. 43. The teachings of Bar Hiyya are of particular interest to us as, in his own life, Bar Hiyya bore witness to a non-binary logic, evolving between the Jewish and non- Jewish communities, acquiring his knowledge of astronomy both within and outside of the Jewish community and connecting freely with nobles and kings. See: Sela, “Abraham bar Hiyya’s Astrological Work and Thought,” 129. DISRUPTING THE LAND NARRATIVE 301 it is in his Megillat Ha-Megalleh (The Scroll of the Revealer),44 an eschatological work based on astrology and published between 1120 and 1129,45 that such a thought takes shape. In the forth section of the book, devoted to “the meaning of the calculation of the end and of the resurrection of the dead according to the book of Daniel and other holy books,”46 Bar Hiyya, after having qualified five categories of death that will be identifiable in the messianic time, focuses his attention to the “dead” in Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden) that, in truth, never die. In this context, what will be the fate of all the resurrected dead of Israel and where will their messianic resurrection take place? Thus, Bar Hiyya writes: And Daniel, in this matter, was promised the merit of the world to come and of his standing at the resurrection of the dead, as it is written: “But you go your way till the end; for you shall rest and stand up for your allotted place [at the time of the resurrection of the dead]” (Dn 12,13). Go till your end – in this world –; and you shall rest – in the world to come –; to your allotted place – at the time of the resurrection of the dead. And since it is said to him “at your allotted place,” we see that those who stand at the resurrection of the dead do not all stand at once, but each generation stands at its allotted place and all the dead of Israel which are to be found in every coun- try will rise from their tombs at their allotted place and will fill the places of their dwellings after the defeat of the goyyim and their anni- hilation from all the countries no one from the wicked nations of the world will remain; and Israel standing will inherit the habitations of the nations. And because of this, the Eternal Blessed be He, dispersed Israel among the nations in all the habitations of the world so that in the time to come, as they rise from their tombs, they will sit in their places and settle all the habitations of the world; and all the lands of the world will be called Eretz Yisrael. Alternatively, Eretz Yisrael will enlarge itself so much until it fills the whole world.47 It is in the last phrases of this text that the true originality of Bar Hiyya’s thought is deployed. While still envisaging the existence of a day of judg- ment that will see the final punishment of the wicked nations, the vision of a land of Israel that miraculously expands and gives its name to the

44. Also known as Sefer Haketzim (“the book of the ends”), in the writings of Ibn Ezra (see his commentary on Daniel 11:31). The book aims essentially at using historical events and cosmic signs to determine the date of the messianic redemption. 45. See Adolf Poznansky, “Mavo,” Sefer Megillat Ha-Megalle von Abraham bar Chija (Berlin: Mekitzi Nirdamim, 1924), x. 46. Abraham bar Hiyya, Meguillat Ha-Megalleh, ed. Adolf Poznansky (Berlin: Mekitzi Nirdamim, 1924), 4. 47. Abraham bar Hiyya, Megillat Hamegaleh, ed. Zeev Paznansky and Yitzhak Guttman (Berlin: Mekitzi Nirdamim, 1924), 109-110 (my translation). 302 DAVID MEYER whole world, is intriguing.48 His hermeneutical fiction is staggering and bold. Acutely aware as we are of the violence committed in our own time on account of its possession in its limited physicality, the idea that the land of Israel could be imagined in such a creative way must be considered with care. Encompassing the whole world, such a hermeneutic of the land of Israel could potentially cease to be the catalyst of the violence committed in its name and contribute to defusing the identitary temptation we witness today. In order to deepen our understanding of Bar Hiyya’s ideology, we must consider what could have been the classical sources at his disposal. While Bar Hiyya does not seem to have left any indications concerning his sources,49 we are naturally drawn to one possible earlier midrashic text that, not only bears similarities with the creative thought of Bar Hiyya but could have also triggered his curiosity as a land surveyor himself. In a midrash from Devarim Rabbah,50 we find the following fascinating hermeneutical description of the land of Israel: Something else [on the verse] “When the Lord shall enlarge your border.”51 It is possible that the Holy One Blessed be He enlarge the land of Israel. Rabbi Yitzhak said: This scroll [that one takes, when rolled up] no one knows what is its length and what is its breath, but once it is open (spread out) its size is then revealed. And so it is with the land of Israel, most of it being mountains and valleys. Whence this ? As it is said “But the land you are about to cross into and to possess, a land of hills and valleys, soaks up its water from the rain of heavens. It is a land which the Lord your God looks after, on which the Lord your

48. To a degree, the idea of an expansion of the geography of the land of Israel is already present in the biblical narrative. One can, for instance, consider the conflicting definitions of the border of the promised land to be a first indication of the possibility of a variable geometry and geography of this land. See for instant the maximalist vision of the land in Genesis 15:18, Deuteronomy 1:7 and 11:24, compared with the minimal- ist version exposed in 1 Samuel 3:20 and Numbers 33:50-51. 49. While we do not have the autograph of Bar Hiyya’s work, we can simply note that none of the extended textual witnesses of his Megillat Ha-Megaleh (Ms héb. 1058, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, containing chapter 5 of the book and part of the manuscript dating from the 15th century and composed of astrological treaties; Oxford, Bodeleyana 160, no date; Frankfurt, Mertzbach Library no. 50, no date; Munich, no. 10, dated 1186), nor the Paznansky edition preserve any such references. See Poznansky, “Mavo,” xxxi-xxxiv. In addition, Adolf Poznansky notes that bar Hiyya almost never mentions in his writings the names of previous rabbinic authorities that he might have used (to the exception of Saadia Gaon). Ibid., x. 50. Homiletical midrashic collection on the book of Deuteronomy. Due to a complex transmission history, the composition of this document (Devarim Rabbah) can only be bracketed between 450 and 800 ce. See Günter Stemberger, Introduction to Talmud and Midrash, trans. Markus Bockmuehl, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 306-308. 51. Deuteronomy 12:20. DISRUPTING THE LAND NARRATIVE 303

God keeps His eye, from year’s beginning to year’s end.”52 Whence [do we know] that God will straighten it out ? Because it is said: “Let every valley be raised, every hill and mount made low, let the rugged ground become level, and the bridges become a plaine,”53 at this time, it [the land] will let know what it really is.54 A truly innovative description of the land of Israel, presently compared to a scroll, that would have certainly spoken to the heart of a land surveyor such as Bar Hiyya. Just as the physicality of the scroll cannot fully reveal its full dimensions, so it is with the land of Israel.55 In quoting the verse from Isaiah 40, a chapter rooting the redemptive vision in compas- sionate terms,56 the midrashist unmistakably relates the geographical unfolding of the land to the advance of the messianic age. Beyond the image of the sudden exportation of the concept of the “land of Israel” to the four corners of the world advocated by Bar Hiyya, it is truly the image of the comparison of the land to a book, that should trigger our curiosity and boost our theological creativity.

IV. “Davar Akher”: “Something Else” about the Land

If the land of Israel can be thought of as a “book,” it is indeed the very nature of the relationship of Judaism to this land that is called into question. While the image might be seductive, it is not my intention to sug- gest that, in order to escape the dangerous binary logic of the Jewish politics of messianism, one must abandon any claims of national sovereignty, and to spiritualise the relation of the Jewish people to its historical cradle. Recent 20th-century history is sufficiently raw and painful to remind us of the inherent irresponsibility of such an approach. However, the scroll analogy enables us to open a promising perspective in redefining

52. Deuteronomy 11:11-12. 53. Isaiah 40:4. 54. Devarim Rabbah 4:11. We have here translated the text according to the standard Vilna edition of 1843. 55. In using the image of a scroll to illustrate the variable geography and dimension of the land, this particular midrashic text is radically different from some other rabbinic teachings where either the land or the Temple-court in Jerusalem are subjected to miraculous displacements and enlargements. See Bavli, Megillah 29a where the cities of Carmel and Tabor are suddenly implanted in Eretz Yisrael. See also, Bavli, Ketubot 111a where Zion figuratively escapes to Babylon. See also Pirkei Avot 5:5 where while standing crowded in the Temple, the supplicants could still find ample space to bow down in prayers, the walls miraculously enlarging the space. 56. We refer the reader to the opening lines of the chapter, “Comfort, oh comfort My people, says your God.” Isaiah 40:1. 304 DAVID MEYER

– in hermeneutical terms as the rabbinic tradition has always done when dealings with books – the theological significance of the land. By so doing, some unforeseen and yet promising ideas might emerge. While this article is not the place to fully develop the theological potential of this surprising metaphor,57 why not consider the following daring thought that in itself encompasses the essence of the analogy. If the land is to be considered as a scroll, let us compare the Torah, the scroll par excellence, with the land of Israel. Both are, according to the words of the tradition, God-given.58 Both could be thought of as fruits of Revelation: the first born out at Sinaï, the latter in the aftermath of the “revelation of Auschwitz.”59 Both are tools by which Israel, as a people, can accomplish

57. For a full development of the metaphor and its theological consequences, see David Meyer, “Israël: tout autre chose: Judaïsme, Israël et l’enjeu démographique,” in id. and Bernard Philippe, Europe et Israël: Deux destins inaccomplis (Brussels: Lessius, 2017), 71-114. 58. The theme of the giving of the Torah and of the land is a recurring, yet complex topic in the Torah itself. See for instance Deuteronomy 4:8 (for the giving of the Torah) and Deuteronomy 1:21 and 25 (for the giving of the land). While the comparison between Torah and land or more broadly between scroll/book and land is bold, it rests not only on selected Torah verses alluding to a shared God-given nature, but also on a wealth of rabbinic traditions that tend to balance, and therefore to paral- lel, these two divine gifts. In this respect, a few selected references might be helpful to root the proposed comparison in rabbinic teachings. In particular, the text of the Mekh- ilta De-Rabbi Ishmael, an Halakhic midrashic collection, in boldly addressing the question of why the Torah was not given in the land of Israel, is indicative of a significant step in the intellectual history of this idea (Mekhilta, BaHodesh 5). In similar tone, a teaching from the Babylonian Talmud evokes “the Synagogues and houses of learning in Babylon that will in time to come, be planted in the land of Israel” (Bavli, Megillah 29a), suggesting an interesting relationship and comparison between Torah (the houses of learning) and the land. At a later date, and of possible importance to the unfolding of the historical development of this idea, one must certainly consider with care the sketching of the map of the land of Israel by Rashi, as preserved in some manuscripts (Ms Munich 5, Mss Vienna 23 and 24) and as hinted at by the Rashbam (1085-1158) in his commentary on Numbers 34:2. In the second map preserved, Rashi appears to have included a substantial written text in the very middle of the drawing (debating a doubtful identification of Mount? Hor), thus visually suggesting a deeply intertwined relationship between the land and a written text, the latter being, as it were, at the heart of the former (see Oriel Touitou, “The Maps of the Land of Israel that Rashi Drew” [Hebrew], in Oreshet 2 (2011): 295-302. Even more overtly, we also note with interest how recently Daniel Boyarin, in the epigraph of his book A Travelling Homeland: The Babylonian Talmud as Diaspora, quotes the following line from a poem of Shmuel Ha- Nagid (982-1055): “I set the Talmud at the head of all my words, as a birthplace and land of origin,” thus suggesting a theological substitution of the land by a text (the Talmud). 59. The daring thought of comparing Auschwitz to a moment of revelation com- parable to Sinaï has been made by E. Wiesel and later by E. Fackenheim. Harry James Cargas, Conversation with Elie Wiesel (New York: Paulist Press, 1976), 8. See also: Emil Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History: Jewish Affirmations and Philosophical Reflections (New York and London: New York University Press, 1970), 84-85. DISRUPTING THE LAND NARRATIVE 305 itself.60 The comparison can be highly suggestive. The Torah, as is well known, was given to the people of Israel, in the exclusive language of the Jewish people. To add to this sense of particularism, the rabbinic tradition was quick to couple the gift of the Revelation with a binary logic of exclusion by which, while all the other nations are presented as having refused the Torah, Israel only accepted it and deserved it.61 Yet, despite this rather uncompromising identitary temptation, one should not forget that the Torah had already been translated into Greek.62 The translation was even performed, according to later talmudic narratives, with a certain rabbinic seal of approval,63 becoming not only available to the nations but also part of their legitimate spiritual heritage. At the same time, while the Torah was thus universalised, the Rabbis were able to shift the legitimate demands of particularism to the domain of hermeneutics. They developed a system of rules of interpretation that, while opening the Torah to the nations, defined a specific and unique Jewish way to relate to the revealed text. In so doing, the Torah ceased to become the catalyst of a binary logic, while retaining a powerful potential for affirming a particularist Jewish identity, through its rabbinic hermeneutics.64 Taking our cue from the midrashic text cited and from Bar Hiyya’s innovative approach, we would like to propose that the land of Israel could also be universalised – by promoting for instance a bi-national state correspond- ing to the demographic reality on the ground65 – and yet maintain an

60. We are thinking in particular about Pirkei Avot 3:14 where the Torah is explicitly called a kĕlî, a tool. Similarly, the land, in particular in relation to the com- mandments dependant on it, can also be thought of as a physical “tool” for the accom- plishment of the Torah legislation. 61. Bavli, Avodah Zarah 2b. See also Bavli, Shabbat 88a. 62. Bavli, Megillah 9a, where the “miraculous” story about the translation of the Torah under the reign of Ptolemy by the 72 elders, clearly inspired by the divine spirit, is recorded. 63. While the talmudic text refers explicitly to the divine inspiration governing the Greek translation, some later rabbinic teaching took a very negative stance with regards to this universalisation of the specific spiritual heritage of Israel. See for instance, the 16th century legal code, Shulkhan Arukh, Orakh Hayyim 830: “on the eighth of Tevet, the Torah was written (translated) into Greek, in the days of Talmi the King, and darkness descended to the world for three days.” 64. These rules of interpretations, known as the midôt, are codified in various rabbinic texts and are composed of either 7, 13 or 32 key rules (according to various traditions). See Stemberger, Introduction to Talmud and Midrash, 15-30. 65. As recently as March 2018, statistics tend to indicate an unavoidable parity between Jews and Muslims between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river. See the reports published for the Israeli parliament commission and reported in Reuters. Jeffrey Heller, “Jews, Arabs Nearing Population Parity in Holy Land: Israeli Officials,” Reuters, 26th March 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-population/ jews-arabs-nearing-population-parity-in-holy-land-israeli-officials-idUSKBN1H222T [accessed January 23, 2019]. 306 DAVID MEYER hermeneutical particularist relationship to Judaism and the Jewish people. In essence, we propose to duplicate the dialectical tension between the universalisation of Torah and the particularistic development of its rabbinic hermeneutics, and to apply it to the land of Israel in its current political form.66 For that to happen, Judaism will need to think of the land as a “scroll,” that is as a narrative, whose reality and meaning are never revealed in the actual nakedness of its physical geography and politics, in the strict pĕšat of history.67 A narrative that requires constant interpretation and distance, that demands what Daniel Boyarin – when defining the activity of midrashic interpretation – termed “strong readers,”68 always looking for meanings beyond the plain sense of history, as it were, beyond the pešat̆ of history. For these “strong readers,” the true meaning of the land would be uncovered through the learning of a hermeneutical distantiation with its political reality, borrowed from the various rules of rabbinic interpretations of the Torah. In particular, we should consider the intertextual quality of midrashic reading69 and apply it to a rabbinic theological perception of the land, still to be constructed. While the midrashist, using all the breadth of biblical verses, illustrates the meaning of one verse by that of another70 through the fusion of conflicting scriptural horizons,71 a theological intertextuality of the land and the state of Israel would lead us to consider the creation of a rabbinic intertextual reading of history, searching to relate current developments of the Jewish politics in the land with other events of history, be it Jewish or world history. In so doing, the intertextual and hermeneutical reading of the land would certainly contribute to diffusing identitary temptations linked to the possession of the land. While the “scroll metaphor” does not negate the physicality of a Jewish presence on the land, it would

66. See Meyer, “Israël: tout autre chose,” 98-111. 67. The pĕšat refers, in the rabbinic terminology, to the plain meaning of the text and is often opposed to the deraš̆ , the exegetical and interpretative meaning. David Weiss Halivni, Peshat & Derash: Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). 68. Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington, IN and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), 16. 69. Ibid., 16-19. 70. See David Banon, La lecture infinie: Les voies de l’interprétation midrachique (Paris: Seuil, 1987), 119-121. See also Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Mid- rash, 17-19. 71. The reference to a fusion of scriptural horizons must here be uniquely understood in its midrashic and hermeneutical context, where verses from different parts of the biblical canon, and with no consideration for their historical contextualisation, are used to enrich their respective meanings. See Banon, La lecture infinie, 120. In the words of the Jerusalem Talmud, “words of Torah are poor in their own context and rich in another context.” Yerushalmi, Rosh Hashanah 3:5 (58d). DISRUPTING THE LAND NARRATIVE 307 entice Judaism to interpret the land and the state of Israel anew, thus finding in the act of interpretation not only a “distance” that is favour- able to peace and reconciliation, but more importantly, a way to preserve a hermeneutical particularist identity that, simultaneously, could defeat the binary logic of the land and its endless propensity to violence.

David Meyer is an ordained Rabbi and received his PhD from the KU Leuven, Belgium. He is currently a Professor of Rabbinic Literature and Contemporary Jewish Thought at the Cardinal Bea Centre of Judaic Studies of the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome. He is also an invited Professor of Jewish Business Ethics at the Universidad del Pacifico, Lima (Peru) and an invited professor at the KU Leuven, teaching Midrashic Literature. He is the author or co-author of several books, including Europe et Israël: Deux destins inaccomplis (2017) and La Vocation de la terre sainte (2016), both presenting rabbinic perspectives and theologies of the land of Israel. Address: Gregorian Pontifical University, Cen- tro Cardinal Bea per gli Studi Giudaici, Roma, Italy. E-mail: [email protected].