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13. Diaspora and Homeland Define the Nation and Give Voice to Its Sense of Identity.Their “Portable Temple” Serves the Purpose

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13. Diaspora and Homeland Define the Nation and Give Voice to Its Sense of Identity.Their “Portable Temple” Serves the Purpose 13. Diasporaand Homeland Diasporalies deeplyrooted in Jewish consciousness.Itexisted in one form or an- other almostfrom the start,and it persists as an integralpart of the Jews’ expe- rience of history.The status of absencefrom the center has demanded time and again that Jews confront and, in some fashion, come to terms with aseemingly inescapable concomitant of their being.¹ The images of uprootedness, dispersal, and wandering haunt Jewishidentity throughout.Jews have written about it in- cessantly, lamenteditorjustified it,dismissed it or grappled with it,embraced it or deplored it. At atheoretical level, that experience has been deconstructed from two quite divergent angles. The gloomyapproach holds primacy.Onthis view,diaspora dissolvesinto galut, exile, abitter and doleful image, offering ableak vision that issues either in despair or in aremotereverie of restoration. The negative imagedominates modern interpretations of the Jewish psyche. Realization of the people’sdestinyrests in achieving the “return,” the acquisition of areal or mythical homeland.² The alternative approach takes avery different route. It seeks refuge in acomforting concept:that Jews requirenoterritorial sanctuary or legitimation. They are “the people of the Book.” Their homeland resides in the text—not just the canonical Scriptures but an array of Jewish writingsthathelp to See the stimulating discussionbyA.Eisen, Galut (Bloomington, ). Eisen recapitulates his thesis in A. A. Cohen and P. Mendes-Flohr,eds., Contemporary JewishReligious Thought (New York, ), –. See, in general, the importantworks of Y. F. Baer, Galut (New York, ); Y. Kaufmann, Exile and Estrangement (in Hebrew), vols.(TelAviv, ); Eisen, Galut. See also D. Vital, The Ori- gins of Zionism (Oxford, ), –;E.Levine, “The Jews in Timeand Space,” in E. Levine, ed., Diaspora: Exile and the JewishCondition (New York, ), –.For the notion of exile and return as aconstruct invented by the composers of the Pentateuch, dominating Jewish self-definitioneverthereafter, see J. Neusner, “Exile and Return as the History of Judaism,” in J. M. Scott,ed., Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and ChristianConceptions (Leiden, ), – ,summarizing his lengthier presentation in Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:Exile and Return in the HistoryofJudaism (Boston, ). In asimilar vein, with specific reference to the Assyrian and Babylonian “exiles,” see R. P. Carroll, “Exile! What Exile? Deportation and the Discourses of Diaspora,” in L. Grabbe, ed., Leading Captivity Captive: “TheExile” as Historyand Ideology (Sheffield, ), –;T.L.Thompson, “The Exile in History and Myth:AResponse to Hans Barstad,” in Grabbe, ed., Leading Captivity Captive, –;P.R.Davies, “Exile? What Exile? Whose Exile?” in Grabbe, ed., Leading Captivity Captive, –.This concept of the Jew- ish experience has become aparadigm for the diaspora mentality everywhere. Cf.W. Safran, “Di- asporas in Modern Societies,” Diaspora (): –.The use of such an ideal type is rightly criticized in the acute discussionofJ.Clifford, Routes:Travel and Translation in the Late Twen- tieth Century (Cambridge,Mass., ), –. 284 13. Diaspora and Homeland define the nation and give voice to its sense of identity.Their “portable Temple” serves the purpose. Ageographical restoration is thereforesuperfluous,even subversive.Toaspire to it deflects focus from what reallycounts,the embrace of the text,its ongoing commentary,and its continuous reinterpretation.³ Dia- spora, in short, is no burden; indeed, it is avirtue in the spreadofthe word. This justifies aprimary attachment to the land of one’sresidence, rather than the home of the fathers. The destruction of the Temple in 70 c.e.,ofcourse, constitutes aprincipal watershed for the Jews of antiquity.Both of the aboveanalyses apply primarily as constructs to comprehendJewishmentality in the generations, even centuries, after that cataclysmic event.The elimination of the center,sourceofspiritual nourishment and preeminent symbol of the nation’sidentity,compelled Jews to reinvent themselves, to find other means of religious sustenance, and to adjust their livestoanindefinite period of displacement.That story has been told many times and in manyways.⁴ But another story demands closer attention. Jews faced amore puzzling and problematic situation prior to the loss of the Temple. Diasporadid not await the fall of JerusalemtoRoman power and destructiveness. The scatteringofJews had begun long before—occasionallythrough forced expulsion, much more frequent- ly through voluntary migration. The major push came with the arrival of the Greeks,the Hellenistic period. Alexander the Great’sconquests stimulated wholesale settlements of Greek veterans, merchants,travelers, and adventurers in the landsofthe eastern Mediterranean and the former subject areas of the Per- sian empire. That development proved to be an irresistible magnet.Jews migrat- ed to the new settlements and expandedcommunities in substantial numbers. A Greek diaspora,inshort, broughtthe Jewish one in its wake. Perhaps three to five million Jews dwelled outside Palestine in the roughlyfour centuries that stretched from Alexander to Titus.⁵ The eraofthe Second Temple broughtthe See especiallyG.Steiner, “Our Homeland, the Text,” Salmagundi (): –.Onthe ambivalence of exile and homecominginrecent Jewish conceptions,see the comments of S. D. Ezrahi, “Our Homeland, the Text … Our Text,the Homeland,” Michigan Quarterly Review (): –. The article by C. Milikowsky, “Notions of Exile, Subjugation, and Return in Rabbinic Litera- ture,” in Scott, ed., Exile, –,argues, most interestingly,that earlymidrashic texts do not single out the Roman conquest as apivotal turningpoint,but conceive amorecontinuous period of exile and subjugation, stretchingthrough the Second Temple era and beyond. The no- tion of the Temple’sfall as acaesura emergesonlyinlater rabbinic writings, Cf. Strabo, apud Jos. A. J. ..For population estimates, see S. Baron, Encyclopedia Juda- ica, (Jerusalem, ), –;L.H.Feldman, Jewand Gentileinthe Ancient World (Princeton, ), , –, –.Much uncertainty remains. 13. Diasporaand Homeland 285 issue into sharp focus, inescapablyso. The Temple still stood, areminder of the hallowed past,and, through most of the era, aJewish regime existed in Pales- tine. Yetthe Jews of the diaspora, from ItalytoIran, far outnumbered those in the homeland. Although Jerusalem loomed large in their self-perception as ana- tion, few of them had seen it,and few werelikelyto. How then did diasporaJews of the Second Temple conceive their association with Jerusalem, the emblem of ancient tradition? In modern interpretationsadark picture prevails. Diasporaissomething to be overcome.⁶ Thunderous biblical pronouncements had presented it as the ter- rible penalty exacted by God for the sins of the Israelites.They will be scattered among the nations and pursued by divine wrath.⁷ Spread among the lands, they will worship false gods and idols and enjoynorepose from the anger of the Lord.⁸ Abandonmentofancestral preceptsmeans thatthe children of Israel will have to enter the servitudeofforeign lords in foreign parts.⁹ They will be dispersed among peoples unknown to them or to theirfathersand will suffer God’svengeance until their destruction.¹⁰ Failuretoheed the divine command- ments or the warningsofprophets produces the scatteringofIsrael at the hands of the Lord.¹¹ The dismal character of exile seems reinforced by the words of the learned Hellenistic JewPhilo in the first century c.e. Forhim, ban- ishment far exceeds death as the most feared penalty.Deathatleast puts an end to one’smisery;exile perpetuates it,the equivalent of athousand deaths.¹² No solace lies in adjustment.There seems nothing worth adjustingto. Onlyasingle goal can keep flickeringhopes alive:the expectation, however distant,ofreturn- ing from exile and regaining aplace in the Promised Land. The Bible offers that possibility. Obediencetothe Lordand eradication of past errors will inducehim to regather the lost souls spread across the world and restorethem to the land of Adoleful portrait of diaspora for Hellenistic Jews is drawn most forcefullybyW.C.van Unnik, Das Selbstverständnis der jüdischenDiasporainder hellenistisch-römischen Zeit (Leiden, ), a posthumouspublication of papers actuallydeliveredin.Van Unnik shows that the term “diaspora”—or moreusuallyits verbal form—is almost always employed with anegative conno- tation in the Septuagint (whichuses it to render various Hebrew words); op.cit., –.Ithas anegativemeaningalso in the large majority of its appearances in Hellenistic Jewish writers; op. cit., –. Lev. .. Deut. .–, .–. Jeremiah, .. Jeremiah, .. Dan., .–. Philo, Abr. .; cf. Conf. Ling. –, . 286 13. Diaspora and Homeland their fathers.¹³ He will raise abanner among the nations and assemble the peo- ple of Judah from the four corners of the Earth.¹⁴ Givensuch atradition, it causes no surprise thatthe grim sense of diasporaand acorrespondingly gloomyatti- tude are conventionallyascribed to Jews of the Second Temple.¹⁵ Yetthatconvention ignores agrave implausibility.Itisnot easy to imagine that millionsofancientJews dwelled in foreign parts for generations mired in misery and obsessed with alongingfor Jerusalem thathad little chance of fulfill- ment.Manyofthem livedhundreds, even thousands, of miles away from Jerusa- lem, in Memphis, or Babylon, or Susa, or Athens, or Rome. To imagine that they repeatedlylamented their fateand pinned their hopes on recovery of the home- land is quitepreposterous.Signs of ashift in scholarlyattitudes are now
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