Louvain Studies 42 (2019): 289-307 doi: 10.2143/LS.42.3.3286895 © 2019 by Louvain Studies, all rights reserved 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 pos- session 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 reli- gious “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 mid- rashic 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 his- torical 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 iden- titary temptations. Reviving a forgotten teaching from the past attrib- uted to Abraham bar Hiyya (11-12th century), we will attempt to dis- rupt 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 com- ing 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 mes- sianic 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 mod- ern 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.