How to Talk to a Cat: Buber, Philosophy, and Dialogue with Unspeaking Things

(Prepared by and with permission of the author and Indiana University Press) PROMO code below

CONTENTS

Introduction: Dialogue and the Maintenance of Domestic Bubbles

 1. Homes: Domesticity and Conflict

 2. Animals: Communication and Language

 3. Domestic Cats: Anxiety and Singularity

 4. Plants: Dispersion and Surfaces

 5. Babies: Noise and the Nursery

 6. Sensuality: Tools, Crafts, Decoration

 Conclusion: Death and Dialogue

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Martin Buber was a Viennese philosopher, a theater director, an aesthete, a cat lover, and a Jew. Like many of the fin de siècle set, he had a hunger for immediacy which clashed with an internalized Germanic culture of weight and precision, one sustained by a near-constant ingestion of books. Read from a present where it seems like nobody reads, the fear of the written word that permeated Buber’s world seems quaint, if not delusional. But if we transfer that fear from books to screens it’s more understandable and helps explain why Buber pits dialogue against the world of the grid: the world where everything has its place, whether on a page, in a network, or as part of a model. In rejecting the grid, Buber has lots of company, good and bad, but he stands apart because his work on dialogue and is neither mystifying nor irrational. Buber’s writing can be treacly or fantastical, but his ideas are not. Dialogue is strange, but not irrational; relationships are confusing, but not incoherent, and while we may have grown unaccustomed to reasoning about these matters, that does not make them unreasonable.

This book is about dialogue with entities that don’t use language. In simple terms, it’s about talking-to creatures that don’t speak. Talking-to them, not talking-about them. But what is this “dialogue,” and how much does it differ from the standard definition of the word? Buber’s notion of dialogue (Zwiesprache) is modeled on human conversation but covers much more than discussion. Dialogue is bigger than conversation, but sparser in detail. If we strip dialogue down to the beams we can define it like this: Dialogue is an attentive and reciprocal relationship, a relationship where we are directed toward another creature. Conversation is just one type of dialogue, although it is perhaps the easiest way into the concept. [1]

…

Why this word?

The word in question is dialogue, or Zwiesprache. But why stick with this overused term, one worn near to death by human resources departments and wellness clichés? And why use a term that suggests speech, when the goal is to think about beings that don’t speak?

I’ve a few reasons. First, dialogue evokes a common phenomenon, an experience we’ve all (hopefully) had: an intense, reciprocal, back-and-forth conversation. True, by dialogue, I mean something broader—a much larger set of relationships of which conversation is only a part. Dialogue is a type of relationship, and conversation is merely one type of dialogue. Still, for many, the experience of a powerful conversation is the easiest way to access the broader concept of dialogue. Like Buber, I merely extend the term so that it also covers relationships where there is no speech and where our partner is not human. [5]

…

Domestic Maintenance

Dialogue requires a maintenance budget—we cannot spend everything on the encounter. While the I-You encounter establishes its own place and time, dialogue veers in and out of the space-time of the absolute encounter, so it needs a place to be contained and protected. It is often best if this place cultivates and supports several kinds of encounters that work together to form dialogues. The same comforts that facilitate human dialogues can also inspire nonhuman encounters. This is why the domestic—however fraught—is a chief place for nonhuman dialogue.

The domestic support systems required by human dialogue are hidden, but nonhuman dialogue exposes them. Human speech, especially between friends, often seems effortless, weightless and placeless, in a word: easy. Dialogue with mute beings is different, it is troublesome, and for this reason the forces which sustain it are more conspicuous. Nowhere are dialogue’s supports more visible than in the home, where the forces which sustain the domestic also create an atmosphere that encourages dialogues. In this book I avoid idealized, withdrawn, or aseptic concepts of the home, or any model where the family lives outside of time and politics. The desire to live outside of history, while perfectly understandable, is a trap. Instead, I use a concept of the home drawn from Jewish political thought and psychoanalysis. Seen as such, the home is set within politics and history, even as it develops a membrane to protect itself from them. Building and protecting this membrane provides dialogue with the space it requires. [12]

1. HOMES: Domesticity and Conflict

The edifice of twentieth-century Jewish thought has many chambers, and surely one of its most dazzling is the philosophy of relationships. But philosophy untempered by materialism tends to present relationships as placeless: They occur between men of good intention and similar income and seem to float above the world. There is a logic to this placelessness. From the perspective of someone in the midst of an encounter, the background does seem to recede; the location feels less important than the happening. But dialogue takes place over time and needs to be sustained even as we fade in and out of it. When we think about how to sustain dialogue place moves from the margins toward the center of our thinking. Some places are more conducive to dialogue than others; some places contain and shelter dialogues better than others. [14]

…

The domestic is often lazily thought of as an unimportant or castrated space, much as the domestic animal is considered an unimportant or castrated wild animal. If we think of the domestic as a substandard or less-real space or consider the term domestication to be as a slur, we impoverish our thinking about dialogue and how to cultivate it. Conversely, to valorize the domestic, as if it were intrinsically good, is to instrumentalize it, to turn it into a faddish weapon of the weak. [15]

…

From the avuncular to the paternal, the queer enclave or the hippie commune, what all these domestic spaces share, even the most antiseptic suburban monument to fear, is that countless creatures dwell in them. But of these creatures, only a few really enter our dialogical space. Granted, some of us may speak with spiders, but who has had regular conversations with silverfish? One should not too blithely embrace our involvement with companion species. Yes, my skin is covered with bugs, but I don’t notice or care about them. My house was “home” to many stray children, especially those with artistic inclinations. My mother adopted them, the walls adopted mice, the chimney adopted bats, and so on, but the full members of the household—meaning those able to speak and be heard—were the humans and the pets.

This may be good, it may be bad, but it’s how the domestic works: It is a selectively permeable space, not an open one. Slaughtering moths without a thought, we plant flowers for monarchs in our front yards. Culture and location determine which animals are allowed in: Dialogically speaking, “wild” animals are merely animals you don’t usually encounter. A friend of mine grew up in a swarm, surrounded by birds (literally hundreds of them), and had a goat for a pet. I can barely imagine this, and it sounds horrifying to me. One person’s wilderness is another person’s house. We wake in an unseen swarm, but alongside only a few [24]

• ANIMALS: Communication and Language

What does Buber mean when he says that we can dialogue with creatures who cannot speak? Typically, dialogue is a certain use of language, a type of talking, so how is it possible without speech? To understand this, we’ll look at our relationships with animals, what Buber calls the “threshold” of language: “Here the relationship vibrates in the dark and remains below language.” It’s a good place to start because many of us already have language-like relationships with animals. After exploring the hopelessly broad notion of animal we will move on to domestic animals and eventually trade them in for the even more specific Felis catus (house cat).

There is a gap between humans and nonhuman animals. This gap and what it means pose a serious difficulty, one that many theorists try to overcome by fiat. Despite our desire to emphasize our overlapping lives, the chasms between humans and nonhumans remain, and no effusive prose can change this. The most noticeable of these gaps is language. Unsupported by language, animal dialogues face complications that rarely affect human relations. When ensuring that both conversants are on the same page, that we are not projecting our thoughts and feelings onto our partner, animal dialogue presents different dilemmas than human conversation does. Although these difficulties may bedevil practice, they are an asset for theory: It’s easier to think about something when its cracks are showing. Spoken language makes dialogue easy, and when things are easy and straightforward, why think about them? The ability to do things with words, to treat words as things, is an extraordinary power. But speech, because it is facile, obscures its own conditions [26]

•  DOMESTIC CATS: Anxiety and Singularity

Cats are useless, and the history of their domestication reflects this. Cats moved in because they wanted to, and we kept them because we like them. Domestication has changed cats, but they are still very much like their undomesticated cousins. The primary differences between the two are size and sociality. Domestic cats are smaller, more communicative, and more social, whereas Felis silvestris lybica are solitary; domestic cats, even when running wild, enjoy the existence of other cats. Finally, the range and frequency of their sounds increase (such as the meows made when they want attention), and “apart from when they are in heat . . . and when they are angry, adult cats do not usually ‘talk’ to each other. The sounds they make are mostly for our human ears.” Cats communicate with us and for us. The same can be said of our conversations with them. [39]

…

The animal—in this case, the cat—is the preeminent bearer of anxiety about becoming because the animal knows anxiety in a way we cannot. Much as speech irrevocably transforms our sense of self, it also eases our nervousness about becoming by hiding it from us. The cat “owns” anxiety because it knows and expresses it better than we can.[44]

…

How do you dialogue with a cat? By talking to it, petting it, and—for the two writers’ cats discussed here—looking at it looking at you. Dialogue is a common relationship with uncommon (singular) beings. The move between the general categories of the relation and the singularity of the creatures involved (between cats in general and a specific cat) requires us to mobilize tools and methods both within and outside of dialogue. This book stands outside of dialogue, the moving of a boundary by Derrida’s cat, within it. What we cannot do is pretend these lines have been canceled or that all our conversation partners are the same. Groups and lines, kinds and types, these cannot be overcome by fiat, and if we try to do so, we end up being unjust to the beings we encounter. It would be not only cruel to expect the same kind of dialogue from a baby as from an adult or from a cat as a dog; it would also be stupid. [57]

• PLANTS: Dispersion and Surfaces

Animals, especially mammals, are probably the easiest nonhumans to dialogue with. There are various reasons for this—many animals are social, emit sounds, and use sign systems—but movement is central. Animals move in roughly the same way and at the same tempo as humans do; both the tortoise and the hare possess locomotion and gestures on which we can base a folk psychology. With animals, Buber’s belief in nonhuman encounters is easily accepted. This is not the case for things that don’t move or, like plants, that move very differently than we do. The slow movement of plant life can, however, help attune us to the time of dialogue. Where the I-You encounter is fast and takes only an instant—or, at most, a moment— dialogue can be stretched out over days or years, a fact easily missed when we restrict ourselves to human communication. Once more, it is the difficulties of plant dialogues that make them useful for theory. [58]

…

A significant portion of modern Jewish philosophy is concerned with interpretation. The brief flourishings of interest in Jewish thought are almost always driven by this interest in interpretation. It is hermeneutics—not the ethical monotheism industrial complex—that Jewish thought contributes to larger discourses. But Jewish interpretive thought is often concerned exclusively with writing. The fact that most creatures don’t read has led too many Jewish philosophers to ignore the natural world as uncomprehending and uninteresting. This is a mistake. It does not take much imagination to extend the concept of hermeneutics beyond the literate human (even if writing remains the focus of hermeneutics). Indeed, when Freud claims, “Psychoanalysis was above all an art of interpretation,” he shows us a way interpretation can be extended to nontextual material realms (such as sex and shitting). [71] …

It might seem strange to say interpretation is more basic than knowing, but we find instances of interpretation long before we find instances of knowing. At the very least, plant interpretation is more like our interpretation than plant knowing is like our knowing. [72]

• BABIES: Noise and the Nursery

Babies are, in a literal sense, prelinguistic, as most of them are on their way to language. Loud and aggressive communicators, babies signal with indexes and icons, screams and cries, not words. Not all babies will develop into language, but (I assume) you and other readers of this book are ex-babies. This embarrassing fact might lead one to expect that baby dialogue would be easy for us, or at least easier than others discussed in this book: Although I have never been a cat or a tree, I have been a baby. But my previous job experience offers me little guidance. I have no recollection of being a baby, and my own infants were as foreign to me as were my cats. Perhaps more so. One of my cats lived with me for twenty-one years, whereas infancy is temporary; once you’re used to it, it’s gone. [77]

…

I have known people, real people, who believe you can talk to God, but who do not extend the same courtesy to babies. I understand: Babies are loud, chaotic, and often disgusting. …

 The expressive does not thrum and pulse like the divine spheres; rather, it spits and wails. Babies take up inside our walls and pull us into inhuman dialogues through play and feeding. With babies, more than any other being discussed, the domestic sphere is essential to cultivating dialogue; without some form of it, the baby is likely to die. So, we build and reinforce the domus to hold the baby as it moves toward language and locomotion. These little gods of noise can easily destroy a home, and so broader circles (family, neighbors, friends) often come to help maintain the space for the first period after birth. Ideally, we can give these monsters a place of stability, creating a world that does not move apace with the vortex of becoming that rages in the streets. [93]

• SENSUALITY: Tools, Crafts, Decoration

I’ve made it easy on myself by sticking to living beings. This is because life can be thought of as engaging in reciprocal, hermeneutic relationships. Even if these relationships are strange, it’s not too difficult to see how we can join them. But nonliving beings? “Dead” matter? Even this latter term is too much—a stone is not even dead. And yet our relationships with nonliving things (or “mere things”—tone matters here) can be dialogical: pianos, knives, chisels, cars, banisters, pens, laptops, and so on. These things, even manufactured things, can enter reciprocal relationships.

…

To understand this, we will examine the tools we use to craft things. Tools allow us to see dialogue within instrumental relationships and challenge the cliché that we shouldn’t treat people like things.[95]

…

Nowhere is it harder for me to determine whether a relationship is dialogical or merely comforting than with manufactured objects. It’s easier to do so with repairing and maintaining. When I repair a wall, I am trying to maintain a space while also working with it in a manner that sometimes seems reciprocal, if hostile. The tools I use vacillate between being media through which I engage material, and being themselves a kind of conversation partner. With cooking, it is easier to dialogue. With arts, crafts, and decoration, it is easier still. Immersed in material, I can work with it to find and create things. And there is something of a circle here. With decoration, the attempt to maintain a space that encourages dialogue (through its warmth or richness) can easily veer into becoming a dialogue itself. And so on until we die. [110]

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Walter Benjamin made the New Angel into an intellectual icon. The Angel Applicant by Paul Klee from 1939 is a different creature with nothing messianic about him. His eyes are downcast and blackened, looking at nothing past his own misery caught in time under the melancholy of a crescent moon. One expects nothing from him. Not blown by the winds of history, he is ugly and dog-faced.

As described here:

[Klee] covered a sheet of newspaper with black gouache on which he then drew the outlines of the figure and of the crescent moon with a thick, soft graphite pencil. Then he filled in these forms with a thin white wash. It is the black ground peeking through the white pigment that gives this creature its ghostly shimmer.

TOC + TRANSLATION

Netzaḥ Yisrael (1588/1589) by the Maharal of Prague Themed for the fast day of Tisha b’Av is themed on place and time, the world of non-existence, the exile of Israel, and the coming of the Messiah, The title trades off the homology in the Hebrew term between “eternity” and “victory.” We see that homology at work in the introduction, where the Maharal writes, “God has granted Israel eternity, ensuring they will not perish, despite their harsh and heavy exile. It will also be shown that God Himself is eternal, victorious over the fourth kingdom that currently holds dominion” (introduction). After the “glory of Israel” the supernatural Torah that is the topic of his book Tiferet Yisrael, the Maharal turns in this text on the “eternity of Israel,”  conceived as a supernatural object.

The World of non-existence: The big world-picture of the Maharal is a baroque composition of connections marked by a metaphysical array of opposites and separation (dark/light, exile/redemption). Chapters 5-10 are long and largely based upon historical legend drawn from rabbinic sources about the destruction of Jerusalem, Tur Malka, and Beitar, and the fate of the evil emperor Titus killed by a virtual mosquito that lodged in his skull. The philosophical frame is founded on the theory that the knowledge of all things stems from opposites and opposition (chapter 1). In this metaphysical cum political  construction, there is this world and there is the world to come, Jacob and Esau (chapter 15), the non-existence of total destruction and the miracle of new existence. The level of the Messiah is separate from this natural and physical world; the physical opposes the non-physical and stands in opposition to the Messiah (chapter 28, 34).

Nature and super-nature: This is an early modern book whose visionary place and eschatological time are this world and the future. Nature and the transformation of nature into a super-nature are key to the futurism of the Netzaḥ Yisrael. Nature is pure potential manifesting the power of reception and sustained existence. The true cause of a thing is understood as that which sustains the existence of the created being or entity (chapter 1). Natural is the Land of Israel, whose beauty and vitality is like that of a deer (chapter 6). Fire is associated with Israel (chapter 5). Rome, or rather Christendom, the 4^th Kingdom, is associated under the sign of a red sun (chapter?). Natural being or matter is epitomized by the power of animal sensation, something human beings lack; because human beings, due to the importance of their form, are not designated to receive sensation as animals are. Due to their greater simplicity, animals sense more from the higher realms than humans, who are not as simple (chapter 26). The earth is particularly prepared for this, to bring forth beings into actuality, whether fruits or other things (chapter 34). In the messianic era, nature becomes supernatural; the supernatural earth-tree-man producing perfect fruit constantly. Regarding humans and the fruit of the tree, they will produce offspring every day, and regarding the earth, it is said that it will produce complete things (chapter 50).

The world is upside down. The world of nature rests upon a basic inversion, which is ultimately overcome, even in its perfected form.  “Man” himself is an inverted tree: the tree’s life comes from the earth, while man’s life, his soul, comes from the heavens (chapter 7). This inversion is essential to understanding the non-existence of exile.  The monstrous power of the 4^th Kingdom (Edom/Rome i.e. Christendom) are huge in size, its cities filled with multitudes of people, sound, and heat that manifest the power of destruction and non-existence itself (chapters 17, 26). The non-existence of the 4^th Kingdom is like a peel to the kingdom of Israel. Just as the beginning of the fruit’s growth lies within the peel, when the fruit reaches its perfection, the peel falls off and separates from it  (chapter 28).

Israel: The  “eternity of Israel” is changeless because of the bond with God who owns them, and makes them supernatural. Israel is the first nation (chapter 10). Israel is an object, the OBJECT of god’s possession (chapter 11).Beyond good and evil, Israel is not suited for this world (chapter 15).  The election or covenant of Israel is eternal, involves the klal, is not specific or individual. For that reason, the covenant between and God and Israel does not depend upon morality or ethics, or piety, or mitzvot, or righteousness. Israel is, if anything, predisposed uniquely to the yetzer ha’ra, the evil inclination, precisely because of their high level and Torah (chapter 2). The covenant is made with them not because they are individuals, but only because of the nation, that is, the name of Israel, because Israel is in the image of God. (chapter 11). The Maharal remarks upon the complete adherence of Israel to God, one alongside the other, the two compared to two identical date palms (chapter 12). In the image of God, Israel in exile is a separate form, their bad traits originating from inherent excellence. Their stiff-necked character comes from the fact that Israel possesses a distinct, non-physical soul. As potential, matter is susceptible to influence and is not a stable thing; whereas that which is distinct and dominated by form is not influenced to accept change, but rather stands firm (chapters 14, 25). Israel is associated with fire, the nations with water. When mingled, water consumes fire. When set at a distance, fire dries up water.

Exile is nature out of order, namely non-existence and death which is the most opposite and terrible change. The essence of exile is division and dissension (chapters 1, 25). The ultimate purpose or end is to be nivdal or separate (chapter 42) and simple [chapter 41??]. As viewed in this metaphysics of opposites, “the days of the Messiah will be a new existence that is not of this world.” The Maharal cites the Babylonian sages (Sanhedrin 99a) that the days of the Messiah are a world unto itself” (chapter 46). In what is, indeed, a lachrymose version of Jewish history, the suffering and calamities of the Jews in exile are beyond belief (chapter 49?). In this world of inter-connecting opposites, the greatness of Israel is revealed in the humiliation and dispersion in exile (chapter 49). But rather than put the onus of destruction, on the sins of Israel, the Maharal sets it on God. What is now called a defect in existence is “entirely attributed” to God who was the actor or agent responsible for the damage in the first place and from whose action the defect came. And since the defect which is suffering and non-existence came from God, it is fitting that God completes it so that no defect remains from Him, only complete repair (chapter 61).

Land of Israel: More than time, place occupies the key point in this conceptual world, about which there is a basic contradiction relating to the Land of Israel. There is, to be sure, what is taken by many to be a proto-Zionist assumption that the natural place for Israel is in their Land, that the exile is essentially unnatural (chapter 24). Israel is exiled because the spies despised the Land of Israel (chapter 20), whereas, as for the Maharal, the Land of Israel will be blessed in everything when the Messiah comes (chapter 50). What complicates the Zionist reading of the Maharal is the counterpoint, which is that the Land of Israel is not the “natural” place for Israel. If the Land was a natural place for Israel, and if they had longed for the Land, then they would have remained eternal. But the generation of the spies wept an empty weeping and did not want to come into the Land. This teaches that the Land is not the natural place for Israel, that everything returns to God, and that is why they would not remain there (chapter 8). The exile is due to the fact that Israel, as a possession of God, is not suited for this world (chapter 15).

Jerusalem is not a natural city; a divine city; anything that already had a divine status will increase in holiness and divine status beyond what it had before. Made of precious stones, the wall and the gate, are the form of the place. Michael, who is in charge of water, said that the form of the holy city should be goodness, clinging to kindness and goodness. Therefore, the wall should be of shoham, Gabriel, who is judgment, said that the form of the place should be yashpeh, whose color indicates judgment. Because God’s Name includes everything, makesJerusalem a city that includes everything; judgment and kindness. In the future, when a person will be a holy house, and the soul, which is a spark from the Blessed Name, will reside in it, just as there was a spark of His glory in the Temple. The height of a person will be two hundred, corresponding to both matter and form, and neither will be nullified by the other. Cloud is separated from the earth by three parasangs. This explains the supreme holiness of Jerusalem (chapter 51).

The Temple: The Temple is the holy place of connection between upper and lower. Called mountain, field, house by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Temple is God’s dwelling with the lower beings, while the Temple is elevated above everything. The Temple will sing. The Temple is the completeness of the world and a fulcrum of divine power. The destruction of the Temple, even though it was done by the nations, is attributed to God due to the great power involved in its destruction, which was an act of strict justice, and this act is attributed to the Holy One, blessed be He. “The Temple is called ‘Ariel’ because of its great power. But when the Blessed Name departs from ‘Ariel,’ leaving only ‘Ari,’ the holy power that was in the Temple is lacking, and the power of ‘Arieh’ prevails over ‘Ari,’ destroying ‘Ariel.’” (chapters 52, 55, 61)

The Messiah: The anti-matter of the Messiah is a divine emblem of time and song. Physical things are under the rule of time. It is therefore not difficult that the footsteps of the Messiah are delayed, because the time suitable for him is at the end of time (chapter 27). At the gates of Rome, Messiah can come any day “today” because the Messiah is completely non-natural and non-physical, and what is non-physical is not under time (chapter  28). Though the Messiah tarry, wait and receive reward. Don’t calculate the end lest people despair and stop waiting (chapter 31). The coming of the Messiah is a new existence that will destroy the first existence preceding it (chapter 32). The greatness of the Messiah is opposed by the natural world, and there therefore no end to the sufferings of the Messiah, because the natural world opposes the divine matter. The existence of the Messiah is only in potential, not actual until the future. This future will be a new world, a separate world, and he will no longer have any opposition, and he will no longer suffer (chapter  34). A sign of the coming of the Messiah is total destruction,  of all things, natural things, man-made artificial things (which are not as susceptible ordinarily to damage), and intellectual beings (even for scholars) (chapter  39). At the end, no longer physical, the human person and the world become divine, and God is one. Messiah unites and connects everything in the world as one, i.e. including the nations, i.e. the first 3 Kingdoms, except for the 4^th Kingdom.  Song is essential to the Messiah who comes when the sherakrak bird, indicating mercy and connection, sits on the earth whistles (chapters 41, 43). The world’s perfection beyond nature operates in a supernatural manner. When a person is in complete perfection, he gives a song and praise to the One from whom that perfection comes (chapter  43).

Also regarding the time of the Messiah and the end of exile is the social separation of Israel. The Maharal insists that Israel has to be especially mindful in his own generation  of maintaining social barriers. This is because he believed that the end of the exile was now, in his own day, imminent. The Maharal complains that people in “our generation” are lax and emulating gentiles in dress, etc. (chapter 25). Now that we are at the end of our exile, which is harder upon us day by day, it is important to keep distinction from nations even more (chapter 25) This is the secret, that the end is coming, that Israel is adjured not to reveal to the nations lest revealing the secret connects Israel and the nations and delay the end (chapter 24, 25).

One final world about Israel at the end of time: The Maharal is ontologically invested in the separation of Israel, which is an OBJECT in the larger world of separation (olam nivdal) that stands apart from this world of time and non-existence. Until chapter 58 towards the very end of the book. God is going to fight for Israel and put the nations under judgment. These are, perhaps, only words of comfort for a people whose sufferings are, for the Maharal, beyond belief. In the very last chapter, all of the gentile kingdoms, except for the 4^th are folded forward into the messianic concern  (chapter 63). On this point I would refer to a certain softness to the Netzaḥ Yisrael. We see it with what counts as the loving attention to birds which are counterpoints to the suffering of Israel in exile (chapter 14), and with messianic sound-signs (chapter 42). The Maharal writes with great beauty on the lightness of wild animals and  birds (chapter 57). As a figure of thought, the Messiah is, after the suffering of Israel and destructive birth pangs that bring an end to the violence of non-existence, as easy and light as the ascent of a dove (chapter 51).

From 1905, the Hero with the Wing is satire for our time. Now at the Jewish Museum in New York, he is resolute, set to fly, but unable to do so. Bad things are about to happen.

“I cannot be grasped in the here and now. For my dwelling place is as much among the dead as the yet unborn. Slightly closer to the hear of creation than usual. But not nearly close enough”

–Paul Klee, catalogue from a 1920 exhibition

Above is the New Angel framed in red now at the Jewish Museum, and below upside down.

Like many of Klee’s creatures, the New Angel is balanced on a bridge. Not history, and not redemption or messianic twaddle, the New Angel is an emblem of creation suspended over the face of the deep.

[I found these words at Panarchy by David Ben-Gurion about Palestine, and wanted to share them at this particular moment in the history of Israel and Palestine. In their own way, they are today utterly strange. From a long time ago, the spirit of self-determination and mutual recognition reflects a ghostly presence from the past, the middle path of what has become an unfamiliar Zionism, one that does not wallow in national domination and religious supremacy borne of self-pity. The editors at Panarchy, an online archive of anarchist sources, made sure to add short critical caveats to the entry. But for all that and for whatever strange reason, the editors included these selections to their website alongside varied and storied anarchist sources against the very idea of the state tout court and against Zionism in specific]

Zionism – The Hard Way and the Easy
Opening Debate of the 17th Congress of Basle, June-July 1931

We are not blind withal, to the fact that Palestine is no void. Some million Arabs inhabit both sides of the Jordan, and not since yesterday. Their right to live in Palestine, develop it and win national autonomy is as incontrovertible as is ours to return and, by our own means and merit, uplift ourselves to independence. The two can be realized. We must, in our work in Palestine, respect Arab rights, and if our first contact unhappy, we were not in the wrong. Nor, perhaps, were the Arabs, for there are historic imponderables. (p. 35)

The education imparted to our youth by ‘easy’ Zionism, that chauvinism steeped in racial animosity and a phobia of labor, darkens the moral value of Zionism and brands us as adversaries of the Arabs.
The moral content of Zionism and its necessary practical objects demand a policy of rapprochement and mutual understanding toward the Palestinian Arabs, in economics, enlightenment and politics. (p. 37)

Here to the Jewry, to Labor, and to the Arab nation, we vow that we shall never agree to one national group in Palestine dominating the other, now or evermore. We dissent from dominion of present majority over present minority … So, too shall we dissent from Jewish dominion over Arabs when the dynamism of Aliyah (immigration) alters the balance of power in our favor. (p. 38)

Jewish Labor: The Origin of Settlement
An address before the Elected Assembly, March 2, 1932

The Jewish people is trekking back homeward, but no one in his senses dreams of evicting the people that settled here when we were driven forth. We accept the Arab populations a fact and base our future on new means and sources of livelihood, not replacing what exists bit over and above it, so that we may plant our myriads deep-rooted on the land, side by side with the Arabs. (p. 71)

Tomorrow or the next day Arab labor will echo the demand, for who is so short-sighted as to think that the Arab will meekly consent to be robbed forever of his right, to be exploited mercilessly, and never once claim a plot and patrimony of his own? (p. 81)

On Three Fronts
August 3, 1938

The first principle is not mere negation, It means we reject the infamy of assailing an Arab just because he is one. It means we reject revenge wreaked upon Arabs that had no hand in terrorism. We will not play the terrorists’ beastly game. (p. 90)

The Arabs are fighting to keep this country Arab; why should our ambush and killing of Arabs stampede the Arab terrorists, when the [British] Army’s many killings and hangings failed to? The Arabs gangs murder without distinction any Jew they can lay hands on. Are we to be as vile? Is not exactly what the Mufti would have us to do – kill every Arab that crosses our path, innocent or guilty? Those who protest against the policy of ‘self-restraint’ are really not asking for self-defense or an organized campaign against the gangs, but for retaliation, which is no earthly good to us, let alone being morally wrong. (pp. 92-93)

What is wrong for Arabs is wrong for Jews; if we insist on Government suppressing Arab terrorism, how can we not insist on it suppressing Jewish terrorism? … if an Arab ‘patriot’ who kills a Jew is a murderer, so is the Jewish ‘patriot’ who kills harmless Arabs, (p. 93)

We must cast out any that would spill innocent blood in the name of the ‘kingdom of Israel.’ (p. 94)

Our strength lies in the one great asset we possess – the moral asset, the moral purity of our lives and works, our aspirations and our philosophy. Given these three – courage, understanding and clean hands – we shall win. (p. 104)

Test of Fulfillment
From an Address delivered at an Extraordinary Zionist Congress in New York, May 1942

Mass immigration and colonization on the largest possible scale such as we must expect after this war, can be effected without the slightest need to displace the present population. (p. 120)

The Arab problem really means political opposition by the Arabs to Jewish immigration. Many people, ignoring this simple but unpleasant truth, try to solve the problem where it does not exist. One solution offered is a bi-national State. If this means simply the all the inhabitants of Palestine, Jews and Arabs alike, must enjoy complete equality of rights not merely as individuals but also as national entities, which means the right freely to develop their language, culture, religion and so forth, then certainly no Jew, much less a Zionist, will hesitate to support it. But I am not altogether convinced that the Arabs will agree in that equality if they have the power to determine the constitution. (p. 121)

It is an historical fact that there are a million Arabs in Palestine, who legitimately regard themselves as its children, whether we like it or not. (p. 113)

In a letter written on March 3, 1919, to Felix Frankfurter on behalf of the Hejaz Delegation, Faisal said this:

“We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposal submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home … The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist. Our movement is national and not imperialist, and there is room in Syria [Syria is meant to include Palestine] for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other.” (p. 124)

There must be a continued willingness to cooperate closely with the Arabs in Palestine as well as in neighboring countries, (p. 128)

Reply to Aneurin Bevin (Welsh Labour Party politician)
An Address delivered at an extraordinary session of the Elected Assembly, held at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, November 28, 1945

Mr. Bevin … declared war on Zionists, while paying compliments to the Jews, as if they were different breeds. … he tries to muster against Zionism the few Jews dissidents and renegades, the Quislings of our nation. (p. 165)

We know that there are Jews who are not merely non-Zionists but anti-Zionists. (p. 166)

There is tension at the moment, perhaps a little more than tension, between us and the Arabs. It is very unfortunate. But it is transient. It is not a danger. We may be of great help to them as they to us. I believe we need each other. We have something to offer each other as equals, but only as equals. (p. 208)

The Southern Front
At the twenty-fourth session of the Provisional State Council, October 28, 1948

We believe that our interest as Jews and as men is to enhance the jurisdiction and the efficacy of the United [Note]. Were the United Nations to perish, it would be the blackest day in man’s history, and the most tragic in ours. No less than other nations, maybe more, we are concerned with world peace, with international cooperation, with the universal rule of law, with peaceful settlement of international squabbles, with amity between East and West. (pp. 281-282)

An Address to the General Staff and Commanding Officers the Israel-Defense Force, 1950

Saul of Tarsus [Saint Paul] was perhaps the most potent assimilationist the Jewish people ever had. He denied the practical precepts which constitute the essence and foundation of Judaism and based all religion on faith alone. He recognised only the individual and not the nation. He tried to destroy the faith and hope of the Jewish people in national and territorial redemption. Rejecting the ultimate vision of the Prophets, which looks far into the future and there makes one the redemption of the nation and of the whole world, the dignity of Israel and the kingdom of peace and justice on earth, Saul founded Christianity on faith in heavenly redemption through a Messiah already come. (pp. 324-325)

We shall not shut ourselves up in our shell. We shall be open to take in all cultures of the world, all the conquests of the spirit. We shall not segregate or isolate ourselves. We shall maintain our bond with the great world: a bond but not bondage in any form. The criterion of spiritual and moral freedom is free judgment and free conscience. The Jewish people have always spurned physical supremacy. (p. 339)

To us human life is sacred and dear. Men created in God’s image are equal. They are an end in themselves, not a means. No wonder then that our sages based the Torah on the golden rule – ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Not only the fellow Jew: ‘But the stranger that dwellleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.’
From the earliest time Judaism held a universal outlook and embraced all of humanity. (p. 341)

Not a feeble craving for a fictional splendor of the past, but a vision of the future, of a reign of justice and peace between all nations – that was the historical philosophy which the Prophets of Israel instilled into their people, and which was handed down by the people to the best of the nations in all lands. (p. 342)

The Call of Spirit in Israel
From The Government Yearbook, October 1951

The State of Israel will be judged not by its riches or military power, nor by its technical skills, but by its moral worth and human values. (p. 399)

But one thing history granted us from the very start – incomparable moral strength. (p. 402)

First of all let us rid ourselves of the foolish error that with the Army alone we can maintain the security of the State. (p. 404)

Security rests on a foreign policy of peace: a sincere intention to be at peace with our neighbors, and with all the nations; a determined effort to establish relations of friendship with countries great and small, in east and west. (p. 405)

Aspiring to peace, freedom and justice as we do, we condemn all domination, save over the elements. (p. 418)… ‘and you shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Here is crystallized the eternal law of Judaism, and all the written ethics in the world can say no more.
Human relations must be constructed on partnership in destiny, mutual aid, reciprocal attraction; on a comradeship of equals and on love of mankind. (p. 420)

The terrible instruments of destruction which modern science has created may blast our whole civilization to pieces, perhaps the very globe itself, unless, while there is yet time, a sure way to peace and unity among nations is revealed, and to liberty and equality for every human being. (p. 430)

Only being true to mission and vision shall we live on. Small but in ethics and intellect marvelous, Israel walks with the greatest among the nations. (p. 441)

Israel Among the Nations
From The Government Yearbook, October 1952

Israel does not believe that any powerful State has the right to impose its will on a weaker, even under the cloak of reforms. (p. 473)

These two Semitic people, Jews and Arab, share one mission in this corner of the world. The Jews will not budge hence, nor will the Arab change his place. History has pronounced us neighbor, and it is not merely a geographical proximity. There is much nearness in language, culture and history. Cooperation between the Jewish people in its land and independent Arabia is an historical necessity, and it will come about for the Arab people need it no less than does Israel. It is feasible only on a basis of equality, mutual respect and reciprocal aid. It will convert the Middle East into one of the cultural centers of the world as in Bible time it was. Each of the two peoples has something to offer to the other, without giving up anything of its own. This fertilizing exchange will be a boon to the Middle East and to the whole world. (p. 488)

TORAH PHARMAKON: DRUG OF LIFE/DRUG OF DEATH

YOMA 72b

אִלְמָלֵא בִּגְדֵי כְהוּנָּה, לֹא נִשְׁתַּיֵּיר מִשּׂוֹנְאֵיהֶן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל שָׂרִיד וּפָלִיט.

He offers a homiletic interpretation: Were it not for the priestly vestments, which provide atonement for the Jewish people, there would not remain a remnant [sarid] or survivor from the haters of the Jewish people, a euphemism used to refer to the Jewish people themselves. Due to the atonement provided by the priestly vestments, a remnant [sarid] of the Jewish people does survive.

רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָנִי אָמַר: דְּבֵי רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן תָּנָא: בְּגָדִים שֶׁגּוֹרְדִין אוֹתָן כִּבְרִיָּיתָן מִכְּלֵיהֶן, וּמְשָׂרְדִין מֵהֶן כְּלוּם. מַאי הִיא? רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ אָמַר: אֵלּוּ מַעֲשֵׂה מַחַט.

Another interpretation: Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that the school of Rabbi Shimon taught: The priestly vestments are referred to as “serad garments” because they are garments that are woven in their completed form upon the loom, as opposed to weaving the material and then cutting and sewing pieces of the material together to create the required form, and then just a small part of them remains [masridin] which is not completed upon the loom. What is the remnant, the part that was not woven? Reish Lakish said: This is the needle-work required to complete the garment.

מֵיתִיבִי: בִּגְדֵי כְהוּנָּה אֵין עוֹשִׂין אוֹתָן מַעֲשֵׂה מַחַט, אֶלָּא מַעֲשֵׂה אוֹרֵג, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״מַעֲשֵׂה אוֹרֵג״! אָמַר אַבָּיֵי: לֹא נִצְרְכָה אֶלָּא לְבֵית יָד שֶׁלָּהֶם. כִּדְתַנְיָא: בֵּית יָד שֶׁל בִּגְדֵי כְהוּנָּה נֶאֱרֶגֶת בִּפְנֵי עַצְמָהּ, וְנִדְבֶּקֶת עִם הַבֶּגֶד, וּמַגַּעַת עַד פִּיסַּת הַיָּד.

The Gemara raises an objection to this from a baraita: Priestly vestments should not be made through needle-work but though woven work, as it is stated: “Woven work” (Exodus 28:32). The Gemara answers that Abaye said: Reish Lakish’s statement is necessary only for, i.e., refers only to, the sleeves. As it was taught in a baraita: A sleeve made for the priestly vestments is woven separately and then attached to the garment by sewing, and the sleeve is made to reach as far as the palm of the hand. However, the main body of the garment must indeed be made exclusively though weaving.

אָמַר רַחֲבָה אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: שָׁלֹשׁ אֲרוֹנוֹת עָשָׂה בְּצַלְאֵל, אֶמְצָעִי שֶׁל עֵץ תִּשְׁעָה, פְּנִימִי שֶׁל זָהָב שְׁמוֹנָה, חִיצוֹן עֲשָׂרָה וּמַשֶּׁהוּ.

§ The Gemara cites statements concerning other Temple vessels: Raḥava said that Rav Yehuda said: The Torah states that the Ark should be made of wood with gold plating inside and out (Exodus 25:10–11). In order to achieve this Bezalel made three arks: A middle one made of wood, whose height was nine handbreadths; an inner one made of gold, whose height was eight handbreadths; and an outer one of gold, whose height was ten handbreadths and a bit. These arks were nested.

וְהָתַנְיָא: אַחַד עָשָׂר וּמַשֶּׁהוּ! לָא קַשְׁיָא: הָא כְּמַאן דְּאָמַר יֵשׁ בְּעׇבְיוֹ טֶפַח, הָא כְּמַאן דְּאָמַר אֵין בְּעׇבְיוֹ טֶפַח. וּמַאי מַשֶּׁהוּ — זֵיר.

The Gemara asks: But wasn’t it taught in a baraita that the outer ark was eleven handbreadths and a bit? The Gemara explains: This is not difficult: This statement in the baraita is in accordance with the one who said that the thickness of the gold plating was one handbreadth. According to this opinion, the outer ark’s base took up one handbreadth of its height, ten handbreadths were then needed to contain the middle ark within it, and then a bit more was needed so it could also contain the Ark’s cover. That statement of Rav Yehuda is in accordance with the one who said that the thickness of the gold plating was not one handbreadth but was a plate of gold of negligible thickness. According to this opinion, the outer ark needed to be only ten handbreadths and a bit and could still contain the outer ark and have room for the cover. And what is this additional bit? It is the ornamental crown on the edge of the outer ark.

אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן, שְׁלֹשָׁה זֵירִים הֵן: שֶׁל מִזְבֵּחַ, וְשֶׁל אָרוֹן, וְשֶׁל שֻׁלְחָן. שֶׁל מִזְבֵּחַ — זָכָה אַהֲרֹן וּנְטָלוֹ. שֶׁל שֻׁלְחָן — זָכָה דָּוִד וּנְטָלוֹ. שֶׁל אָרוֹן — עֲדַיִין מוּנָּח הוּא, כָּל הָרוֹצֶה לִיקַּח — יָבֹא וְיִקַּח. שְׁמָּא תֹּאמַר פָּחוּת הוּא, תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״בִּי מְלָכִים יִמְלוֹכוּ״.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: There were three crowns on the sacred vessels in the Temple: The crown of the altar, and of the Ark, and of the table. The regal appearance they provided symbolized power and authority: The crown of the altar symbolized the crown of priesthood; Aaron was deserving and took it, and the priesthood continues exclusively through his descendants. The crown of the table symbolized the abundance and blessing associated with the crown of kingship; David was deserving and took it for himself and his descendants after him. The crown of the Ark symbolized the crown of Torah; it is still sitting and waiting to be acquired, and anyone who wishes to take it may come and take it and be crowned with the crown of Torah. Perhaps you will say it is inferior to the other two crowns and that is why nobody has taken it; therefore, the verse states about the wisdom of Torah: “Through me kings will reign” (Proverbs 8:15), indicating that the strength of the other crowns is derived from the crown of Torah, which is greater than them all.

רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן רָמֵי. כְּתִיב: ״זָר״, וְקָרֵינַן ״זֵיר״. זָכָה — נַעֲשֵׂית לוֹ זֵיר, לֹא זָכָה — זָרָה הֵימֶנּוּ.

§ The Gemara presents a number of statements based on the idea that the Ark symbolizes the Torah: Rabbi Yoḥanan raised a contradiction: According to the way the word crown is written in the Torah (Exodus 25:11), without vowels, it should be pronounced zar, meaning strange, but according to the traditional vocalization we read it as zeir, meaning crown. These two ways of understanding the word appear to contradict each other. Rabbi Yoḥanan explains: The two understandings apply to two different situations: If one is deserving by performing mitzvot, it becomes a crown [zeir] for him; but if one is not deserving, the Torah will be a stranger [zara] to him and he will forget his studies.

רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן רָמֵי. כְּתִיב: ״וְעָשִׂיתָ לְּךָ אֲרוֹן עֵץ״, וּכְתִיב: ״וְעָשׂוּ אֲרוֹן עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים״, מִכָּאן לְתַלְמִיד חָכָם, שֶׁבְּנֵי עִירוֹ מְצֻוִּוין לַעֲשׂוֹת לוֹ מְלַאכְתּוֹ.

Rabbi Yoḥanan raised a contradiction: It is written: “And you shall make for yourself a wooden Ark” (Deuteronomy 10:1), implying that Moses alone was commanded to construct the Ark; and it is written: “And they shall make an Ark of acacia wood” (Exodus 25:10), implying that the Jewish people were all commanded to be involved in its construction. The apparent resolution to this contradiction is that although only Moses actually constructed the Ark, everyone was required to support the endeavor. So too, from here it is derived with regard to a Torah scholar that the members of his town should perform his work for him to support him and allow him to focus on his studies, since it is also the town’s responsibility to enable him to study.

״מִבַּיִת וּמִחוּץ תְּצַפֶּנּוּ״. אָמַר רָבָא: כׇּל תַּלְמִיד חָכָם שֶׁאֵין תּוֹכוֹ כְּבָרוֹ — אֵינוֹ תַּלְמִיד חָכָם.

The verse states concerning the Ark: “From within and from without you shall cover it” (Exodus 25:11). Rava said: This alludes to the idea that any Torah scholar whose inside is not like his outside, i.e., whose outward expression of righteousness is insincere, is not to be considered a Torah scholar.

אָמַר אַבָּיֵי וְאִיתֵּימָא רַבָּה בַּר עוּלָּא: נִקְרָא נִתְעָב, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״אַף כִּי נִתְעָב וְנֶאֱלָח אִישׁ שׁוֹתֶה כַמַּיִם עַוְלָה״.

Abaye said, and some say it was Rabba bar Ulla who said: Not only is such a person not to be considered a Torah scholar, but he is called loathsome, as it is stated: “What then of one loathsome and foul, man who drinks iniquity like water” (Job 15:16). Although he drinks the Torah like water, since he sins, his Torah is considered iniquitous and this makes him loathsome and foul.

אָמַר רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָנִי אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹנָתָן, מַאי דִּכְתִיב: ״לָמָּה זֶּה מְחִיר בְּיַד כְּסִיל לִקְנוֹת חׇכְמָה וְלֶב אָיִן״ — אוֹי לָהֶם לְשׂוֹנְאֵיהֶן שֶׁל תַּלְמִידֵי חֲכָמִים, שֶׁעוֹסְקִין בַּתּוֹרָה וְאֵין בָּהֶן יִרְאַת שָׁמַיִם.

Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “Why is there a price in the hand of a fool to buy wisdom, as he has no heart?” (Proverbs 17:16)? This expresses the following sentiment: Woe to them, haters of Torah scholars, a euphemism for the Torah scholars themselves, who immerse themselves in Torah and have no fear of Heaven. They are fools; they try to acquire the wisdom of Torah, but since they have no fear of Heaven in their hearts they lack the ability to do so.

מַכְרִיז רַבִּי יַנַּאי: חֲבָל עַל דְּלֵית לֵיהּ דָּרְתָּא, וְתַרְעָא לְדָרְתֵּיהּ עָבֵיד.

Rabbi Yannai declared that the situation may be expressed by the following sentiment: Pity him who has no courtyard but senselessly makes a gate for his courtyard. Fear of Heaven is like the courtyard, and the study of Torah is the gate that provides entrance to the courtyard. The study of Torah is purposeful only if it leads to fear of Heaven.

אֲמַר לְהוּ רָבָא לְרַבָּנַן: בְּמָטוּתָא מִינַּיְיכוּ, לָא תִּירְתוּן תַּרְתֵּי גֵּיהִנָּם.

Rava said to the Sages in the study hall: I beg of you, do not inherit Gehenna twice. By studying Torah without the accompanying fear of Heaven, not only are you undeserving of the World-to-Come, but even in this world you experience Gehenna, as you spend all your time in study and fail to benefit from worldly pleasure.

אָמַר רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן לֵוִי, מַאי דִּכְתִיב: ״וְזֹאת הַתּוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר שָׂם מֹשֶׁה״, זָכָה — נַעֲשֵׂית לוֹ סַם חַיִּים, לֹא זָכָה — נַעֲשֵׂית לוֹ סַם מִיתָה. וְהַיְינוּ דְּאָמַר רָבָא: דְּאוֹמֵן לַהּ — סַמָּא דְחַיָּיא, דְּלָא אוֹמֵן לַהּ — סַמָּא דְמוֹתָא.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “And this is the Torah which Moses put [sam] before the children of Israel” (Deuteronomy 4:44)? The word sam is written with the letter sin and means put; it is phonetically similar to the word sam written with the letter samekh, meaning a drug. This use of this word therefore alludes to the following: If one is deserving, the Torah becomes a potion [sam] of life for him. If one is not deserving, the Torah becomes a potion of death for him. And this idea is what Rava said: For one who is skillful in his study of Torah and immerses himself in it with love, it is a potion of life; but for one who is not skillful in his studies, it is a potion of death.

אָמַר רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָנִי, רַבִּי יוֹנָתָן רָמֵי, כְּתִיב: ״פִּקּוּדֵי ה׳ יְשָׁרִים מְשַׂמְּחֵי לֵב״, וּכְתִיב: ״אִמְרַת ה׳ צְרוּפָה״. זָכָה — מְשַׂמַּחְתּוֹ, לֹא זָכָה — צוֹרַפְתּוֹ. רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ אָמַר, מִגּוּפֵיהּ דִּקְרָא נָפְקָא: זָכָה — צוֹרַפְתּוֹ לְחַיִּים, לֹא זָכָה — צוֹרַפְתּוֹ לְמִיתָה.

Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan raised a contradiction: It was written: “The precepts of the Lord are upright, gladdening the heart” (Psalms 19:9), but it is also written: “The word of the Lord is refining” (Psalms 18:31), which implies that the study of Torah can be a distressing process by which a person is refined like metal smelted in a smith’s fire. He reconciles these verses as follows: For one who is deserving, the Torah gladdens him; for one who is not deserving, it refines him. Reish Lakish said: This lesson emerges from that second verse itself: For one who is deserving, the Torah refines him for life; for one who is not deserving, it refines him for death.

״יִרְאַת ה׳ טְהוֹרָה עוֹמֶדֶת לָעַד״. אָמַר רַבִּי חֲנִינָא: זֶה הַלּוֹמֵד תּוֹרָה בְּטָהֳרָה. מַאי הִיא? נוֹשֵׂא אִשָּׁה, וְאַחַר כָּךְ לוֹמֵד תּוֹרָה.

The verse states: “Fear of the Lord is pure, it stands forever” (Psalms 19:10). Rabbi Ḥanina said: This is referring to one who studies Torah in purity; for such a person the Torah will remain with him forever. What is this; what does it mean to study in purity? One first marries a woman and afterward studies Torah. Since he is married, his heart will not be occupied with thoughts of sin, which could lead him to become impure.

״עֵדוּת ה׳ נֶאֱמָנָה״, אָמַר רַבִּי חִיָּיא בַּר אַבָּא: נֶאֱמָנָה הִיא לְהָעִיד בְּלוֹמְדֶיהָ.

In the same Psalm the verse states: “The testimony of God is faithful” (Psalms 19:8). Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba said: This alludes to the fact that the Torah is faithful to testify about those who study it and those who do not.

״מַעֲשֵׂה רוֹקֵם״, ״מַעֲשֵׂה חוֹשֵׁב״, אָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר: שֶׁרוֹקְמִין בִּמְקוֹם שֶׁחוֹשְׁבִין.

The Gemara returns to its discussion concerning the sacred vessels: The verse states with regard to the covers for the Tabernacle that they are “work of an embroiderer” (Exodus 26:36), and it also states they are “work of a designer” (Exodus 26:31). How can both descriptions be reconciled? Rabbi Elazar said: They embroidered the place where they had designed. They first marked a design on the material in paint, and then they embroidered it.

תָּנָא מִשְּׁמֵיהּ דְּרַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה: ״רוֹקֵם״ — מַעֲשֵׂה מַחַט, לְפִיכָךְ פַּרְצוּף אֶחָד. ״חוֹשֵׁב״ — מַעֲשֵׂה אוֹרֵג, לְפִיכָךְ שְׁנֵי פַּרְצוּפוֹת.

A Sage taught in the name of Rabbi Neḥemya: “Work of an embroiderer” refers to needlework, which therefore produces only one face. The design is made with a needle passing back and forth from both sides of the curtain, and consequently an identical parallel image, or one face, is formed on both sides. “Work of a designer” refers to woven work, which therefore produces two faces. Although formed together, the two sides of the material were not identical; for example, sometimes an eagle appeared on one side while a lion was on the other side.

בְּאֵלּוּ נִשְׁאָלִין בְּאוּרִים וְתוּמִּים. כִּי אֲתָא רַב דִּימִי, אָמַר: בְּגָדִים שֶׁכֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל מְשַׁמֵּשׁ בָּהֶן, מְשׁוּחַ מִלְחָמָה מְשַׁמֵּשׁ בָּהֶן, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וּבִגְדֵי הַקּוֹדֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר לְאַהֲרֹן יִהְיוּ לְבָנָיו אַחֲרָיו״, לְמִי שֶׁבָּא בִּגְדוּלָּה אַחֲרָיו.

§ It was taught in the mishna: When dressed in these eight garments, the High Priest may be consulted for the decision of the Urim VeTummim. When Rav Dimi came from Eretz Yisrael to Babylonia, he said: The garments in which the High Priest serves are also worn when the priest anointed for war serves. This priest is appointed to recite words of encouragement to the nation before it goes out to war (see Deuteronomy 20:2). As it is stated: “And the sacred garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him” (Exodus 29:29), which is taken to refer to the one who comes after him in greatness, meaning the priest whose rank is one lower than the High Priest, i.e., the priest anointed for war.

מֵתִיב רַב אַדָּא בַּר אַהֲבָה, וְאָמְרִי לַהּ כְּדִי: יָכוֹל יְהֵא בְּנוֹ שֶׁל מְשׁוּחַ מִלְחָמָה מְשַׁמֵּשׁ תַּחְתָּיו כְּדֶרֶךְ שֶׁבְּנוֹ שֶׁל כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל מְשַׁמֵּשׁ תַּחְתָּיו —

Rav Adda bar Ahava raised an objection, and some say it unattributed: It is taught in a baraita: One might have thought that the son of the priest anointed for war serves in his place, i.e., he inherits the position, in the same way that the son of a High Priest serves in his place if he is fit for the job;

Nicholas Kristof’s recent, incendiary op-ed about mass rape committed against Palestinians is now a confusing case in point about the political and moral morass that is Israel under Netanyahu after October 7. There is, in fact, reliable reporting about the systemic abuse, including a pattern of sexual abuse and rape, suffered by Palestinians at the hand of the Israel Prison Service. Kristof’s op-ed builds off that reporting. What begs belief is the sourcing behind the malicious claim by Kristof that Israel has trained dogs to rape Palestinians and the imputation that the government of Israel, in the mirror image of Hamas and worse, pursues a policy of systematic, mass rape. That the New York Times is no longer a reliable source of information and analysis on Palestine and Israel is its own professional responsibility –while the government of Israel has only itself to blame for the moral and political confusion and morass with which it has surrounded the country.

On its own, the op-ed by Kristof is a mix of truth and lies. There is every reason to believe as reported by Kristof the accounts told by victims of alleged rape and other acts of sexual violence at the hands of Israeli authorities. But when you break the op-ed into component parts, you begin to see how the larger takeaway does not hang together. Because for whatever reason, Kristof chose to rely heavily on Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Hamas-linked NGO based in Geneva, to frame this narrative about Palestine and Israel. About Euro-Med you can read here more at the rightwing site NGO Monitor. That Kristof did nothing in the op-ed to identify Euro-Med and the controversy about it makes for dishonest opinion, at the very least.

The op-ed follows a point-by-point logic:

[1] Kristof writes, “There is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes.”

[2] Kristof continues, “But in recent years they have built a security apparatus where sexual violence has become, as a United Nations report put it last year, one of Israel’s “standard operating procedures” and “a major element in the ill treatment of Palestinians.” A report out last month, from the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based advocacy group often critical of Israel, concludes that Israel employs “systematic sexual violence” that is “widely practiced as part of an organized state policy” (emphasis added). Kristof goes on to compare this sexual violence with alleged accounts relating to the extraordinary scale of organized mass rape in the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia and in Sudan.

[3] Kristof concedes, “It’s impossible to know how common sexual assaults against Palestinians are.”

[4] At this point, the analysis goes off the rails. After terrible stories by credible Palestinian witnesses is the claim that Israel is using trained dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners. This unhinged and impossible story has gotten the lion’s share of critical attention drawing attention away from grave and confirmed allegations about the ill-treatment of Palestinians under Israeli authority. Then, the final word of the op-ed compares the pattern of abuse in Israel with the mass scale of sexual assault by Palestinians against Israeli civilians on and after October 7. Again to draw a moral equivalence, Kristof claims that, “The horrific abuse inflicted on Israeli women on Oct. 7 now happens to Palestinians day after day” after having just said that it is impossible to know how common these assaults are.

How, then, to explain this garble on the part of a distinguished journalist? Absent the decision to allow Euro-Med to frame the analysis, Kristof’s op-ed would have more than held up based on the interviews alone; and the allegations would have not been so easy to dismiss by Israeli government officials and others acting in bad faith. If one were to hazard a guess, it is that, between Palestine and Israel, Kristof wants to maintain something by way of moral balance; and gets lost in the radicalized politics of the region. This is a sign of the times. To balance the ethno-religious fascism of an Israeli government hellbent on war crimes, Kristof goes to a Hamas front cum European NGO. But there is no balance to be had. Between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, the entire region running through Israel and Lebanon and Palestine and Syria has gone helter-skelter after October 7.

As recognized by Kristof, the problem is that “The Israeli government rejects suggestions that it sexually abuses Palestinians, just as Hamas denied raping Israeli women.” Both claims are unbelievable. But the op-ed is also unbelievable, not in whole, but in some large and significant part. Introduced is a third element in the story, this one about Nicholas Kristof himself and reporting at the New York Times, responsibility for which lies on him and his editors.

By way of establishing moral equivalence, Kristof wants to establish a single narrative throughline. But, per here by Haviv Rettig-Gur, there are, in fact, two separate stories now surrounding the op-ed. . One is the election of the unhinged government of Netanyahu in November 2022 and the systemic abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including grave instances of sexual assault, the destruction of Gaza, and galloping annexation in the occupied West Bank after October 7, 2023. The other story is the assault on Israel by the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance and, with it, the systematic demonization of Israel, and a tsunami of anti-Semitism, also after October 7, now based on narratives shaped in mainstream media by members of the so-called human rights community in synch with Hamas style talking points.

Responding to the Kristof op-ed, Hen Mazzig notes here that the New York Times has not had on staff a public editor since 2017. The public editor is an internal ombudsman position meant to ensure fair, accurate, and transparent reporting. You can read more about the decision here and here as reported at the New York Times itself, and wonder about the impact on the publication. Removing this layer of journalistic accounting sheds further light upon coverage and analysis of Israel and Palestine, now at a moment of radical crisis. Responding to the digital age, the decision by Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was based on the assumption that “readers and social media followers collectively serve as a modern watchdog.”  Those of us who want to understand better about physical and moral injury and politics in Palestine and Israel are caught between a rock and a hard place in this challenging digital environment, assessing the difference between a truth and a lie, and the way they fold into each other with such stunning ease.