jewish philosophy place

Let’s start with point that is being mainly overlooked. Omer Bartov’s repeat opining in national media about Israel committing genocide in Gaza are many different things. First and foremost, they are the cri de cœur of an Israeli, an eminent researcher of the Holocaust. Bartov wants (he says so himself) is to see something better for his country, a future less traumatized and violent. He says this verbatim at the end of the most recent op-ed here at NYT, i.e. at the very point in the op-ed by which most readers will already have stopped reading, either because Bartov has confirmed their priors or has completely outraged them. But these lines are worth quoting in full because they tell us about this moment in the history of the Jews and the history of Israel. “Perhaps,” for Bartov, “the only light at the end of this very dark tunnel is the possibility that a new generation of Israelis will face their future without sheltering in the shadow of the Holocaust…Israel will have to learn to live without falling back on the Holocaust as justification for inhumanity. That, despite all the horrific suffering we are currently watching, is a valuable thing, and may, in the long run, help Israel face the future in a healthier, more rational and less fearful and violent manner.” Let’s note and leave aside the strange offhand comment and assert for ourselves that nothing about this carnage is “valuable thing” for anyone –Israeli and certainly not Palestinian. It is fair to say that Bartov’s interventions at the NYT and other media platforms express profound moral distress in the face of unprecedented destruction and death on October 7 and during Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza.

But, none of this has anything to do with genocide. Bartov, in this most recent opinion piece, one pocked by omissions, has not, in fact, made his own case that the destruction and death constitute the crime of genocide. Words like “goal” and “intent” are essential arguments about genocide in international law. The standard definition of genocide, determined  in 1948 by the United Nations, refers to a number of acts committed with intent to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”  In a critical vein, Dirk Moses calls genocide “the crime of crimes.” The crime entails ascription of a special intent (dolus specialis), which for Moses is one of the problems of genocide as a conceptual term of art (The Problems of Genocide).

Is there special intent to commit genocide? In his review of the war some six months after October 7,2023,Bartov explains, “By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah.” Bartov mentions in the next paragraph that these acts were “consistent” with “statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack.” As Bartov sees it, “I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave…to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group.” Or, he says, the intent of Israel’s war against Hamas is “[the Gaza] Strip’s destruction.”

Intent to do what? To commit what act and which crime? On one hand, claims regarding intent to force permanent, as opposed to tactical, population transfer as an act of state policy have yet to be proven. On the other hand, acts of complete destruction in Gaza and the enormous toll on civilian life might well constitute a clear, factual basis demonstrating intent to commit crimes of ethnic cleansing and other war crimes and crimes against humanity. But nowhere does Bartov commit himself to claiming that Israeli conduct in war demonstrates “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” A close, critical reader will notice that the most Bartov can say after these long months since May 2024 and October 2023 is that alleged acts of ethnic cleansing and the reality of mass death and destruction “can morph into genocide” –meaning that they do not yet constitute genocide “as such,” according to the recognizable definition (emphasis added).

Voicing frustration with scholars in Holocaust Studies, Bartov insists that among Genocide scholars there is a growing consensus that Israel is committing that very crime in Gaza. He cites Uğur Ümit Üngör who quipped that “there are probably scholars who still do not think it’s genocide,” but who then said, “I don’t know them.” But clearly everyone in Genocide Studies knows Dirk Moses and his work. Bartov himself mentions Moses in passing, failing to indicate that Moses has already weighed in here about Gaza. In an essay from late 2023 after October 7 entitled “More than Genocide,” Moses already pulled back from calling Gaza a genocide for reasons unique to his own theoretical approach to the study of genocide, political violence and settler-colonialism [sic].

Moses argues that international law is so narrowly defined as to make it impossible to accuse any country of committing the crime of genocide. In his words, it is “extremely difficult” to “[prove] that individual Israelis have committed acts of genocide…given the parameters set by international law.” What Moses argues here and throughput his own scholarship concerns the way the modern nation state is inherently premised upon the violence committed in the name of “national security.” The right of self-defense, he argues, constitutes the pretext for committing the most heinous acts of violence against civilian populations. For Moses, the question of genocide as beside the point –not just because genocide is impossible to prosecute; also because the genocide convention has been overdetermined by the Holocaust; and “because successful analogies with the Holocaust are virtually impossible to make—especially by Palestinians against Israel, for which the Holocaust memory is a state project. For Moses, the problem of genocide is that the concept sets genocide apart as the “crime of crimes,” blinding us to “other types of humanly caused civilian death, like bombing cities and the ‘collateral damage’ of missile and drone strikes, blockades, and sanctions” that are “driven by the permanent security imperatives of states and political movements seeking to found states” at an “apocalyptic” juncture in history (The Problems of Genocide, pp.477, 511). (For a recent essay by Moses on the “problem of genocide,” see here, but it’s not about Gaza and more a concise precis of his own work; h/t Ben Wexler)

Where does this leave Bartov’s analysis at this current impasse? Bartov must surely know that “genocide,” if not beside point, works towards another point. Bartov himself knows that genocide is not a neutral description, understanding  that “Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community.” In this light, there is no reason to cast doubt on the counterclaim –as Bartov doubts, vociferously– that “malign interests and sentiments” against Israel motivate much of the Israel-Genocide-Gaza echo machine on campus and across the general culture. If Bartov’s Jewish critics are furious with him, it is because of the mediated spectacle to which Bartov is contributing on the basis of his own authority as a student of the Holocaust, and an Israeli dissident.

For many, the Israel Genocide Gaza meme is an operation of pure malice; for others, “Genocide in Gaza” reflect deep distress and political outrage (In good faith, I believe Bartov stands in the latter camp). In my own small circle in academic Jewish Studies and online Jewish community, Bartov’s presence on the scene meets deeply felt needs of colleague and friends on the left in the face of real distress and rage about Israel and the rightwing in Israel. Yet, for all that, it has become painfully obvious after October 7 that people in the world wish real malice on both the State of Israel and Jewish people more generally. The genocide meme is fuel to the fire, the reality of permanent conflict, the failure of two national communities to come to terms with each other via negotiated agreements based on mutual recognition. The “Israel Genocide Gaza” meme affects the volatile place of real and figural Jews in the Digital Age when the violence of Israel and Palestine is traded in a currency of “value” far away from the people who suffer the violence in real life.

5 thoughts about the word and the spectacle of “genocide” and Israel and Gaza — minus what genocide means, defined in 1948 by the United Nations, as “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

— Pushing back against widespread claims in the media that ethnic Sudanese Arab forces committed genocide against Black Africans in Darfur, Mahmood Mamdani, a scholar of African Studies at Columbia University almost twenty years ago in 2007 had us consider here that the scale of violence in that region was the (natural?) result of historically complex, back and forth conflict.  About the politics of genocide, his words continue to resonate. “It seems that genocide has become a label to be stuck on your worst enemy, a perverse version of the Nobel Prize, part of a rhetorical arsenal that helps you vilify your adversaries while ensuring impunity for your allies.” Omer Bartov, again writing now here at the NYT, cites Mamdani’s essay to make the same point. “Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community.”

–As a mediated event in the public sphere, the word “genocide” creates a moral circus and spectacle carried by big blaring headlines at NYT, New York Review of Books, the Guardian, New York Magazine. The word  is circulated across the internet and compressed into memes. Moral outrage in the face of collective trauma is leveraged into moral theater. “CRIME OF THE CENTURY” “I’M A GENOCIDE SCHOLAR. I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT.” Against this grain,Palestinian peace activist and Hamas critic Howidy Hamza writing here at Twitter responds to Alon Mizrachi –an a/z Israeli living in London?—comparing aid tents in Gaza to gas chambers, “No, Alon — that’s not criticism, it’s a blood-stained metaphor that confuses moral outrage with moral clarity. There’s plenty to be said about these centers, and not all of it is reassuring. But invoking gas chambers doesn’t deepen the critique — it collapses it into noise.”

–A cover image for the Omer Bartov op-ed at the NYT directly transposes Holocaust memory onto the war in Gaza, reflecting the combination of Genocide Spectacle and Holocaust Spectacle that marks the current discourse about the Jewish State:

–The right word. Debates about “the genocide” force those of us who care about Israel to defend the indefensible. What’s clear is the scale of death and destruction. Also clear are the politics. Israel would not be facing ethical and legal challenges in the public sphere, not to this degree, without Netanyahu and Kahanist Religious Right conducting a terrible Forever War with Hamas, unable and unwilling to conclude its part in a system of regional and international agreements and alliances. The good-faith bystander struggles for the right words to convey moral shock and political opposition, words that can match the complete and unpr4cedented scale of violence, death, and destruction in Isreal on October 7, in Gaza, and also the West Bank. Hachkhadah, hashmadah, hachravah, kilyon are Hebrew words connoting obliteration and complete destruction that convey something of that scale. For many months, a year ago, it has become increasingly clear that the war in Gaza is no longer a war of defense. The Israeli press, including establishment voices here, regularly reports that the fighting is simply listless, that military brass in Israel concede that there are no more military objectives. Without a recognizable military mission, nothing comes anything close to justifying this scale of destruction and death. But the war against Hamas in Gaza still might not meet the bar of genocide. A crime against humanity, tevach is the Hebrew word for massacre and slaughter, associated with butchering animals.

–Folding this discussion back to Mahmood Mandani’s statement about the political rhetoric of the word genocide. Sari Nusseibeh, says in an interview here at Die Zeit. “The words used in a political conflict serve less to describe reality. They are primarily instruments in this conflict; they are weapons and instruments of power. Those who speak of genocide or apartheid do so to establish legal and symbolic power. This applies to most of the terms used on both sides. I don’t need the word genocide, and I’m sure you don’t either. Nobody really needs it to see the horror, do they? The horror of what’s being done. You know, you can use any word you want for that” (Google Translate).

“A person should always engage in Torah and mitzvot, even if not for their own sake, as through it one comes to perform them for their own sake” (Pirkei Avot 4:1)

Ron Kampeas writes about the fissure inside mainline Jewish communal umbrella organizations about whether to accommodate or resist the Trump assault on civil society, a signature piece of which has been to attack universities in the name of combatting anti-Semitism. Kampeas reports on two big organizations, the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Eric Fingerhut, the CEO of Jewish Federations of North America, in a private email, called on Jewish federation CEOs  to refuse to sign on to a statement by the JCPA opposing Trump’s assault on civil society. He did so in the name of representing the entire swath of American Jewish opinion, including those presumably on the political and religious right.

For its part, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs is lining up with liberal-progressive ideas and politics at this very fraught and dangerous moment: Their statement drew support from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, National Council of Jewish Women, American Conference of Cantors, Central Conference of American Rabbis, HIAS, Rabbinical Assembly, Reconstructing Judaism, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, and the Union for Reform Judaism.

The JCPA statement addresses the resurgence of anti-Semitism after October 7 and rejects, without hesitation, the Trump Administration using Jews, especially on campus, as human shields. It rejects, in particular, the targeting of anti-Israel activists. The JCPA stakes its position on the basis of rule-based norms and civil society values.

The statement reads:

“The rule of law, freedom of inquiry, access to vibrant places of higher education, and strong democratic norms and institutions have allowed American Jewry to thrive for hundreds of years.

“There should be no doubt that antisemitism is rising—visible, chilling, and increasingly normalized in our public discourse, politics, and institutions. It requires urgent and consistent action by our nation’s political, academic, religious, and civic leaders. At the same time, we firmly reject the false choice between confronting antisemitism and upholding democracy. Our safety as Jews has always been tied to the rule of law, to the safety of others, to the strength of civil society, and to the protection of rights and liberties for all.

“At this moment, Jews are being targeted and held collectively accountable for the actions of a foreign government. Jews are being pushed out of certain movements, classrooms, and communities for expressing a connection to their heritage or to the Jewish homeland. And, horrifically, some voices in the public square are justifying or celebrating the murder of Jews. Dangerous antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories that over the past decade have already fueled a cycle of hate crimes and violence — including the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history in Pittsburgh — have been mainstreamed by too many political leaders, civil society influencers, social media platforms, and others.

“In recent weeks, escalating federal actions have used the guise of fighting antisemitism to justify stripping students of due process rights when they face arrest and/or deportation, as well as to threaten billions in academic research and education funding. Students have been arrested at home and on the street with no transparency as to why they are being held or deported, and in certain cases with the implication that they are being punished for their constitutionally-protected speech. Universities have an obligation to protect Jewish students, and the federal government has an important role to play in that effort; however, sweeping draconian funding cuts will weaken the free academic inquiry that strengthens democracy and society, rather than productively counter antisemitism on campus.

“These actions do not make Jews—or any community—safer. Rather, they only make us less safe.

“We reject any policies or actions that foment or take advantage of antisemitism and pit communities against one another; and we unequivocally condemn the exploitation of our community’s real concerns about antisemitism to undermine democratic norms and rights, including the rule of law, the right of due process, and/or the freedoms of speech, press, and peaceful protest.

“It is both possible and necessary to fight antisemitism—on campus, in our communities, and across the country—without abandoning the democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many other vulnerable minorities, to thrive.

“We appreciate the civil society, academic, and local, state, and national leaders who are committed to seriously and thoughtfully addressing the threat of antisemitism. We remain committed to working alongside university leadership and public officials at every level to ensure policies and practices that protect the Jewish community as well as other marginalized communities and uphold for all people the principles of justice, fairness, and equal protection under the law. That is the only path to true safety.”

Paul Klee Bounds of the Intellect (Grenzen des Verstandes), 1927

MAHARAL OF PRAGUE

GEVUROT HA’SHEM (full AI generated translation here)

Table of Contents (Outline)

[[world of Separation: God, Israel, Temple; above nature, coming into existence and the completion of nature]]

INTRODUCTION [[On the concealed and the revealed relating to God and relative to what remains beyond the limits of human understanding, which cannot grasp what is “separate” {nivdal} from it. “All understanding is a connection and combination to the understood.” Difference between wisdom and prophecy. Imagination is limited because it depends on attachment and connection. Intellect produces understanding of concealed and separate matters. “It is impossible to have attachment to the World to Come itself, but only to this world, and what reaches its existence in this world like.” The first cause is that “the existence of the Blessed Name is separate from all existents, and He has no participation with them. The second is that He, blessed be He, brought other existents into being. The third is that they are arranged by Him in their order. For the act of bringing them into being, which is bringing them into actuality, is one matter, and the arrangement of them according to what they are.]]

SECOND INTRODUCTION [[About miracle: everything is in an ordered system from the Blessed Name. God arranged the non-natural according to the intellect. “The prophets, by being connected to the separate world, opened the locked gate, which is the natural world that is closed to those with physical bodies. They opened the closed gates and entered the separate world, bringing from the separate world something that is not possible according to nature.”]

THIRD INTRODUCTION Kingship of God. On the greatness, power, and glory and victory and majesty of God, the explanation is that it mentions these things to say that the Blessed Name encompasses everything, and all changes in existence and changes in powers are all His

CHAPTER ONE  [the {infinity} of god’s acts; Israel should fear God’s power and acknowledge what God did for us]

CHAPTER TWO  [mitzvah of recounting the Exodus from Egypt]

CHAPTER THREE  [[Exodus, is the foundation of faith upon which everything is built. Isreal is a unique people. Material slavery and {spiritual} affliction in Egypt]]

CHAPTER FOUR  [“Man.” Steeped in immorality and abominations, Egypt, which is material and low, is the opposite of Israel, who is “man,” form and separate. The complete human (man) has dominion and the incomplete is enslaved]

CHAPTER FIVE  [ABRAHAM, opposites; Abaraham is the beginning before which there is chaos and absence. Israel out of Egypt, its opposite, is the same as Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans. so too was it with our father Abraham, who was the foundation and cornerstone of creation, born in the land of the Chaldeans, about whom it is said that the Holy One, blessed be He, regrets every day that He created them, because they are a chaotic nation, and there is no completeness in their creation, and this will be further explained with God’s help. And the fact that Abraham was born in Ur of the Chaldeans is a wondrous matter. For since Abraham was the beginning of the world, and before him, everything was chaos, and there was no creation at all, therefore Abraham was connected to the Chaldeans, who are a creation without substance]

CHAPTER SIX  [Abraham is the shield, foundation of world. Abraham united and connected the whole world, like mending a tear.

CHAPTER SEVEN  [Abraham and faith re: God’s prophecies vs. mere promises; the need to change Abram’s name because the constellations ruled he would have no children; at issue is astrology and change. To change the constellation and to be above the constellations, is the highest level. Similarly, our sages said that Israel merited redemption only because of their faith. This is because enslavement indicates a lack of existence, for one who is enslaved to others is dependent on another, and this is not called existence,]

CHAPTER EIGHT [Covenant] [Atonements sustains Israel] [Israel cleaves to God; [Covenant of Pieces; The 4 Kingdoms] [Faith of Abraham withstands the wave, sustained in face of opposing nations. {A great and terrifying vision. For the nations and Gehinnom are not existence, for it is said about the nations (see Isaiah 40:17), “All the nations are as nothing.” All the more so Gehinnom, which is desolation and darkness, and there is no existence there.]

CHAPTER NINE  [Why wasn’t Abraham punished with exile? Why was it the 70 who went down with Jacob whose descendants suffered exile??? ]

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN [Providence; brings Joseph to Egypt]

CHAPTER TWELVE [Israel multiplies in Egypt; A unique and powerful nation; power of procreation]

CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Israel in Egypt]

CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Water]

CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Harsh and bitter subjugation]

CHAPTER SIXTEEN [Particular individuals in Torah which is the Order of the World, The separate and spiritual manifest in Moses from tribe of Levi rules over the material manifest by Egypt]

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN [Birth of Moses; he unique and separate perfection of Moses; removed from evil; ranks of Moses’ perfection. Moses is hidden/concealed by Yocheved, Miriam, Pharoah’s daughter]

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN [Complete stature of Moses. Absence and existents, Moses sits in the city with Egypt. The Messiah sits at the gates of Rome. The holy kingdom of Israel, which has an inner divine rank, grows out of an unholy kingdom. The essence of Moses and his rank, which is separate and removed from the waters. Moses is perfect, a separate form drawn from the waters]

CHAPTER NINETEEN [Dathan and Abiram are the opposite of Moses and Aaron; Why is Israel enslaved? Slander, revealing secrets that are fit to be hidden. Moses is total and separate form and has no association with Israel. Moses in Midian. Opposites and fit connections. Tziporah is bird-like, the opposite of leprosy and death. Jethro is prepared to worship the Power of all the powers]

CHAPTER TWENTY [Moses saves daughters of Jethro, aroused by justice; Jethro’s connection to Israel and to God: sustaining people with food, sustaining all existents or created beings]

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE [Suffering, multiplicity, no order or connection; God brings Israel close and attaches them through 4 actions; hearing, remember, seeing, knowing (which is complete connection between knower and known)]

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO [Test of Moses is in his shepherding in the wilderness. Moses was prepared for redemption. When one sustains and provides, he precedes another, for he is the cause of the other, through whom the other is sustained and provided. Sustenance in the wilderness which is the special place for that which is separate from nature, also destructive and violent]

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE [Different names of Mt. Sinai. Burning Bush: God is with Israel in their troubles]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR [God to Moses at Burning Bush; Land of Israel; a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, suitable for opposites]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE [Names of God revealed at Burning Bush. “I am” + YHWH; the essential name, which is the name YHWH, He, blessed be He, is the form of all beings, and everything stands in its form, thus in it everything stands.]

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX [Remembrance and redemption]

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN [Signs given to Moses to show divine power when he comes to Pharoah]

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT [When the soul connects to the body, the person becomes a living, speaking being. Moses not a person of speech, which is physical and works through movement; unlike power of intellect]

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE [Israel is firstborn; distinct and separate—the beginning of the revelation of God’s power in this world, distinct from the material, outside and elevated above nature]

CHAPTER THIRTY [Tribe of Levi holy to God and exempt from hard labor of king]

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE [The lineage of Levi; Hardening of Pharoah’s heart: He will harden his heart to hasten the exodus of Israel, as the main mission was for this. Therefore, He said, to multiply My signs, I will harden his heart]

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO [Sign of the serpent; The kingdoms are compared to a serpent; reason for each of the 10 plagues, and making known God’s Unique Name]

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE [More on the plagues and powers of natural order and Moses’ prayer]

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR [Plagues: darkness, death, Gehinnom, deficiency in existence; Order of plagues: to show God rules from the low parts of nature to that which is above: beneath the earth, on the earth, above the earth; Plagues reflect the existence and essence of the world, their order is perfectly connected and orderly; existence is divided into three parts: the upper, the lower, and the middle. Therefore, the plagues were divided into these three parts]

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE [Redemption, first month, first things; essence of a thing is first; not subject to time, not subject to chance; Israel not worthy, so God gave them 2 mitzvot with which to secure redemption: blood of circumcision and blood of taking the lamb on the 10th of Nisan]

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX [Mitzvot of Pesach (matzah-redemption and maror-bondage) signify the uniqueness of God from whom diverse actions follow for good and for bad]

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN [Passover night in Egypt; Israel serves God and God passes over]

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT [The group and the individual and kingship of God and sanctity of the firstborn]

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE [Tefillin dedicated to Unique Name; Wonders; Connection of Israel to God Everything comes from God; He can destroy; so too does He arrange and unify everything, connects the parts to each other until they are one, linked together. From God comes order of the world’s existence. Israel is the first and at the center of existence]

CHAPTER FORTY [Splitting of Red Sea is the power of a separate [spiritual] force repelling nature]

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE [Philosophical anthropology: 3 soul-powers in the human: intellect, separate soul-nefesh, non-separate soul-nefesh. Natural material power operates continuously and never rests but operates according to its nature. The higher power is marked by choice, power to overcome nature, the capacity to do or not do. Higher separate powers overcome material obstacles, causing the waters to split. The entire matter of the splitting of the Red Sea was that Israel acquired the divine level separate from the material, and therefore they split the sea, which is material]

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO [Drowning of Egyptians; Israel rules completely over nature and became holy and separate. Israel emerges from the water]

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE [With the completion of the commentary to the Exodus narrative, some miscellaneous statements on the merits by which Israel was redeemed from Egypt, including miracle and sexual desire and union, and Israel maintaining its distinction and separation from Egypt without change]

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR [Exodus is foundation of true faith and religion. Derash on First Commandment; the distinction of Israel, form-intellect over matter, stiff-necked and completely human, superior to angels; Tefillin]

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE [Shabbat and other mitzvot that recall the Exodus and that you were slaves in Egypt and the discerning power of God]

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX [Time; 3 Festivals and Exodus. Connecting world to God. The main point is completion marked by Torah and Israel at the center of and above a cosmos in which time motion, and matter are interconnected]

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN [Israel believed in God after splitting of Red Sea. Belief in providence, power, and revelation are foundational beliefs of faith and religion. God redeems people in distress at the precise moment. Long excursus on Exodus 15 (Song of the Sea) This is my God and I will glorify/beautify Him]

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT [Mitzvot erev Pesach: eating; reclining; 4 cups of wine]

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE [4 cups of wine cont.]

CHAPTER FIFTY [Washing hands; Kiddush, dipping twice, bitter herbs, breaking matzah]

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE [Matzah/Bread of Affliction; redemption is separation and simplicity]

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO [Mah Nishtana, Maggid]

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE [Bnei Brak, 4 sons]

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR [Maggid: An Aramean sought to destroy my father. Laban is part of the system of opposites, the principle of non-existence, an adversary without reason, wanted to destroy everyone and everything]

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX [Plague, sword, divine presence/terror]

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN [Order of 10 Plagues* and the creation of the world and terror of total destruction and death]

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT [10 Plagues & Red Sea, hand of God, wrath and destruction against Egypt enter the world where they multiply]

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE [Dayeinu — Elevation of Israel out of Egypt, above nature at Red Sea, complete attachment to God in Temple]

CHAPTER SIXTY [Pesach Matzah Maror + 4 Cups] [Levels of Redemption] [Israel belongs to God is the meaning of Passover] [Freedom and servitude are opposites that both come from God, The one who redeemed us from slavery to freedom is the one who also subjected us to servitude.]

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE [Hallel: God redeems me today, but why are we in exile? God can do all actions, being separate from all existences, changing the order of nature. Hallel instituted by rabbis for when God saves Israel. Don’t say Hallel every day, which would be blasphemy because of human suffering. God saves the righteous for the sake of kindness, or God’s glory, or justice]

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO [Hallel continued, psalms 113, 114: praising God’s name in all three worlds, in eternity, in the heavens, and high and separate above the nations and their angels]

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE [Matzah, Maror, Charoset, Afikomen, Grace After Meal, 3rd and 4th cup]

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR [Hallel; praising God for the sake of God’s mercy against the attribute of justice, Psalm 115, reflecting on idols, the sense-organs which are separate from the human body and the limbs and throat which are not separate from the body, Psalm 116, delivered from enemies and bonds of death, tears, and stumbling, preserving my soul, Psalm 117 and Psalm 118 governance of kindness for Israel and nations, thanks and cleaving to God and completion.]

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE [Great Hallel, Psalm 136, “for His lovingkindness endures forever.” Sustenance of beings (from angels to luminaries, to Israel to all flesh) is greater than Creation itself and greater than redemption; Israel and lower beings clothe God in garment of glory]

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX [Final end or purpose of Exodus brings us back to Genesis: Israel accepting ordinances of God so that God can dwell among them, connecting divine Cause with creaturely effects as established in the 7 Noahide commandments]

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN [The image of God in “man”/Israel. God’s greatness is humility. Because God is separate from everything, separate also from the higher beings (angels and heavens), God associates with the lowly, extending justice and mercy in relation to poor, widow, and stranger, and especially Israel among the nations. Israel is a divine portion. Jacob received the divine image in completeness, without nullifying the form in matter. Purpose of Exodus is to restore the image of God in man in Jacob-Israel??]

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT [Israel and angels; Israel attains unique rank and status after splitting of Red Sea]

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE [Tabernacle and offerings; the beings return to the Cause]

CHAPTER SEVENTY [Place; the Temple should be in the lower world, not because of the earth itself, but because the earth is the completion of everything, completing existence; all matter has the extension of sides, which is the nature of matter—the extension of dimensions. The middle, which stands in the center, relates to something non-material, having no dimension, and is therefore called “the holy palace,” sanctified from the material]

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE [Life; Temple is the final completion of world; bright and separate from matter and material murkiness; place of supernatural miracle, Temple is heart, the essence of life, the outward expression of power]

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO [Exile does not nullify Israel’s preparation]

SUMMARY OF LAWS OF PESACH

LAWS OF YAYIN NESACH

A complete AI translation of the the Maharal of Prague’s Gevurot Ha’Shem, a table of contents, and my commentary. The translation and toc both include my annotations.

Gevurot Ha’Shem is a grand and peculiar 16th century commentary on Exodus + Haggadah. I am dividing it into four parts: [1] The Exodus narrative is completed in chapter 42 with the splitting of the Red Sea (Israel emerging and becoming holy) and war with Amalek (Israel becoming supreme, but not yet completely). [2] After the historical-metaphysical gloss, the Gevurot Ha’Shem assumes a different register, slipping into ritual, chapters on Passover related to mitzvot and commentary on the Haggadah: bread of affliction, matzah, and 4 cups [3] Then, thick readings of Hallel-Psalms that magnify the glory and mercy of God in praise and song. [4] Final chapters on place and the Temple in Jerusalem. The Maharal places Exodus and Passover in a rich frame that is both worldly and metaphysical. Exodus is Physics, coming into existence/actuality of perfected form in a material world, volatile, which has no actuality.

Intellect/Torah/Israel/Temple/God are in the middle and separate (nivdal) from matter, the world of extension and multiplicity. The world of nature is determined by opposites. Form, matter, chaos, potential –God is separate from all existents, Israel separate from nations. The primary miracle is sustenance, the sustaining power of God in a volatile existence. The physical world is potential, not really actual (only God is complete actuality) (chapters 41, 52). Matter has three dimensions—length, width, and height—has six faces: the upper face, the lower face, the right face, the left face, the front face, and the back face. These are the six faces of the world. These six faces are opposite each other; the middle, which is not a face, stands in the center, is considered a separate entity. (chapter70).

The world is composed of polar opposites:  absence and existents, existence and non-existence: “Although opposites are opposed by their nature, nevertheless, in that opposites together complete the whole, for this reason, they join together to complete the whole. Therefore, Israel and Egypt, although they are opposites by their nature, nevertheless, the thing and its opposite complete the whole, and they have a connection together. Therefore, Israel dwelled in Egypt, and Abraham in Ur of the Chaldeans, because the two opposites together are the whole” (chapter 5). Absence clings to existences, and because of the absence that clings to existences, another form occurs. It turns out that the form that occurs follows the thing in which the absence is, for the absence that is in the existence itself brings about another form. This is the Physics that explain the place of Moses in the palace of Pharaoh, the Messiah at the gate of Rome. The holy kingdom of Israel, which has an inner divine rank, grows out of an unholy kingdom (chapter 18).

Water is the exemplar of nature-materiality, constantly and continuously operating  but with no actual existence (chapter 41). Without enduring stable form, water throughout the Gevurot Ha’Shem is a force of primal destruction. For its part, the faith of Abraham is a standing in one’s place in the wave of the world; withstanding the wave, sustained in the face of opposing nations, sustaining existence in the middle of non-existence and absence (chapter 8, see also chapter 17 and throughout under “water”). Moses is the perfect separate form drawn from the waters (chapter 18). So conceived, matter is not in actuality, for all matter is in potential, to change its state by moving from place to place (chapter 46).

In the strange Physics of Exodus, humans have the advantage of form (unlike formless water). Because water is the removal of the form of existence, and when there is sin in the world, the Holy One, blessed be He, removes the form (chapter 14). The form of human essence includes body and soul (chapter 43). Exodus from the house of bondage indicates separation and distinction from the material, subjugated and passive. The separation of the Hebrew slaves from the material indicates a level distinct from the physical (chapter 46). Exodus is the power of movement manifest in the mitzvah Tefillin, the tefillin of the head and of the arm, which together are the power of life. The beginning of the power of movement is from the brain, the power of movement in the forehead. Therefore, when a person desires to move, he first moves his face, for there is the power of movement which completes itself in the arm. Movement is the life of the living being (chapter 39). The human person (Adam-Jacob) receive the image of God. Adam nullifies form in the material, whereas Jacob nullifies the material in form (chapter 66).

God is YHWH, the Unique name, the beginning and cause of existents, order and arranges and destroys, separate from the world, separate power attached to Israel. God’s lovingkindness lies in sustaining all beings in the world with sustenance. The very essence of creation, being an effect, is lacking and needs sustenance.

The Physics of Exodus from Egypt is strange-worldly. Exodus/Passover/spring is the volatile power of the virtual, the beginning of existence (chapter 46) or the coming into existence and stable actuality. The Maharal calls this a deep matter. “Only God can overcome nature and remove Israel from Egypt. Anything that is in potential and comes into actuality can only come into actuality through the Lord, who alone is in complete actuality. This is because He is separate from matter, as all matter is in potential, and anything with a material component cannot be in complete actuality.” The metaphysics of Exodus is the perfection-actualization of Israel: “When Israel was in Egypt, and the Lord brought them into actuality to be brought out from their domain, they were certainly like a fetus being born” (chapter 52). Before Israel left Egypt, they had no existence at all, “like a fetus swallowed in its mother’s womb, so they were swallowed in Egypt under their authority. When they left Egypt, it was as if they came into existence, and for this, it was established to say (Pesachim 116b), “from darkness to light.” (chapter 59).

In this meta-physical cosmos, redemption is separation from connection. Redemption only happens when one is separated from others and stands on one’s own. Our world is a world of composition, redemption is simplicity, from a separate simple world [chapter 51, bread of affliction]. The Gevurot Ha’Shem revolves around place, domain (reshut), and the Temple. God removing Israel from foreign domains of the nations in which they suffer distress. The final word is on place and non-connection and Temple (chapters 69-72). At the center of extension,  “the Temple is the whole, for the Temple is not a part, as you do not find anything joined to it, like you find with the heavens and the earth” (chapter 47). All matter has the extension of sides. The nature of matter is the extension of dimensions (front-back, up-down, right-left). The middle, which stands in the center, relates to something non-material, having no dimension, and is therefore called “the holy palace,” sanctified or separate from the material into which it is embedded, connected to God and prepared to receive the impression of God’s image.