Rabbi Joshua Waxman: March 2007 Archives

I find it interesting that Rabbi Grossman wants to argue that the Exodus account may contain more historical truth than I give it credit for. Maybe, maybe not--I'm not sure it terribly matters either way. Clinging to the "kernels of truth" argument--sometimes posed as "something happened at the Red Sea, we’re just not sure what" or "something happened at Sinai, we’re just not sure what"--can lead to the trap of feeling like we must defend the facticity of every Biblical statement, lest the whole structure collapse like a house of cards.

In fact, we shouldn't take an "all or nothing" approach to the Bible. Those who try to poke holes in the Bible to "disprove" it really are just buying into the same framework as those who feel they need to strenuously defend every statement in order to "prove" the Bible’s truth. The Bible's power and wisdom don't depend on historicity. Proving a part of it to be "true" doesn’t make the rest of it true, anymore than proving a part of it to be "untrue" makes the rest of it untrue. Ultimately I find that sort of debate neither informative nor helpful.

Instead of debating the historical truth of the Bible as though it were a history or science textbook, which it is not and does not try to be, perhaps we can strive for a more nuanced appreciation, one, which recognizes that the Bible's profound wisdom and insight are not simplistic, and neither should be the way we read it.

Read the Full Debate: Does It Matter If the Exodus Happened?

• Rabbi Grossman: Kernels of History Add Flavor to Exodus Story


• Rabbi Stern: History Without Moses


• Rabbi Grossman: The Lack of Evidence Is Not Evidence


• Rabbi Waxman: The Truth of the Exodus
  

Explore Beliefnet's Complete Passover Features:

• The Beliefnet Guide to Passover


• Video: A Visit to a Matzah Factory


• Quiz: More Than 'Four Questions' About Passover


• Gallery: Your Favorite Passover Dessert Recipes

Several years ago, before I had even enrolled in rabbinical school, I was sitting at my parents' table for seder when my uncle looked at me pointedly and said: "You're the religious one. Tell me, did the Exodus really happen?" Suddenly, it got very quiet around the seder table.

The Exodus from Egypt – the miraculous delivery from slavery that marks the formation of the Jewish people – is our core narrative, so central that Jews everywhere gather yearly to retell, and ideally re-experience, the tale. For me, the power of the ritual retelling and experiential re-enactment of this central story stems not from any knowledge I might have that the story is "real," but rather from the connection I have to the truth of Jews past, present, and future who hold the ideas and ideals encapsulated in the story.

A few years ago, Rabbi David Wolpe raised a storm in the Jewish world by airing the same question my uncle did and concluding, based on available archaeological evidence, that it had never happened.

I think that Rabbi Wolpe is right–the Exodus is not a historical event and the Torah’s depiction is not (and does not in fact seek to be) a factual account. The Torah, after all, is not a book of history, as Professor Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and others have argued, the idea of 'history' comes much later than the Torah itself. Rather, the Torah is sacred story, a telling that forges and shapes the Jewish people. As Rabbi Richard Hirsh writes in the introduction to the Haggadah "A Night of Questions":

Is the story true? No, not if we mean an accurate account of events that happened more or less the way they are told… We do not tell the story of the Exodus because it is historically accurate; we tell the story because it is our story and we need to recover and uncover the eternal ideas that this story conveys.

Put differently, the story of the Exodus may not be historically accurate, but it can still be true. The story is true because it speaks powerfully to us of the experience of oppression, because it embodies God's love for and partnership with the Jewish people, and because it emphasizes God's central commitment to justice and freedom in the world. We, at the seder, feel moved to internalize this sacred story's message – affirming our own distinctive history and identity while committing ourselves to work on behalf of those throughout the world who still are not free. We retell the story every year because its truth teaches, sustains us, and gives us purpose as individuals and as a people.

Read the Full Debate: Does It Matter If the Exodus Happened?

• Rabbi Grossman: Kernels of History Add Flavor to Exodus Story


• Rabbi Waxman: The History Trap


• Rabbi Grossman: The Lack of Evidence Is Not Evidence


• Rabbi Stern: History Without Moses

Explore Beliefnet's Complete Passover Features:

• The Beliefnet Guide to Passover


• Video: A Visit to a Matzah Factory


• Quiz: More Than 'Four Questions' About Passover


• Gallery: Your Favorite Passover Dessert Recipes

As someone who is often still lost in the alphabet soup of Jewish organizations – UJC, WZO, AJC, JCRC, WJC, LOL – I share the frustration of those who find the organizations of Jewish communal life difficult to navigate, perhaps even outmoded. These organizations are large enough that they have to engage in huge fundraising efforts just to keep themselves going. And nimble they are not. It is tempting to look to the recent trend of smaller, more innovative, often local start-ups that are mission-driven. They raise and disburse funds around a narrower set of initiatives and programs such as Chicago's Jewish Council on Urban Affairs or New York's Avodah Jewish Service Corps.

Yet Rabbi Stern is correct that there is still great need for the "legacy" Jewish organizations. First, they have built a tremendous infrastructure to provide services in both the Jewish and wider communities. Second, they are able to speak effectively as "the Jewish voice" on issues of importance to the Jewish community (although frankly, sometimes I wish there were room for more diverse or nuanced voices on some issues). And finally, they often deliver funds to places they are greatly needed like soup kitchens, shelters, and a whole host of programs that may not be "exciting" enough to attract individual donors but which many in our communities depend upon.

While there will always be a tension between the need for smaller, more responsive organizations and larger, better-funded, and more powerful ones, it is important not to lose sight of the vital work those larger organizations conduct.

• Rabbi Grossman: Anti-Semitism--Down But Not Out


• Rabbi Stern: Why Jewish Organizations Matter

“Spare the rod and spoil the child,” a well-known and unfortunate aphorism based on Proverbs 13:24, was recently invoked in the debate about a proposed California law banning spanking children younger than age 3. The bill garnered so much resistance and ridicule that its sponsor, California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, just had to withdraw it. Instead, she substituted a proposal limiting more severe forms of corporal punishment for young children, but left spanking intact as an option for parents.

This is a shame.

I believe much of the opposition to the bill was based on resistance to the government legislating appropriate methods of parenting. But what of the merit based on the bill's content?

Starting from our verse in Proverbs, Jewish law has traditionally been very accepting of mild forms of corporal punishment, especially in the service of education, while making clear that it only applies to mild force (in cases of excessive force the parent or teacher would be criminally liable for any injuries). It should also be noted that most of these legal rulings came out at a time when parents had far more control over their children than we would likely want to give them today--telling them whom to marry for instance, or what trade to take up--and so corporal punishment was broadly employed and accepted. As the 13th century rabbinic commentator Nachmanides observed, “Every man smites his son and strikes his student.”

Also broadly accepted was a husband’s "right" to use physical force against his wife, so much so that domestic abuse cases were, until fairly recently, often overlooked by law enforcement as a "private family matter." Since then, new societal norms have arisen about the treatment of wives and children, as well as new understanding about how corporal punishment can damage young children and lead to more, rather than fewer, behavioral problems. If the rabbis’ rulings about corporal punishment were based on the common practices and assumptions of their times, then our positions should do the same.

Spanking and other forms of corporal punishment only send our children the message that problems should be "solved" through violence. They serve only as an outlet for parents’ frustration with lack of control and don't engage the child’s behavior or its underlying causes. They can also easily slip into more serious forms of abusive behavior as each new infraction is met with a higher level of violence. This is not how we should be parenting, and just because Jewish law permits certain forms of corporal punishment doesn’t mean that they’re right. Let’s all agree that the rod--and our children--should be spared.

Rabbi Stern: Being Honest About Abuse

Rabbi Grossman: Women--Victims of the Domestic Rod