Why They Hate Us - Schmuz from Rabbi Shafier

[muman613]

http://www.theshmuz.com/Parshas_Behaalotchah.html

Why We Hate the Jews
By Rabbi Bentzion Shafier


“When the Holy Ark would travel, Moshe would say, `Arise HASHEM, and let Your foes be scattered. Let those that hate You flee from before You.’” — Bamidbar 10:35

In this posuk, Moshe Rabbeinu is equating hatred of the Jews with hatred of HASHEM. “Let those that hate You flee from before You.”

Rashi is bothered by the comparison. Why does Moshe’s call the enemies of the Jews, “enemies of HASHEM?” Maybe they are just enemies of the Jewish people? Rashi answers, “Anyone who hates Yisroel hates HASHEM.” It seems clear that Rashi assumes that the root cause of anti-Semitism is hatred of G-d.

This concept of attributing hatred of Jews to hatred of HASHEM seems difficult to understand. After all, if we study history, we see many reasons that Jews were hated – and they had nothing to do with hating HASHEM.

The Jealousy Theory

One reason that has been commonly cited for anti-Semitism is simply jealousy. Historically, it was the Jew who brought his economic wisdom and acumen to the various countries he inhabited; it was the Jew who became the adviser and confidante to kings and governors. The Jewish contribution to the cultural, scientific, and technological evolution of civilization is nothing short of astounding. Whether in academics, politics, the media, or the professions — from curing polio to discovering atomic energy, from Hollywood to Wall Street — Jews have had an extraordinary influence on human progress. It seems that in business, politics, art, theatre, science, and social movements, the Jews are at the head. With contributions as diverse as those made by Freud, Spinoza, Trotsky, Kafka, Jerry Seinfeld, and Albert Einstein, the Jew excels. From 1901 till 1990, over 22% of Nobel prizewinners worldwide were Jewish, even though Jews constitute less than ¼ of 1% of the world’s population.

This alone would seem like a logical reason for anti-Semitism. The Jews have proven to be smarter, more enduring, and more successful than the peoples of the lands into which they were exiled.

However, this isn’t the only reason. There are many more.

The Scapegoat Theory

Another cause held responsible for anti-Semitism is the scapegoat theory. To gain power or distract the population from their suffering, a monarch would look for a place to put the blame. What better a place than the eternally despised Jew? By arousing the masses to Jew-hatred, an individual seeking power could use this energy as a galvanizing force to bring together masses of unaffiliated individuals. We certainly have seen many instances of this during the past 2,000 years.

The “We Killed Their G-d” Theory

But there are other reasons that sound plausible. One is deicide – we killed their G-d. The average person would agree that is a sound reason to hate a people. After all, it certainly doesn’t sound very friendly, charitable, and kindly to kill G-d.

The Chosen Nation Theory

Finally, one of the most oft-quoted reasons to hate the Jews is that we make no secret of the fact that we are the Chosen People. As clearly written in the Torah, the Jewish people have been given a unique role to play amongst the nations: to be a light, a guide, and HASHEM’s most beloved nation. Is it any wonder that throughout the millennium we have been hated?

But these aren’t the only reasons. There are many, many reasons presented to hate the Jews. How does Rashi explain that anyone who hates Jews, hates HASHEM? Maybe it is simply one of the reasons above.

The answer – there is no answer

The answer to this question seems to come from the very question itself: why is it that the one constant throughout history is that everyone always hates the Jews? It seems that all things change. Movements come and go; ideologies pass with time; systems of governments evolve. The only thing that doesn’t change is that everyone hates the Jews. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, dominant or oppressed, the Jew is hated – and then blamed for causing that very hatred.

Beginning with Avraham Avinu almost 4,000 years ago, there has been an endless stream of reasons to hate the Jew. And that itself is a most curious phenomenon. In whatever country the Jews found themselves, they were loyal and industrious citizens, yet they were always hated and always for different reasons.

Despised in one county for being too powerful, then trampled in another land for being too weak. . . Segregated into ghettos, then accused of being separatists. . . Accused by capitalists of being communist, hounded by communists because they were “all” capitalists. . . Hated for killing a religion’s G-d, yet equally despised in civilizations that don’t worship that G-d. . . Called “children of the devil” and the devil himself. . . Blamed for the Bubonic Plague and typhus, for poisoning wells and using sacrificial blood for baking matzahs. . .

With such varied and assorted rationales, it seems that there is no shortage of creativity when it comes to hating the Jew. The only consistency in reasoning is: we hate the Jews. Why we hate them doesn’t matter. The cause of the hatred doesn’t matter. The only thing that really matters is that we truly, truly hate them.

What Rashi is teaching us is that there is no plausible reason for anti-Semitism. It can’t be explained because it makes no sense. When you look into every cause, not only doesn’t it answer the question as to why, you quickly find another circumstance where that cause wasn’t present, yet the hatred was still there – as powerful and pervasive as ever.

The Jew represents HASHEM

The pattern that emerges is that there is no logical reason for anti-Semitism until you focus on the real cause – that the Jew represents HASHEM. We are HASHEM’s people. When the gentile looks at a Jew, he sees HASHEM, and that image is not always attractive to him.

This concept carries a huge lesson for us. While we may forget our holiness and our destiny, the gentile nations are always there to remind us: we are different, we are unique, and our role is unlike that of any nation. As is quoted in the name of Rav Chaim Volozhin, “If the Jew doesn’t make kiddush, the goy will make havdalah.”

If we recognize our greatness and live up to our title of the Chosen People, we are then exalted, revered and respected. When we fail to recognize our unique destiny and absorb the cultures of the times, then we are sent reminder after reminder of our unique role amongst the nations – HASHEM’s Chosen People.

For more on this topic please listen to Shmuz #34 - Israel, Exalted Nation or Oppressed People?

[Ari Ben-Canaan]

Amein.
---
"If a Jew doesn’t make Kiddush [to sanctify himself by maintaining a distinctly Jewish lifestyle], then the non-Jew will make Havdalah for him [by making the Jew realize he is truly different]."
- R’ Chaim of Volozhin

One of my favorite quotes.  Accurate and beautiful.

[Hyades]

Very good article! 

[MassuhDGoodName]

Re:  Rabbi Shafier's article

I disagree entirely with the Rabbi's conclusions.

All of the Rabbi's reasons and explanations of why Jews are hated are well analyzed, well written, and true.

Yet his explanations offered, whether alone or taken together, all fall short of confronting the actual source of Jew-Hatred.

I submit there are two reasons for Jew-Hatred, the second of which, and the most important one, is the actual source for all of the Jew-Hatred in the world since the Fall of the 2nd Temple.

The first reason encompasses all but one of the explanations offered by Rabbi Shafier.

First, Jews were hated prior to the 2nd Exile by all the world's peoples because our existence, our reason for being, and our survival, were all living proof and testimony that The One Creator G-d of the Universe was real and that any other gods were false.

All of the reasons put forth by Rabbi Shafier, the one notable exception being his suggestion that "there is no answer for it", fall under this first category.

The second and most important reason, is the Curse which Ha'Shem promised us at Sinai if we chose to reject Him and follow the gods of the pagans.

At Mt. Sinai Ha'Shem offered us two choices:

Our choice to accept Torah and cling to it (which would bring us life, prosperity, and eternal security in Eretz Yisrael) or our choice to reject Torah and embrace foreign gods (which He promised would result in our being literally "vomited out" of the Land of Israel and thereafter forced to wander as despised, hated, insecure, frightened, and persecuted strangers in the lands of the non-Jews).

My conclusion offered, is that since our Exile following the Fall of the 2nd Temple, we have been hated by the nations because we are living under Ha'Shem's Curse.

And today, even though our people have been partially restored in our ancestral homeland, the majority of Jews still do not believe in and follow Ha'Shem.

[joshua]

I don't recall Jew hatred being any different for the most pious Jews or the most unobservant Jews. 

I think the article was spot on.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

An interesting subject.   Kol Hakavod for this find, Muman.   Just to bolster what the Rabbi wrote, I have been told by other rabbis that the root of the word Sinai (as in, Mt. Sinai) is "sina" which means hatred.  And that enduring the hatred and/or jealousy of the nations was a naturally inherent component of our acceptance of God's relevatory truth at Mt. Sinai, while this phenomenon of Jew-hatred really began there and all stems from that acceptance of our unique role - similar to what the Rabbi is saying in the article.

I would also add that my Talmud rabbi has expressed to me that there is no way to make sense of antisemitism as a historical phenomenon in rational terms, especially as we see it expressed in our time in the 20th and 21st century.   Assuming similarly about the past antisemitism, he states as well that there really is no answer for this question.   

He suggests that Chazal characterized the Jew-hatred similarly in their day and also saw this question as one of unanswerable proportions, citing the famous phrase of Chazal, "Esav hates Yaakov" as their method of expressing this notion:  It is an ontological truth we cannot fully grasp but which God implanted within the universe.  The world functions accordingly with this principle almost as a law of nature.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Re:  Rabbi Shafier's article

I disagree entirely with the Rabbi's conclusions.

All of the Rabbi's reasons and explanations of why Jews are hated are well analyzed, well written, and true.

Yet his explanations offered, whether alone or taken together, all fall short of confronting the actual source of Jew-Hatred.

I submit there are two reasons for Jew-Hatred, the second of which, and the most important one, is the actual source for all of the Jew-Hatred in the world since the Fall of the 2nd Temple.

The first reason encompasses all but one of the explanations offered by Rabbi Shafier.

First, Jews were hated prior to the 2nd Exile by all the world's peoples because our existence, our reason for being, and our survival, were all living proof and testimony that The One Creator G-d of the Universe was real and that any other gods were false.

All of the reasons put forth by Rabbi Shafier, the one notable exception being his suggestion that "there is no answer for it", fall under this first category.

The second and most important reason, is the Curse which Ha'Shem promised us at Sinai if we chose to reject Him and follow the gods of the pagans.

At Mt. Sinai Ha'Shem offered us two choices:

Our choice to accept Torah and cling to it (which would bring us life, prosperity, and eternal security in Eretz Yisrael) or our choice to reject Torah and embrace foreign gods (which He promised would result in our being literally "vomited out" of the Land of Israel and thereafter forced to wander as despised, hated, insecure, frightened, and persecuted strangers in the lands of the non-Jews).

My conclusion offered, is that since our Exile following the Fall of the 2nd Temple, we have been hated by the nations because we are living under Ha'Shem's Curse.

And today, even though our people have been partially restored in our ancestral homeland, the majority of Jews still do not believe in and follow Ha'Shem.

I'm not sure I agree entirely.

Certainly we are punished for our sins collectively, and we are exiled because of breaking the covenant with Hashem and eschewing the commandments and righteousness.  However, the nations have free will, and this may be a case similar to that of the Egyptians.   Indeed we were ordained to go into Egyptian exile, and slavery in Egypt, but the Egyptians sinned (and were held accountable) for their abuse of us as slaves.   They still had a choice in how to act and chose the wrong way.  Similarly, we were ordained to be exiled for our sins, but do you really think the shoah was a natural and acceptable expression of gentile-to-Jew relations?  I think to the contrary, and similarly about the phenomenon at the root of the shoah and Israel-hatred of today - that to embrace the irrational and illogical antisemitism, especially in today's world where rational and scientific thought has come to dominate the civilized world's mentality and ethos, to me is a terrible sin that God has not ordained for the nations but which they choose wrongly to embrace.   

Granted I said that it's based on an ontological law, but that only gives an explanation for our confusion about why gentiles choose the wicked philosophy in those cases in which they do.  It does not say that God is revoking their free will or causing them to hate us.  It just explains the bigger picture of how this thing could be prevalent in today's world given its reality.

However, you raise some interesting points worth looking into.