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PROCEEDINGS of

The Second International Symposium of the Project of Young Scholars

Sponsored by The Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Monotheistic Religions (CISMOR),

And The School of Theology, Doshisha University, Kyoto Hosted by

The Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

“THEOCRACY” AND “NATION” IN JEWISH THOUGHT: PAST AND PRESENT

Held at the Hebrew University, Rabin Building room 2001

December 30, 2013

Edited by Ada Taggar-Cohen School of Theology, Doshisha University

;Jf@B )gPBzeh�&�(~CISMOR�

Center for Interdisciplinary Study of the Monotheistic Religions (CISMOR) Doshisha University

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CONTENTS

Preface 5 Greetings by Prof. Reuven Amitai, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 6 Part I 8 Ada Taggar-Cohen

Introduction: “Divine Boundaries” – Ethnicity and Divine Rule in the Biblical World 9

Warren Zev Harvey Rabbi Isaac Abrabanel on Anarchism and Theocracy 16

Paul Mendes-Flohr Monotheism and its Discontents 23

Fumio Ono Crisis of Tradition and Love for an Unredeemed World: Reading Kafka with Benjamin, Scholem, and Buber 28

Part II 39 Matan Oram

Buber's Philosophy of Dialogue – Community and Rational Reconstruction 40 Kotaro Hiraoka

Martin Bubers’ understanding of Nationality – People and Land in Modern Jewish Thought 47

Sam Shonkoff Bodily Immediacy and the Body Politic in Buber’s Social Thought 56

Part III 70 Orr Scharf

“If one translates a verse literally, he is a liar”: On Dual Loyalties in the Buber-Rosenzweig Translation of the Bible 71

Yishai Glasner Rabbi Judah Halevi’s Best Constitution – Anarchy, Theocracy or Divine Nomocracy 80

Addendum 88 Paul Mendes-Flohr

The Politics of Decency: Martin Buber’s Vision of Arab-Jewish Rapprochement 89

Contributors 94 Program of the Symposium 97 Participants 98

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Preface

A day before the end of the year 2013 we held a second symposium on Jewish thought with a substantial group of scholars affiliated with several universities in three different countries. Sponsored by Doshisha University and hosted by the Hebrew University in one of its beautiful buildings dedicated to research in Jewish Studies, this symposium brought together established as well as aspiring scholars, devoted to the study of Jewish thought of different periods. I wish to thank our colleagues Profs. Warren Zev Harvey and Paul Mendes-Flohr for their constant support of this specific project. We hope to be able to continue our scholarly cooperation, even though the period for the current grant expires in March 2014. We have managed to advance relations between the Hebrew University and Doshisha University since the first joint academic agreement signed in 2005, through various academic channels. Hebrew University scholars have been invited to Doshisha every year, these last ten years; some came to participate in conferences and others stayed for longer visits lasting one to three months for research purposes. Several groups of students from Doshisha came on study tours, and graduate students participated in symposia as well as in a short term of study. We hope to continue and further develop these relations in the future so that other scholars from Japan will also be able to spend research periods at The Hebrew University. This symposium, titled “Theocracy” and “Nation” in Jewish Thought: Past and Present, is a continuation of our first symposium held on August 27, 2012 at the Hebrew University. In the first symposium we focused on the interpretations of traditions in the writings of Jewish thinkers, and the proceedings of the papers delivered were edited and translated into Japanese and published in March 2013 by CISMOR.

The second symposium, the proceedings of which are presented here, was dedicated to the topics of “Theocracy and Nation” and is divided into three sections including papers starting with the Ancient Near East, moving to Buber and Abravanel, and Buber’s monotheistic thoughts and following on with contemporaries of Buber such as Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem. The second session was entirely dedicated to political aspects in Buber’s thought, while in the third session as unfortunately Ms. Aiko Kanda who was to have presented her paper was unable to make the trip to Israel due to health reasons, we had two papers: one devoted to the Buber-Rosenzweig translation of the Hebrew Bible, and the other to Rabbi Judah Halevi.

During the morning session the Dean of the Humanities of the Hebrew University Prof. Reuven Amitai came to greet our joint symposium. His words follow this preface. I wish to thank all the presenters for their stimulating papers and the ensuing discussions. The papers are hereby presented in the order of the sessions. As our symposium largely touched Martin Buber’s political thought, I have chosen to accept an additional short paper by Prof. Paul Mendes-Flohr which appears as an addendum, and discusses the relevancy of Buber’s ideas to the current state of Jews-Arabs relations in the Israel-Palestine context. Editor: Prof. Ada Taggar-Cohen Faculty of Theology, Doshisha University Kyoto, January 30, 2014

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Greetings by Prof. Reuven Amitai Dean of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem I am very pleased to be here this morning. This is the third time that I have greeted a group of scholars in this on-going series, and I am very pleased about the relationship between the Hebrew University and Doshisha University, and particularly CISMOR. It is a key subject here at our university, religious studies in general and the study of monotheism in particular. We are constantly looking for ways to have international connections; that is very much a part of scholarly endeavor, whether with students or with colleagues, whether it is having students come here to study, or sending our own students off to study. Our connections with Doshisha in general and in this particular program are very important. One also has to look at it in another context, and that is the context of our academic connections with Japan; we have Japanese Studies at this university, we teach Japanese language, we at this point have just one professor who is completely devoted to Japan, full time professor, we have retirees, we have other people who teach part-time, and we fully expect to make one more appointment, perhaps more, in Japanese studies. Japan interests us for many reasons: the traditional culture and history, and again modern concerns, both interest us greatly as part of our interest in Asia in general. It is clear that Asia will become more and more part of our focus in the next few years, but we always try to combine three things in our study of Asia: not just the study of what is going on today, which is very important, but also the great traditional cultures of Asia, and also the important Asian languages, and we place a great deal of emphasis on encountering foreign cultures through learning the language, including Japanese. We have had some great success; some people have come out of our university speaking Japanese very well, and we look forward to continuing that. We also look forward to hosting people from Japan with interest in what goes on here, in Jewish Studies, in Middle Eastern Studies, and in other areas which we put an emphasis on, and we would love to increase our dialogue with our Japanese colleagues. I can just say in my own field, of medieval Islamic history, that I’m very much aware of important work that is done by our Japanese colleagues, some of which has been translated into English and other European languages; much of which is beyond our reach but we know it is a first-class work. You are part of an on-going and ever strengthening chain of scholarly and intellectual contacts with Japan; it falls both way across Asia, on a number of important issues in humanities, and of course in other matters too, but we are concentrating on the humanities. And it kind of reminds of Asia in the 13th and 14th centuries, when Asia was opened for a while between east and west Asia, under the Mongols. The Mongols, of course, had their disadvantages: it wasn’t always pleasant to be conquered by the Mongols, but they did open up Asia, and people and ideas moved back and forth, and this is the period we are in now. We are as far away from each other in Asia as we can be, Israel and Japan, so I’m very pleased that this symposium gives expression to all the continuity and connections within Asia itself. We hope you will enjoy the rest of the day and your stay here, and we look forward to seeing you again at the Hebrew University.

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“THEOCRACY” AND “NATION” IN JEWISH THOUGHT:

PAST AND PRESENT

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Proceedings of the Second Symposium of the Project of Young Scholars

PAPERS

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PA

PERS Part I

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Introduction: “Divine Boundaries”–Ethnicity and Divine Rule in the Biblical World

Ada Taggar-Cohen

Abstract

The Hebrew Bible suggests at one point the rejection of a human leader’s rule, in the case of Gideon (Jud. 8:23), which is later revoked by the Israelites who are asking for a king (1Sam. 8). These two occasions fall under the period demarcated by the scriptures as the “time of the rule of Judges,” who are described as short-term leaders chosen by the divine to deliver the people of Israel from the hands of their enemies. Buber regarded this period of pre-monarchy as the “idealized divine kingship,” thus a time of direct rule of God. He assumed that such a way of governing could have existed only before kingship appeared. However, Ancient Near Eastern evidence of relationship between the divine and the priesthood, described in Hittite administrative texts, may suggest a concept of direct divine rule within a society governed by a king.

Most of today’s papers will tackle Buber’s thoughts in the context of modern

philosophical and political spheres. I am not an expert on his work, nor do I have

much experience in “philosophical thinking,” but as a scholar of the Hebrew Bible in

its Ancient Near Eastern (=ANE) context I have encountered some of Buber’s ideas

and would like to reflect on them briefly, as an introduction of sorts for the sessions to

come.

In his book “מלכות שמים” (“Kingship of God” 1), Martin Buber seeks to defend

his interpretation of the direct rule of the divine in pre-kingdom ancient Israel. He

identifies such a situation in tribal society, before the rule of kings was established.

Reading Buber’s interpretations half a century after they were first published, the state

of research in Biblical studies and Ancient Near Eastern studies enables me to add

another view to his idealized “divine kingship”, but from a somewhat different angle.

The original concept of rule in the ANE is a divine one. A common concept

was that the great gods divided the world among themselves, and later the lands were

divided again between the lesser gods.2 The Hebrew Bible broaches this idea in two

important texts: 1) Deut. 32:8-9 determines that “When the Most High (עליון) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 The volume that was available to me was the Hebrew translation: מרדכי מרטין בובר, מלכות שמים – עיונים בספרי שופטים ושמואל, מהדורה שלישית, מוסד ביאליק ,ירושלים (1965).2 For this practice using lots, see: Ada Taggar-Cohen, “The Casting of Lots among the Hittites, in Light of Ancient Near Eastern Parallels,” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies 29 (2002), pp. 97-103.

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inherited the nations, as he separated between Humans, and set up boundaries

according to the number of gods (I read with Qumran), YHWH’s portion (was) his

people, Jacob was his land of inheritance.” The second place is in Judges 11:23-24,

where Jephetah says that the divine is responsible for allotting the people their land in

war.3 The relation with the divine world in the entire ANE including in the Hebrew

Bible, is based on whether or not the gods are satisfied with the way in which they are

worshiped, which depends on the obligations their peoples have towards them.

Buber’s interpretation of the relations with God was based on his

understanding of the biblical berit, ברית “covenant” concept. Buber’s words:4 “God

has chosen the people of Israel in order to lead this people, who is his people, to this

country, which is his country from amongst all countries and to tie them up together,”

express the reasoning for the relations of the people to this land and to the specific

burden they carry towards their god.

Buber defines the berit as “a stable legal-sacral relationship,” which is

established at a certain historical moment. It is (ברית-סיני) the Sinai Covenant that he

refers to all along as a royal covenant ( לךמ with the divine. However, for him (ברית-

the relationship in the shape of direct rule of the divine is a matter of the pre-

monarchy period only. While I agree with him that we find a wish for a clear direct

divine rule in the Hebrew Bible, I suggest, in light of my study of ANE texts and

particularly the Hittite ones, that direct divine rule stood as a separate category within

a monarchic rulership.

As Buber would agree, ancient people throughout the ANE understood the

conquering of land to be the result of divine choice. Thus boundaries were the result

of divine support or punishment of a certain group of people. During the second

millennium BCE boundaries shifted between small-scale kingdoms that were

incorporated into large empires,5 and relations were established on a legal basis in

terms equivalent to the Hebrew word berit. The terms used for these relations of

loyalty were similar to those of master and servant. The terms riksu or rikiltu in

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!3 Jud. 11:24: “Do you not hold what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So we will hold on to everything that the LORD our God has given us to possess.” מרטין בובר, בין עם לארצו : עיקרי תולדותיו של רעיון, מהדורה שניה, הוצאת שוקן , ירושלים- תל אביב, 1984: ע‘ 10. 45 For a detailed description of international political relations in the second millennium see Mario Liverani, International Relations in the Ancient Near East, 1600-1100 BC (Hampshire-NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).

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Akkadian, and išḫiul- in Hittite are familiar to scholars of the Hebrew Bible.6 I cannot

elaborate here, but will proceed directly to the Hittite usage to explain my suggestion

regarding the concept of “direct divine rule.”

Hittite texts were the product of royal administration and were kept in archives

and libraries, mainly in the Hittite capital Ḫattuša; they include the largest number of

texts of loyalty-relations in the entire corpus of the ANE. Since we are dealing with a

royal corpus, much of the texts relate to the king and to the Hittite elite. Among these

texts, apart from the large corpus of rituals, two genres in particular expose the

relations with the divine world: the texts of service-loyalty, which are termed

“Instruction-texts” by Hittitologists, and the corpus of prayers. I will start with the

“Instruction-texts”.

The purpose of the “Instruction-texts” was to obtain the loyalty of different

administrative functionaries through a written document that instructed them on how

to fulfill their obligations, and was accompanied by taking a loyalty oath. It should be

emphasized that these texts were termed by the Hittites with the same word used for

any treaty or contracted relations of loyalty - išḫiul- translated as “obligation, duty,

regulation, law, treaty” and is derived from the verb išḫai- “to bind, wrap, obligate,

impose upon.”7 Within this category there are a few texts aimed at “Temple

Personnel,” one of which is the “Instructions to Temple Personnel”(ITP), concerning

those working in the temples in Ḫattuša.8 This text gives instructions to the personnel,

including different categories of priests, on how they should live and act inside and

outside the temple. One of the most important things demanded of them was to

maintain their own purity, and to guard the sacredness of the house of the gods. This

maintenance included rules of righteousness, correct conduct of not cheating and not

stealing. The law under which the instructions were given was a royal one, that is to

say, the king’s law, but the law that the temple personnel had to obey was a divine

one. The priests would be punished by the gods if they committed a sin. Sin, in Hittite

waštul-, is an act against the will of the gods. Although it is clear that the king issued

these rules for maintaining the gods’ worship, the priests were directly under divine

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!6 For the latest description and discussion on the biblical berit see my article to which I will refer in the continuation: Ada Taggar-Cohen, “Biblical covenant and Hittite išḫiul reexamined,” Vetus Testamentum 61 (2011), pp. 461-488. 7 J. Puhvel, Hittite Etymological Dictionary vol. 2 (1984), pp. 398-403. 8 CTH 264. An edition of the text and its relevancy to Hittite religious beliefs and administration of the temples is found in Ada Taggar-Cohen, Hittite Priesthood (Texte der Hethiter 26, Heidelberg: Winter, 2006).

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rule and judgment. I will quote a few passages of the text in order to illustrate this

point.

First, the relations between a human and a god are defined as similar to

master-servant relations among humans:9

Is the soul10 of a human and of the gods any different? No!

[Th]is certainly what (it is) not!

The soul, however, is one and the same. When a slave is present in front of his

master, he (is) washed, and he has dressed clean (clothes). Either he gives him

to eat, or he gives him to drink. (ITP§2, 21-24)

As these relations relate to the obligations of the servant, there follows a warning of

what will happen if they are not honored:

Is the soul of the gods any different? If at some point the slave angers his

master, either they kill him, or they may maltreat (=injure) his nose, his eyes

(and) his ears. Or he (=master) [will sei]ze him, his wife, his children, his

brother, his sister, his in-laws, his family, either his male slave or his female

slave. They (may) only call him over, and they (may) do [no]thing to him.

But, whenever he dies, he will not die alone, his family is together with him.

(ITP§2, 28-33)

In the case of angering the divine, punishment is by their hand:

If [som]eone angers the soul of a go[d], does the god seek it from that person

alone? Does he not seek it from his wife, [his children] his [s]eed, his family,

his male slaves, his female slaves, his cattle, his sheep, and together with (his)

grain. (Along) with everything he will ruin him. Be ver[y mu]ch afraid

regarding a matter of a god. (ITP§3, 34-38)

When afterwards it acts, the will of the gods (is) strong. It is not fast to seize

but once it seizes it never lets go. Be very much afraid (regarding) the will of

the gods! (ITP§7, 26-29)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!9 For the text see Taggar-Cohen, Hittite priesthood, pp. 40ff. 10 This word in Hittite ištanza(n)- can also be translated as “mind,” or “spirit”. See J. Puhvel, Hittite Etymological Dictionary Vol. 2 (1984), pp. 468-471.

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Unlike other functionaries in the kingdom, in regard to the priests, their loyalty oath

to the king is not mentioned in the text, although it was their duty to serve the gods in

his name.11 It was as if the world of the priesthood was subjected to the world of the

gods in which they served them in person. This text makes way for a possible

interpretation of the biblical berit between God and his “kingdom of priests”. The

document of the išḫiul- is parallel to the book, sepher of the berit.12 The instructions

in the išḫiul- in the second person plural are parallel to the commandments. Also,

while the gods in the Hittite case and YHWH in the biblical case are the de facto

rulers, there is in both cases a mediator: the Hittite king and the leader Moses, or in

other biblical cases Joshua, Gideon, Judges and the kings.

According to Hittite legal thought the gods chose the king as their deputy, to

rule their land. He was judged by the way in which he fulfilled his service to the gods.

A Hittite king would term himself as the god’s priest - in Hittite SANGA or šankunni-

and would be sure to take part in all the important festivals in the temples of the holy

cities in the vicinity of the capital Ḫattuša. His relationship to the gods as the main

priest of the country is manifested in the royal prayers. A short example of such

prayers may be seen in the case where the country is in trouble, and the king cries out

to his god:13

§2' (l.A i 1'-5') Only Ḫatti is a true, pure land for you gods, and only in the

land of Ḫatti do we repeatedly give you pure, great, fine sacrifices. Only in the

land of Ḫatti do we establish respect for you gods.

§3' (l.A i 6'-8') Only you gods know by your divine spirit (=will) that no one

had ever taken care of your temples as we have.

Or another prayer by Muwatalli II king of Ḫatti, the king speaks of himself as the servant:14

§2 (i 10-19) He says as follows: Sun-god of Heaven and Sun-goddess of

Arinna, my lady, Queen, my lady, queen of Ḫatti, Storm-god, king of Heaven,

my lord, Ḫebat Queen, my lady, Storm-god of Ḫatti, king of Heaven, lord of

Ḫatti, my lord, Storm-god of Ziplanda, my lord, beloved son of the Storm-god,

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 While all Hittite išḫiul- Instruction texts were accompanied by rituals of loyalty-oath sworn to the king, that specific oath is not mentioned in regard to the priesthood. 12 On that see Taggar-Cohen, “Biblical Covenant,” above note 5. 13 From the prayer of king Arnuwanda and queen Ašmunikal CTH 375. For the translation see Itamar Singer, Hittite Prayers (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002) pp. 40ff. 14 Itamar Singer, ibid, pp. 86-87.

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lord of the Land of Ḫatti, Seri and Ḫurri, all the male gods and the female

gods, all the mountains and the rivers of the Land of Ḫatti, my lords. Divine

lords - Sun-goddess of Arinna, my lady, and all the gods of the Land of Ḫatti,

my lords - whose priest I am, who have conferred upon me, from among all

others, the rulership over Ḫatti.

The divine world in Ḫatti was conceived as a higher reflection of the earthly kingdom.

In the line of hierarchy the king was a mortal who would become a minor deity after

his death. In essence he represents the land, and the priesthood is his extension to

serve the gods. The king himself was bound to the gods. In one prayer we find a most

fascinating phrasing of the relations between the god and the world he rules:

In the circumference of heav[en] and [e]arth, you alone,

O Sun-god, you are the (source of) light // O Sun-god, mighty king

Son of Nikkal! The land’s custom (and) law,

you alone keep establishing // O Sun-god, Mighty king,

among the gods, you alone are widely worshiped //

and the strong ‘bond’ to you alone is given15 //

A just lord of governance you are. (CTH 372: A i 14-21)

As can be seen from the above examples the king as a priest and the priests as a

professional group assigned by the king to their positions, worshiped the gods and had

special relations with them, and were directly judged by them. Human beings were

directly bound to the gods.16

To conclude my short introduction: Buber has, according to my

understanding, opened the discussion for direct divine rule or “theocracy” in the

Hebrew Bible, by seeing it only in the pre monarchic period. He was unable to find an

example outside of Israel where the divine directly ruled the people. The Hittite

example of the priestly group could have served as an interesting example for him.17

However, as we look at the Hittite texts of išḫiul-, we cannot really speak of a rule of

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!15 The word translated here as ‘bond’ is the Hittite noun išḫiya- that is very rarely found in such a context, but is a clear depiction for the relationship with the god. 16 Hittite prayers as biblical prayers, present very direct personal relations between the believer (in Hittite always royals) and their gods. For more such comparison see Moshe Greenberg, “Hittite Royal Prayers and Biblical Petitionary Psalms,” in: Klaus Seybold and Erich Zenger (eds.), Neue Wege der Psalmenforschung Für Walter Beyerlin (Freiburg-Basel-Wien: Herder, 1994), pp. 15-27. 17 This text was already translated in 1935 but its importance not yet understood as an išḫiul-text.

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god without any leadership that serves as a mediator to start with, since the priesthood

was part of the royal system. Reviewing the Hittite išḫiul- texts in correlation with

other ANE texts and the Bible, leads me to believe that Buber’s ideal of divine rule

could have existed in a royal system and not necessarily in a pre-royal one. The

special relations, according to Buber, of “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” with

the divine (Exodus 19:6), has parallels in a system in which a royal priesthood has a

similar relationship, including duties to be fulfilled and punishment to be delivered.18

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!18 For more on the Hittite priesthood and Biblical priesthood see Ada Taggar-Cohen, “Covenant Priesthood: Cross-Cultural Legal and Religious Aspects of Biblical and Hittite Priesthood” in: Priests and Levites in History and Tradition, (eds.) Mark Leuchter and Jeremy Hutton (Ancient Israel and Its Literature series; Atlanta: SBL, 2011), pp. 11-24.