Live by the Sword? Not For Us!

“Face it. There’s nothing we can do about it. We’re destined to live here by our swords.” I’ve heard so many statements like this over the course of the past year. Sometimes, they are accompanied by a geographic or a cultural justification: “We don’t live in Scandinavia. This isn’t the West. This is the Middle East. Here- the only thing they understand is force. Here, you need to learn how to speak  in Arabic.”

Really? Because last I checked, our Torah speaks to us in Hebrew, and in our parsha, it tells us in no uncertain terms: “living by the sword” is the blessing of Esau, not of the children of Jacob. So why should we adopt a foreign tongue and a foreign destiny?

The truth is, though, when you think about, there is a real problem with the relationship between the blessings that the sons of Isaac receive. After all, if Esau is blessed to live by his sword, and if his whole purpose is to “overthrow the yoke” of his brother- does that not force Jacob to live by his sword as well, in order to protect himself? How can Jacob continue to be the “master of his brother”, to enjoy the dew of the heaven and the fat of the earth in his villa, without himself living by his sword? And yet, this is not a blessing that Jacob receives.

Many commentators suggest the very same answer. The source of Jacob’s power is not found in the sword. In fact, the very opposite is true. When will Esau’s sword succeed in overpowering Jacob? The Torah answers the question with a highly enigmatic term: “When ‘tarid’”. Ramban, Sforno, Hizkuni and the Rashbam all explain it in this way: When the time comes that Jacob’s children excessively oppress Esau’s children- that is when Esau will succeed in overthrowing Israel’s rule. In other words, when Israel believes that in order to overcome and deter the enemy, we must adopt their methods, we must “speak to them in Arabic”, to exercise maximal force, and essentially to transform our own hands into the “hands of Esau”- this mistake is precisely what will lead to our downfall. How will that happen? Rashi explains that when we adopt the hands of Esau, they will be able to adopt the “voice of Jacob”- they will cry out in their oppression, and God will listen.

Does all of this mean that Jacob can refrain from the sword altogether, that Israel can repudiate the use of force, and rely on prayers, or Torah study, or miracles? Of course not! After all, Jacob receives a blessing of worldly prosperity just as Esau does. And when he needs to prepare to go to war in order to defend himself, he knows how to do this as well. The Torah demands, and has always demanded, that we live in the real, material world. But in the same breath, it demands that we live in it in a particular way, guided and limited by ethical rules, that we live worthy, moral lives.

Even the great pragmatist Ben Gurion understood that, ultimately, this is the key to our survival.

“Even if we succeed,” He writes. “And I believe that we shall, to bring millions more Jews here, we will be the few against the many. Only if we are faithful to the destiny and the vision of Jewish history we will stand. Judged by our moral and intellectual values, this wonderful, small Jewish nation is no less than the largest of nations…Only by the power of these values will we survive in a world of competition, hatred and oppression. And by their power, it will not be beyond us to show the world a new path, a path of peace, justice, freedom and human solidarity.”

We were not “blessed” to live by our swords. This wasn’t the fate decreed upon us, and it certainly isn’t our destiny. Our blessing and our destiny is to offer a different path than the cold, cruel hands of Esau, of power politics and brute force. Our blessing is the blessing of Abraham, to live a life of righteousness and justice. Our voice is the voice of Jacob. We dare not lose it.

___________________________________________________________________________This is a translation from Hebrew of an article which will appear this Shabbat in Darchei Noam, a new weekly Parsha handout started by Yaya Fink, which aims to provide a platform for moderate, liberal Religious Zionist Torah. Click here to receive the weekly handout online in Whatsapp.