Mountains of Truth, Mountains of Lies

Parashat Re’eh recounts Israel’s encounter with two mountains, Har Gerizim of Blessing and Har Eival of Curses. God invites Israel to choose the sacred one. In the Bible setting, there is a connected set of opposites: blessings/curses, truth/lies, life/death.

 I want to explore here what the Har Gerizim/Har Eival story sheds light on the historic truth of the Bible; how denial of historical truth is a curse; and how the curse is threatening the life of the Jewish people, and the people of Israel and their neighbors alike.

Some details of Jewish history are undeniable, except by those with prejudiced motives. These essential elements include:

• The Israelites emerged in the Middle East, understood themselves as having a holy mission to God and humanity.

• In ancient times, they built their national life in Israel, which they regarded as sacred. In this consecrated land, there were higher orders of sacredness, including temples.

• The Jewish presence in Israel persisted even in the worst of times, though at many points, a large part or even the majority dwelt in exile.

• In ancient times, there were exiles and returns. The belief of the Israelites in exile was that they would always return to their national homeland.

• In modern times, that hope continued, and after devastating persecutions, at least half of the Jewish diaspora has returned from all over the world. An Indigenous people has re-established itself in some of its ancient territory.

• The Jews of today are a continuation of the nation of Israel depicted in ancient times.

These facts are not contestable by anyone committed to historical truth.

It should be acknowledged that parts of the sacred history conveyed in the Bible may be seen as matters of faith. For example, did God speak to Moses on a mountaintop in the wilderness (Exodus 19:20, JPS)? Some biblical stories, such as Adam and Eve (Genesis 2–3, JPS), may have been understood, even in ancient times, as sacred myths. The story of Jonah may have been viewed as a parable. The story of King David may be read as a docudrama—based scrupulously on actual events, including embarrassing ones for David and Israel, but with some of the dialogue based on a plausible recreation of events, not strict quotation. The return from Babylon and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, described in books like Nehemiah (e.g., Nehemiah 2:17–20, JPS), are conveyed in the first person by leaders of the time and are likely highly factual.

In light of these examples, we do not have to read all of the Jewish Bible as an attempt to portray literal historical truth. We can, however, derive enough from the text and its confirmation by other methods to arrive at some historical facts that no reasonable person can dispute. The fundamentals outlined at the beginning of this piece, however, are indisputably true, not a matter of choosing a “narrative” based on personal or political preferences.

Now let us focus on Parashat Re’eh. We can verify some basics of that story. Ancient Israelites did inhabit the land in which the mountains are located and did feel a sacred connection with them. Part of the ancient Israelite nation included Ephraim and Manasseh, some of whom came to be called Samaritans. They believed Har Gerizim, not Har Moriah, was the rightful location for the central temple (Deuteronomy 11:29, JPS; John 4:20). The Samaritan Pentateuch, closely aligned with the Jewish Torah, supports this, and both are corroborated by ancient texts like the Silver Scrolls (dating to the 7th century BCE) and the Dead Sea Scrolls (2nd century BCE–1st century CE). Samaritans continue their temple sacrifices on Har Gerizim to this day.

The significance of Har Gerizim and Har Eival has been confirmed by archaeology. Excavations have uncovered a Samaritan temple on Har Gerizim from the 5th century BCE (Magen, Mount Gerizim Excavations, 2008). Some archaeologists debate inscriptions related to Har Eival as a site for blessings and curses (Deuteronomy 27:4–8, JPS), with findings like the “Ebal curse tablet” under scrutiny (Stripling et al., Heritage Science, 2023).

Parashat Re’eh includes Deuteronomy 12:5–11 (JPS), which discusses building a temple where God directs. Mainstream Judaism identifies this as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Parts of the Second Temple, such as the Western Wall, still exist, and underground areas can be visited. The City of David excavations reveal extensive Israelite life during the monarchic periods (Shiloh, Excavations at the City of David, 1984).

Genetic testing of Jewish populations—Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi—confirms a common Middle Eastern origin. Samaritans share genetic markers with some Jewish Cohanim, potentially tracing back to biblical times (Shen et al., Human Genetics, 2004). The Jewish people’s biological descent and theological continuity with ancient Israelites, including their connection to Israel and Jerusalem, are undeniable.

The generation-to-generation cultural chain is so strong that Hebrew, the language of the scriptures, is the main language of modern Israel and used in liturgy worldwide. Hebrew was preserved in the Bible, Mishnah, rabbinical commentaries, and daily prayers. Some Jewish diaspora communities even spoke Hebrew in everyday life.

Har Gerizim and Har Eival lie outside the Green Line. If peace is established with the Palestinians, arrangements should ensure Jewish access to these sacred sites or place them under Jewish state control. Compromise is necessary for peace. The Al-Aqsa Mosque will remain undisturbed on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in mainstream Judaism. Large parts of ancient Israel may fall under others’ political sovereignty. However, Jewish survival and peace depend on all sides respecting these incontestable historical facts. While they do not predetermine a full resolution to modern complexities, without their acknowledgment, there can be no shalom in the Holy Land.

While genuine scholars are able to verify more and more of the fundamental historical truths of the Bible, the denialists of those truths are louder and louder. We hear contentions, even among some academics, that Israel was not Jewish in ancient times or that Jesus was a “Palestinian” or “Palestinian Jew.” These claims are absurd. Jesus was a Jew living in Judea, as the region was called by the Romans (e.g., Matthew 2:1). The term “Palestine” was not used by the Romans until after the Bar Kokhba revolt (circa 135 CE), a century after Jesus’ death. Scholar Geza Vermes has demonstrated that Jesus’ teachings were fundamentally Jewish, primarily directed toward Jews (Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 1973). There were no Arabs in the land during his time, as the Arab language and identity emerged later, and Islam arose approximately 600 years later in the 7th century CE.

The denial of history, in the interest of delegitimizing Israel, extends to more recent events. Some hostile propaganda claims that modern-day Israel is a “colonial settler state.” Yet the Europeans who went there were not extensions of their own countries but refugees escaping persecution. Among the Jews of Israel, more are refugees from the Islamic world and Ethiopia than from Europe. It is an incontestable fact that Jews were second-class citizens in the Islamic world, frequently persecuted. After the 1948 war, Jews almost entirely disappeared from the Arab world. The Arab minority in Israel is robust, constituting twenty percent of the population. All have constitutionally guaranteed rights as individual citizens of Israel and enjoy rights as a national minority.

Anyone with a genuine interest in Imperialism as it impacts the contemporary Middle East would be concerned not only about the legacy of European colonialism, but the past and ongoing impact of Islamic imperialism, Iranian Imperialism, Soviet or Russian Imperialism, Turkish Imperialism, and Chinese Imperialism. Anyone with a genuine interest in Imperialism would notice that the Jewish position is exceptionally modest: that only the holy land belongs to the Jewish people. The Israelites are defined by the Bible as the smallest of nations, and their sacred destiny is to inspire others—not to conquer them. Within the holy land, non-Israelites are to be treated with equal justice.

As for the “Nakba,” reasonable people question and debate what precisely happened once the 1948 Israeli-Arab war started. How many Arabs left Israel to avoid conflict while Arab armies attempted to destroy it, or how many were encouraged or pushed to leave by Israel? What is incontestable, however, is that Israel unequivocally accepted the two-state solution in 1947, while the Arab world rejected it and attempted to destroy Israel (UN General Assembly Resolution 181, 1947). The reality—not a debatable interpretation—is that the Arab world rejected the two-state solution and sought to annihilate Israel. Had they succeeded in their military invasion, Jewish civilization would have been effectively ended. Had the Arab world accepted the two-state solution in 1947–48, there would have been a Palestinian state. Israel accepted it. Israel, in its Declaration of Independence, had also unequivocally committed itself to welcoming into its creation all of the Arab residents within its borders.

Some assert that the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel was resistance to Israeli activities on the Temple Mount or in the West Bank. Gazan leaders, such as Hamas, have always made it clear that their objective is to destroy Israel, and this objective has been restated in the plainest and most brutal terms to this day. They have collaborated with Hezbollah and Iran to achieve this goal.

Some claim that Gaza has been an “open-air prison” due to Israeli imperialism. In fact, Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005 (Ariel Sharon’s Disengagement Plan, 2005). The people of Gaza could have used their de facto independence to pursue peace and prosperity. Instead, as Douglas Murray has noted, they chose to “build down, rather than up,” diverting billions in foreign aid to construct terror tunnels (Murray, The Spectator, 2023).

There are rights and wrongs on both sides of the Middle East conflict. Israel is not entirely innocent, as it is composed of fallible humans operating under existential threats and sometimes yielding to the human susceptibility to prioritize their own interests while misunderstanding or disregarding those of others. The Jewish historical sensibility has, from the outset, been self-critical. In the Deuteronomy episode, we see a choice between a mountain of blessings and a mountain of curses (Deuteronomy 11:26–29, JPS). Israel is not regarded as beyond human failing and is warned that it may backslide from the path of righteousness and suffer for it (Deuteronomy 28:15–68, JPS). The Israel of ancient times had a duty to uphold the principles of the Jewish people to defend itself and respect the rights of others. So does the Israel of today. But it is threatened by curses from a mountain of lies, all aimed at delegitimizing Israel and setting the stage—indeed, issuing the battle cry—for its elimination.

Parashat Re’eh takes place in the Wilderness but it looks upwards to a mountain of blessings and forward to the promised land. As in all of Deuteronomy, it urges us to remember the realities of our historical experience.

We must remember always that our tradition is infused with honest and searching inquiry and debate in the pursuit of truth. We must be inspired by the fact that we have many times emerged from times of uncertainty and menace, even as the smallest of people. We must try to take comfort from the many Psalms that describe the petitioner as beset by slanders—even as he climbs up the Temple steps, to the top of the mountain, seeking to affirm life, the blessings and life, rising up in body and spirit as part of a people that has also sought a communion with the Eternal.