Our Ancestors’ Vineyard

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The Bible is replete with dramatic confrontations: God’s engagement with Adam after the first sin, and Cain, after the second; the battle of words and wills between Moses and Pharaoh; left-handed Ehud and obese King Eglon; Samuel and Saul after the battle with Amalek; Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel.

But the one that has always resonated most in my imagination, because of the high drama, and courage, and clarity of language, is the showdown between the prophet Elijah and King Ahab in the vineyard of Naboth. As told in the first book of Kings, chapter 21, Naboth owned an ancestral vineyard that Ahab desired. Because it was a meaningful part of his family legacy, Naboth declines to trade or sell it, despite Ahab’s entreaties. Ahab is despondent. Seeing him so, his wife, Jezebel, reminds him that he is, after all, the King, and a law unto himself. She devises a treacherous plan pursuant to which Naboth will be falsely accused of treason and blasphemy, and forthwith stoned to death. She advises Ahab that Naboth is dead and the King may now seize the vineyard.

And so he does.

Shortly afterward, King Ahab is strolling in his newly acquired vineyard when the prophet Elijah, sent and scripted by God, confronts him with three words: הרצחת וגם ירשת?  “Have you murdered and also inherited?”

Elijah is challenging and defying an all-powerful King, with a really nasty wife, who has shown a propensity for murder. Elijah has no army and no way to resist or prevail, if opposed. Indeed, later in his career he is forced to hide for three years in a cave to avoid being assassinated. But he is right, he is on a divine mission, and he is unafraid to speak truth to power.

Elijah’s voice is the familiar, resonant voice of prophetic morality, the morality that has been adopted in Western culture as the paradigm. According to that morality, evil should not be rewarded, or even tolerated. Miscreants should not be heroes. Foul deeds should be deplored and censured, and perpetrators should be condemned and punished.

Unless the perpetrators are Palestinians and the victims are Jews.

In that case, the world seems to take Ahab’s side. Then murder is excused as justified, and the world clamors for it to be rewarded. Did they kill 1,200 innocent men, women, and children in their homes and at a music festival? Well, then, why not bestow upon them a state of their own? Did they rape and brutalize and torture men, women, and children? The victims must have had it coming. Did they kidnap men, women, and children, hold them as hostages, and murder some of them in cold blood? What did you expect?

Isn’t it time for the world to stop taking the side of the Ahabs and Jezebels? Isn’t it time for the world to reject the false accusations they have concocted against us to justify their brutality? Isn’t it time for the world to take note of the fact that the Arabs have not refused partition of the land multiple times simply because they are unwise, or unfortunate in their leaders, or bad negotiators, but because they don’t want to live alongside a Jewish State, any Jewish State, regardless of the boundaries or the terms.

They want the entire vineyard, free of worrisome Jews. That is why Arafat and Abbas rejected the more than generous compromises they were offered. That is why Hamas refuses every deal presented. They think that if they wait long enough, and manufacture enough suffering, and lie and lie and lie, pretending to be third world victims of a colonial power, the world will give them the entire land of Israel on a silver platter. They already own the United Nations and the International Court of Justice and the Council on Human Rights.

It’s only a matter of time.

But they don’t understand a few salient facts.

Remember that story of Elijah and Naboth? It took place in Samaria, what the Israelis call Shomron, and the world calls the West Bank. It is part of historic Israel, and has been so for thousands of years. All the characters in the story? Naboth? Ahab? Elijah?  Jews–every single one of them–living in the land of Israel, the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. Remember the reason that Naboth refuses to sell or barter his land? He tells Ahab, “God forbid that I should give away my ancestors’ heritage.”

They don’t understand the relationship we have to this land. We have no other land. 

Remember the courage of Elijah? His power does not reside in weapons of war or physical might, though those may be necessary to defend his righteous position.  His power is not in numbers. The Elijahs of the world are always in the minority; the majority is in the street, wearing masks and keffiyehs, and mindlessly repeating hateful slogans. Both the actual and spiritual descendants of Elijah will not let mendacious lies obscure the truth about October 7, any more than Elijah would allow murder to be a predicate for land acquisition.

We will not abandon the truth in favor of a spurious and manufactured history.

Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The Philistines and the Nazis had their supporters and their day, and while they may still have some vocal supporters with public platforms, their day is past. Even if and as we are revolted by the apparent popularity of terrorists performing truly abominable acts, we must continue to believe that, ultimately, good people will coalesce and prevail. The applause for murderers, rapists, and kidnappers may hold sway for a moment in time, but it can not endure.

We can’t give up. We can’t surrender to the people who seek to inherit our vineyard by murdering us. God forbid that we give away our ancestors’ heritage. And even for those who are unfortunate enough not to have a God, goodness and truth and right are still values that will ultimately prevail.

We just need to persist and speak the truth to those who will listen, confident that Hamas and its supporters, like their spiritual antecedents, Ahab and Jezebel, will vanish from history in the shameful ignominy they so richly deserve. Truth and justice always find their audience.