Shoyn genug with the self-cancelling!
It is impossible not to remain a Jew.
– Leo Strauss (Why We Remain Jews)
Amid a challenging climate where Jews observe their peers receding into “post-Jewish” assimilation—hiding stars of David as they seek to blend into the crowd and sidestep post-October 7 Judeophobia—we need to elevate Jewish identity beyond narratives of persecution and victimhood. We must reclaim its history of powerful, triumphant resilience. To embrace Jewish identity is to recognize oneself as the newest link in an unbroken, ancient chain–one that predates the great empires and has endured every attempt to shatter it. It is an identity grounded in a profound commitment to continuous learning and critical inquiry. It is to be called each morning to renew the world through acts of goodness that refine the soul. It is about internalizing fundamental ethics—justice, compassion, and responsibility—and cultivating a virtuous self, created in the divine image. This is all lived out through a singular and deeply held worldview. The temptation to reach for invisibility to dodge potential hostility betrays a rich inheritance and a legacy of self-possession, steadfastness and bravery. Being Jewish is not a burden to be shed; it’s an edge, a unique gift, and a source of pride.
The Jews have been a people since close to the dawn of civilization–a time on the far edge of our collective imagination. We existed long before concepts of ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, or even peoplehood. We are heirs to the greatest slave revolt and have persevered against all the great empires–of the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Visigoths, Ottomans, and British. In living memory, we survived the genocidal efforts of the most powerful nations on Earth while the rest of the world turned their back in silence. Then in one of the most remarkable examples of decolonization, we reclaimed our homeland, reconstituted a state, and defended it against an en masse attack by the forces of five Arab armies seeking to annihilate them.
It has been said (by non-Jewish Jews) that, “Judaism is not a religion; it is a misfortune.” This claim corresponds to a commonly repeated interpretation of Jewish history as an unending cycle of persecution and misery (commonly described as the “lachrymose” history of the Jewish people). However, while ceasing to be recognizable as a Jew has always been held out as a “solution” to Judeophobia, it is “not self-evident” that this is a “problem” that can be solved, as says political philosopher Leo Strauss, “It is impossible not to remain a Jew.”[1]
The Jews originate from a time in which peoples, whether clans, tribes or nations, defined themselves by virtue of the gods they looked up to. But the Jews rejected the pagan gods as an abomination; prophets of other gods and other paths were not to be heeded. The Jews were given a conception of G-d and a calling to follow G-d’s laws (Deut. 6:4–5), to “choose” life (Deut. 30:19), and be a “light unto the nations.” Across time, they fought to maintain those ideals and their dedication to it.
Jewish monotheism is apophatic (an approach to G-d by speaking only in terms of what may not be said about G-d) and provides that the universe and all that is in it is G-d’s idea. We do not believe that there is one god, but rather that G-d is One. As One, G-d has no body or form, and the infinite aspect of G-d is not limited, changed or affected by the universe. (The Hebrew name of G-d is made up of the past, present and future. Because of the limitless nature of G-d, Jews are not allowed to utter the name.)
Significantly, Jews do not understand G-d and the world in the same sense and frame as others. We do not maintain a “religion” named Judaism. Jews believe that all lives are sacred and that life is a moral continuum that requires personal responsibility for the lives of others. To the extent that Jews contemplate a world to come, we believe that a righteous person of any faith has a share in that world and that it is not necessary to be Jewish to have a relationship with God.
Jews live in the present. Every day, Jews rise to a world recreated and a soul that is restored. Doing good deeds (mitzvot) are the Jewish mundane “prose of life” that internalize moral values and develop a corresponding virtuous nature.
Jews do not believe that evil comes not from an independent force opposed to G-d. Jews reject this concept of “two powers” (shtei reshuyot) as dualism, not monotheism (Isa. 45:7). For Jews, it is people who are guilty of doing bad things. The fault lies in ourselves, not in the stars. We do not believe, therefore, that history’s arc automatically bends towards good and justice is inevitable. The moral universe requires active effort from people to bend it towards justice. Rabbi Sacks explains,
[It is in this life] that we must work for justice, fairness, compassion, decency, the alleviation of poverty, and the perfection, as far as lies within our power, of society and our individual lives.[2]
Jews study to better understand G-d’s will and how to act in the world. In this, literacy and education are paramount. At about 65 CE, when most of the world was illiterate, Jews made elementary education compulsory and free for boys. This exposed them at an early age to analytical thinking and logic. At the time, no other religion had a similar requirement, and no state or empire had laws imposing compulsory education or universal literacy for its citizens. Literacy and critical thinking would prove essential to Jewish survival during the Galut, helping us to sustain an unbroken connection to our homeland, adapt to new environments, maintain their identity and strong ties across dispersed communities, and excel in commerce and finance.
Why do Jews remain when so many other peoples have faded away? Jews are, perhaps, the beneficiaries of the most noble dream. We ground ourselves in what we believe to be a true value system, the rejection of which would lead to nihilism. Across time, the Jewish people have held onto those values. They understood the meaning of being Jews and were willing to pay the (sometimes horrible) price. In the words of Leo Tolstoy, the nation that first proclaimed the word of the Lord, preserved it, and passed it on to the rest of humanity, cannot vanish: “A Jew is eternal; he is an embodiment of eternity.”[3] To Jews who today relax their identities as they seek to assimilate into and enjoy modern society as post-Judaeo-Christians, their brethren say, “enough already”; stop cancelling your heritage and your history!
Footnotes:
- L. Strauss, Why We Remain Jews: Can Jewish Faith and History Still Speak to Us?, in L. Strauss, Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity (State Uni. of NY Press 1997), pp.317-18, https://archive.org/stream/LeoStraussWhyWeRemainJewsgreenIntegral/Leo%20Strauss%20-%20%27%27Why%20We%20Remain%20Jews%27%27%20%5Bgreen%2C%20integral%5D_djvu.txt
- R. Sacks, The Arc of the Moral Universe, Rabbi Sacks Legacy, https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/haazinu/the-arc-of-the-moral-universe/
- Leo Tolstoy, republished in E. Ben-Sorek, What Is A Jew? (written by Count Leo Tolstoy, 1891), Times of Israel (Blog Dec. 3, 2015), https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-is-a-jew-written-by-count-leo-tolstoy-1891/
