The Jewish Power Blog: Two Kinds of Power

Early in the Hasmonean revolt against the Seleucid overlords, in the second century BCE, the Book of Maccabees recounts an episode when a group of the rebels, holed up in a cave in the desert, were attacked by government troops on a Saturday.  They refused to surrender – but they also refused to fight on the Shabbat: “Let us all die in our innocence; heaven and earth testify for us that you are killing us unjustly.”   The Greeks, unimpeded by the laws of Shabbat, killed them all.  When the news reached the leaders of the revolt, they announced a policy of allowing warfare on Shabbat, otherwise “they will quickly destroy us from the earth.”  (I Maccabees 2:37, 40)

Were these Jews victims?  Were they powerless?  Were they heroes – or sinners?  It seems that they had to choose among three possible responses to their situation:

a) to surrender and agree to go along with the king’s demand to abandon Judaism and accept the pagan cult.

b) to fight on Shabbat.

c) neither to surrender nor to fight, but to resist by demonstrating that they considered pagan worship to be worse than death (“better dead than red…”).

Hundreds of years later, this eternal dilemma occupied the rabbis of the Talmud, in the famous discussion of the principle that saving one’s life comes before all commandments except three: idolatry, forbidden sexual relations, and bloodshed. (Bab. Talmud Sanhedrin 74a)  And throughout the centuries it arose again and again, calling forth differing responses depending on historical circumstances – from those massacred by the Crusaders for refusing baptism to those undergoing baptism to avoid exile from Spain a few centuries later.

This dilemma is an expression of the conflict between two kinds of power: coercive power, usually in the form of physical force wielded by a Goliath or a government; and power of agency, the freedom of will of an individual to choose among possible actions.  The powerful individual or polity can force me to do something that violates my conscience, unless either:

a) I have a means of resistance; i.e., I actually do have power, through clever strategy or technology (e.g., Moses’s basket, David’s slingshot), or intense motivation, or recruitment of allies, so that I can undermine or overcome my oppressor’s power.

b) I am prepared to give up my life to avoid doing what my oppressor demands, thus neutralizing their power over me. My power of agency trumps their coercive force and they are left empty-handed. In Jewish history, this choice is traditionally referred to as “kiddush hashem,” the sanctification of God’s name: placing loyalty to God above life itself, martyrdom.

This theme, of the victory of the individual conscience over overwhelming physical force, is central to the story we tell about ourselves as a persecuted minority over the ages.  How does it relate to our present situation?

We all know that wars end with the victory of one side and the defeat of the other, and we can give many examples.  After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered and the Allies declared victory.  And that was that.  And so too with Germany’s surrender.  Or so it seemed until now, when we find rising political forces in both countries that draw energy from resentment at that defeat.  Meanwhile, it is also not difficult to come up with historical examples of defeats that festered and evolved and erupted with great force – for example Germany’s defeat in the first World War.  And of course, the Jews’ crushing defeat by the Romans in 70 CE gave rise to the bloody Bar Kokhba uprising just half a century later.  And we could say that both of those defeats festered within us for two millennia, ultimately providing inspiration and energy for the Zionist enterprise of “undoing” the destruction of the Jewish state.

That is, overwhelming power can crush an army, or a state; but as long as some members of that crushed polity survive and remember – and preserve and process the memory of the defeat – that is not that.  The power of individual agency will trump the coercive power of the greatest army.  Perhaps Israel can achieve, by virtue of superior fire power and courageous fighting and staying the course no matter the cost, victory over Hamas.  Maybe Sinwar will emerge waving a white flag.  But it seems pretty clear that that will not be that.  If the experience sears anything into the Palestinians’ consciousness, it will likely be resentment and the desire, ultimately, to undo – or avenge – their defeat.

Certainly there have been times in history, like our own present situation, when it feels like the only way out of our predicament is the application of massive power against a cruel enemy who seems to understand no other language.  But then it often turns out that ultimately, the enemy didn’t understand that language either.