The Tribe of Benjamin: Fratricide
The Jewish people have always struggled with our propensity to disagree. In the diaspora this propensity is redacted in the Talmud which presents endless arguments concerning the “right way to live following Torah values”. As a stateless people for nearly 2000 years our ability to debate, analyze and reason served us and our religion by keeping the Torah alive. Constant reevaluation and in some cases new insights (“chidushim”) kept Judaism alive and relevant to every generation. The fact that in 2025 observant Jews quote The Rambam, the Ramban, Rashi, the Vilna Gaon and Rav Soleveichik, commentators who lived one to two millennia after the revelation at Mount Sinai, attests to the vitality and continuing evolution of the Jewish people and its religion.
In contradistinction, to the positive side of the Jewish proclivity to disagree, is the effect of uncompromising willfulness on running a government. Strong democratic nations must consider the needs of all constituencies and find ways to be inclusive. This is challenging even in the most homogeneous societies. In Israel, a country and a people that is a conglomerate of many tribes it is sometimes overwhelming to maintain a unity of purpose.
Among the great Torah commentators Nachmanides believed that the history reported in the Tanach should be viewed as “the actions of our forefathers are lessons for later generations”. George Santayana posited that “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. These concepts are extremely relevant for Israel in 2025.
In the Book of Judges, in response to the violation of the concubine of a Levite by a small gang of Benjaminites, the remaining tribes attacked the tribe of Benjamin nearly wiping it out. In these intertribal battles, tens of thousands of the children of Israel died. Such a fratricidal event should guide the Jewish nation in dealing with crises. Yet we never seem to learn.
In Israel circa 2025 dissension still reigns and it peaked in the weeks preceding October 7, 2023. This discord was characterized by large angry demonstrations of Jew against Jew including verbal and physical violence. The issue at hand was judicial reform. However, at the core of the problem was a festering anger and disrespect between the various factions that now live in Israel. Rather than following the Torah Tenant of Love your brother like yourself, these disparate groups believe that only their perspective is correct. They do not brook alternative viewpoints. Strong, loud voices on both sides demonized their opponents and did not hesitate to use words like fascist, racist or Hitler, in describing the adversary. Objectively, the country was being torn apart.
At the head of the tribe and leading a right-wing government was, ironically, a Benjamin-Bibi Netanyahu. Rather than quell the protests by negotiation and compromise the Netanyahu government plowed forward and was determined, despite its thin and metastable mandate, to make fundamental changes in the Israeli judicial system. One could argue that some or even many of the positions of the Netanyahu-led government were valid. Nevertheless, the process and its fallout were liquifying the cohesiveness of Israeli society. As the Jewish nation seemed poised to self-destruct, our enemies looked on gleefully. The time was optimal to attack.
The national reaction to the October 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas and its allies was to reawaken Jewish unity. Reservists, who threatened not to serve over judicial reform, turned out at a 120% rate compared to the call up. Israelis all over the world made Herculean efforts to return to the theater of battle. Charedim activated their chesed organizations to help take care of those directly involved in conflict. Opposition politicians joined a war cabinet and the anti-government rhetoric subsided.
But… the respite was brief. As the war ground on and hard decisions had to be made critics turned up the pressure. Demonstrations of tens of thousands demanded that the hostages be returned at any cost. The “Hamas must be destroyed camp” lobbied for continuing the war, also at any cost. Both sides castigated the ultra-religious sector for not fulfilling their responsibilities.
There are elements of truth in all of these arguments. Disheartening is the inability of our people to disagree respectfully and to continue to view each other as a part of one large but diverse family. We are a fragile, yet resilient people. The way we speak to and about each other will either crack us into an unrepairable mass of pieces or bind us into a reinforced block that will withstand the array of enemies that seek our destruction.
When the remaining tribes realized that the tribe of Benjamin was near extinction, they found a way to allow 600 male Benjaminites to intermarry with their daughters. According to the book of Judges this happened at the festival of Shiloh and the Talmud relates the event to the 15th of Ab. We are presently in the Month of Ab. Soon Jews throughout the world will mourn the loss of our Holy Temples and of Jewish dominion in the land of Israel. It behooves us to learn from our past. In the book of Judges it repeatedly states, In those days there was no King in Israel, each man did what was righteous in his eyes. This is an equation for anarchy and our destruction. We are a small nation, and our might exceeds our numbers. The only force that can defeat us comes from within.
