MEIR SOLOVEICHIK RESPONDS:

Akiva Tor, if I understand his letter correctly, agrees with me that the Bible, in Deuteronomy, does explicitly state that God loves Israel preferentially, and that he chose Israel because of this preferential love. The implication of Tor’s argument is, however, that Jews ought to reject Deuteronomy, and construct a theory of chosenness based solely on Genesis. Yet I do not believe that an authentically Jewish theology can be constructed by jettisoning an entire book of the Bible. Moreover, Tor is mistaken. The notion of God’s love for Israel is not restricted to Deuteronomy; it is a recurrent theme from the beginning of the Bible to its end.

Tor also insists that Abraham’s election in Genesis has nothing to do with love. But what Tor misses, and what Genesis informs us, is that God loved Abraham precisely because he sought to father a faithful family. “For I know him, that he will command his children and household after him, and they will keep the way of the Eternal, to perform justice and righteousness” (Genesis 18:19). The Bible here does not, of course, refer to God’s “knowing” in a cognitive sense. As both the rabbinic tradition and modern scholars have noted, for God to say that he knows someone is to state a love for and intimacy with that person. For example, when the Jewish people lay suffering in slavery, we are told that “God hearkened to their moaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God saw the children of Israel, and God knew” (Exodus 2:23-25). The prophet Amos, using the term “knowing” in like manner, insists that precisely because Israel has been loved more than any other nation, it is held to a higher moral standard: “You alone have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore, I shall hold you accountable for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2).

Tor further contends that God never refers to Abraham as his son, but then, I never claimed that Abraham is so depicted. What I did contend, quoting Michael Wyschogrod, was that God sees Abraham not as his child, but as his beloved with whom he wishes to found a family. It is the children of God’s beloved Abraham that God sees as his own children, and this, contra Tor, is made clear in the Bible long before Deuteronomy. For example, in Exodus, the Almighty demands freedom for “my son, my firstborn, Israel” (Exodus 4:22). God then informs Pharaoh that he will be punished because “I said to you: Send free my son, that he may serve me, but you have refused to send him free” (Exodus 4:23). The Bible only confirms what we already know when we are told in Deuteronomy that God “loved your fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them” (4:35-38), and that the Jews are chosen “because the Eternal loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers” (7:7-8).

Nor are descriptions of God’s love for Israel limited to the Pentateuch; the books of the prophets are replete with descriptions of God’s preferential love for Israel. Tor cites Isaiah as a biblical book in which God’s election of the Jewish people is portrayed as having nothing to do with love. Again, however, Tor errs: The book of Isaiah abounds with metaphors for God’s familial relationship with the Jewish people. Indeed, one such example was cited in my article explicitly, in which God depicts himself not as Israel’s father, but as its mother. When Israel is depicted as having been forsaken by God, God responds, “Can a woman forget her suckling child, refrain from having mercy on the fruit of her womb?” (Isaiah 49:15). This image is reiterated by God later in Isaiah: “As one whom his mother comforts,” Israel is consoled, “so I will comfort you” (66:13).

It is true that Abraham is loved by God for the content of his character, and Tor is correct to note that Israel, too, is often loved for its virtue. But as I noted in my article, God, the father of Israel, loves Israel even when it fails to live up to its potential, even when its actions are worthy of divine rebuke and even punishment.

Finally, Tor resorts to hyperbole by calling my views racist. But he knows very well that even as traditional Judaism insists that God preserves a preferential love for the Jewish people, it is equally insistent that one need not be of genetic Abrahamic descent in order to experience this love. Conversion to Judaism is possible, and indeed a convert was the ancestor of David and therefore of the Jewish Messiah. But any convert to Judaism must not only love the God of Abraham; he or she must share God’s love for the Jewish people, as well, and desire to become part of the Jewish family. It is noteworthy that the archetypal Jewish convert is Ruth, who converted by declaring to Naomi not only that “your God is my God,” but also “your people is my people” (Ruth 1:16). Once converted, a convert is fully a Jew. God elected a family, and descent from Abraham is the most common way one becomes part of this family. But it is not the only way.

In short, Tor quotes selectively from the Bible in order to describe a faith for which familial identity plays no significant part in determining God’s love, for which God’s covenantal favor does not distinguish between Jew and Greek. Such a faith exists; a version of it can be found in Paul’s Epistles. But it is not Judaism.

William Britt questions the sharp distinction I draw between the Jewish and Christian approaches to divine love. I argued that for Jews, human love is not wholly unlike divine love. God can be drawn to human beings the way one is drawn to one’s spouse, or a parent is drawn to his child. In contrast to this, I argued that for Christians, God’s love is unmotivated, an agapic and purely benevolent love, a love of human beings despite how wretched they may truly be. The question Britt asks is whether the Christian approach to divine love is not actually similar to the Jewish one. Why, Britt asks, can God not be drawn to all humanity in the same way that I speak of God being drawn to the family of Abraham? In response I note that this distinction between Judaism and Christianity was first drawn not by me, but by the Christian theologian Anders Nygren; but I do find Nygren’s account persuasive. In answering Britt’s question, theologians such as Nygren take note of Jesus’ insistence that God loves the egregiously wicked as much as he loves the righteous, that he makes no distinction between Hitler and Mother Theresa. This being the case, it would be difficult for Christians to believe that God’s love is akin to preferential human love. Consider a father, one of whose children killed several siblings. Would a father be drawn to this fratricidal child to the same extent that he would be drawn to his other children? I think not, and that is why I find Nygren’s account of Christian love so convincing. If, as Christians believe, God loves all human beings without preference, it must be because his love is unmotivated and agapic, a love for humanity utterly unlike preferential human love.

Regarding Britt’s comments on the Christian philosophy of the family, Britt is correct that one who has a wife and children must prove himself in the way that he cares for that family. The fact remains, however—and this is the pivotal point—that Christians do not consider themselves religiously obligated to father or mother a family in the first place. Any honest reader of Christian Scripture must admit that for Paul, family is a distraction from more spiritual pursuits.

In his recent letter to AZURE, Shubert Spero took issue with my contention that God’s love can be compared to human love. Fred Ehrman notes that Spero’s view conflicts with the traditional Jewish understanding of the love poetry of the Song of Songs. I thank Ehrman for his letter, and agree wholeheartedly with its contents. I would add that Spero’s approach to divine love conflicts with biblical and rabbinic tradition in a more severe respect. In his letter, Spero disagrees with my thesis and asserts that unlike human beings, “God does not love the individual for his uniqueness, but rather for some general characteristic that God deems of intrinsic value. God’s love, therefore, is conditional. When Israel sins and does not repent, God’s love may be forfeit.” Yet the Bible insists, and Jews have always believed, that God’s love is never forfeit. Even as Israel was exiled for its sins, it was informed by the Almighty that (Jeremiah 31:2) “I have loved you with an eternal love (ahavat olam); therefore, I have drawn kindness over you.” In times of sin, Israel experiences the Almighty’s anger, but the divine love is eternal and ever-present. The verse is the source for a rabbinic prayer recited daily before the declamation of the shema. “With an everlasting love thou hast loved us,” Jews all over the world assert, concluding, “Blessed art thou, O Eternal, who loves his nation Israel.” As an Orthodox Jew, Spero himself recites this prayer every day. I wonder how he can daily state a proposition that, in his opinion, expresses such a grave error of theology.

Spero concludes his letter by arguing that “while there are texts that speak of God’s love for the forefathers as a whole, Abraham, as an individual, is nowhere singled out as a recipient of God’s love.” Therefore, he argues, the notion that God loves every individual child of Abraham because of his love for our forefather is “nice poetry, perhaps, but incoherent theology.” He is certainly entitled to his opinion, but perhaps he should be wary of charging my theological position with incoherence. In its spring 1991 issue, Tradition published a review of Michael Wyschogrod’s The Body of Faith. The reviewer took issue with Wyschogrod’s assertion that we do not know the reason for God’s love of Abraham, and argued, citing the very same verse in Genesis that I cited in my own article, that the Bible does tell us why God loved Abraham, and why Abraham’s children were chosen:

It seems clear to me that the Bible (Genesis 18:19) would like us to understand that God loves Abraham and chooses his seed because of the moral qualities he finds actual or potential in him: “Thou art the Lord, the God who did choose Abram and brought him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees and gave him the name Abraham and found his heart faithful before Thee.” (Nehemia 9:7) (emphasis added)

The author of this review? Shubert Spero.



Rammstein

TO THE EDITORS:

“Rammstein’s Rage” by Claire Berlinski (AZURE 20, Spring 2005) is a well-reported article, and offers some chilling moments. But Berlinski’s reprints of lyrics fail to shock—despite their clear intentions to do so—and her conclusions fail to worry.

Berlinski’s publication of English translations of Rammstein lyrics reminds one of the “Reefer Madness” school of mainstream worry about “edge” cultural phenomena. “Reefer Madness” is the camp anti-marijuana cult classic film of the 1930s, in which nice young kids who smoke pot immediately become murderous, drug-crazed fiends. The movie is so laughably ridiculous it spawns the exact opposite of its intended reaction: Legions of college kids went to see it stoned on marijuana and laughed hysterically. Similarly, the anti-rock ’n’ roll zealots of the 1950s and 1960s in America used to recite rock lyrics to show either their inanity or how their dangerous “jungle rhythm” would induce teens to become sex-crazed freaks who defied parental authority.

Rammstein’s lyrics are no more nihilistic or idiotic than other teen anthems, and reprinting them with an intent to shock and awe falls on its face. Her descriptions of the powerful, martial impact of Rammstein’s music, and its intentional or unintentional references to Nazi-era efforts, are far more alarming.

In the end, however, her conclusion—that Rammstein represents a reason why German membership in the European Union is likely to fail—falls short. The group may be popular, it may reach into the German zeitgeist, but any rock and roll band—and in the end, that’s all Rammstein is—is unlikely to be so important and so symbolic as to set a clear trend for a nation. Just remember, at the same time such songwriters as Phil Ochs and Paul Kantner were calling for a revolution in America in 1970, an equal and opposite number were writing songs such as “Okie from Muskogee,” which lauded patriotism and short hair.

In sum, the problem with any “trend” story is that its exact opposite can usually be written the next day.

Alan D. Abbey
Editor, Ynetnews
Tel Aviv


CLAIRE BERLINSKI RESPONDS:

I appreciate Abbey’s kind words about my reporting, and I am glad to know he shares my sense that there is something both sinister and familiar in Rammstein’s music and dramaturgy. I would observe that while Abbey is willing to acknowledge the sinister impact of the music itself—and to recognize that this has something to do with the German musical tradition—he is unwilling to accept his own reasoning by extending it to the lyrics that Rammstein employs. But if anything, the lyrics are far more explicit. They would have to be: They are lyrics.

I would also remark that Rammstein is not an adolescent band—its members are grown men—and that these are not, therefore, teen anthems. Their lyrics, like their music, are hardly the expression of adolescent anxiety:

My black blood and your white flesh
I will always become hornier from your screams
the cold sweat on your white forehead
hails into my sick brain

Your white flesh excites me so
I am just a gigolo
my father was exactly like me
your white flesh enlightens me

I certainly did not describe these lyrics as “idiotic.” If only they were. They express, because they are a part of, a specifically German sensibility, one that cannot forever be hidden. It is right there in plain sight, in all of its familiar, doomed, torture-loving, pain-inflicting, swaggering old self. If Abbey does not wish to see this, he need not look; but by the same token, let us not pretend it is not there.

No one is saying, by the way, and for sure not I, that because the Germans feel right at home with Rammstein they are for that reason only unlikely to remain for long in the EU. By the same token, no one would have said in 1928 that because Gottfried Benn wrote a cycle of poems about his splendid times in the Berlin morgue, ten years later Hitler would march into the Sudetenland. All that I did say, and all anyone could say, is: Look at this. My, doesn’t it look familiar.

I am not sure that I fully understand Abbey’s final point. Is he arguing that articles about trends should not be published because, theoretically, their opposite could also be published? And finally, would this argument extend as well to letters to the editor?