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The Idea of the Promised Land

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Mordecai Roshwald
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It is common knowledge that the Jews have shown an unusually persistent emotional attachment to their fatherland, notably when they were exiled and dispersed. The sentiment has found many expressions throughout Jewish history and is too well known to require repeated documentation, but a few examples may remind us of its ardent nature.

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion,” opens a well-known Psalm (137). And the weeping does not meander into a passive nostalgia, but leads to an active determination expressed in the oath: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.” When the moment of return from Babylon arrives, the experience transcends the confines of reality: “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.” (Psalm 126).

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 21 , Issue 82 , June 1973 , pp. 45 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 For an excellent analytical exposition of the relationship between Israel (or the Jews) and their land, as expressed in various epochs of Jewish history, see Martin Buber, Israel and Palestine (The History of an Idea), London 1952. Translated from the German by Stanley Godman. The German original was published in 1950, preceded by the Hebrew version, published in 1944.

2 Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Vols. I-VII, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909-1938. Vol. V, p. 14.

3 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 371 and Vol. II, p. 117.

4 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 374.

5 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 129. Cf. also Vol. V, pp. 362-363.

6 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 267.

7 This and the preceding quotations were translated by the present writer from the traditional Hebrew Prayer Book.

8 Quoted from Facts About Israel 1970, Jerusalem, Keter Publishing House.

9 Herodotus, Persian Wars, translated by George Rawlinson, Book VIII, Chapter 62.

10 Minutes of the Proceedings of the Imperial Conference, 1911, p. 71, as reproduced in Royal Institute of International Affairs, Nationalism, London, Oxford University Press, 1939, p. 136.

11 See Herodotus, op. cit., Book I, Chapter 56. Also Chap. 57.

12 See Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, Book I, Chap. 2.

13 Thucydides, op. cit., Book I, Chap. 15. The quotation follows the transla tion of Benjamin Jowett.

14 Cf. Buber, op. cit., p. 22. Buber emphasises the significance of the contrast of the two lands, Egypt and the Promised Land, in the book of Exodus (as against the Land of Promise as such in Genesis).

15 Quoted from The Haggadah, translated by Cecil Roth, London, The Soncino Press, 1934, p. 19. The word "faithfulness," which is an interpretation of the original text, was put in parentheses by the present writer.

16 Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, Vol. III, p. 356.

17 Martin Buber, op. cit., p. x.

18 Midrash Rabbah, Genesis, translated by H. Freedman, London, Soncino Press, 1939, Vol. I, pp. 4-5.

19 Louis Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 219-220.

20 Ibid., Vol. V, pp. 320-321.

21 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 47.

22 Translated from the traditional Hebrew Prayer Book by the present writer.

23 M. Buber, op. cit., p. 51.

24 Quoted from Buber, op. cit., p. 52.

25 The centrality of Zion in respect of the universe, with special emphasis on the Book of Isaiah, is discussed profoundly and elaborately by M. Buber, op. cit., pp. 30-35.

26 L. Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 322.

27 Ibid., Vol. V, p. 14.

28 See M. Buber op. cit., pp. 76-77.

29 Theodor Herzl, Altneuland, Berlin 1902, Book Five, Chap. 1. English translation by Paula Arnold, Haifa, 1960. p. 184.

30 Thus a story tells us about God's reaction to the idea of spying out the land: it was another case of the people's disbelief in the Almighty and He was annoyed. (L. Ginzberg, op. cit., Vol. III, pp. 262-263).

31 Quoted from W. Gunther Plaut, The Rise of Reform Judaism, A Source-book of its European Origins, New York, 1963, p. 140.

32 The following summary of the essential doctrine of autonomism is based on Simon Dubnow, Nationalism and History, Essays on Old and New Judaism, edited with an introductory essay by Koppel S. Pinson, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1958.

33 Ibid., p. 91.

34 Ibid., p. 186.

35 Ibid., p. 186.

36 Quoted from Israel Zangwill, Speeches, Articles and Letters, selected and edited by Maurice Simon, London, The Soncino Press, 1937, p. 124.

37 Herzl in the entry in his Diary of August 31, 1903 writes: "Although I was originally in favor of a Jewish State no matter where, I later lifted up the flag of Zion and became myself a ‘Lover of Zion.'" (Quoted from The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, edited and translated by Marvin Lowenthal, New York 1956, p. 409). But even as a Zionist, the urgency of the Jewish question justified for him the quest for alternative autonomous territories, pending a strictly Zionist solution.

38 See H. H. Ben-Sasson (ed.), History of the Jewish People, Vol. III, Modern Times by S. Ettinger (in Hebrew), Tel-Aviv 1969, p. 205.

39 For a detailed account of the abortive attempt of Jewish colonization of East Africa, see Robert G. Weisbord, African Zion, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968.