1) Distortion of Torah

Professor Shaul Magid has established himself in recent years as the leading anti-Israel Jewish intellectual in academia. In his book “The Necessity of Exile” he makes his case for why he thinks that exile is the ideal Jewish condition, and for why the modern-day State of Israel should no longer be a Jewish State, but a binational one. As far as I can tell, the only chapter in which he quotes primary Torah sources is Chapter Six: “Who Owns the Holy Land?”, and so, in order to stay in my rabbinic lane, I’ll limit myself here to an analysis of that chapter alone. We will see that every one of the verses which Magid cites is interpreted by him against their plain meaning, and in the precise opposite way in which Chazal (the rabbinic tradition) interpreted them!

The first verse he quotes is from Exodus 19:5 that “the whole earth is Mine”, to show that no one land fundamentally belongs to any one nation. But he only cites the second half of that verse, cutting off its beginning. The full verse reads:

וְעַתָּ֗ה אִם־שָׁמ֤וֹעַ תִּשְׁמְעוּ֙ בְּקֹלִ֔י וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֖ם אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֑י וִהְיִ֨יתֶם לִ֤י סְגֻלָּה֙ מִכׇּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים כִּי־לִ֖י כׇּל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃

“Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine”.

The plain meaning of this verse in context, and of similar verses like it, is expounded by Rashi in his well know first comment on the Torah: that precisely because God owns the whole world, that’s what gives Him the right to bequeath one small part of it to the People of Israel! See also Otzar Midrashim, Midrash on the Ten Commandments 1:12, expounding our verse here in Exodus in the same way. The modern-day Bible scholar Robert Alter also sees the plain meaning of this verse as invoking God’s ownership of the whole world in order to justify His particular focus on the People of Israel.

None of these appeals to Rashi and the Bible need to actually be used as a basis for modern day Zionism in our secular world, and indeed, political Zionism does not even rely on such religious arguments, expect perhaps as a sentimental underpinning. I only aim to show the real meaning of the verses to the extent that Magid misrepresents them.

Next, Magid quotes from Ezekiel 11:5-11 that the Land isn’t ours unconditionally, since the Jews can be exiled from it because of our sins. Again, the plain meaning is the opposite of what Magid intends: Ezekiel portrays exile as an undesirable, temporal condition, which results from when we are sinful. But the ideal vision for posterity is always that we return to the Land, as Ezekiel himself expresses in verse 17, just a few verses after Magid conveniently cuts him off:

לָכֵ֣ן אֱמֹ֗ר כֹּֽה־אָמַר֮ אֲדֹנָ֣י יֱהֹוִה֒ וְקִבַּצְתִּ֤י אֶתְכֶם֙ מִן־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים וְאָסַפְתִּ֣י אֶתְכֶ֔ם מִן־הָ֣אֲרָצ֔וֹת אֲשֶׁ֥ר נְפֹצוֹתֶ֖ם בָּהֶ֑ם וְנָתַתִּ֥י לָכֶ֖ם אֶת־אַדְמַ֥ת יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

“Yet say: Thus said the Sovereign GOD: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the Land of Israel”.

He then quotes from Ezkiel 33 that the Land will be laid waste and empty, which shows that God does not wish for the Jews to be sovereign there at all times. Once again, rabbinic tradition interprets this concept in the opposite way that Magid intends. Rashi on the cognate verse in Leviticus 26:32:

“I will make the Land desolate” – This is actually a good thing for Israel, namely, that since the Land will be desolate of people living in it, the enemies will not find contentment in Israel’s Land [and will have to leave]. — [Sifthei Chachamim; Torath Kohanim 26:38]

Magid then quotes from Bereishit 11 that God tells Abram to go forth from his land, (Ur of the Chaldees) which proves that Abram himself was not originally from Canaan, which, of course, is true. It’s common for nations to have a founding story as to how the founder came from elsewhere to start the nation. In Rome’s founding tale of Romulus and Remus, Romulus comes from elsewhere and founds the new city of Rome. I don’t think anyone uses that as a “gotcha” to show that Romans were not “originally” from Rome. The origin of all peoples is one of migration, if you go back far enough. In any case, like Romulus, Abram was still from the same region (The Ancient Near East).

Pointing out that God refers to Ur as “your land”, just as he’s telling him to leave it behind forever, is just comical. The second person possessive here is circumstantial; it’s not being endorsed. It’s as inane as pointing out that Abraham was also not circumcised until the age of 99, and he’s our forefather, so therefore circumcision must not be so important. The whole point of the story is that God is telling Abram that you and your descendants can’t be a member of the covenant with Me until you get circumcised, and until you live in the Land. This is the thrust of the rabbinic saying “He who lives outside the Land is as if he has no God” (Ketubot 110b). More on that concept below.

Magid then quotes from Genesis 23, where Abraham buys a burial plot for Sarah from the native Hittites. Abraham identifies himself as a stranger in their land, which shows that Jews can recognize the state of not controlling the land.

In his commentary on this chapter, Robert Alter quotes various scholars to the effect that the entire point of this narrative is either: A) to show Abraham as laying the groundwork and legitimacy for the future Israelite control of the entire Land, or: B) that it should be seen as another test of faith for Abraham, in that his descendants would control the entire Land but that he had to feel the vulnerability of not controlling it all yet. The rabbis interpret it in broadly the same exact way (see Rashi there).

Magid then mentions that the Book of Joshua is about how we came from outside the Land to conquer it, over three thousand years ago, so we admit ourselves that we were not the first ones there. Again, I refer to my above point about the tale of Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome, and how no one nation anywhere in the world was ever the “very first” one to be there! Being indigenous does not have to mean you were the first ones to ever live there. What we are is the first nation still around in the world to have been there, and his quoting of the millennia-old Book of Joshua only proves that point.

Magid then quotes Martin Buber referring to Psalm 48, where the word Zion refers to Jerusalem as a holy city, not to the whole Land as a sovereign kingdom. This is a laughable argument. The word Zion does often refer only to Jerusalem, or only to the Temple Mount, but sometimes it also refers to the whole Land as a sovereign Jewish place, and sometimes it refers to the Jewish People themselves. It simply means all of those things at the same time, depending on the context. This is evident from the very Psalm he’s quoting. The entire thrust of this Psalm is that Jerusalem is the political capital of the Jewish Homeland, a place that other nations will try and take from us in war, but that God will ensure our control of it for posterity! It praises Jerusalem as being militarily fortified against outside (non-Israelite) invaders.

3) Egregious Distortions

The final verse that Magid invokes is the one that he spends the most time expounding upon, and also the one which is the most blatantly distorted. This verse is Vayikra 25:23 –

וְהָאָ֗רֶץ לֹ֤א תִמָּכֵר֙ לִצְמִתֻ֔ת כִּי־לִ֖י הָאָ֑רֶץ כִּֽי־גֵרִ֧ים וְתוֹשָׁבִ֛ים אַתֶּ֖ם עִמָּדִֽי׃

“But the land shall not be sold permanently, for the land belongs to Me, for you are but strangers and residents with Me”.

Magid appeals to this verse to support the idea that the land is not really ours, but God’s. But this doesn’t help Magid’s case, since this same chapter makes it clear that it’s God’s desire as the Land’s Owner is for the Jews to exercise the practical control over it! Verse 38 of this chapter reads:

אֲנִ֗י ה֙ אֱ–יכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־הוֹצֵ֥אתִי אֶתְכֶ֖ם מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם לָתֵ֤ת לָכֶם֙ אֶת־אֶ֣רֶץ כְּנַ֔עַן לִהְי֥וֹת לָכֶ֖ם לֵ-לֹ-ים׃

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God”.

The Talmud declares, based on verse 38, that “he who lives outside the Land of Israel is as if he has no God”. Rambam (Laws of Kings 5:12) codifies this concept into law, declaring that to leave the Land of Israel is the equivalent of worshipping idols.

Verse 23 itself, which Magid dwells on, means that when the Jubilee is in effect, property in Israel can only be leased until the Jubilee, at which point it must return to its original Jewish owner! Both the Rambam (Terumot 1:10) and Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De’ah 331:3-4) codify from this very verse, based on Gittin 47a, the millennia-old Jewish legal principle that – and these words could not be any more ironic in this context – “a gentile does not have the power of acquisition in the Land of Israel”!! Practically speaking, this means that if a Jew wants to sell property in Israel to a gentile with the stipulation that this piece of land is no longer a part of Eretz Yisrael (The Land of Israel), such a stipulation doesn’t take effect, because Jews are not empowered or entitled by God to relinquish our attachment to the Land.

Magid further vaguely claims that Ramban (Nachmanides) endorses his reading of this verse, to the effect that our hold on the Land is contingent and not objective. Once again, to sound like a broken record, Ramban actually says the opposite, and this one is particularly egregious. Ramban (on Rambam’s Negative Commandments 227) interprets this verse to be the source of a biblical prohibition to sell any property in Eretz Yisrael to a gentile! Because it’s God’s will, as expressed in this verse, for only us to control it. R. Eliezer Melamed, the author of the single most popular work of halacha (Jewish Law) in circulation in the world today, writes, based on this very Ramban, on this very verse, (Peninei Halakha The Nation and the Land 3): “And all the more so, that our public representatives are forbidden to give lands from the inheritance of our ancestors to Gentiles”.

I cannot emphasize enough that Magid could not have picked a worse chapter or verse in all of Scripture for him to harp on for this purpose.

None of what I’ve written should necessarily be seen as dictating modern day policy. Many authorities do allow for selling property in Israel to a gentile, against the Ramban (however, these authorities still side with the above Rambam and Shulchan Aruch to the effect that such a sale can never negate that land from remaining a part of Eretz Yisrael). Likewise, many Orthodox thinkers have made the case for the legitimacy of giving land for peace, if such a policy were to really bring true peace. It’s way beyond our scope to litigate that issue here. We’ve only aimed to show that Magid’s references to these particular verses and concepts do not actually help his own case.

To be sure, Magid is an accomplished scholar in academia, but he is not regarded as a Talmid Chacham (traditional Torah scholar) by Orthodox Jews. For all the above reasons, Magid’s analysis of Torah sources will not be taken seriously by Orthodox Jews, including by the anti-Zionist ones in Satmar, whose opposition to Zionism is relegated to the religious realm, but who have repeatedly condemned the practical anti-Israel politics of the sort that Magid represents (and that will, please God, be the topic of my next post).

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)