Parashat Lech Lecha (5760)
With God’s help, eve of the holy Sabbath, Parashat Lech Lecha, 5760
The Meaning of a Myth: Our Patriarch Abraham and the ‘New Historians’
Our portion begins with the Holy One, blessed be He, commanding Abraham the Hebrew to go forth from his land. Thus ends the
general account of the history of the early world, the universal part of the Torah, and there begins the detailed account
of the history of the people of Israel.
The modern approach to biblical narratives treats them as myth. Usually a myth is conceived as a conceptual
universe within which the society living in that mythic world, or the individual who lives within it, gives an interpretation
to the events it experiences. Biblical stories, such as the creation of the world, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the binding
of Isaac, the giving of the Torah, and the like, constitute a foundational symbolic framework within which, with various additions, the
entire Western world lives. Description by means of metaphors drawn from these mythic stories, as
well as from others (Greek mythology and the like), is laden with meanings that have been invested in them throughout
the history of humanity.
The dominant position today regarding myths is that their importance is unrelated to the question of their
historical reliability. This is perhaps the very definition of the concept ‘myth.’ The importance of the events
described in the Torah lies in the fact that they constitute a context within which various events and
approaches are interpreted, and there is no importance to the question whether there really were people named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or not.
In fact, this approach is not new. In the responsa of Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet
(the Rashba, one of the greatest sages of Israel in medieval Spain) there appears a reference to the position of Yedaiah ha-Penini and others
who maintain that the Torah’s descriptions are metaphorical. Abraham and Sarah are understood by them
not as real historical figures, but as a metaphorical embodiment of the concepts of ‘matter’ and ‘form,’ and the like.
Yedaiah bases himself in this regard (apparently unjustifiably) on certain statements that appear in Maimonides.
The Rashba there relates with the utmost severity to these positions, to the point of imposing a ban on anyone who holds
them. It is clear to him as well that there are metaphorical layers in the Torah’s figures,
for example, that Abraham represents the attribute of kindness, Isaac that of might, and the like, but these layers
are ‘borne’ by real people, people who actually existed in history.
At first glance, it is not clear what is so grave in Yedaiah’s positions, since he ‘correctly’ grasped what a myth is. What difference does it
make whether Abraham really existed or whether he never existed at all. So long as we uphold
what follows from these Torah descriptions, not only on the practical plane (by observing commandments), but also
by giving appropriate interpretations and responses to various events and approaches, what does it matter if we do not
believe that the events and figures in the Torah indeed existed in historical reality? At first glance,
it seems that there is a certain ossification of tradition here, and one feels that there is no place for this today.
It seems to me that what we see here is not ossification, but a different understanding of the concept of ‘myth.’
Judaism does not suffice with abstract beliefs in order to establish religious concepts; it demands practical
observance through commandments. In its approach to the concept of ‘myth’ as well, there seems to be a similar difference. Judaism
demands that its myths be real and not merely instructive. More than that, the educational force of
a myth depends on whether it really describes reality, or whether it is merely a useful educational fiction.
A person or event that did not exist in reality cannot serve as an educational model either.
Let us perhaps bring a current example of this. Today there is a widespread phenomenon of shattering myths.
The shattering of the myths connected to the traditional classical description of Jewish history began
with the ‘Science of Judaism’ over the past two centuries, particularly within the field known as ‘biblical
criticism.'[1] Over the past few decades, the process of shattering has turned to the more modern history
of the Jewish people. The group known as the ‘New Historians’ attempts to show that the foundation
underlying Zionist myths is nothing but historical fiction. Israel did not defend itself against Arab
aggression, but rather dispossessed the Arabs quite deliberately; in the moral sphere
we are not better than others (as we had become accustomed to think), but worse; in the War of
Independence we were the many and not the few, and so forth.
This shattering is generally carried out by established methods. One of them is the examination of a
particular event in history, while attempting to show that there are historical distortions, or faulty interpretation.
A prominent example of this method is the renewed discussion of Trumpeldor’s death at Tel Hai, one of
the central myths of Zionism. Some claim that what Trumpeldor said before his death was
a Russian curse, and not, as the ‘wicked Zionists’ taught us, the immortal phrase
“It is good to die for our country.” The same has been done to various other events in newer Israeli
history.
Now there is room to examine the meaning of the claim that this event never happened at all. Is it not
possible to educate by means of Trumpeldor’s sentence even if it was never uttered? Apparently this is only a myth
whose purpose is to help illustrate to young people the importance of sacrifice for the homeland, and if so there is no
importance to its historical reliability.
It should be noted that both sides share the opposition to this conception of myth. Both those
who attack the myth by disproving its historical reliability, and those who feel betrayed
by that, these two groups alike share the same conception of myths, namely that precisely
their historical reliability matters. If the myth does not depend on its historical reliability,
then disproving its historical reality does not amount to an attack on the values it helps
convey, and consequently there is no point in becoming angry at those who disprove it.
It seems that what we have seen here is enough to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that when the matters
are important to him, he too becomes ‘ossified’ and adopts an ‘orthodox’ interpretation of the myth within which he
lives. It seems that all of us in fact understand that it is very important for a mythic event truly to have occurred
in history, and if so it is worth applying this insight as well to myths whose honor we are less eager to preserve.
Whoever understands this with regard to the shattering of modern Israeli myths has no reason not to understand
it with regard to the shattering of more ancient myths as well, even if they are less important to him.
What emerges from what has been said here is that one should accept with understanding the fact that believers in some myth also wish
to claim that the mythic event really did occur, and not merely to educate by means of it. This is not intellectual ossification, but
an understanding that if someone educates on the basis of some myth, he probably believes that there is in it at least a kernel
of historical truth. That is how these matters should be understood.
It hardly needs saying that I do not intend to argue that anyone ought to believe in a historical event that in his view
never happened at all, merely in order to be considerate of, or to prevent offense to, some other group.
Regards.
This sheet may be placed for respectful disposal in any synagogue or rabbinical academy. Comments are welcome.
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[1] Of course there is no world without a mythic infrastructure at its base. In my opinion, one can shatter
the myths found at the foundation of these approaches to the same extent as those at the foundation of the classical approaches. These approaches,
the ‘rational’ ones, usually feel themselves immune to mythic biases, but it is clear
that this is not at all the case, and this is not the place to elaborate on it.
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