Spiritual and
Ethical Issues in the Historical Books of Tanach;
JOSHUA, JUDGES, SAMUEL, KINGS (Nevi’im Rishonim) These four books ostensibly are merely the history of Israel from the entry into the Promised Land until the destruction of the Temple and the temporary loss of independent statehood. In fact they are actually, in a specifically Jewish sense, the most deeply religious and spiritual books of the Bible. One does not have to be specifically Jewish to see or feel the religion and spirituality in the revelations of the prophetic writings or in the words of the Tehillim. They speak to all people, as evidenced by the fact that the Bible is still the world's bestseller and there are millions of non-Jews who regularly recite the Psalms. However, it is specifically and intrinsically Jewish to understand that G-d is revealed in the prosaic material, in the political, social and military events in the lives of ordinary men and women, kings and leaders that are described in the Nevim Rishonim. Here are described the ideology and religious thoughts in Judaism, while in Chronicles we have the purely historical. Political Leadership and Kingship (Shoftim
17-21) First came the idol of Micah. He had
stolen from his mother and subsequently, on hearing her violent curse
whoever had stolen it, returned the money. She then dedicated the money to
making the idol and its vestments. Still, like all dishonest people, she
only gave some of it since she was reluctant to give all that she had
pledged. So, theft was followed by idolatry. As the priest for his idol,
Micah took the grandson of Moshe; out of respect this is hidden in his name
Menasheh ben Gershon that is written with a small raised Nun, so that it
could disguise the name Moshe. This apostasy was caused by the advice of
Yitro to afford Gershon the possibility of examining all avoda zara and then
make up his own mind, rather than just following in Moshe's way. The Kotsker
Rebbe taught that such examination was necessary before Matan Torah; after
that simple faith was sufficient. Given the indivisibility of morality whereby a society cannot be moral in one area while it is immoral in others, it is easy to understand the sexual immorality that took place at the time of Micha's idol. A stranger and his concubine faced with the approaching nightfall on their way northwards from Bet Lechem to his town in Har Efrayim, decided not to spend the night in the gentile city of Yevus [Pre-Israelite Yerusalayim] but rather to make their way to the Jewish city Giveah, a town in the territory of Binyamin [between present day Shuafat and Neve Yaakov]. In Giveah, after first being denied hospitality, they were later taken into the house of an old man. While they were there, the stranger's concubine was gang-raped by a mob. The language of the text is very reminiscent of Sodom, except that it stresses that the perpetrators were evil individuals not as, "all the men of Sodom surrounded the house, both old and young, all the people from every quarter" (Bereishit 19:4). To raise the national abhorrence and awareness of this sexual evil, the stranger then killed her, dissected her body and sent the 12 parts throughout the tribes of Israel. "And all who saw it said, 'There has not been such a deed done nor seen from the day that Israel came up from Egypt till this day; consider it, take advice, and speak your minds" (Judges 19:30). The unified response was immediately to raise an army to force Binyamin to hand over the culprits of "the abomination that had been done in Israel". Binyamin, jealous of its tribal independence, refused; a refusal that led to battles as a result of which Binyamin was decimated. However, many men of Israel too were killed in those battles. Since they had, as was required by halakha, enquired and received the consent of G-d, as to whether they go to battle against Binyamin in Israel, Chazal queried Israel's losses. ""Why did they suffer losses? They did not rebuke Micha or the tribe of Dan for the idol. So HaShem said, ' You did not concern yourselves for My Honor, yet you protested the insult to Man' (Sanhedrin, 26a). Furthermore The Great Sanhedrin and Pinchas ben Elazer, should have bound themselves with iron chains and gone through the towns of Israel to teach Israel so that HaShem's Name should be made great. However, on their entry into the Land each one of the leaders, busied himself with his vineyard and with his fields and said, 'My soul shall be at peace', to escape the bother of teaching the people. So when the people of Binyamin did terrible things [the idol and the concubine at Giveah], G-d said, 'I only gave them that Land in order that they should learn and busy themselves with Torah in its appropriate times. Since they did not do so, they are guilty of the losses of Israel'" (Eliyahu Rabba 11). We have to see all 3 stories in the light
of a verse that is repeated in all of them, " In those days there was no
king in Israel" (17:6; 18:1; 19:1). Our sages saw this lack of a central
authority capable of enforcing moral and religious patterns of behavior, as
the cause of Israel's depravity. This is in keeping with the coercive nature
of Judaism in regard to social, political, sexual and religious life. "Pray
for the welfare of the government, for were it not for the fear of it, men
would swallow each other alive" (Mishna Avot 3:2). [The
Parshat No'ach Homepage]
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