In the Wilderness

For the Israelites, would the 50 days between the crossing of the Sea of Reeds and the giving of Torah on Shavuot have gone by in a flash? Or would they have perceived an endless procession of uncomfortable, uncertain days? And how would they have felt if they'd known how long their wandering in the wilderness would eventually extend?

And why did God choose this odd, arbitrary waiting period of seven weeks and one day to create the covenant with the people?

The reasons for waiting until the Israelites were out of the wilderness seem clear: They were pretty busy, with the plagues and marking the doorposts of their homes and hurrying to the Sea of Reeds with the Pharoah's army at their backs. But why not wait a decade or so longer? Why make the covenant with the slave generation, who were deemed not worthy to enter the land?

Richard Elliot Friedman, in his Commentary on the Torah, says wilderness, rather than inhabited land, was essential for the giving of Torah. Scholars have noted that Judaism, unlike the religions of the Egyptians, the Romans, and the Greeks, was not tied to a particular place, like Olympus or the Euphrates. This God dwelt among the people whereever they went.

And although the destination was Eretz Israel, Friedman says, it was essential that the Torah be given in the wilderness to avoid imposing a special relationship between people and place.

It worked. The Abrahamic Religions have spread across the globe, outgrowing and outlasting so many other seemingly powerful beliefs.

But Eretz Israel was always the goal. I can't imagine the God of Abraham is pleased to hear the people of 21st century Israel described as "white colonial settlers" in the land to which God led them thousands of years ago, and which they have inhabited ever since. It's amazing to me that "Jewish indigeneity" is now being hotly debated.

Maybe it's because, in my only visit to Israel, I met an amazing Mizrahi Israeli who helped to found a kibbutz that thrives to this day. Maybe it's because, by a curious twist, I have worked as an English tutor with several Ethiopian Israelis. They have shared with me the struggles of their parents and grandparents to reach the land that their people had dreamed of for hundreds of years. There are many Jews who don't have family roots in Europe, who don't consider themselves to be "white." There are many Jews whose families were in the land now called Israel for generations before it became a state.

If you call Israeli’s "colonizers," you have to call me one, too. My ancestors came to Massachusetts and Virginia when those places were still "owned" by the King of England. But while my ancestors came with the intention of generating wealth for the king, the kibbutzniks in the early twentieth century came to build something new. Something indigenous.

There are people who make this argument far better than I can. Listen to Shai Davidai's podcast interview with Dumisani Washington on "Why Are Black Leaders Pressured to Oppose Israel?" And somehow on my FB page, a pro-Israeli Muslim named Naveed Anjum popped up. I can't find out much about him, but he's saying things I've never heard anyone else say.

Chag Shavuot Sameach.