The
following words are dedicated to the memory of my mother, Dr. Hannah French,
who passed away 43 years ago in the Hebrew month of Kislev.
My
mother was deeply committed to the value of truth. Even truths that were painful
or searing. Even memories that she would have preferred to obliterate. Such
were the memories that arose before Jacob’s eyes as he lay dying. He recalled
the death of his beloved Rachel and her burial by the wayside, instead of in
her deserved place by his side in the cave of the patriarchs and matriarchs in
Hebron. He recalled the deed that led to the family being on the road when
Rachel was struck by birth pangs: the massacre perpetrated by his sons on the
people of Shechem. And he remembered the loss of Joseph, even as he delighted
in having the unforeseen opportunity to bless Joseph’s sons before he died.
I’ve
been thinking a lot lately about truth, a value that seems slipperier than ever
in this age of free information – so free that it tends to get away. I’ve
witnessed the denial and distortion of things that seemed to be unvarnished
fact, as though they were matters of opinion rather than of information or
science.
In
light of these reflections, I read a book by the French historian and
intellectual Pierre Vidal-Naquet on the subject of Holocaust denial. Vidal-Naquet
examines the methods used by various “academic” Holocaust deniers in France,
Germany and the U.S. to produce scientific “proofs” for their arguments that
the stories of mass murder in Auschwitz couldn’t possibly be true. For example
– that the Nazis didn’t have the physical means to operate the gas chambers. Or
that their deeds simply fly in the face of common sense or the way history
normally plays out. And all this even after the Nazis’ deeds had been interrogated
and researched in fine detail, at the Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann trial, and
in many scholarly studies, and even though every Jew knows from his own
personal experience, from the loss of near and dear ones, that these things are
as true as the sun and the moon hanging in the heavens.
Vidal-Naquet
thinks as well about the political uses made of memory and of its denial by
those he calls “assassins of memory.” For example, by diminishing the Nazi
crimes – not completely denying them, but restricting them to the dimensions of
“war crimes” as opposed to “genocide” – they can be compared with the types of
war crimes perpetrated in most wars, enabling the perpetrators of those crimes
to be trumpeted as Nazis. Vidal-Naquet was writing in the 1980s, in the context
of the French war in Algeria and its attendant crimes, but I believe one can easily
see the relevance of his discussion to recent times, including our own
accusations against others and theirs against us.
Vidal-Naquet,
who was at pains to negate the arguments of the deniers by pointing to their obviously
false underpinnings (even as he debated with himself the usefulness of creating
a “school” of Holocaust-affirmers that might actually lend credence to the opposing
“school” of Holocaust-deniers), offers no firm answers to the question of how
the phenomenon of denial of the historic truth can be overcome. On the
contrary; on the basis of his own scholarship, he shows how similar cover-ups
have happened throughout history. Nevertheless, one may learn from his
discussion that there is no other way to deal with this issue than to keep
reiterating those true historical memories, painful as they may be.
I
see an example of this in Jacob’s blessings to his sons at the end of his life.
Jacob recalls, with no effort to prettify them, the worst deeds of his sons –
Reuven, who slept with his father’s concubine, and especially Simeon and Levi,
who perpetrated the massacre in Shechem and threw their brother Joseph into the
pit. These deeds disqualified the three older sons from the leadership, which would
pass to the tribe of Judah. Jacob’s precise wording in this regard bears
examination.
On
the one hand, Jacob emphasizes the damage that can arise from “brotherhood” –
the very unity that we so crave. “Simeon and Levi are a pair!” Unity can lead
in more than one direction. When the brothers unite as twelve tribes under the
leadership of Judah, glorious as a lion, who spoke the truth to Joseph at the
risk of his own life, that unity leads to victory, security and prosperity. But
when their unity is along the lines of the brotherhood of Simeon and Levi, it
leads them to commit atrocities that everyone would rather forget. Perhaps one
could have passed these off as the deeds of a small minority. But Jacob doesn’t
do that. He mentions them in his final words of blessing to the children of
Israel: Let them remember that the deeds of a few can stain the many, even
those who bear the name of Israel.
On
the other hand, as Rashi points out, “Even in this hour of reproof, he cursed
only their anger.” Jacob does not forever accurse his sons Simeon and Levi. On
the contrary: Their descendants would produce Israel’s great spiritual leaders
and teachers – Moses, the tribe of Levi, the priests and the educators – as
Jacob hints in his final words to them: “I will divide them in Jacob, scatter
them in Israel.” Jacob curses not them, but their rage and zealotry: “Cursed be
their anger so fierce, and their wrath so relentless.” As Rabbi Samson Raphael
Hirsch remarks in his commentary: “This is of the utmost importance, that here,
as the cornerstone for the people of Israel was being laid, a curse was
pronounced upon any outburst that blemished morality or justice, even if it was
done for the common good.”
I
conclude from this discussion that there is nothing to be gained from the
denial of reprehensible deeds, or from the effort to distort or prettify them, or
from arguing that they are but the deeds of “others” or of an “extremist
minority.” They are part of our history, and our duty is to learn from them. At
the same time, there’s no point to miring ourselves in accusations and blaming.
Zeal should be channeled into spirituality – and the leadership should be in
the hands of those who can lead the people with true glory and sincerity.
That
is the spiritual testament of Jacob to the people of Israel.
