1758tribe//01/2018
The Tribe
There
is an ancient tribe living among us. Their language is the oldest continuously
surviving western language, matched only in the East by Chinese. Unlike other tribes which had religions focusing
on idols and statues, the God this tribe worships is invisible and portable.
It
had to be. If your god was a huge statue of the Buddha and you suddenly had to
leave the country, you could not take your idol with you. Conquerors
traditionally destroyed the resident idols and erected their own. This tribe,
having no idols, could leave and retain their identity.
What
they do have is their book. They are sometimes called “people of the book.” Their
book is a strange collection of stories of dysfunctional families, brothers
murdering brothers, adultery, incest, concubines and expulsions, indentured
servitude and betrayal, all written in the ancient language filled with
ambiguity and subject to endless interpretation. Yet in spite of that
difficulty, that tribe’s book has been endlessly translated, cherry picked, and
adopted even though the tribal members themselves are often shunned and
persecuted.
The
rules of ethics and behavior laid down in that tribal document are the
foundation of western civilization.
Unlike
tribes where the leaders demand absolute obedience without question, this
argumentative tribe has always been taught to questions and challenge, in a
word to think, to learn, and, since their book is so difficult to fully
understand, to study. They seek knowledge.
It’s
a winning discipline,
The
tribe’s peculiar customs have kept them apart from their neighbors. For this
they have been suspect. They have been persecuted for their beliefs and
expelled, exiled, even murdered. In turn they have been expelled and enslaved
by the Romans, the Spanish, the French, the Germans and the English. There was
even a program to exterminate all of them.
Are
they so different? So dangerous? They do not seek to conquer or to dominate.
Their prayers are always for peace. When they are successful they are the
subject of envy. People think these tribal members are smart.
There
is nothing remarkable about that: they seek knowledge. By Darwinian survival of
the fittest, the many expulsions have purged
the tribe of the weak and the slow-witted.
So
who are these strange tribal members and what is their language and their book?
The language is Hebrew. They call their book the Torah and they are Jews. Who
would have thought?
