The HISTORY of [IN] EQUALITY “An Egyptian empire enslaved Jews and drowned their babies.” Sounds familiar? How could they, we think? How amoral? In truth, we have it all wrong. Every other ancient kingdom that had power was doing it too. In their culture, this truth was self-evident: all men are not created equal. The concept that all men have rights would never have originated from man. This radical idea is the Bible’s. To gain perspective, let us glimpse backwards at the history of EQUALITY. Nowhere in the classical world do we find a struggle to do away with class distinctions. Indeed, the great thinkers of the past assumed that some would be rich and that many would be poor. Not simply because thats the way things were, but because that was the way things were actually supposed to be. “From the hour of their birth,” wrote Aristotle, “some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.” Perfect justice, for Aristotle, meant that equals be treated as equals and unequals as unequals. Social stratification was inherent in nature. It was only in the American and European revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries that we find the rejection of the privileges of rank and nobility that rid society of its entrenched caste and feudal systems. Torah had done so long before. Judaisms revolution of political thought begins with theology. Remember, the attempt to treat things political as distinct from religion is a thoroughly modern notion: in not a single culture in the ancient world is there a word for “religion” as distinct from “state.” To appreciate the ancient mindset, understand that the political power drew its power from the divine order. If, today, this makes no sense to our current sensibilities, it was thoroughly appreciated by those who ruled yesterday. Political regimes are, by definition, artificially constructed, and therefore tenuous. Always implicit is the question: why should he reign? But imagine if the imposed institutional hierarchy had divine legitimacy. State religion was self-serving. Thus an earthly king resembled his divine counterpart [read; god]. One needed a glorious temple, the other a magnificent palace to live in splendor separate from the masses. Everyone else [read; the slaves] served a single purpose: to toil and offer tribute, so that the gods and kings could enjoy a carefree existence. By contrast, the Torahs central account of the Exodus preempts claims of immanent hierarchy. All had been slaves. No Israelite could claim otherwise. The Exodus provided a common, seminal, liberating, but most importantly, equalizing event. No less significant is the Torahs call that the story of the Exodus and its message be promulgated among the people as their history. The point requires context. Although there are over one million inscriptions in our possession from the ancient Near East, there is nowhere evidence of a national narrative. All other histories revolve around the exploits of individual gods, kings and nobles. The most important audience of these records was the gods themselves – as witnessed by the fact that these texts were often discovered in temple libraries. Details of a kings battlefield victories constituted the report to a deity about the kings activities on the god’s behalf. They were not composed for the masses. Turning from theology to political office, Torah offers two new realities. First is the transition from the law of rule, to the rule of law. Everywhere else, kings composed law, but were not subject to it. In Torah, all public institutions - judiciary, priesthood, monarchy, prophets - are subordinated to the law. To ensure (as much as possible) equality before the law, Torah edicts were part of a public text meant to be widely known and studied thus making abuse of power more difficult. Second, the most important body of authority in a Jewish society is none other than the people themselves. Torah addresses the citizenry and charges them with anointing a king - if they desire one - and to appoint judges. There is no nominating body, thus it is the community collective who exercises real power. Only a few generations ago, the notion that blacks or women should choose rulers was unimaginable. For the royal monarchies of the ancient world, the idea that the masses would hold any sway over those who ruled them was even more unfathomable. In Torah, leaders are appointed for one purpose; to carry out the responsibilities of office, not to perpetuate the standing of a noble class. Political offices that are entirely instrumental, and not hierarchal, would reappear only with the American Founding Fathers. Whose power interest was served by this revolutionary Torah that favored not the king, the rich, or the priests? No immediate candidate jumps out in this new egalitarian order. The Torah presented, for the first time in history, a vision that radically rethought G-d as it rethought man. It introduced new understandings of the law, political office, and social welfare. It conceived a radical equality. No other document revolutionized so much, and with so little precedent to inspire it. This leads to one conclusion. The Torah has the imprint of a Divine mind and Omnipotent author, for no human being with the ability to conceive such power would have remained so anonymous and impotent.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 04:49:15 +0000
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