ANARCHO-COMMUNISM
IS AN ANCIENT JEWISH CONCEPT
Our earliest record of Jews having lived communally comes from the time
of Elisha the Prophet and there is every reason to
believe that he inherited that tradition from his Teachers. We learn from the
Book of Kings II, Chapter 4, Verses 38 – 44 that the followers of Prophets,
called B'nei Nevi'im, the
Spiritual children of Prophets, lived communally and took their meals
communally. We learn from these passages that eating communally results in
abundance.
Likewise, HaYachad (as they called themselves,
meaning the Ones Who are Unified, a derivative from the Hebrew 'chad', meaning 'one; uni-,
mono-), more commonly known as "the Dead Sea Sect" and also as
"the Essenes" (probably from the Aramaic 'assouta' meaning healing, for they were renowned for their
knowledge of health and healing), the sect of very pious Jews during the Second
Temple Period who wrote and preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls, lived communally
according to their reports about themselves; the writings of Josephus Flavius,
who lived amongst them; the observational reports of Philo; an account by Pliny
the Elder and contemporaneous reports of their way of life based on
archeological evidence. They, like the Prophets and their students, took all
their meals communally. A large communal dining hall was built for this
specific purpose.
Their community and their habit of communal dining, as witnessed by Josephus,
are described by him in Chapter VIII of his WARS OF THE JEWS. There he writes:
"These are despisers of riches…Nor is there any one to be found among them
who hath more than another; for it is a law among them, that those who come to
them must let what they have be common to the whole order – insomuch, that
among them all there is no appearance of poverty or excess of riches, but every
one's possessions are intermingled with every other's possession; and so there
is, as it were, one patrimony among all the brethren." Josephus'
description of their communal dining is borne out by the archeological evidence
of their dining hall that was discovered at Qumran. Communal
dining always was, and remains, an important aspect of life on Kibbutz as well.
Thus, our records establish that Communism is a very ancient Jewish social
system.
When I speak of Communism I do not refer at all to the system of Marx,
which is nothing other than transfer of property rights to the State. I am an Anarcho-Communist, one who believes in the abolition of the
concept of property all in all as well as in the abolition of all States.
Anarchists have always warned about the dangers of Marxism. The most articulate
and prolific proponent of Anarcho-Communism was Peter
Kropotkin. Only Anarcho-Communism,
a society in which there is no personal property whatsoever, can provide the
conditions under which we can keep such mitzvoth as Pesach (Passover) and the Yovel (Jubilee), and to a lesser extent Shmitta
(every 7th year when the land must lie fallow) as well.
A bit less than one hundred years before the "Manifesto" was
written by Marx and Engels, Rabbi Hillel
Livlin of Shklover, the
grand-nephew and disciple of the famous Rabbi Eliyahu
ben Shlomo Kramer, the Ga'on (Genius) of Vilna (1720-1797; See: http://tinyurl.com/ccwdh
http://tinyurl.com/a9mzr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilna_Ga'on
) wrote the very mystical work ÷åì
äúåø, KOL HATOR, meaning VOICE OF THE TURTLEDOVE, - the latter
term being a designation for the Messiah, as found in Song of Solomon 2:12.
Rabbi Livlin of Shklover
did not simply interpret the passages in the Bible that I will quote presently
to mean that one must not use unfair weights and measures when conducting
commerce, as they are usually interpreted. He went much further than that. He
said that the passages actually mean that the Messianic Age cannot come until
there is economic equality in Israel and he was basing his interpretation on
ancient sources.
The passages that speak of the demand for equality most clearly are:
Deuteronomy 25: 13- 16. "There we read: "Thou
shalt not have in thy bag diverse weights, a great
and a small. Thou shalt not have in thy house diverse
measures, a great and a small. A perfect and
just weight shalt thou have; a perfect and just
measure shalt thou have; that thy days may be long
upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. For
all that do such things, even all that do unrighteously,
are an abomination unto the LORD thy God."
The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text, The Jewish
Publication Society translation [1917].
Rabbi Livlin's interpretation is astounding. For it means that
only in an Anarcho-Communistic society will the inner
Torah, the Torah as it will appear during the Messianic Age, be revealed.
Therefore, that society must be founded previous to the Messianic Age. We
cannot wait for the Messianic Age in order for perfect economic justice to be
brought about. We are invested with the responsibility to create that society,
not the Messiah.
Marx had to dress ancient Jewish ideas in Teutonic garments (most
certainly, appealing to the philosophical authority of one George Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel served as a more reliable endorsement in
the minds of the Germans and English than would appealing to the exegesis of
one Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman) in order to gain
legitimacy in a xenophobic and anti-Semitic Europe, even as Freud didn't
mention how many of his ideas came from the Zohar
(one of the central works of Jewish mysticism).It must be mentioned that the Ga'on of Vilna based all of his Biblical studies on the
Talmud (the compendium of the Oral Jewish tradition as passed down to and
interpreted by the Pharisees of the Second Temple Period. It is considered the
unquestionable body of Biblical exegesis based on ancient authority among
Orthodox Jews to this day) and would not have made so categorical a statement
about economic equality had he not found ample basis for doing so in the Bible
as interpreted in the Talmud. The year that Hegel was born, The Ga'on of Vilna was a man of 50, surrounded by adoring
students and renowned internationally in the European Jewish Diaspora. After
his death he became equally famous in the Jewish Diasporas of North Africa, the
Arabian Peninsula, India and the Far East as well. No one in the Jewish world
questioned or questions his brilliance or exegetical ability. No matter how
assimilated and Western in his orientation Marx was, he could not have but come
under the influence of Rabbinical thinking.
The most startling example of a Jewish mystic who propounded Anarcho-Communistic ideas known to me is that of Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag. Rabbi Ashlag was aware of Marxist theory, but was wholly in
disagreement with the authoritative aspects of it. He arrived at Anarcho-Communism through his study of the Kabbalah. Evidently, he was not aware of the writings of
the Anarchists, with which his own teachings were in full agreement. I surmise this
because though the concepts he speaks of, which he termed "altruist
Communism" are pure Anarcho-Communism; he
employed Marxist, not Anarchist rhetoric.
(See the heading "Teachings" on this
link: http://tinyurl.com/ywuydc). The personal notes of David ben Gurion, the first Prime
Minister of the State of Israel, who belonged to the Labor Party
reflect the fact that he and Rabbi Ashlag met on a
number of occasions. Ben Gurion wrote: "While I
wanted to speak with him about the Kabbalah, he
wanted to speak to me about Socialism and Communism". [My
translation. Quoted
from ãøê ä÷áìä àì ä÷åîåðéæí ("Arriving at Communism by Way of the Kabbalah".
See: http://tinyurl.com/3xeqxe
(in Hebrew)]. That same article speaks of
the close friendship that Rabbi Ashlag enjoyed with Avraham Yitzchak Kook (1864–1935), who was the first
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi during the time of the British Mandate for Palestine and
is renowned for his devotion to the mystic tradition of Judaism as well. While Rav Kook did not call for Anarchy or Anarcho-Communism,
as did his dear friend Rabbi Ashlag, he did see the
Kibbutz Movement, including the secular Kibbutz Movement, as part of the
heralding of the Messianic age.
In classical Jewish thought economic equality in communal society is a
sine qua non for the attainment of spiritual advancement, as the very desire to
amass property and hold it to oneself reflects
spiritual taint. However, communal living is not seen as an end in itself, or
as the zenith of human achievement. It is meant to serve the mega-purpose of
man's existence on earth, which is the revelation of God in the material world.
In order to do this, Man is "clothed" in a physical body, which has
its own needs. By supplying those needs in a pure and holy way: by eating as
prescribed the tenants of one's spiritual culture, temperance in sexual
relations, attending to agriculture and horticulture with loving-kindness,
uprightness in business dealings, and by being as concerned with the welfare of
one's fellows exactly as one is concerned with one's own, one purifies one's
own body as well as strengthens the vessels of physical existence to receive
Godliness. Communism, as understood in Jewish thought is the physical and
cultural parallel of the spiritual quest - the attainment of the greatest good
FOR ALL. As God imparts of Its Divine Knowledge freely, so we
are to share our knowledge and all manners of wealth one with the other.
The ability to live according to the principles "LOVE
YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF" and, as Rabbi Akiva
taught during the time of the Second Temple: "What is mine is yours. This
is the great central point of the entire Bible" is the sine qua non of
communism. These are central Jewish teachings.
The fact that Marx presented Communism removed from its Jewish ground, which,
no doubt, was a capitulation to European anti-Semitism, opened Communism to
being arrogated entirely by those who, not knowing the Spiritual substrate of
true Communism, without which it is impracticable, distorted Communism into
being the basis not only of repressive regimes, but as yet another excuse for
anti-Semitism.
Anarcho-Communism is the social invention of the
Jewish People. It is certainly not the exclusive social invention of the Jewish
People. Other people lived in Anarcho-Communist
societies, but it was our way of living during the time of the Judges. It is
the sine qua non for the establishment of a just society. It was our
past. It will be our future.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan,
Tzfat, Israel