What is
Anarchistic Judaism?
The question: "What is
Anarchistic Judaism?" was posed to me. The question is quite pertinent and
I feel it behooves me to treat the query, insofar as I am able.
The plain, simple and honest answer is: I do not know. I cannot know. I
cannot imagine what Judaism would be like as practiced by free people in a
society in which there was abundance for all in accordance with individual
needs and desires. It has never been my privilege to experience Judaism as a
free Spirit in a free body in a free society. But I wish to have that
experience and that very wish is worthwhile and will bring the possibility closer
to realization. Helen Keller, who, most do not know, was an ardent Anarchist-Socialist
and a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, said: “Remember, no effort that we make to attain something
beautiful is ever lost.” (See: http://tinyurl.com/h9z5u)
I resonate and fully identify
with Gustav Landauer, when he wrote: "Now I will not say, as some may
well expect, how the new reality we desire should be constituted as a whole. I
offer no depiction of an ideal, no description of utopia." (FOR
SOCIALISM, pg. 44) and with the words of Emma Goldman when she said to a
reporter: "I am really too much of an anarchist to bother about all the
trifling details [of a program]; all I want is freedom, perfect, unrestricted
liberty for myself and others." – (Preface to Part I, RED EMMA SPEAKS,
Third Edition, Compiled and Edited by Alix Kates Shulman).
With that, many teachings in Torah do give us an
idea of what Jewish Anarcho-Communism would be like.
Need it be said that the very
heart and Soul of Judaism is freedom? Is it not abundantly clear that Judaism
intends that we will attain maximum liberty and independence as a People and as
individuals?
What is the story of Avraham smashing
the statues in his father's workshop if not the bursting out from the bonds of
idol worship?
What is the story of Exodus if
not the will of the entire people, in every generation, to live as free men,
women and children?
Is it not written in Chapter 58
of the Book of the Prophet Yeshayahu (in English translation here, but the
author heartily recommends that those who read Hebrew read the original text)?:
1 Cry aloud, spare
not, lift up thy voice like a horn, and declare unto My
people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet they seek Me daily, and d
3 'Wherefore have we
fasted, and Thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and Thou
takest no knowledge?'-- Behold, in the day of your fast ye pursue your
business, and exact all your labours.
4 Behold, ye fast for
strife and contention, and to smite with the fist of wickedness; ye fast not
this day so as to make your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is such the fast
that I have chosen? the day for a man to afflict his
soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and
ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to HaShem?
6 Is not this the fast
that I have chosen? to loose the fetters of
wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free,
and that ye break every yoke?
7 Is it not to
deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that
thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
This passage is
remarkable! Read it. Then read it again and yet again. God is saying that the
Jewish People kept the commandments and performed the fasts that they thought
were required of them. But they misunderstood – and they, in so doing
transgressed, no matter how good their intentions were and eager was their
desire to know God's ways. All that they did was not only not the mitzvot, they were transgressions in God's eyes. Their
efforts availed them nothing. The fast that God desires of us is the
self-sacrifice that is required to create a just society – a society in which
all eat and all shackles have been loosed; a society in which no one labors
under a yoke and none are oppressed. In other words, HaShem is commanding us to
create an Anarchistic-Communistic society. Not doing so, even as we perform the
mitzvot as we think they are to be performed is, in HaShem's words, a
transgression. Note the disdain with which God regards pursuing business, that
is to say money-making, instead of creating a just society. Indeed, the
hypocritical fast of the businessperson is revolting to both God and those who
truly love Humankind.
What is the true meaning of the famous hymn of Dunash ben Labrat
(See: http://tinyurl.com/q2po2)
entitled דרור* יקרא (
[*pronounced dror in
Hebrew.]
דרור! דרור! דרור! -
Say it! Shout it! Sing it!
Demand it of yourself! Demand it for all! Call your brothers and sisters to liberty!
It is what our God wants for us and demands of us.
Have you ever noticed the גימטריא**of the word דרור? It
is 410 – the self-same גימטריא as
that of the word קודש (spelled in כתיב מלא).
Or, if you prefer, it can be spelled קדשו,
in which case it is both in the plural imperative form and the past plural form.
When we pronounce the word דרור we
are also saying קדשו. We are commanding the
People to create holiness and when we command the people to create holiness, we
are expressing freedom. When we pronounce the word דרור we
are also saying that holiness is a fait accompli. Freedom, then, the גימטריא
teaches us, is holiness and holiness is freedom. The words דרור
and קדשו share the same גימטריא.
That means they are two aspects of one and the same mega-idea. When we free
ourselves and one another, we sanctify ourselves and one another. Understand
this!
***(Gematria, Hebrew "numerology", for lack of a better
English word. I am really loath to use the word "numerology", as the transderivational morphology of
the word arouses associations with non-Jewish uses of numerology, which I
consider to be so much wannabe, pseudo-esoteric bunk.)
The reader is requested to note
the fact that I do not use the word חופש (pronounced
chofesh (guttural ch, long 'o', accent on the penultimate syllable) in Hebrew;
written here in כתיב מלא because the internet
sometimes shows diacritical marks as gibberish) because the word חופש
nowadays has taken on the connotation of freedom in the sense of doing whatever
one feels like in a spirit of insouciance.
That would not be דרור. That would be slavery to
one's impulses. דרור is the liberty required to
develop fully, to contribute as much as one can of one's self to society, the
freedom needed to foster others' self-actualization and the freedom needed to
be truly responsible to others and to one's self. However, the word חופשים,
which is translated above as "free" in the English translation, is
used in the Hebrew text of Yeshayahu 58:6. The word חופש,
then, cannot possibly mean freedom in the sense of license to do harm or insouciance.
It is the considered opinion of
this author that the negative connotations that have been attached to the
Hebrew word חופש are
for the sake of controlling people. The words חופשי
and the Yiddish frei are used as buzzwords by r
Have you ever noticed how
little Jews are taught the Books of the Nevi'im (Prophets), how they are
glossed over, often in favor of the writings of
Rabbis, which are assiduously studied by their students? That is because the
Books of the Prophets call the People to חופש, that
is, authentic Judaism, while the r
One of the most instructive
passages in Torah concerning how undesirable the establishment of a kingdom
over
1 And it came to pass, when
Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over
2 Now the name of his
first-born was Joel; and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in
Beer-Sheba.
3 And his sons walked not in
his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted justice.
4 Then all the elders of
5 And they said unto him:
'Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways; now make us a king to
judge us like all the nations.'
6 But
the thing displeased Samuel, when they said: 'Give us a king to judge us.' And
Samuel prayed unto HaShem.
7 And HaShem said unto Samuel:
'Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they
have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me,
that I should not be king over them.
8 According to all the works
which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even
unto this day, in that they have forsaken Me, and served other gods, so do they
also unto thee.
9 Now
therefore hearken unto their voice; howbeit thou shalt earnestly forewarn them,
and shalt declare unto them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.'
10 And Samuel told all the
words of HaShem unto the people that asked of him a king.
11 And he said: 'This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over
you: he will take your sons, and appoint them unto him, for his chariots, and
to be his horsemen; and they shall run before his chariots.
12 And he will appoint them
unto him for captains of thousands, and captains of fifties; and to plow his
ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the
instruments of his chariots.
13 And he will take your
daughters to be perfumers, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
14 And he will take your
fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and
give them to his servants.
15 And he will take the tenth
of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his
servants.
16 And he will take your men-servants,
and your maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put
them to his work.
17 He will take the tenth of
your flocks; and ye shall be his servants.
18 And ye shall cry out in that
day because of your king whom ye shall have chosen you; and HaShem will not
answer you in that day.'
19 But the people refused to
hearken unto the voice of Samuel; and they said: 'Nay; but there shall be a
king over us;
20
that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go
out before us, and fight our battles.'
21 And Samuel heard all the
words of the people, and he spoke them in the ears of HaShem.
22 And HaShem said to Samuel:
'Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king.' And Samuel said unto the men
of
We learn
from the passages above that even judges who are the sons of Prophets become
venal and in all ways morally corrupt if power is invested in them. We know from
many passages in Torah that many of the Cohenim certainly were likewise horribly
corrupt. We know from the תלמוד; and היחד (The "Dead Sea Sect", which was founded
by Cohenim who fled the corruption of Jerusalem), the writings of whom are called
מגילות ים המלח (Dead Sea Scrolls); from Josephus and other sources that the
corruption of the Cohenim and those who set themselves up as kings over Israel
continued were barbarous beyond comprehension until the destruction of the
Second Temple.
We see, then, that HaShem allowed a king to be set over
response to their inability to understand what would be the results
of doing so merely by being told. They had to experience the horror.
Those
who cannot appreciate the splendor of freedom intellectually must, sadly,
undergo the agony of being a slave (that includes being made a wage slave or a
slave to one's business or a slave to the various addictions that Capitalists
encourage and in so doing implant within us the compulsion to buy and buy and
buy) in order for the value of freedom to become clear to them.
Yet,
there is a great risk in this. It is entirely possible, and quite common, that
slavery so weakens the Spirit, mind, emotions and body and so constricts the
size of the slave's world that he or she is not even aware of their diminished state.
The imagination of the slave is also starved of imagery and input. Thus,
visualizing a better world is made well-nigh impossible. Our inability to
envision what Judaism would look like in an Anarchistic-Communistic society is
one example of the devastation of slaves' imaginations. He or she is so numbed
that they do not experience pain. The very worst tragedy of slavery is that the
slave, being utterly dependent upon his or her master, comes to think of the
master as benevolent and will defend the master with a vengeance. Any attempt
to set the slave free will be met with resistance or
even violence on the part of the slaves themselves. The story of our Exodus is
filled with examples of this. The experience of slavery can break the Spirit
and the body instead of having the desired effect, which is making us cry out for release. We have to be able to access the
depths of our being to find the core of health and sanity in it when we are
slaves in order to realize how terrible is our condition and those of others
around us. Many lose the ability to make that plunge into their depths. They
are alienated from their Souls. This is the meaning of the teaching that we
reached the 49th level of impurity in
Having rulers over us in not a Jewish concept and it is something
that HaShem never intended for us.
Even our relationship to Moshe was a compromise that HaShem did not
wish for us. We were intended to receive Torah directly. It was we who demanded
an intermediary. It was we who wanted a shepherd. We wanted to be
"sheeple", as the current slang aptly describes the Jewish People in
far too many ways throughout far too much of our history. It was we who fled
the responsibility of being free Souls. And we are fleeing that responsibility,
to our detriment, to this day.
God's Will for us is that we will be a people without a government that lords
over us, taxes us, kidnaps our sons whom they send to war in order to fill
their coffers and our daughters for sexual slavery as well as all manners of servitude
at the whim of leaders who have become inured to every suffering, who have been
debauched and perverted and by immediate over-gratification of their impulses.
Torah tells us about the foibles, escapades and
worse of the kings that ruled over
We read in the Book of Kings II, Chapter 2:
3 And the sons of the prophets
that were at Beth-el came forth to Elisha, and said unto him: 'Knowest thou
that HaShem will take away thy master from thy head to-day?' And he said: 'Yea,
I know it; hold ye your peace.'—
4 And Elijah said unto him:
'Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for HaShem hath sent me to
5 And the sons of the prophets
that were at
Notice the familiarity with which the students address their teachers,
yet there is reverent awe of deep-abiding love in every word. Note how there is
no demand for submission to the will of the teacher and obedience from the
students. Note how the students take it upon themselves to teach their teacher
and although their teacher knows that which they tell him he does not punish
them for "stepping out of line" or "breaking ranks". Elisha
tells his student to hold their peace not because he is being authoritarian
with them, but because he is trying to minimize their shared pain at the
impending separation from Eliyahu. Note that Eliyahu's stance toward his
student Elisha in verse 4 is supplicatory, not commanding, and Elisha refuses
to do as his teacher would wish. He refuses to leave him. The absence of
authority and total lack of the very concept of insubordination in favor of
love and devotion are, in these relationships based on genuine mutual reverence,
are very moving.
Jewish Anarchy, then, would be a society in which we would have no
leaders, but we would have dearly beloved and implicitly trusted advisors.
They would be advisors not because they
passed a test and were issued סמיכה by the r
The very thought of the disapproval or
disappointment of our beloved advisers in us would be the only
"threats" necessary to keep people on a straight path. This is the
only real form of discipline in a society that there can possibly be. There are
no more effective deterrents to wrong-doing.
They would have no armies, no police, or
riot squads, no jails or torture chambers at their disposal. There would be no
need for them in society. If we consider the matter even superficially; it
becomes apparent how pathetically weak leaders are and how precarious their
positions if they must resort to terrifying us with the threat of horrific
measures in order to maintain their power. Those who make use of those measures,
and all leaders do during the course of their careers, lose their Humanity. They
have no Soul. They walk. They talk. But inside there is only the void.
Moreover, this would be a Jewish Anarcho-Communistic society. No longer
will there be salaried r
We learn that Communism's precedent is to be found very early in our
history from the Book of Kings II, Chapter 4:
38 And Elisha came again to
Gilgal; and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were
sitting before him; and he said unto his servant: 'Set on the great pot, and
seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets.'
39 And one went out into the
field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds
his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage; for they knew
them not.
40 So they poured out for the men
to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they
cried out, and said: 'O man of G-d, there is death in the pot.' And they could
not eat thereof.
41 But he said: 'Then bring
meal.' And he cast it into the pot; and he said: 'Pour out for the people, that
they may eat.' And there was no harm in the pot.
42 And there came a man from
Baal-shalishah, and brought the man of G-d bread of the first-fruits, twenty
loaves of barley, and fresh ears of corn in his sack. And he said: 'Give unto
the people, that they may eat.'
43 And his servant said: 'How
should I set this before a hundred men?' But he said: 'Give the people, that
they may eat; for thus saith HaShem: They shall eat, and shall leave thereof.'
44 So he set it before them, and
they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of HaShem.
We have been taught that the
abundant increase of food described in the passages above and in a number of
others in Torah is miraculous, in the sense of being an out of the ordinary
materialization of food from out of nowhere. If we look at these passages we
will see that nothing out of the ordinary occurred. Where there is a Community
of people who each give what they have to give one to the other, trust in one
another to provide for the needs of all and sit down and equals, as brothers
and sisters over one common pot, overflowing abundance occurs as a natural
matter of fact. Plenty is the direct consequence of cooperation, mutual aid, respect,
equality and the genuine desire to give to each according to his or her needs
even as we trust that he or she will give in accordance with his or her
ability. The holiness resides in the love and togetherness, and this is
expressed as abundance in the physical world. Abundance is the norm. It
requires nothing more than our expressing our natural and salubrious gregarious
nature as human beings. Scarcity, in contradistinction, must be violently
imposed on the world by acts of violence and atomization of humanity.
A detailed discussion concerning
the fact that Communism is an ancient Jewish concept can be found on the
following site: http://tinyurl.com/lj6bm. Caveat: though I
speak about Marxism in the piece; I am not a Marxist. Anarchists are not
Marxists. Neither are Anarcho-Communists Marxists. I will discuss Anarchism,
which is authentic Communism, vis-à-vis Marxism, which could never be
aught else but totalitarian, in a separate essay.
We have demonstrated that
Anarcho-Communism, that is to say a society characterized by the absence of
government and economic equality, is not only congruent with Judaism;
Anarcho-Communism is the sine qua non that allows for a genuine understanding
of Torah and living according to the mitzvot.
We are currently unable to visualize
what Judaism would look like if we were free of the impositions of government
and lived in economic security that allowed each of us to develop fully as
humans in general and Jews in particular because the present structure of our
society perverts, truncates and stultifies our Spirits, minds, emotions and
bodies. We have amply demonstrated that the correct practice and understanding
of Judaism can only be discovered and flower under conditions of דרור and
economic equality and abundance for all.
It is really a matter of common
sense when we think about the matter honestly. It is impossible for a slave (be
he or she a wage slave, a slave to one's own business or any other kind of
slave) to fully, freely and correctly perform the mitzvot. That is the הלכה. It is
equally impossible that those who engage in the lies, intrigues and corruption
of Capitalist money-making can are fit to understand Torah properly. That is
the true meaning of the injunction against idol worship. Can we realistically
expect that when a person sits down to learn Torah early in the morning knowing
full well that he or she will spend the day being guileful and worse, that that
learning is pure? This is all the more true for those who come home from the
workaday corruption and, with the blood and filth of the marketplace, wherein
the slaughter of those too young, old, frail, beautiful and gentle to survive
the treachery of Capitalism takes place still on their hands, attempt to learn
Torah.
The purity of mind, emotions and
body needed to understand Torah will come only when we are neither ruled nor
rulers and when we all know that society will provide for our us in accordance
with our needs and provide the opportunities our Soul needs to give to society
from the fruits of our talents and abilities.
Our Prophets have taught us that
we are not observing the mitzvot as HaShem would have us do so, as we have seen.
They have instructed what HaShem does expect from us. We have been informed
clearly and without equivocation that our performance of ersatz mitzvot is a
transgression and a sin. We must understand that if we persist in our mistaken
ways; we will continue to suffer.
Though we do not know what a
Jewish Anarcho-Communistic society will look like precisely, we do have some
idea.
It is clearly true that not only
will we be living in a society characterized by security and the serenity that
comes from fe
As is written in the Book of Mikhah, Chapter 6:
8 It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what HaShem doth
require of thee: only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy G-d...
10 Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the
wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?
11 'Shall I be pure with wicked balances, and with a bag of deceitful
weights?'
12 For the rich men thereof are full of
violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is
deceitful in their mouth.
13 Therefore I also do
smite thee with a grievous wound; I do make thee desolate because of thy sins.
In truth, it has been told to us.
The Hebrew version of this article can be found on the following URL:
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan Tzfat (Safed),