I have been struggling with anger lately, resulting from dialogues I’ve been having with non-jews claiming to be the tribe of Efraim. Their claim is that, since the Bible prophesies the return of the tribe of Efraim, they are it, the physical manifestation of the tribe of Israel. This claim infuriates me, and to cope with my anger, I have been trying to understand why it touches me so deeply. I realize that it is because it is a total misunderstanding of what it means to be a Jew, which is the most precious aspect of my personal identity.
It pains me to add this note. These ten tribers inevitably insist that Jews are the tribe of Judah and are therefore not Israel. This claim is the result of a selective reading of the Bible. The returning exiles from Babylon were from the Tribe of Judah, but in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, they are explicitly called “Israel” throughout. Today, the Jews are the only representative of the nation the Bible referred to as Judah and Israel. The way we perform the mitzvoth is an inheritance from 3,000 years of Jewish history. It is not “rabbinic Judaism”, something invented by a group of rabbis who made it up out of thin air a few days ago and who can randomly change the mitzvoth tomorrow. These are the traditions that have connected us as a nation in exile for 2,000 years. By performing the mitzvoth, I am doing God’s will, and connecting to the Torah. But more importantly, I am connecting with my people.
Being a Jew is not a religious label. Religion is a matter of faith and practice. My Jewish identity has nothing to do with what I believe or what I do. Indeed, my being a Jew has very little to do with me. I did not earn the title. I never chose to be a Jew. I am a Jew because of everything that came before me. I’m a Jew because of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all of their descendants, all of the Jews who stood at Sinai, and everyone who came after them. It isn’t even a matter of what they believed or what they did. God set them apart and declared them to be the nation of Israel. It is the most important essential element of who I am. I did not earn it, but at the same time, I cannot cast it away. No matter what I do or what I believe.
It is for this reason that even in the face of horrific persecution, Jews have never denied their identity. To be honest, they would not have been able to convince the Jews haters that they were anything other than what God made them. My identity as a Jew has been evident to anyone who has ever met me.
A person who claims to be Israel without a connection to the 3,000 years of our national history, without a family tradition that they are the result of this national history, has disregarded, devalued, and disrespected the entire nation of Israel, past, present, and future. This is actually more painful to me than laying claim to the covenant, which, at least, acknowledges that there was a time when Israel was a nation.
No, it is not a result of faith or performing the biblical commandments. To be honest, it has always confused me as to why God gave us the commandments at the same time he made us a nation. The commandments have nothing to do with morality or any benefits they might bring to my life. Avoiding ham, shrimp, and cheeseburgers does not make me more moral than non-Jews. Some Nordic nations want to outlaw circumcision, the most prominent physical manifestation of my Jewish identity, claiming it is cruel. God commanded me to do mitzvoth because I am a Jew. Jewish tradition taught that all the Jewish souls stood at Sinai and swore to uphold the Torah. I can be perfectly moral in human terms without the biblical commandments, though I’m being less true to my identity as a Jew.
Some of these ten tribers have told me that their performance of the mitzvot is proof that they are from Israel. It is not. Non-jews can do mitzvoth. It does not make them Jews. Ironically, these ten tribers usually reject what they call rabbinic Judaism and perform the mitzvoth in a manner that is distinctly dissimilar to the way Jews keep the mitzvoth. I do mitzvoth to express my identity as part of the Jewish people. They do mitzvoth in a way that expresses that they are absolutely not a part of the Jewish people. They do not claim to be Jews. They claim to be Israel, and this claim is usually followed by the claim that I am a Jew and not Israel.
So after a great deal of introspection, I think I understand what about this makes me so incredibly angry. I inherited my identity as a Jew. I did not have a choice. When God gave us the Torah, he held Mount Sinai over our heads and threatened us that if we refused, he would dro[p the mountain onto us and return all of creation to an unformed void.
Being a Je, being part of the nation has never been a matter of choice. We are the chosen people, not the people who chose God.
So when someone with no family connection to having a mountain held over their head says that they feel they are Israel, even if they say they KNOW they are Israel, they have no idea what they are talking about. It is not about what they know. It is about what God decided. It sounds unfair, but a person cannot simply wake up in the morning and lay claim to 3,000 years of heritage and ancestry. It is like laying claim to someone else’s DNA or their identity.
I have been told that this is similar to how native Americans feel when people claim to be Indians. Yes, I am indigenous. Claiming to be Israel when you are not is precisely the same as Palestinians rewriting history and claiming the land of Israel.
As I said, my identity as a Jew has always been the most important aspect of my personal identity, even when I was not Torah observant. There is a Hasidic expression that says that no matter where a Jew is going, he is always on his way to Jerusalem. This is why Jews have always prayed towards Jerusalem. Our hearts are always there. That was certainly true of me. I have always been on my way to Jerusalem.
That did not become my reality until I was 30 years old, and I pray every day, thanking God that I was born in an era when this was a possibility. I am hugely blessed to have four children who were born in Israel. I’m hugely blessed to spend my days and nights living among my people, neighbors, and friends who have the same ancestors.
The Piesetzner rebbe, Rav Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, wrote in Chovot Hatalmidim that when a rebbe stands before a classroom of Jewish children, he must understand that every child has a physical piece of Abraham within him.
When I go to the supermarket, I look at all my neighbors and can almost put the pieces of the puzzle together, seeing what the Biblical patriarchs looked like.
I imagine it sounds incredibly cruel for a Christian to hear that he is not a Jew and cannot be part of Israel, even if he does mitzvoth and professes belief in the god of Israel. No other faith has prayed towards Jerusalem because Jerusalem is not part of their heart and soul as it is of mine and the other Jews.
The only way to become part of Israel, part of the Jewish people, is through conversion. Conversion is not a matter of faith, as it is in Christianity and Islam. Conversion to Judaism is when a rabbinical Court recognizes that a Jewish soul has been born to two non-Jewish people. It is a recognition of a national identity that does not follow natural laws. Tribal identity is inherited, genealogical, but conversion recognizes that sometimes, this tribal identity does not follow the laws of genetics. Conversion requires a rabbinical court, a collection of Jews, to accept that person into the Jewish people.
One of the major flaws in replacement theology was the basic misunderstanding of what the covenant is. The covenant is the Jewish people. To be part of the covenant, you have to be part of the Jewish people. To access the covenant as a gentile, you have to come through the Jewish people, just as an Israelite must access the temple through the kohanim. An Israelite cannot usurp the role of the kohen. He can act as a kohen, but his identity was established by God. It is not self-determined.
This is something that has been known by Jew haters throughout the generations. They didn’t care what we believed or what we did. And even after we took on their faith, we were outsiders. Even after we intermarried and looked like our neighbors, they didn’t have to ask who the Jews were. They knew. The pro-Hamas rallies at the Ivy League universities showed that this is still true. They will always know who the Jew is, lest we forget.
The result of this is that something glorious is happening. There are over seven million Jews in Israel, but this is not a matter of faith. This is the largest family reunion in human history. Once again, we are together just as we were at Sinai and when the temple stood in Jerusalem. Being a Jew means that I am home. I have lived my life to express my connection to this family. I can try to explain to these ten tribers what being part of Israel means and why they can’t simply wake up one morning and decide to be Israel. But I don’t think they would understand. Even more tragically, I have tried to explain to American Jews what it means to be a Jew, but they refuse to understand. They do not want to be part of this family. At least not fully. They will act the part and talk the part, but their bodies remain in exile. They are the relatives who stayed at the beach rather than coming to the reunion.
There is a lovely midrash that says that when the Messiah comes, he will bring the remnants of Israel back home. When they arrive, they will see Angels flying above them and will ask the Messiah, ” Who are these angels?” The Messiah will answer, “These angels are the Jews who made Aliyah before he arrived.”
I’ve lived in Israel for 35 years, and it has been incredibly difficult, getting even harder over time. But it has been a huge blessing. I sense that my wings will be stunted, and I will not be such a great flyer. But when I sit at my Shabbat table, I see four angels who are glowing and will fly higher than I ever will.
Even after we adopted their faith, we remained outsiders. Even after we intermarried and looked like our neighbors, they didn’t have to ask who the Jews were. They knew. The pro-Hamas rallies at the Ivy League universities showed that this is still true. They will always know who the Jew is, lest we forget.
The result of this is that something glorious is happening. There are over seven million Jews in Israel, but this is not a matter of faith. This is the largest family reunion in human history. Once again, we are together just as we were at Sinai and when the temple stood in Jerusalem. Being a Jew means that I am home. I have lived my life to express my connection to this family. I can try to explain to these ten tribers what being part of Israel means and why they can’t simply wake up one morning and decide to be Israel. But I don’t think they would understand. Even more tragically, I have tried to explain to American Jews what it means to be a Jew, but they refuse to understand. They do not want to be part of this family. At least not fully. They will act the part and talk the part, but their bodies remain in exile. They are the relatives who stayed at the beach rather than coming to the reunion.
There is a lovely midrash that says that when the Messiah comes, he will bring the remnants of Israel back home. When they arrive, they will see Angels flying above them and will ask the Messiah, ” Who are these angels?” The Messiah will answer, “These angels are the Jews who made Aliyah before he arrived.”
I’ve lived in Israel for 35 years, and it has been incredibly difficult, getting even harder over time. But it has been a huge blessing. I sense that my wings will be stunted, and I will not be such a great flyer. But when I sit at my Shabbat table, I see four angels who are glowing and will fly higher than I ever will.
Am yisrael chai.
