Kohelet 1:1–11

Kohelet 3:1–14

Deuteronomy 4:25–31

Mishnah Avot 2:16

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TEXTing with Elana Stein Hain delves deeply into Jewish texts to guide and inspire us as we grapple with the concerns and meaning of this moment. Join Elana as she addresses the issues of our day through the lens of classical Jewish texts, in conversation with Hartman scholars Christine Hayes, Yonah Hain, and Leora Batnitzky.

TEXTing. Where ancient wisdom meets contemporary relevance.

Spiraling Upwards Transcript

Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Elana: Welcome to TEXTing, where we consider issues relevant to Jewish life through the lens of classical and modern Torah texts I’m your host, Elana Stein Hain. We’re recording on August 14th, 2024, the day following Tisha B’Av. If you’d like to follow along with today’s text, you can find the link to our source sheet in the episode description.

During the first year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I remember a conversation with my son, Navon. He was asking me about the war, and I was telling him that it seems that Russia, China, and Iran are allies. I may have used the word “friends” or said “working together.” The kid is only 10 years old. And he asked me very seriously, is this going to be World War III? It was before bedtime, never a good time to discuss the possibility of a world war. So I said something to the effect of, it’s in the interest of most countries to avoid that, so I don’t think we need to worry about that tonight.

Kids, am I right? They say the darndest things. But what he was getting at is a feeling I’ve actually had myself since COVID, which is just how cyclical our world seems to be. You know, Spanish flu to COVID, World War I to World War II, and now a new axis of evil forming, as it were. And even closer to my Jewish identity, the tropes of disunity among the Jewish people and rising anti-Semitism. I mean, I drove past a billboard yesterday that said, “Never again” and just had a Jewish star on it.

So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. The sense that we’ve been here before, living in a cyclical reality, and whether we can ever extricate ourselves from it. We’re going to look at some texts in the Bible, in Tanakh today, that describe cycles and linearity in different ways. Specifically, we’re going to look at the first chapter of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes. And the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, Devarim.

Joining me today for this discussion is Christine Hayes. Hi, Chris.

Chris: Hi, Elana.

Elana: We actually had occasion to speak yesterday on Tisha B’Av, and we were discussing how cyclical things feel, and how even some of the kinot, the lamentations that we read on Tisha B’Av, reinforce that sense of the cyclical. Do you want to share more about that with our listeners?

Chris: Sure. There was one kinah, one lamentation, in particular that we talked about. It’s aish tukad b’kirbi, the fire, flame that burns within me. This is a kinah, it’s like the 32nd one out of the list of lamentations one says, on Tisha B’Av. It was written in the 12th century by Avraham ibn Ezra. It’s based on an older Midrash. But what happens in this particular kinah is this interesting linkage or pairing of the exodus from Egypt with the Exodus into exile, if you will, of the destruction and the exile, so that the structure of this particular lament is that certain things happened, b’tzeiti miMitzrayim, when I left Egyp,t and in some sort of parallel fashion, Things happened, B’tzeiti miYerushalayim, when I left Jerusalem, and going into exile.

Micah Goodman has talked about this particular kinah and the way it pairs these two events together in a negative way so that the destruction is really a reverse mirror image of the most dramatic event in the Jewish collective memory, the exodus from Egypt. So, for example,tThe kinah will mention the song that Moses sang, a song that will never be forgotten, b’tzeti mi’Mitzrayim, when I left Egypt, and then Jeremiah, of course, lamented and cried a bitter weeping, b’tzetimi mi’Yerushalayim. So you see this interesting parallelism, the song of Moses against the lamentation of Jeremiah.

And however great you might imagine the joy of the exodus from Egypt, the liberation that was the beginning of the creation of a nation, that is the magnitude of the pain and the tragedy of the destruction of Jerusalem, so that Tisha B’Av really becomes the opposite of Passover. So we have this continued pairing through the whole, you had Levites and Aaronites and elders when I left Egypt, but taskmasters and oppressors and sellers and buyers, b’tzetimi mi’Yerushalayim, you had Moses and Aaron, when we left Egypt, we had Nebuchadnezzar and Titus when we went into exile from Jerusalem and so on.

But even as it sort of pairs these two events as inverse, mirror images of one another. It also ends by kind of closing the circle, because the very last stanza in this is, Torah, u’teuda, u’chlei hachemda, teaching and instruction and precious vessels. B’tzeiti mi’mitzrayim, when I left Egypt, And kol sason v’simcha v’anacha, the voice of joy and gladness and mourning and the end of mourning and sorrow, b’shuvi l’Yerushalayim, when I return to Jerusalem.

So instead of comparing the going out from Egypt and the going out from Jerusalem at the time of the destruction and exile, it ends with the going out from Egypt towards the land and the return to the land, which will be an occasion of joy so that it really closes the circle, what began in Egypt, the liberation from Egypt. We also see a closing of the circle because that was a journey towards Jerusalem and even though there’s been an exile, there will be a return. so this kinah has this interesting kind of twist that brings the people back to Jerusalem. But one wonders if that’s really to start the cycle again.

Elana: Yeah, it’s so interesting because it, it feels sometimes like, you know how they say the wheel of fortune, it continues to turn, right? So when I read that lamentation yesterday, it was sort of like, oh, there’s even something cyclical in the fact that you left Egypt and you thought that was the redemption and then you’re back in your new Egypt, right?

And then you’re right, it closes the cycle eventually, which is another aspect of things being cyclical. But what’s to say that we’re not actually just talking about the cycle repeating and repeating and repeating?

Chris: Exactly. And, and the kinah, the, the lamentation really mirrors the Bible’s own beautiful literary structure where we begin with, you know, the exodus from Egypt, but you carry forward to the very end of the historical narrative in Second Kings 25, the last chapter, we’ve had the first deportation and then the destruction, and then the final exile leaving just a few behind in Judah with their King Gedalia ben Achikam. He is murdered. And then the very last few surviving people escape, and where do they escape to? To Egypt.

So the literary arc of the Bible, the Bible’s narrative itself, begins and returns to Egypt. But again, with every return, we possibly have a new beginning, right? We have a sense of cycles, and that’s what this kinah tries to carry forward. There may have been a return to Egypt, but there will also then again be a coming into the land. So, cycles.

Elana: Yeah, and we’re gonna delve into that a little bit., I would say from both the sort of, a negative point of view, but also the positive aspects of it, as is our want to try to look at the different dimensions of it, because to be honest, we could start this conversation and say, cycles are actually great. Right? I mean, I’m in the middle of winter and I say, well, thank goodness. I know that spring is coming. Right? Meaning, but yeah, if I’m in the middle of fall and I’m saying, oh gosh, winter is coming, just kind of depends where you are in the cycle in terms of that.

And I also think it’s important, you know, we’re going to read from Kohelet, from Ecclesiastes. I think it’s important to note that Rabbinic Judaism often tried to pull us out of that biblical cycle. And I’ll give an example when we get to Kohelet right now, where they sort of see a cycle, see a cycle, see a cycle, and say, no, no, there’s a way to, there’s a way to rise above it.

So let’s take a look at Ecclesiastes chapter 1, Kohelet chapter 1. Alright, we’ll start with the first four versus, you know, some words in there are pretty famous to people, I would say. Divrei Kohelet ben David Melech Be’Yerushalayim. The words of Kohelet, son of David, king in Jerusalem. Havel, havalim. These are the famous words, right? Utter futility, or maybe vanity, or maybe vapor. But utter futility, amar Kohelet, said Kohelet. Havel, havelim, hakol havel. Everything is this thing, havel, hevel, futile. Mah yitron l’adam b’chol amalo sheya’amol tachat hashamesh? What value is there in what people actually, the gains that people make through their hard work beneath the sun? Dor holech ve dor ba, you have one generation that goes, another generation that comes, veha’aretz leolam omadet, but the earth remains the same forever.

Now, I read this and I say to myself, okay, this is someone who’s depressed. Seriously, right? Everything is totally futile. Hevel, like literally the air of your mouth, right? Hot air coming out of it. Everything is futile. We actually get nowhere. Why? Because one generation goes, another one comes, but the earth remains the same forever.

To be honest, if I were trying to tell my kids, here’s something you can count on, and the next verses say it, the sun will come up, the sun will go down, right, the seasons will continue, I would say that’s actually a mark of stability. I mean, yeah, I get it. We don’t change that, but maybe that’s actually helpful that we don’t change that, but that’s not where Kohelet is. Kohelet, you know, sees the sun rising and setting, sees, streams flowing into the sea and back into tributaries as something that is just utterly depressing and impossibly cyclical and human beings can’t fix anything or change anything.

Chris: Right, exactly. And I think that’s, there’s a certain irony because sometimes people do read these texts in Kohelet as pointing to the cycles in nature as a reality that can produce a sense of awe and wonder, can help you feel connected to Divine Majesty. And this is certainly something that I think is a very common experience. People do look at the patterns in nature and they feel almost a sense of oneness with the cosmos. It can fill one with awe and even give you a sense of majesty or purpose.

But that’s not Kohelet. That’s definitely not what Kohelet is saying. The cycles of nature fill him with a sense of powerlessness and a lack of purpose. We are just ants. In this giant scheme of things, we are less than ants. We are hardly even molecules. And what we do makes no difference. The world is going to proceed without us and we make no mark. And Kohelet seems to be interested in having some lasting mark or some lasting memory. But even that eludes us.

Elana: Yeah, and this is really where I think the rabbis, where Chazal come in very strongly because they read that verse, what value is there for all of the toil that human beings do under the sun, which, under the sun to me, you know, I think Ibn Ezra, the medieval commentator you mentioned before, I think he says under the sun is a reference to time. Right? Because how are we telling time? We’re using the sun to tell time. So, meaning, time goes on, time goes on. It doesn’t matter what we do, time marches on.

But the rabbis look at this and they say, well, maybe under the sun there’s nothing. There’s no benefit. But beyond the sun, meaning if we can get engaged in the metaphysical, then we can move beyond what is sort of futile about this world. And you can see that that is a reaction to it. What do you mean? It can’t just be that we’re ants and we, we make no difference. And it can’t just be that this world is a place that just reminds us of how small we are. There must be something important for us to do. Right. And that’s connecting to the creator of all these things.

Chris: We are a part of nature in some ways, obviously, but we also can transcend nature. We can perhaps break with its cycles or contribute something on the plane of history, for example, which may not be governed in this predetermined fatalistic kind of way as the cycles of nature.

Elana: Except that Kohelet’s not done with us, because I’m skipping all the different cycles that he offers in terms of the wind and the sun and the tributaries of the sea. And I’m going to verse nine, where in some ways he is now going to assail history, right? In some sense, mah shehayah hu sheyihiyeh, that which has happened already is what will happen. U’mah shene’asah sheya’aseh, that which has happened already, has been done, will be done again. Ein kol chadash tachat hashemesh. There’s nothing new.

And it gets even worse because in verse 10, sometimes people will see something and say, oh, that’s new. no, no, no, no, no. That’s been around for a long time. But you know what the problem is? Verse 11. Nobody remembers the early people. Nobody remembers what happened. Nobody’s reading their history books. Nobody has a sense. And by the way, even these later people who live now, no one’s gonna remember them either because time marches on. So it’s cycles of nature, but it’s also the sort of dustbin of history, right?

Chris: Very much the idea that we have, those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. It’s the same, the same sort of fatalism. We forget history. We make the same mistakes over and over again. Historically, we learn nothing from the experience of the past and we continue to just repeat those errors. So we too, you know, on the view of Kohelet here, are bound.

Elana: But I just want to say, that’s cyclical on a good day. That cyclical aspect is not bad either. Meaning if, if we contend with a new, a new problem, quote unquote COVID, it’s a new problem. No, it’s not. There was Spanish flu. So let’s look back at what they did, meaning let’s not break the cycle, but recognize the cycle. It doesn’t have to be that way. The cyclical aspect can actually help us. What can we learn from the last time that we can bring to bear here?

But Kohelet doesn’t seem to give us that option. He just thinks people are doomed to forget. They’re doomed not, I mean, it’s a book from a very long time ago, but the fact that it still resonates is kind of shocking. I mean, we have history. We have terabytes of data. And we still, and we still do these things over and over again.

Chris: We’re doomed to forget. Absolutely. Very pessimistic. We’ve learned nothing from our mistakes in the past and we only repeat them. And so history itself is also caught in these cycles because of human frailty and the lack of human memory, the lack of attention. We’re doomed to forget.

Elana: Okay. So let’s end here. I think we figured it out. Good luck, everybody. It’s our listeners. We’ll just leave you there. Kohelet on a sad day. And even, you know, you, we were talking about how people who love to cite Ecclesiastes, they love to cite Kohelet, they really love to cite Kohelet chapter three, right? There’s a time and a season for everything under heaven. And that you had pointed out to me that in a very literal way, what that is actually talking about is predetermination. That things are predetermined.

Chris: And it causes the same despair for Kohelet. People often do not get to the verse that makes that clear. This is in Kohelet, you know, chapter three, and we have the wonderful folk songs of the sixties. You know, there is a time and a season for every purpose under heaven, and it inspires a sense of peace and calm and, and how wonderful it is that there are these cycles.

But that’s actually, again, not what Kohelet is saying. He lists the fact that there’s a time for being born and for dying, a time for planting and being uprooted, for slaying and killing and so on, and then he ends this long list by saying, mah yitaron haoseh, what value then can the man of affairs or the person of work get from what he earns? God brings everything to pass and we contribute nothing. At the most we just can try to enjoy the things that we do. So it’s not quite the optimistic or calming or inspiring message that it’s been taken to be. It’s really the same sort of pessimism and fatalism that we saw in chapter one.

Elana: Right, so you really now just ruined a song for people.

Chris: Yeah, I’m so sorry.

Elana: And this really, thanks, really appreciate it. What I would say is, one of the things, like, the more I read Kohelet, the more I think that hevel is actually a reference to Abel, like, the biblical character, of essentially everything, it doesn’t matter if you’re killed early like Hevel, or if you live a long life like Kayin, It’s all the same, like it’s just, it’s all the same, which I think is, it’s very sad, which is why I really want to get a sad Kohelet, meaning I need to see a different version of cyclicality that isn’t just about our weakness.

Again, I understand, I will learn Chazal, I’ll learn the rabbinic material. That will help me say, hey, there’s something beyond this. There’s something metaphysical that you can connect to. There’s some way you can engage. I don’t know that they’re saying that there’s some way you can affect things, but there is a way that you can engage with something that’s very important. But I think, I think it’s time to leave Kohelet.

Chris: Well, but I do want to say in Kohelet’s defense that I think that Kohelet does get a bad rap sometimes because I do think that despite all of these pronouncements of despair, if you look in the right places and at the right verses, there’s actually a very life-affirming, sort of existentialist joy that Kohelet has. Not hedonism, but an existentialist joy about the value of work and labor, and attachment that does come through in certain verses. So that’s maybe a conversation for another day.

Elana: Llook, it’s honest. It’s honest.

Chris: Yeah, but it paints this picture of despair, though, then does, in fact, actually offer a recipe for happiness that I think is still meaningful without being metaphysical. He says he thinks that that’s an illusion, but that doesn’t mean he thinks that life has no meaning and isn’t worth living. So just in his defense.

Elana: And, of course, and I think that it is significant. You know, I was talking to a friend, an Israeli friend recently, and she and I, back and forth, we pass funny memes to each other about what’s going on in Israel in the Middle East just to cope. And we were actually talking, even on Tisha B’Av night. I had seen a picture, you know, Israelis, they ride their bikes on Yom Kippur. Right. Israelis who are not observant, they ride their bikes on Yom Kippur and they can ride in the street because nobody, there are no cars in the street.

And so there was this picture going around that said, a picture of a little boy on his bike and it said, no, it’s the wrong fast, get back onto the sidewalk. Right. And I was like, I sent it to her, even Tisha B’Av night, I sent it to her. And I was like, I just need to share some expression of connection or, or something in this terribly cyclical feeling moment, like the resonance of the cyclicality. And just the relationship, like, as you’re saying, one of the things that Kohelet prizes are connections and relationships. Even that, it just helped me spend the rest of Tisha B’Av doing what I was supposed to do, you know, just, seriously, like having that or having my phone call with you as we were talking, like just being able to share frustrations, being able to talk about what was going on. It’s, it doesn’t solve the problem, but it does make life more worth living. I would say. It’s really that.

Chris: Well, the good news is that the Bible does offer us a different perspective on cyclicality.

Elana: Yes, let’s do it. Let’s go for it.

Chris: That it’s not the sense that the world proceeds on its course, regardless of what we do, and the events of our lives are scripted, and our deeds are all going to be forgotten anyway. We have a different perspective on the cyclical nature of history, at least, which doesn’t see it in terms of predetermination or fatalism. And I think that really comes out in Deuteronomy 4, and this may be why this is part of the liturgical reading on Tisha B’Av.

Elana: Right, it’s the morning reading.

Chris: Yeah, exactly. And this is a passage where Moses is warning the Israelites, what’s going to happen after he dies and they enter the land. And he says, ki tolid banim u’bnei banim, ve’noshantem baaretz, ve’noshantem, it’s one of my favorite words in the Bible. When you’ve had children and children’s children, and I love to translate this as, and you become complacent in the land. It’s from yashan. You become old or weary or tired, or maybe even some idea of sheina, sleeping, right? So you become complacent in the land. In other words, you forget the hardship and the toil of what brought you here and what I did to bring you here and that it wasn’t through your virtue or your merit, but an act of grace that I chose to have the covenant with you, et cetera. And then you start to get, you know, a little forgetful.

So we talked before about forgetfulness, and you begin to act corruptly by making an idol in the form of anything, and you do what’s evil in the eyes of God, and you provoke him to anger. Then in verse 26, so that was verse 25, verse 26, ha’idoti etchem hayom et hashamayim ve’et haaretz, and I will call heaven and earth this day to witness against you that you will perish from the land and you won’t long endure and you will be utterly wiped out, ve’hefitz Hashem etchem, and God will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will be left among the nations where God will leave you. And then in verse 28, ve’ivadetem sham elohim ma’aseh yedei adam etz va’even asher lo yir’un, you will there serve other gods, the work of human hands, object of wooden stone that do not see, it goes on, they do not hear, they do not eat, they do not smell.

And then very important first in 29. From there, you will seek the Lord your God. U’bikashtem misham et Hashem elokecha u’matzata ki tidrishenu bechol levavecha u’bechol nafshecha. You will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul. And in your distress when all these things have happened, verse 30, when all these things have happened to you, in time to come, you will return to the Lord your God. Ve’shavta ad adoni elohecha ve’shamata bekolo, and because he is merciful, he will not abandon you, he’ll not forget the covenant, et cetera.

So what is so fascinating about this is here, history isn’t linear, right? It’s this, there’s this sense of, you’re coming now into the land, but then you’re going to become complacent. You’re going to fall asleep at the wheel and lose your way. And then you’re going to need a course correct to get back on track. And that’s going to happen in exile, right? There will be consequences for your behavior. There will be a punishment and you will be cast out. But there, in exile, that’s where you find God. Where do you forget God? You forget God in the land when things are going well, right? You forget God. And it’s in, remember that is how, you know, the experience of the forefathers. They wandered through the desert. This was hard. They had to, it wasn’t easy getting the land, but after two or three,

Elana: I mean, come on. We work in education. The only time you can get people to pay attention to an idea is when they’re in crisis about it. It’s, seriously. And that’s not to people’s detriment. It’s just, there’s a lot to focus on.

Chris: It’s human psychology, right? And I think this is really getting at human psychology here. So, it’s fascinating to think that exile is the place where one finds God, when you have a sort of a point of arrival, that’s the place where we become complacent and forget what everything is all about and then lose our way, and we might need to recreate that original experience of, of hardship, of yearning, of having to achieve in order to get back on track and to achieve again.

But I think we kind of have to assume that the cycle will happen again. Another two generations will come and go and, and people will again, forget. I mean, Kohelet was onto something, right? We don’t always learn from history. We don’t always remember.

And this text is coming to say that the difference between the Kohelet’s vision and what is being offered here in Devarim is memory. Right? The fact that we can remember and we can learn from it and we can course correct. and that means that our effort is very, very important. This is a very empowering image of the cycle, right? We’re the ones who make the cycle tolerable. We’re the ones who make the cycle something that makes life worth living, right? We’re the ones who have to remember that every morning we get up, the work starts again. There isn’t an entropy, there isn’t just this falling away. We’re the things that are preventing this, decay, this disintegration, and that’s an ongoing work and an ongoing labor. So don’t get complacent, right? Don’t fall asleep. The work begins again every morning.

Elana: Yeah. And I’m struck by a few things just in the text itself. Number one, I’m struck by the fact that heaven and earth are watching us. We’re not standing and watching heaven and earth saying, oh, we make no difference. It’s, God says, heaven and earth is watching you because you matter. What you’re doing matters.

Chris: Yes. And so we’re given here two different images of nature, right? The image that’s in the Kohelet verses that you read is that nature is oblivious to us, right? Completely indifferent. It, the world proceeds on its course. Our actions do nothing and heaven and earth don’t even pay any attention to us. We are tiny little dots.

But here heaven and earth are being imagined in a very different way. They’re watching, they’re witnessing to our failure, as well as to our success, right? They will testify both for good and for ill, and they are often invoked as witnesses for both purposes in the books of the Torah, right? Heaven and earth.

So nature and the course of the world does matter. We have the image in the Psalms, of course, that, unrighteousness or immorality shakes the foundations of the earth, that there is some sort of inherent connection in a way between the natural world and the moral world, the plane of history. And I think that’s what’s being invoked here. Don’t think of the earth as indifferent to what you do. The earth is watching and celebrating where you succeed, but also chastising where you don’t.

Elana: You could take some of the things you just said and apply it to the environmentalist conversation.

Chris: Absolutely.

Elana: Of, you can’t just depend on things to always continue how they were if you’re actually engaging in bad acts that are going to impact the world in a very concrete way. I also, another thing I noticed about this is that the first pasuk, the first verse that you read, 25. Says vehishchatem, you essentially, essentially, essentially become corrupted, right? And you do bad. And the last verse you read is, well, God’s not going to weaken you. Same shoresh, same root. God’s not going to destroy you.

And I think part of what’s so essential here is that metaphysical connection. Meaning, it’s God saying, well, I care about what you do and because I care about what you do, things are not just going to go on an automatic cycle, right? I’m going to respond to what you do because I care.

You know, one thing this brings up for me, the conversation about the second naivete that’s born of difficulty, right? You leave the land in order to reincubate that sense of longing and needing to find and then you get back to that, oh, I want to long, I want to need, I want to find instead of I’ve become, I’ve gotten asleep at the wheel.

Chris: And, I want to work.

Elana: And I want to work.

Chris: I want to work, which again brings us back to Kohelet more than we might imagine, that there’s something about work that is dignifying and confers meaning.

Elana: That is interesting. Although here you see results to it, but I hear.

Well, so it just reminds me, I had a seventh-grade teacher who was a Shoah survivor. She was a Holocaust survivor. And her family all survived in hiding, They actually all survived. Her sister wrote a book about it. And she was teaching us the book of Judges, the book of Shoftim. And in the book of Judges, there is this cycle of the people sin, God sends a foe. The people then repent. God saves them. The land is quiet for somewhere between 40 to 80 years, right? And then the cycle happens again.

And she, I remember, I was a seventh grader. I was a child and she said, I cannot accept this theology. As somebody who experienced it, I cannot accept it. The people where I was, they were virtuous. They were, right, meaning this is, post-Holocaust theology, essentially looks at Devarim chapter four and says, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, when you’re actually dealing with real people, we have to be very careful about, right?

And so a whole other, you know, way of thought, even, even in the rabbis, even in Chazal, other ways of thinking emerge, because you’re dealing with the people who actually live with the aftermath of this kind of thing.

Chris: Absolutely. For sure. Which only goes to show that every idea has its power and also its weakness. So this sort of cyclical idea where they’re telling us that there is no static point of arrival, there’s never a time to just stand still and rest on your laurels, that the work of building a moral community is never fully and finally accomplished, right? That’s a powerful idea. It’s one that, it keeps people humble, keeps them dedicated to the task, right? We have the rabbis in Pirkei Avot, we have Rebbe Tarfon saying that the day is short, the work is plentiful, the laborers are lazy, but the reward is great. The master of the house is insistent and it’s not, lo alecha ha’malacha ligmor, it’s not up to you to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to acquit yourself of it, lo atah ben chorim le’batel mimena. So those are all the powerful sides of this idea of cyclicality that, you know, to continue to work.

Elana: Also quoting Josh Shapiro.

Chris: Right.

Elana: Had to get that in.

Chris: But also, as you’re pointing out, sometimes we can suffer a tragedy so extreme that we want the cycle to end. It doesn’t feel like you’ll ever rise again. And how do you have the power to continue and go on with the idea that is this going to happen again, despite all we do, right? So there are unhealthy cycles. There are cycles of violence. There are cycles of pain that we do want to break out of, right? There are times we want to break certain kinds of cycles.

So that’s, that’s the other, the flip side of this. And it’s why I think the Bible also offers us a linear view of history, that you can make progress, that you can break out of some cycles. And I think it’s not surprising that that idea developed precisely in the post-destruction period, right? In the fifth, fourth, third century, we start to see in certain Biblical books written at that time, a linear view of history, that things are not always going to be like this, and things will get better, and there might be a point of arrival.

We see this in eschatologies, right? Eschatology, fancy Greek word, just means an account of the end, the eschaton. And this is something that happens in the later books of the Bible. We have much more of a cyclical view in the Torah. But eschatologies assume that the arc of history is not cyclical, but linear. It’s teleological. We see this in Isaiah, the idea of the late books of Isaiah, particularly the idea that a righteous remnant is ultimately going to return, and it will be a permanent return and a full, wholehearted return, and there’ll be an end of sin and idolatry, and God’s going to, to come and save the remnant and gather in the dispersed exiles, and there’ll be a theophany of worldwide scope and the nations will recognize God and they’ll leave Israel alone, finally, and they’ll just be world peace, right?

So you start to see this yearning, for this final age, growing through the 3rd, 2nd, 1st century and into the 1st century of the common era as well. And we have eschatological works that really take on an apocalyptic tenor, right? That, that this is going to, the, the final age is going to be introduced by this cataclysmic disruption of history brought about by God who’s going to intervene in history and stop the cycle and bring this final age where the righteous will finally be liberated from the wicked and all of history as we know it will come to this crashing end. So that’s a very extreme version of a linear view, right.

Elana: Yeah, let’s take a book like Daniel, and while I follow a traditional dating of Biblical books nonetheless, in terms of the theme, it is quite apocalyptic, and its version of linear history, it’s really emphasizing God’s agency, in the process of getting above the cycle, and the nonagency of people, I assume that’s what you’re referring to.

Chris: Very much, right, the book of Daniel, and apocalyptic works that didn’t make it into the Hebrew Bible, but certainly were written by Jews around this time and into the first couple of centuries of the common era. Humans are pretty passive. There’s a predetermined sequence of wicked kingdoms then God will appear and the end will come and we are disempowered. We do nothing. It’s just faithful waiting.

So you can, you can have a cyclical view of history that is somewhat disempowering or empowering, as we just saw in Deuteronomy 4, it really is empowering. It’s up to you. You know, you, you can’t fall asleep at the wheel, or, you know, the foundations of the earth will shake. And you can have a linear view of history, which at least gives you hope and feels like there’s something to strive towards, but it can become so extreme and scripted that it too can be disempowering.

Elana: I would say, enter religious Zionism in the early 20th century, of we are going to bring that linearity to its end and that’s our agency. And now dealing with the questions of, well, wait a second, what happens when you’ve been in it for a long time and you don’t, you don’t know, is this the end or is this another cycle? Is that where I am? And how much agency do I really have and how much of this is hubris? A lot here.

Chris: And, and the view that God is the only one who should bring that, not humans, right? That was the other view, of course, at the beginning of this episode.

Elana: Certainly, certainly

Chris: So cyclical or linear, you have, you can take an approach that is more or less empowering of humans.

Elana: Okay, but I like this for, I like this as a place for us to land for our listeners because what it does basically say is, look, you can have a sense of the cyclical and it doesn’t have to be a cause for despair. It should be a call to action and to agency, and key, as you’re saying, is our ability to remember, to recall, to see certain signs and junctures and trends, not to suggest we’re exactly where we were, but to recognize some of the signs and the trends, and to do something about them. And to be engaged in helping to write the course to the extent that we can.

Chris: Which, as you’ve described, it is really in some ways an interesting combination of the two models, because it recognizes a certain cyclical character to the events of human history. But because we learn from them, we hopefully are turning that cycle into a spiral. Things may come, but we are moving up, right? It’s a combination of the linear and the cyclical. Things recur. But if we’ve learned well and we course correct, then we can make sure that that circle is spiraling upwards in a better direction. And I think ultimately that that’s why we do need. Both of these models, both of these images, which together can in fact be very empowering.

Elana: I would say amen to that. Thank you so much, Chris, as always.

Chris: Thank you, Elana. It’s a pleasure.

Elana: Thanks for listening to our show, everyone. And special thanks to my chavruta this week, Christine Hayes.

TEXTing is produced by Tessa Zitter with production assistance from Sarina Shohet. Our senior producer is M Louis Gordon and our executive producer is Maital Friedman. This episode was mixed by Ben Azavedo at Bear Cave Audio with music provided by Luke Allen.

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