Part of a family of distinguished Rabbinical scholars, Rabbi Daniel Lapin is known for his efforts to demonstrate ties between Jewish, Christian and conservative principles. He put a troubling spin on this thesis in a recent appearance on the Glenn Beck show.[1]
A main theme of this particular show was giving, generosity and whether or not one necessarily receives back, in this life, "the present world" (olam haZeh) for their charity. Beck was in dialog with people in his audience about this, offered some remarks of his own and then asked Rabbi Lapin for comment.
For some reason, the Rabbi did not mention the central Jewish teaching, repeated many times during the liturgy, Torah, the prophets and commentaries that charity and deeds of loving kindness (gemillut chasdim) is a primary way to assure blessings for the soul, may be in this world but surely in the world to come (olam Haba). He did not mention, allude to or quote the extensive discussions by the renowned Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato that the principle part of a good person's reward for righteous deeds is in the world to come.[2] This would have answered Beck's question, one pondered by most people many times about why good people generally and generous people particularly often do not receive back for the good they bestow. Instead Lapin gave a curiously abridged and slanted version of the story of Joseph and his brothers highlighting the greed of Judah "after whom the Jewish people are named."
The Rabbi explained that after his brothers had thrown Joseph into the pit to kill him, Judah interceded with the idea to sell him and thus make money off him. To paraphrase his comment, "why should we kill him when we can profit from him." Having correctly identified Judah with the Jewish people he then tendentiously misread Genesis and the many commentaries on it (which he undoubtedly has studied), reinforcing the vicious stereotype that Jews are materialistic and put money ahead of life something one is as likely, or more likely to find among Europeans, Shakespeare's life, or other peoples. He then claimed that Joseph later put the money for the provisions his brothers went down to Egypt to purchase, to forestall starvation not as a pretext for imprisonment and eventual reunion but to teach the brothers that "it's about relationships, not about money."
As co-chair of the "Jewish-Christian Alliance" and head of "Toward Tradition," a Jewish-Christian organization Rabbi Lapin surely knows that Joseph is considered by many Christians to be a prototype of their avatar and in his putative mercy an antithesis to the supposed orientation of the Jews to strict harshness and a lack of 'spirituality.' Just as the brothers 'crucified' Joseph who redeemed his family, so "the Jews" (not the Romans) later crucified the J-man for thirty pieces of silver (see below for the source).
Surely the Rabbi is not unaware of the connections in the stories, or the warped version he gave of Jacob's sons. Surely the Glenn Beck show was not the first time he has offered this misreading to Christian friends and officials in Washington at the Jewish Policy Center (that supported the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Gush Katif) or the "700 Club."
Perhaps Lapin's odd angle on the famous Genesis story is related to his headship of the former Commonwealth Loan Company" and related investment business or to his belief that Pius XII, "Hitler's Pope" as described in the extensively documented history by John Cornwell actually was a "righteous gentile."[3] Perhaps such matters relate to his defense of Mel Gibson, specifically as expressed in the film The Passion. Perhaps this is why News Corp and other major players choose him to disseminate a 'Jewish point of view.'
That all of Western history and its hybrid culture is a passion play of idealization whose instability tends from idyll to apocalypse to elegy, a pattern embedded in Western poetics is a larger issue of which Lapin's appearance and media savvy is a tiny exemplum in its re-definition, fictionalization, degrading and possession of Jews by Edom.
Since the Rabbi chose to use for his example a famous, highly-charged story pertaining to the West's degrading caricature of Jews, he might have quoted the well-known verse that Joseph "brought evil reports about them [his brothers] to their father," that he slandered them without trying to verify his reports (Genesis 37:2; Rashi and Gur Aryeh). Also building to the distrust, eventual sale and its wondrous reconciliation was unease about Joseph's pride which disturbed even Jacob for its whiff of disrespect although he sensed in it a reflection of Joseph's prophetic gifts and eventual role as staff of the family. But this role was structured by the Almighty as Joseph himself repeatedly emphasizes: "God sent me ahead of you to insure your survival…it was not you who sent me here but God; He has made me father to Pharaoh…God has made me master of all Egypt" (Genesis 45:5-10). So the Rabbi could have noted that the famous story emphasizes the loving kindness and providence of the Eternal One as conceived by Judaism. Lapin also, perhaps for the sake of brevity more than emphasis ignored the essential role of Judah in pledging his soul to save his father, Israel, Benjamin and the entire family, approaching Joseph and eliciting his compassion and self-revelation (43:8-10; 45:16-34, passim).
One hardly expects a discursive overview on a TV show but a Rabbi particularly a well-studied Orthodox rabbi could be expected to quickly sketch the relevant background pertaining to the family, the Jews, being used as an example of values. Without becoming complex one could note that the relationship was ambiguous; that it was Reuben who first insisted, "shed no blood"; that the brothers heeded him; that they sold Joseph not for money but to get him, his evil reports and his superiority away from the rest of the family. Moreover, it is not even clear from the text that the brothers sold him or simply intended to do so. They put him in the pit where he was taken by "Midianite [Arabian] men" and sold to Ishmaelites "for twenty pieces of silver" who eventually sold him to Potiphar in Egypt (37:27-8, 36). The literal reading might be stressed for an interfaith audience, -- unless one wanted to emphasize the guilt of some Jews.
The point is that the Rabbi's prime-time adaptation of the story was skewed and, in its portrayal of Jews, invidious and stereotyped in a way that has indoctrinated Christians to hate and despise. As opposed to his version that Judah, "the Jews" sold Joseph for money while the latter taught that "it's all about relationships" the Hebrew Scriptures emphasize that both Judah and Joseph were concerned about their relationship and the integrity and life of the family; both loved their father intensely and if anything, Judah was more self-sacrificing and brave in this than the bold Joseph. Both (indeed all the brothers) were scrupulously fair about money and both were generous in manner and intent: Joseph was in a position to give more lavishly in a material way. For his merits, Jacob gave Joseph the double portion of the first born, centered on the city of Shechem while he gave Judah kingship for his qualities of courage and self-sacrifice (Genesis 49:8-12, 22-6). Ironically, Christians place great store on the specifics of Jacob's blessing of Judah but Lapin chose a reductive and disparaging version of the qualities of the two initially most eminent brothers (the descendants of Levi, after all are the main expositors of the entire book). As far as relationship being pre-eminent, both Judah and Joseph wished to save the entire family in all its generations and central principles of Israel require doing justice and kindness to non-Jews, in material things particularly and being responsible for each other (kal Yisrael areivim zeh mi-zeh).
Rabbi Lapin's teachings that socialism ("liberalism") and Statism are radically different and in fact opposed to Judaism are valuable and true, important redemptive works for America and Israel. His brief comments on the Joseph-Judah story miss this standard.
Someone concerned to increase understanding of Jews by Christians, rather than perpetuating stereotypes might have noted that the complementary qualities of Judah and Joseph are depicted in the Torah portions that occur at Hanukkah, the festival of whose name denotes grace and dedication. These qualities, embodied in Judah and Joseph result in independence, the sovereignty that the world, in its hatred of the Eternal forbids. A person with a desire to teach might have noted how regrettable for our culture it has been and is that Christians were from the first taught to despise Jews by the role assigned to the character "Judas" (Judah with a Greek suffix). It was the Midianites, great enemies of Israel that got the "twenty [not thirty] pieces of silver" but when one is constructing history, and few do this more assiduously than mass media, the anticipated dominion of the image and its magical status, promising endless transformation, trumps truth…
Perhaps this is "the one thing needful" to be an establishment "Orthodox Jewish conservative" in the Beltway and beyond, enhanced by ancillary efforts like defending Mel Gibson and Hitler's Pope. What a shame when one considers the ways in which a Jewish discussion could illuminate reasons that generosity, charity and kindness are not always rewarded, or not quickly: part of it has to do with the rationality of the world's physical structure and another with free will, often confused with the ability to make dreams come true by will power. But perhaps those who might offer something of this nature would never get on network TV in the first place nor have a high place among the conservative "gods of the land" like the otherwise meritorious Family Research Council, etc. Reality, joy and sorrow are more complex, though not intellectually so, than those with their eye on their balance sheet and status may care to discuss. As it stands, sadly one always can get ahead in the increasingly pagan postmodern West by defaming Judah and Jews as uniquely materialistic or cruel: the entire 'peace process' and the desire of Esau to displace Jacob rests on this canard, as does the spectacular aesthetics of the West, the core of a culture of apocalypse and lies festering within a gorgeous rhetoric of progress and salvation. True descriptions and appreciation of Israel never were more needed than now as the world descends into oligarchy, endless war and depravity in the name of "security" which is as false as virtual reality, the "glitter on the infernal stream of darkness," a "triumphant darkness" that brings the horror of these days and those to come.[4]
Footnotes: