The Evolution Of Jewish Memory And Identity During The Babylonian Exile And Beyond
The legacy of Jewish history is replete with many instances of the contentions between history and memory, and change and continuity. Since ancient times, the Tribe of Israel has experienced enslavement, decimation and Diaspora, yet has preserved its cohesiveness and traditions while making necessary accommodations to ensure their survival through the generations. Under such circumstances of adversity, destruction and destitution, no other society in recorded history has remained as united and successful as the Jews. Much of this tenacity as both a nation and a religious society has been the direct result of a strong sense of collective identity and memory. Within the Torah, Judaism’s core manifesto of belief, the commandment to remember and safeguard the Jewish heritage appears no less than one hundred sixty nine times, decisively establishing it as one of Judaism’s fundamental tenets. As such, the Jewish paradigm revolves around remembrance of God’s active role in the lives of their ancestors, using it as the impetus for a constellation of cultural traditions, religious rituals and commemorative rites. This celebration of memory, both individual and collective, serves a pivotal role in the dynamic evolution and preservation of identity and is exemplified within the context of the Babylonian Exile as a defining experience in Jewish history. Quite simply, the emphasis on remembrance ingrained within the Jewish mindset was a seminal factor in their survival through the Babylonian Exile and into modern diasporic history.
The complete and sudden devastation of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE began the period of exile and concomitantly resulted in a variety of novel religious and social challenges which the Jewish people were unprepared to navigate.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn1″[1] Subsequent to a conflux of circumstances surrounding Israel’s unsuccessful militant engagement with the Babylonians, the forces of Nebuchadnezzar decisively annihilated the physical institutions of the Jewish religion and forcibly dispersed its supporters throughout the Babylonian dominion.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn2″[2] For the Israelites, this traumatic condition of recreating a life in a foreign nation with conflicting beliefs and values engendered a mass crisis of religious and cultural identity. “The severance of the Jewish people from their home caused a break in the historical continuity of national life, brought to an end those practices which were associated with the Temple” and challenged the widely held religious belief that the Jews were God’s chosen people.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn3″[3] Furthermore, religious laws pertinent to the Temple and land of Israel, as physically manifested symbols of faith, were at once no longer relevant or applicable to their contemporary existence in Babylonia. The confluence of these circumstances presented a palpable and significant complication for Jewish survival and ultimately threatened to extinguish the flame of Jewish heritage.
The challenges confronted in exile served as the immediate catalyst for spiritual renewal and the development of new social paradigms and compensatory mechanisms by which Jews strived to transcend their oppression and retain the core of their devotion to God and each other. Modifications of religious practice to this effect succeeded in redefining Israel as a nation “within the contexts of its nature as a sociopolitical and religious entity,”HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn4″[4] concretizing its ability and determination to retain a sense of people hood despite the traumatizing experience of exile. This transformation in the nature of Judaism appeared in two primary stages encompassing (1) the discovery of religious truth, and (2) the outward organization/canonization of religious life.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn5″[5] With respect to such new theological philosophy born out of the exile, Jews came to acknowledge the “great truth that religion is inward in character,”HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn6″[6] requiring no tangible maintenance (i.e. physical structures or institutions) as a personal statement of belief and dedication to a unified ideal. This realization set in motion a shift towards a renovated social paradigm in which community and respecting the presence of God therein became central to Jewish practice and religious relevance to one’s daily life. As such, the emphasis on social cohesion promoted the collective ideal that the Jewish community as a whole faced a common present and should similarly envision a common future.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn7″[7] While this new-found appreciation of individual responsibility and communal bonding was critical to immediate Jewish survival in Babylonia, the need for religious codification and an enduring schema of how Judaism was to be perpetuated in future generations became apparent. In response to this need, educated scribes in Babylonia transcribed the predominantly oral tradition of Judaism and proliferated copies to Jewish communities in exile to disseminate knowledge and keep the faith alive.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn8″[8] As a direct result of these actions, the Code of Holiness was canonized within the Torah as an enduring reminder of people’s responsibility to God, and the Babylonian Talmud, one of most crucial opuses of religious work, was compiled to accomplish the same goal.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn9″[9] These remarkable accomplishments of a people in exile, having suffered through such turbulent social changes, reflect enduring shifts in perspective by which both personal and collective experiences became ingrained within the Jewish realm of memory and identity.
The Jewish community thrives by remembrance which “plays a central role in the formation and maintenance of group identity by shaping common myths and teleology, which are interpretive tools to assign meaning to events past, present and future.”HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn10″[10] The collective memory continuously preserved throughout thousands of years of Jewish history not only retells the story of the past, but also influences a unified perception of the present and endures as a source of inspiration for religious conviction fostered by constant adaptation.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn11″[11] The nature of memory as an instrument of social cohesion relies on its ability to “ceaselessly reinvent tradition, [and] link the history of its ancestors to the undifferentiated time of [its] heroes, origins and myths.”HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn12″[12] The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hasidic movement, said “forgetting is exile; remembrance is redemption.”HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn13″[13] Within the context of the post-exilic Jewish collective subconscious, this statement encapsulates the motivation to preserve the continuity of Jewish heritage and move beyond the threat of estrangement there from. As such, for an event so fundamental to the formation of Jewish identity and memory, it was only fitting for the Babylonian exile to be incorporated into Israel’s canon and adapted to immortalize its message to future generations. In the Jewish prism, the fall of Babylonia and the subsequent opportunity to return to Jerusalem with the hope of rebuilding the Temple was a divine intervention on their behalf.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn14″[14] The lasting memory of the Babylonian exile and redemption ultimately transmits a deepened religious appreciation for God’s active role in the world and their responsibility to honor the commandments.
Despite the currently uncontested conception of the exile as a catalyst for spiritual renewal and hope, the adaptation of this memory was controversial. This occurred as a result of the contention between history and memory, and determining what sentiment would be most culturally expedient to communicate to future generations. The memory of exile lingered within the Jewish collective psyche; however its memory was plagued by the uncertainty of whether to remember the event with harbored resentment towards the Babylonians as persecutors or with gratitude to God for their growth as a unified nation and deliverance.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn15″[15] Ultimately, the Jews embraced the latter perspective and concretized the archetypical cycle of exile and return as the recurring motif of the Jewish experience on both national and individual levels respectively. In doing so, however, important factual details of the exile were excluded in favor of a more appealing historical narrative and the clear conveyance of the cultural meaning derived from the experience. For example, the lack of acknowledgement of the role of human agency in the survival of the Jews through the exile supports this claim. More specifically, Jewish memory emphasizes the role of God in sustaining the Jewish people through hardship and intervening to effect the downfall of the persecuting nation while marginalizing the contributions of human determination to strengthen Judaism and the fortuitous Persian invasion which the Babylonians were unprepared to neutralize.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn16″[16] In addition, it is widely doubted whether the Jewish tradition would have survived in exile much beyond the point of Persian intervention, even given the modifications to Judaism that were made in response to the subjugation and dispersal of Judea.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn17″[17] With these examples in mind, it is not difficult to understand the contention between historical facticity and memory. In the words of Ehud ben Zvi:
History…tends to separate the past from the present and focus on the unique, unrepeatable character of the past and focus on the past or past event, whereas memory tends to construe a past that is presently alive in the community, to fuse past and present, and to shape the past in terms of a basic metanarrative/myth that is constantly reused to interpret and provide significance to a recounted pastHYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn18″[18]
Clearly, the “metanarrative” alluded to above refers to the paradigm of cyclical exile and return within the Jewish tradition. For all intents and purposes, this emphasis on memory as a living and dynamic construct which aids in the preservation of identity is reason enough to render pure facticity tangential to its purpose. The primary impact of the Babylonian exile was religious; therefore, the event’s historicity is peripheral, and the memory thereof (i.e. the perceived sequence of events and their significance within the course of history) takes precedence.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn19″[19] In perspective, this type of counterfactual memory offers a way for a group, such as the Jews, to envision an alternate or aggrandized past leading to the formation of how the world exists in the present.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn20″[20] In the process of sacrificing pure historicity, memory acquires a new dimension of depth and significance altogether as a medium for transmitting heritage and tradition by transcending the realm of temporal continuities. For the Jews, the events of the Babylonian exile were immortalized within Israel’s collective subconscious and etherealized as the metanarrative of exile and return; the hallmark of Jewish authenticity. As the new paradigm of Jewish history, the collective memory developed as a result of the Babylonian exile continued the trend of increasing Jewish unity and preserved the Jewish people.
In consideration of the adaptive role of Jewish memory in response to the condition of exile, it is fitting to apply this understanding to the vicissitudes of modern Jewish diaspora in America. Within the contemporary Jewish paradigm, the state of diaspora is collectively conceived as exile; an estrangement of the people of Israel from their “home of Jewish living, learning and doing.”HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn21″[21] Such perception, while influenced in part by the historical metanarrative described above, is primarily resultant from a confluence of several observations. First and foremost, the condition of living outside the land of Israel creates the same discontinuity of Jewish cultural life as exile. This, in addition to secular environmental influences, has created significant rifts in Jewish cohesion which can be categorized as both internal and external. Within the American Jewish community itself, individuals remain divided ideologically by conventional denominationalism, the value of Zionism and the role of Jewish education, as well as by seeking acceptance within the context of American multiculturalism. All of this is exemplified by the operative mindset articulated by the American Jewish Congress:
We cannot make our life as totally Jewish as Palestine’s Jews do, we must strive to make it as thoroughly Jewish within the framework of the American democracy as will [outwardly] express our historical awareness and will to survive.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn22″[22]
Ultimately, this philosophy has increased apathy about the importance of Israel and the attenuation of Judaism’s essential tenets in the hope of seeking harmony with other cultures in America.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn23″[23] Compounding these internal challenges to Jewish national solidarity are external forces of intermarriage and espousal of other secular social conventions which result in widespread acculturation and loss of Jewish identity. In turn, Jews begin to abrogate their sense of responsibility to the community and “disregard Jewishness as a heritage and rather a set of [secular] contemporary values.”HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn24″[24] All of these factors, both internal and external, contribute to a general crisis of identity, threatening to dissolve the Jewish people unless necessary adaptations are made to preserve the continuity of their heritage, which is thoroughly characteristic of the exilic experience.
As has been established by the historical precedent of the Babylonian exile, such adaptive modifications to faith often use the collective subconscious as a medium for effective and enduring paradigmatic change. While the Babylonian exile gave the Jews of the 6th century BCE the hope of return to the physical land of Israel, modern American diaspora has developed the hope of return to ideological unity to not only survive, but to thrive by exploring new avenues for spiritual growth within the freedom of American democracy. Recently, this has initiated increasing momentum in the shift towards post-denominationalism and modern conceptions of Messiah as well as the preconditions for its coming.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn25″[25] For the Jews, the advent of the Messianic Age universally signifies the end of the exilic cycle and suffering. As such, the methods by which Jews seek to expedite its arrival, while varying greatly, all revolve around the notion of a connection between the salvation of Israel and their adherence to the laws of Torah.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn26″[26] That is, when Jewish communities in exile and diaspora throughout the world become thoroughly unified in working towards a common ideal through observance of Torah and fulfillment of God’s mission, the Messiah will arrive to redeem the world. In this way, Jews have altered their collective memory and consciousness to address the needs of the community experiencing modern American diaspora, rejuvenating the metanarrative of exile and return within a contemporary context. Fundamentally, it is memory that serves as the catalyst for Jews to work towards unity because of the importance placed on continuing the historical chronicle.
Examining the history of their journeys in exile, it becomes apparent that Jews used the experiences of deprivation and destitution as the building blocks of a new dimension of tradition and collective consciousness which has empowered them to thrive through generations of adversity. The essential message to be gained from the Babylonian exile and American diaspora is the importance of hope for survival within the cultural framework and memory of the Jewish people. On the most basic level, hope fortifies the human motivation to preserve community, faith and heritage. The Jewish paradigm reinforced this by rendering despair a sin, and hope evolved to become the defining characteristic of Jewish existence and the struggle through exile to redemption. The perpetual anticipation of unity in Israel maintained a fundamental difference in the perspectives of Jews and non-Jews, which ultimately made them a nation, notwithstanding their historic lack of independent sovereignty.HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn27″[27] All of these factors which became incorporated into the ever-evolving Jewish psyche ultimately preserved the unity of tradition, facilitating their survival through millennia of exile and oppression, and emphasizing the value of collective memory as a mechanism for enduring identity. In the words of Jacob Neusner:
“Exile encapsulates what Jews are, and return, what they can become.”HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftn28″[28]
References
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref1″[1] Nancy E. Berg, Exile from Exile: Israeli Writers from Iraq (n.p.: SUNY Press, 1996), 10.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref2″[2] Solomon Grayzel, A History of the Jews, from the Babylonian Exile to the Present, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968), 14.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref3″[3] Berg, Exile from Exile: Israeli, 9.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref4″[4] Jacob Neusner, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Exile and Return in the History of Judaism (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990), 32.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref5″[5] George A. Barton, “Influence of the Babylonian Exile on the Religion of Israel,” The Biblical World 37, no. 6 (June 1911): 371.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref6″[6] Ibid, 371.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref7″[7] Grayzel, A History of the Jews, 17.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref8″[8] Ibid, 37.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref9″[9] Barton, “Influence of the Babylonian,” 373.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref10″[10] Ehud Ben Zvi, “The Voice and Role of a Counterfactual Memory in the Construction of Exile and Return,” in The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and Its Historical Contexts, by Christoph Levin and Ehud Ben Zvi (n.p.: de Gruyter, 2010), 188.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref11″[11] Noa Gedi and Yigal Elam, “Collective Memory — What Is It?,” History and Memory 8, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1996): 31.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref12″[12] Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire,”Representations, Spring 1989, 8.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref13″[13] Wilfred van de Poll, “The Exile of God: The Galut in Jewish Construction,” in From Babylon to Eternity: The Exile Remembered and Constructed in Text and Tradition, by Bob Becking (London: Equinox, 2009), 57.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref14″[14] Grayzel, A History of the Jews, 20.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref15″[15] Barton, “Influence of the Babylonian,” 372.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref16″[16] Ben Zvi, “The Voice and Role,” in The Concept of Exile.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref17″[17] Ibid.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref18″[18] Ibid.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref19″[19] Anne-Mareike Wetter, “Balancing the Scales: Construction of the Exile as Countertradition in the Bible,” in From Babylon to Eternity: The Exile Remembered and Constructed in Text and Tradition, by Bob Becking (London: Equinox, 2009), 39.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref20″[20] Ben Zvi, “The Voice and Role,” in The Concept of Exile.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref21″[21] Israel Knox, “Is America Exile or Home? We Must Begin to Build for Permanence,” in Jews and Diaspora Nationalism: Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States, by Simon Rabinovitch (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2012), 254.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref22″[22] Ibid, 250
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref23″[23] Simon Rabinovitch, “Diaspora, Nation, and Messiah,” introduction to Jews and Diaspora Nationalism: Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2012), 24.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref24″[24] Knox, “Is America Exile or Home?,” in Jews and Diaspora Nationalism,208.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref25″[25] Rabinovitch, “Diaspora, Nation, and Messiah,” introduction to Jews and Diaspora Nationalism, 26.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref26″[26] Neusner, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Exile and Return, 150.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref27″[27] Rabinovitch, “Diaspora, Nation, and Messiah,” introduction to Jews and Diaspora Nationalism, 24.
HYPERLINK “../../Brandon/Dropbox/Exile and Memory.docx” l “_ftnref28″[28] Neusner, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Exile and Return, 224.
