Jacob, Laban, and “The Merchant of Venice”

This week’s Torah reading tells the story of Jacob’s sojourn with his uncle Laban, whose flocks he tends and whose two daughters he marries. Laban tricks Jacob, first by substituting one daughter for the other and then by trying to deprive him of his wages—which are to be paid in sheep. Jacob responds with some trickery of his own, getting his due by a feat of biblical genetic engineering. In The Merchant of Venice, the character of Shylock cites Jacob’s example in this passage as justification for usury. Herbert Basser argues that Shakespeare here is engaging in a subtle analysis of the biblical text:

Shylock . . . recognizes that, . . . since a patriarch would never steal, Jacob is taking “interest” for the years of unpaid work. He calls it “indirect” interest as it came from natural increase and not added coin. Shylock also . . . notes that Jacob’s mother, Rebecca, was shrewd in helping him usurp Esau’s birthright. For Shylock this constitutes wisdom. It would seem that Shakespeare means to paint Shylock—and probably Jews in general—as the type of people who muddy the lines between smart business and deceitful practices, as Jacob does. . . .

Antonio . . . denounces Shylock’s biblical interpretation. . . . Shylock, Antonio believes, uses Scripture to justify his malicious practices, since Jacob could not possibly have been involved in usury. Jews, he tells Bassanio, are devils and devils misuse Scripture, looking outwardly pious but harboring nefarious schemes. The charge of Jewish hypocrisy was and is often encountered in Christian teachings. Shakespeare himself allows their positions to speak for themselves. . . .

The very debate Shylock and Antonio are having virtually reflects the dissonance [within] the story of how Jacob became wealthy. . . . [A]s a careful reader of Scripture, Shakespeare picked up on the tension inherent in the account, and chose to express this tension, this inner biblical dialogue, in the form of a debate between the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, and the Christian merchant, Antonio.

Read more at theTorah.com

More about: Anti-Semitism, Arts & Culture, Genesis, Hebrew Bible, Jacob, Literature, William Shakespeare

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society