Exile and the Prophetic: Chief Last Night

This is part twenty-two of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.

On the Thomas Paine front, it turns out he became a professional revolutionary, after the American Revolution heading to France for the revolution there. He almost lost his head (literally) there because he was against the forced de-Christianization policies of the revolutionists. Paine was imprisoned in the Luxembourg Palace which the revolution turned into a prison.

I visited the palace in my 1973 European backpack tour and don’t remember the “palace into prison” turn on the tourist information packet. Maybe it’s been added since. Like the discussion of the slave quarters in anti-bellum plantation tours in the South. They’re only cropping up now.

Tourism attempts to hide the fact that history is a series of illusions and disillusions. Until tourism can’t hide the pain anymore. Then the reverse of what history once boasted becomes a tourist attraction itself. Strange thing, tourism. Like the museum at Auschwitz, with hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. Death camp to tourist site. Check the bus schedule.

Paine’s life had so many interesting twists and turns. He never accumulated wealth, married or had children. He was lionized and disparaged in America and France. He spoke up for slaves and Native Americans. Paine saw himself as a global citizen way before our generation thought it was the first to have this sensibility.

One of my favorite scenes in the book is Paine negotiating with Chief Last Night, who represented the Native American tribes. Paine’s hope was to get Native Americans to side with the American revolutionists against Great Britain. At the start of the negotiations, Paine introduced himself as “Common Sense,” the title of his famous pamphlet that inflamed American independence fever.

Chief Last Night provided an interesting interpretation of empire. It might be useful for our task at hand. After expressing awe at the “great canoes” of the British, the chief expressed how unlikely it would be for the British to conquer the Americans on land: “The king of England is like a fish. When he is in the water he can wag his tail. When he comes on land he lays down on his side.”

The strength of a people, nation, religion, ideology in one arena is their weakness in another. Apply it across the board. When it comes to Jews and the conflict between the prophetic and empire, which one are we suited for? When the prophetic gives way to empire Jews may be like the chief’s analysis of the British. In the prophet mode, our tails wag. When we defend empire, we can’t breathe.

The prophetic as (Jewish)oxygen. Natural (Jewish) habitat. Is that, as well, the real Habitat for Humanity? (Not housing within an unjust system, but a just system where housing is a right.)

Or perhaps the Jewish prophetic is a constituent element of the global prophetic. Like a particle in an atom without which the atom can’t be whole. Then, proceeding backwards, the Jewish prophetic particle takes on life within the broader atomic structure. Both necessary if the universe is going to have some stability.

The instability of history, at least the way it exists rather than the way it’s narrated. Then, the formation of Israel as the struggle of a Holocaust people against great odds defeating a blood thirsty backward Arab world who had all the land in the world but wouldn’t give one inch to a people in need. Now, the formation of Israel as a European invasion of white (Jewish) settlers with superior arms who ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people, then after its formation, continue occupying and cleansing Palestinians from their land.

Listen carefully. Can you hear the Peace Garden statues falling?

But then, if applied universally, a strict justice, as for example if founding a country but owning slaves disqualifies you, would there be any statues in the Peace Gardens of our world? Those of every nationality, religion and ideology who have been honored in the past at some point fade from history’s view. Some are removed with ceremony. Others are taken down in the dark of night.

If a Peace Garden statue falls in the night do the other Peace Garden statues around the world hear them falling?

Notice Brandeis, a Jewish university, at least in inspiration, for a way out of the statue business. Their Building for Peace has nothing of the short. Should I say, no graven images? Here is their description. Read it carefully. Notice what it says and what it doesn’t.

Building for Peace was a recognized club of the Student Union whose mission was to construct a peace monument on campus that would serve as a physical testament to the universality of peace and the diversity at Brandeis. The club was comprised of the students of professor Gordon Fellman’s Sociology of Empowerment class and was funded by a grant from the Hewlett Pluralism Alliance and the Student Senate.
The Brandeis University Peace Monument was first dedicated in May 2002. It is located in the circular seating area between Usdan and Pearlman and is surrounded by benches and a garden. In the very center of the monument is a beautiful mosaic of a dove — the international symbol of peace. Encircling the mosaic are tiles engraved with the word “peace” in the languages spoken at Brandeis. There are approximately 40 different language bricks.

Building for Peace set out to further the beauty and breadth of the Peace Monument by adding bricks and improving the garden. There are hopes to add approximately 20 more language bricks (including American Sign Language and Braile), various cultural symbols of peace, a dedication plaque and a “peace tree.”

Part of the financing for what we now call the Mandel Peace Garden, came from generous benefactor Jay A. Mandel ’80 and his life partner, Jeffrey M. Scheckner, in memory of Jay’s grandparents, Harry and Violet Mandel.

So many things to admire about this peace – building. I assume the “peace tree” has been planted by now, since we are a decade after its founding. I assume, too, that the twenty more language bricks have also been added. Perhaps even more since their International Studies program has no doubt expanded. All quite progressive, wouldn’t you say?

The club that founded the building, interesting title for the course – Sociology of Empowerment. I suppose that could go in many directions, even north like Martin Luther street. First stop atrocity? Then ethnic cleansing? You don’t have to reach mass death for empowerment to turn that corner.

The Sociology of Empowerment. We all need some power. I suppose it depends on how things are defined and from which vantage point you begin.

This reminds me of the first Palestinian uprising when Rabbi Irving Greenberg who had written about the Holocaust and its lessons wrote a pamphlet titled “The Ethics of Jewish Power.” 1988 was the date and it was a tour de force. In a nutshell, Greenberg argued that the days of Jewish powerlessness were over. The days of Jewish power were here, necessarily in light of the Holocaust. Now Jews had to face the fact that Israel would do things as a state and in defense of its national interests that would properly be critiqued by our prophetic tradition. But that now that tradition had to take a backseat lest it undermine Israel’s power and bring us to a second-Holocaust situation.

Thus the ethics of Jewish power had to be thought through. Since we were new at the empowerment game. Now it’s all old hat. Today, most Jews don’t even think of the prophetic in relation to Jewish power. We shrug our shoulders. Why raise the issue?

May 2002, almost a decade after Oslo. May, 2002, the second Uprising, the Apartheid Wall. Coming soon the war in Lebanon and then a few years later the invasion of Gaza.

Since May, 2002, the settler population in Jerusalem and the West Bank, multiplied by the thousands. Upon thousands.

More than a decade later, the peace languages spoken multiply. Do they drown out the sounds of Star of David helicopter gunships on the prowl?

Language signed here. Another step in the right direction. Now show me how the Star of David helicopter gunships in the open Ark of the Covenant are signed. I’m ready to learn where we are as Jews in every language possible, aren’t you?

I also want to learn how to sign the prophetic.

Signing the prophetic. Helicopter gunships on the prowl.

If we visualize our new reality it might help us turn our canoe around.

Thinking of Chief Last Night. Water and Land. Wagging his tail. Lying on his side. Sign that too.