This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
Should we hold a coming out party for Judith Butler? Her new book is raising quite a stir. Yes, she’s late to the table but there are always extra chairs to be found. It isn’t every day that someone of her renown officially comes out.
From the advance publicity on her book she seems to emphasize “Jewish.” No doubt this will bring out the universalist types who can’t handle Jewish particularity. But, who knows, Butler’s star quality might overwhelm them.
As the Rachel Corrie verdict continues to resonate, I share other quotes from Aaron’s 2000 letter to the Israeli Consul of Houston. This as Star of David helicopter gunships patrolled the Palestinian skies.
I share his words because they’re profound and because they come from a young person. Like Rachel Corrie was. Rachel was killed less than three years after Aaron’s letter. Those of us of a certain age have failed. Including, now, Judith Butler. Here’s Aaron:
I understand that Israel is a democracy. If you say that, that you are forcing Palestinians to move out because you are more militarily advanced than they are, you create a totalitarian government, much like that which was created in Germany in the 1930s.
You, in essence, are saying that whoever has the most powerful thugs, Gestapo, Army, or secret police, should rule regardless of their political views. This is exactly what led to the suffering of so many fellow Jews and others. This, also, is what’s happening to the Palestinians even as you read this, only on a smaller scale.
I don’t know how you really support your views, except for the fact that Israel is more powerful than the Palestinians, and therefore should rule over them, which is of course just down right stupid for anyone to think this, much less an entire nation.
Then the clincher: “Thank you for your time, and I would greatly appreciate a letter back, as I am trying to find out the truth.”
So kind and considerate, Aaron is, after burying this Israeli spokesperson – on the field of battle. I realize that as part of the Israeli consulate headquartered in Houston, the speaker’s address had the power of the state at his back. In real life, Aaron was defenseless. Yet, reading Aaron’s words, one feels a seismic shift taking place.
Sure, you can chalk it up to parental pride that I quote from my son, but if you stop and think where in God’s name could such a letter come from if not the prophetic persisting through time? I return to my Palestinian friend’s announcement that the Jewish prophetic voice will never die. In his words, you can feel a seismic shift has already taken place – on the field of battle.
Israeli power will never be safe from the Jewish prophetic. Never. The prophetic will haunt Israeli power and Jewish power in America until the end of time. And when certain Jewish prophetic voices are sidelined by the empty suits of our world, through the typical and transparent ploys of power, that voice and other voices like them will pop up out of nowhere. More or less, like the Biblical prophets do.
Like Rachel Corrie. She was murdered. Her memory and witness is alive. When you read her letters home, don’t you feel the same seismic shift taking place?
So the expansive prophetic. Rooted in the Jewish. Now coming back to haunt Jewish power.
If you’re not Biblically savvy, not to worry. Reading the Biblical text isn’t mandatory for embodying the prophetic voice through time. In fact, the Bible-toters on the Right and the Biblical deconstructors on the Left carry on their own civil war about religion without touching the voice that continually appears unannounced. So engrossed in their warfare they miss the point. Why dally there when you can have the deepest exile imaginable by exercising conscience against the powers that be?
More on Aaron’s letter. If you read the full text, you’ll notice there is only one paragraph where God is mentioned. His God paragraph is a clincher to be sure but it is previewed and followed by a moral politics that is strictly on the up and up. Couched in Jewish history, of course, Aaron swings the historical axe. He cuts the brush that the Israeli Consul waded into, leaving him naked to the world.
Unlike Lanzmann’s Shoah ,Aaron isn’t stuck in the Holocaust. He invokes the pre-Holocaust 1930s and intimates that the Israeli Consul is already there, as are Jews in general. It’s not about whether we are going to take the next step. It’s about our imitation of discriminatory and exclusionary policies adopted by Hitler’s government as they seized and consolidated power. Which raises the issue about whether fascism has to wear a brown shirt to be fascism.
“Whoever has the most powerful thugs.” Is that enough for our state-backed mouthpieces? “You create a totalitarian government, much like that which was created in Germany in the 1930s.” Response?
The coup de grace: “I don’t know how you really support your views, except for the fact that Israel is more powerful than the Palestinians, and therefore should rule over them, which is of course just down right stupid for anyone to think this, much less an entire nation.”
Standing there, the Israeli Consul, is stripped naked and with it empire power is, too. He is faced with the prophetic Jewish conscience, also stripped naked. No question who wins – on the field of battle – right now. There also isn’t any question of who wins – on the field of battle – in history. From the moment of confrontation it’s only a matter of when the empire power to create burning children is lost. Then what?
So the Rachel Corrie verdict. Well, Israel isn’t the only court in the world? In the broader world a different verdict has already been announced. History, too, is weighing in. How do you think Israel will do in history’s court?
Listen to Jeff Halper checking in on the Corrie verdict with notes from International Law. Note his (un)religious analysis:
Sending IDF American-made Caterpillar bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes in Gaza or anywhere in the Occupied Territories is a war crime. To what degree Israel ignores, violates and distorts international law was particularly evident in the testimony of Pinhas “Pinky” Zuaretz, the brigade commander who supervised the illegal “clearing” of Palestinian homes from that area of Gaza. “There are no civilians in military conflicts,” he testified, directly contradicting one of the most fundamental principles of international law, the duty to protect non-combatants.
War crimes. The Israeli occupation is. Which brings us back to the recent Holocaust past.
You see, stripped naked, empire power has a shelf-life. Which isn’t listed. The prophetic doesn’t have a shelf-life. No listing when it kicks in either. It isn’t that empire power runs its course and then the prophetic wins. History isn’t like that. Empire power and the prophetic are wrestling all the time. Even when empire power is winning hands-down. Even when empire power has the prophetic knocked to the mat. Even when the referee is counting the prophetic out. Especially then.
You see, this is the time when the asceticism of the prophet kicks in, when all the resources of the prophet are brought to bear, when the history of the prophetic is galvanized. When the collective junk of the millennia and the individual junk of a lifetime are called upon.
On the field of battle. The victor always knows that the prophetic is lurking. Out there.
War crimes are judged in history’s court.
One of Rachel Corrie’s emails home. I can hear Aaron’s voice here, too:
Anyway, I’m rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: “This is the wide world and I’m coming to it.” I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide.
On the war crimes front, I doubt even Judith Butler can say it better than Aaron and Rachel.
“israel power will never be safe from the jewish prophetic.”
nor will empire usa’s power ever be safe from the native american prophetic, nor the slaveowner’s power safe from the african slave prophetic, etc. etc.
Prof. Ellis,
You asked about your son’s letter: “if you stop and think where in God’s name could such a letter come from if not the prophetic persisting through time?”
This reminds me of the Rabbinical belief that prophecy stopped after Zechariah’s time to be replaced by reason (http://www.jewishideas.org/articles/end-prophecy-malachis-position-spiritual-developmen ), and whether Zechariah saw the prophesied rejection of all prophets to include inspired prophets as well(Zech. 13). It seems to me the rabbinical answer would be that the letter could not be prophetic at all, but perhaps Zechariah would allow for it to be prophetic regardless of whether it was recognized as such. Am I right?
But to get back to your question, perhaps the answer depends on the difference between expressing oneself based on one’s conscience and on divine inspiration. I suppose the latter involves especially miraculous and morally/spiritually deep expressions. For example, if a teacher told a student to beat up another student and he refused, the simplicity and moral obviousness of the rejection suggests to me it was based on conscience. But if the student would appear justified in beating up the second student (as in a matter of revenge), but instead chose forgiveness, and wrote a poem about forgiving everyone, this would go further in the direction of divine inspiration. I am not sure if that would be deep enough.
One of the signs of ancient inspiration was that it included a miraculous prediction. Couldn’t there be other signs of something going beyond conscience and coming from divine inspiration?
As one of the signs of the letter’s inspiration, you seemed to mention: “In his words, you can feel a seismic shift has already taken place – on the field of battle.” In other words, there is a miraculous shift of power in the battle of ideas. I don’t know. Is it miraculous that people’s ideas have changed about the political situation in the Levant? People might have given the State a pass because of the Holocaust, but then it wore off over many generations and people recognized the injustice of the system’s oppression. That is, it became obvious. So I am not sure the seismic shift is inspired, or could be explained naturally.
Another sign you mentioned is that when inspired people are silenced, “that voice and other voices like them will pop up out of nowhere.” Well, this goes back to whether the truth is obvious. If a government silences some people’s voices, others may pop up simply because the truth they are talking about is obvious. Now if the person is risking his/her career and family relations, risking being isolated in every way, then I think those factors add to how unusual and “miraculous” the person would be to speak out. This raises the question of whether speaking out against everybody means having a strong conscience or inspiration. Perhaps the latter, because inspiration is suggested by being unusual.
Another sign you mentioned was that the prophetic is “rooted in the Jewish”. However, I am very doubtful about the criterion, if you mean it as one and I understand you correctly, that prophecy by definition only comes out of the Jewish religion or people. Abraham had his experiences with God even before he was circumcized, and the Old Testament portrays Balaam as a non-Israelite prophet who was divinely inspired in his prophecies.
You are right that Aaron’s letter showed moral politics, and that’s definitely one of the requirements of inspiration. And it’s true that it goes against the grain of the religious community. In line with this you ask ” Why dally there when you can have the deepest exile imaginable by exercising conscience against the powers that be?” But since he shares his views with you in his family, and there are a significant minority of others in his community that share these views, I am not sure he risks ostracization enough to make it so unusual that it’s miraculous. He is definitely speaking truth to and against power, but is that enough (without complete ostracization) to make it divinely inspired?
To sum up my answer, I am not sure if the letter was inspired, and if it was not, then I think it would come from Conscience.
Take care.