Not so long ago I had the opportunity to sit in on a discussion of Andrew Schmookler’s work focusing on his Parable of the Tribes. This parable provides another way of looking at the interactions of peoples and seems to apply especially well to both the Maccabees and to the modern state of Israel (the modern day Maccabees).
The Parable posits a group of tribes living close to each other. They all want to live in peace, and so peace reigns.
But suppose one of the tribes has aggressive intentions and wishes to expand its land? This tribe attacks the first of its neighbors, exterminates its residents and takes over its land. The tribe then attacks the second of its neighbors, who offer themselves as slaves to the conquering tribe in order to escape death. The third tribe, seeing what had become of the first two, decides to flee to a distant place – not as beautiful nor as fertile as their original home, but safe. The fourth tribe choses to defend itself. The irony is that to defend itself, it must become like the aggressors.
Successful defense against a power-maximizing aggressor requires a society to become more like the society that threatens it. Power can be stopped only by power. The four outcomes–destruction, subjugation, withdrawal and defense–all spread power, no matter what the outcome.
The Assyrian-Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawed the practice of Judaism, because it would be so much easier to rule Judea if they were just all Greeks. The Maccabees revolted, and after they won the war, the Maccabean-established Hasmonean Dynasty did what no Jews had ever done before or have ever done since: They forcibly converted the Edomites to Judaism, because it would be so much easier to rule them if they were Jews. How ironic! How like the Parable!
The modern State of Israel faces the same dilemma. How do you live peaceably when your neighbors lob missiles on you, run you down with cars, massacre worshippers at prayer and send suicide bombers to kill innocents? How does Israel respond? How does Israel protect its citizens? And how does Israel do that without becoming like the first Tribe?
B’Shalom
Rabbi Stanley Halpern