Parashat Toldote - Expulsion and Wandering

 וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ אֶל־יִצְחָ֑ק לֵ֚ךְ מֵֽעִמָּ֔נוּ כִּֽי־עָצַֽמְתָּ־מִמֶּ֖נּוּ מְאֹֽד׃
And Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us."

After Abimelech, the king of the Philistines saw Isaac and Rebecca making out, he wondered why Isaac had lied to him about Rebecca being his sister.  Isaac responded that he was afraid of his being killed and Rebecca being taken because she was so beautiful and so the king forbade anyone from hurting Isaac.  Isaac thrived in Gerar and, when he had grown too big, Abimelech expelled him from the place feeling that he might have grown too powerful.

This pattern of "come join us" is often followed by Jewish success.  In 1492 the Jews of Spain were expelled and Turkey welcomed them in.  They thrived there and, until very recently, were welcomed there as important citizens.  Now, however, they are being persecuted by the Islamic authorities who, once again, grow jealous of their success.  In Israel, the Jews have settled the Land and the Arabs who peer out from Lebanon and Syria and Jordan and Egypt literally see a cesspool turned into a garden.  This embarasses them as they had possession of the Land for 700 years and turned it into a literal garbage dump.  They, too, want to expel the Jews.  In fact, throughout history it seems that wherever the Jews are, they are eventually kicked out and it always seems to be after they have set down roots and flourished.  England, Spain, France, Portugal, Germany - pretty much anywhere Jews lived and thrived has become a place of suffering and exile. 

Of course, when countries say such things the Jewish response has been to get out and get out quickly.  I learned that the difference between the Ashkenazi sefer Torah scroll and the Sephardic sefer Torah scroll was not in the writing, of course, but in the way it is contained. The Sephardic scroll is encased in a beautiful wood case, elaborately decorated and very, very heavy.  Not easy to carry.  The Ashkenazic scroll on the other hand is highly portable.  Very easy to carry.  Why?  Because the Jews were not often kicked out of the Sephardic countries - ironically Islamic countries who saw Jews as "People of the Book" - as long as they paid the Jew tax and accepted inferior status, they were allowed to stay, that is until they were all expelled after Israel was established.  It was easy to carry out the Torah while fleeing Ashkenazic communities in Europe and so the Torah was made easy to carry.

If you think about it, though, we are all carrying just a little bit of stuff on our backs wherever we go.  Everything we own will turn to dust.  Everything we cherish will rust and disintegrate.  The only thing we can really carry with us is our name and the echo of the good we have done.  Jews never defined themselves upon the cities or civilizations they built.  They defined themselves upon the thoughts they thought and the values they developed.  They created a civilization of learning and of tradition, of family and community that saw all other Jews (by and large) as part of the family no matter where they were found.  This is not something that needs a building.  Jews have flourished because they knew how to work together for a better good and they enriched every society in which they lived with their prosperity.  The sickness that causes expulsion is not the success of the Jews - it is the incessant jealousy of those who want to be served but can't stand that someone whom they deem inferior can have that much success.  They can't resolve the congnitive dissonance so they expel the Jews and oftentimes fall back into dire circumstance.  Talk about self-defeating.  It is not a condition that we see remedied any time soon.