Torah Against Empire
We Have Thoughts.
This is Life as a Sacred Text 🌱, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here:
There are a lot of Jewish patterns. Of course there are– any tradition that's been around as long as we have are going to keep rhyming and rhymnig again.
But one of the things that is certainly true, is that we do have a long tradition of standing up to Empire.
In terms of the literature, our master narrative mythically is that of taking down Pharaoh and getting out of Egypt, and everything that begins from that first step.
Historically, it's what we've been doing since before writing down the earliest bits of Torah– we had to face down the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, and countless other Empires– the Spanish monarchs, the Czar– since then.
These are mostly Rabbinic sources about empire, but also one more modern source– someone harmed by one empire and saved by another, reflecting on his role in the society that saved him.
Have a look and let me know your thoughts.