it's often been said that jews are a rootless people. the 'wandering
jew' has been feared and admired, vilified and romanticized, exiled
and emulated.
the historical image of the jew is that of a people going from one
place to another for whatever reason--curiosity, moneymaking, getting
the boot, search for a new promised land. and, so jews have been
accused of having no roots and no desire to settle down like everyone
else and make a living; this is a rather funny accusation coming from
****tuguese, spaniards, french, and british who did much more to
conquer and wander about the world. but, i suppose one could say
spanish, british, french, and ****tuguese explored and conquered the
world for their mother country whereas jews always went for a ride on
the backs of other people. before jews were freedom riders, they were
free riders.
anyway, one could argue that the notion of jews-as-a-rootless-people
is fundamentally wrong. homelessness is not the same as rootlessness.
it could be argued that jews didn't embrace wandering as an ideal but
an unfortunate necessity. rather, they wandered about because they
lost their home--the promised land of israel. in this sense, jews
always had home and roots in their heart. they appeared to be
rootless in foreign lands because jews, remembering israel as their
true home, could never feel at home among goyim.
indeed, it could be argue that jews appeared to be rootless precisely
because they--and their religion--was rooted. even though jews came
up with an abstract one-and-only-god in heaven, their holy book said
god gave a specific parcel of land to the jews--that land jews
conquered from canaanites and philistines. because jews who'd been
scattered around the world thought of returing home to their holy
land, they naturally appeared and acted as rootless people in foreign
lands. it's kinda like odysseus in the famous story. he may have
appeared rootless as he went from one land to the next and bumped into
all sorts of nasty adventure and such. but, he wasn't wandering for
the rootless fun of it. he was actually trying to go home. even when
calypso tried to keep him on her island, all odysseus could think of
was going back to penelope and sonny boy. to calypso, odyessus may
seemed rootless as he couldn't give invest his love in their
relation****p. but, this was because odysseus was actually homesick and
had penelope on his mind. so, odysseus seemed rootless precisely
because he was rooted. because he desired to go home, he felt and
seemed out of place in various parts of the world.
if jews seemed rootless because their faith rooted them spiritually in
the holy land, christians may appear rooted precisely because their
religion is rootless. jesus was a funny kind of jew. he saw himself
as the son of god--directly and literally. also, he had little use for
many jewish traditions and ideas. he wanted to spread god to all men
all over the world--or, so the christians say. for jesus, there was no
single holy land for a single people. all the people were god's
children and all the land was equally holy. so, there is no specific
home or holy ground for christians. it's the Idea that is holy. it's
an idea that can go anywhere, like dandelion seeds. so, christianity
is rootless. but, its adherents can lead happily rooted lives because
they can be perfect christians exactly where they are. a jew in
argentina may still think of the holy land of israel. secular or
religious, israel is historically im****tant to the idea of jewishness.
but, the holy lands are not that im****tant to christians. of course,
christians want that part of the world to be under western control. of
course, many christians would like to travel to israel and do some
sightseeing. but, one can be an happy and totally fulfilled chrisitan
in spain, philippines, brazil, japan, china, or zimbabwe. to be sure,
there is some stuff in the revelations about jesus coming back down to
the holy land and blah blah, but it's jews who are supposed to go back
to that territory, not christians. a christian can feel happily holy
and totally rooted whereever he is. today, a modern jew is happy in
the US and many parts of europe, but there is still a sense of israel
as their true home. the holyland is spiritually and historically
jewish. it's the ONLY country in the world where jews make up the
majority. it's the land that the bible talks about over and over.
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