Judaism; Fossil or Ferment, V Understanding Toynbee 2

2. TOYNBEE’S NEED FOR THE “FOSSIL”

1.

Not only does Judaism not fit into the Toynbean scheme of salvation; but also Jewry continually impedes the neatly mapped-out course of Toynbean history. Were it not for Jewry, Mr. Toynbee’s “laws” would look much more convincing.

One of these laws of Toynbean history asserts that at the breakdown and disintegration of a civilization the movement of history is carried on by three creative acts; the dominant minority creates the universal state; the internal proletariat, taking over a higher religion which is already a going concern, establishes a universal church; the external proletariat of the barbarians, beyond the confines of the collapsing civilization, enters upon a heroic age.⁶See, e.g., I/336; V/26; VI/279, footnote 6; VII/1. The Jewish people, according to Toynbee’s classification, formed one section of the internal proletariat of the Hellenic civilization. The “dominant minority” of Hellenism responded to the challenge of disintegration according to the rule and attempted to bring peace to a sorely tried ecumene by establishing the “Hellenic” universal state, the Roman Empire; at least one part of the “Syriac” internal proletariat was equally obliging and duly responded to the challenge by producing its universal religion, Christianity. Only Jewry had to be different: neither did it establish a Syriac universal state to unify the Syriac world, as was done later by Islam—a task which perhaps it was not its responsibility to undertake—nor did it bring about a universal church, as was done by some Syriac “natives.”⁷I/53, 57, 165. What ails Toynbee is revealed in the earlier part of the Study, when his anti-Jewish and anti-Judaic attitude has not yet crystallized and he is not yet fully aware how seriously his “laws” are disrupted by Jewish behavior. About the survival of Jewry he writes: “The ancient Syriac neighbours of Israel have fallen into the meltingpot and have been re-minted, in the fullness of time with new images and superscriptions, while Israel has proved impervious to this alchemy—performed by History in the crucibles of universal states and universal churches and wanderings of the nations—to which the Gentiles all in turn succumb.”⁸II/55. Italics ours; “the wandering of the nations” is a reference to the Heroic Ages of the external proletariat. See also V/658. Jewry did neither of the things that a people is supposed to do at a time of crisis—and yet it has survived. In the form of Futuristic militancy it gave an altogether wrong answer to the challenge; it ran afoul of the “laws” of history; its survival is therefore inexplicable in terms of those laws. What is therefore to be done with Jewry? How is it to be classified? With disarming frankness, at this earlier phase of the Study, Toynbee explains in a footnote to the passage we have just quoted that “from the Gentile standpoint” modern Jewry is the fossil remnant of a society which is now extinct. This does make sense. All it says is that from the Gentile—or, perhaps more correctly, from the Toynbean—standpoint the survival of Jewry cannot be explained Jewry ought to have disappeared therefore it has disappeared; its continued existence must be a state of fossilization.

However, as the main theme of the Study develops, the problem posed for the entire philosophy of Toynbee becomes more and more serious. One might, perhaps, allow an exception to the “laws” of history, but Jewry’s survival is contrary to the “Law” of salvation. For not only is the creation of a universal church by the internal proletariat a better response than any other, but it is the only response that may save man. The peace of the universal state is only transitory. The universal state, as well as the barbarian heroic ages, must perish. There is no salvation for man apart from placing his treasure “in the spiritual exercise of propagating a higher religion.” The higher religion that Jewry should have embraced and propagated was Christianity; instead—according to Toynbee—the Jews took the sword. But he who takes the sword must perish by the sword; it is the law that brings empires low and eliminates the barbarian war-bands.⁹See, e.g., VII/6-7, 158, and the theme of Vol. III in general. The “laws” of history are the Will of God; there can be no exception to them. And so the subjectivity of the earlier position is dropped, and Jewry becomes a fossil not only from the Gentile standpoint but in the absolute sense of the word, a fossil in the sight of the Lord Himself. Nevertheless, it still amounts to nothing more than that Jewish survival baffles Toynbee. It is contrary to his scheme of salvation, which has become identical with history. Jewry cannot be alive; its life must be a death-life, a form of life in death, an existing non-existence, a fossil.¹⁰When once it was pointed out to Hegel that his philosophy was contradicted by facts, he answered: “All the worse for the facts.” In the opinion of Toynbee, if Jewish survival contradicts his interpretation of history, all the worse for the Jews.

2.

Unfortunately, Mr. Toynbee’s worries are not yet at an end. Even in the eyes of its creator, the “fossil” theory has still to be propped up. Jewry must be a fossil because it perished at the time of the so-well-deserved destruction of Jerusalem. All right! But fossils are preserved either in certain geological strata, which happen to offer protection for them, or in natural-history museums, which do the same, taking good care of their fossils with the help of expert knowledge dedicated to their preservation. In natural history there are no fossils that have “survived” centuries of assault, carried out with the utmost ruthlessness and with every possible means of destruction. Yet, if Jewry is a fossil, it is exactly this kind of a fossil that it must be. Rather than solving the problem, the “fossil” theory exacerbates it. If Jewry, having had no more vitality to live, had to die, how could it possess the inexhaustible energy needed to “survive” the long and dark centuries of inhumanity and barbarity? In such circumstances the “survival” of a fossil is even more mysterious than that of an active living organism.

Mr. Toynbee is not unaware of this problem. He is obviously deeply impressed by the phenomenon of Jewish survival, as shown by his numerous references to it. He even attempts to find an explanation for it. The fossil remnant of the extinct Syriac civilization was able to “survive” because after the fall of Jerusalam, it was endowed by Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai “with an inertly rigid institutional framework and a passively obstinate psychological habitus that enabled it to preserve its distinctive communal life in the frail clay tenement of a politically impotent diaspora.” What is meant by the “inertly rigid institutional framework” and the “passively obstinate psychological habitus” is made sufficiently clear in other places. It is “the meticulous observance of the Mosaic Law by orthodox Jews who had faithfully followed Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai’s admonitions to seek in the practice of this social drill their palladium for preserving their distinctive communal identity in diaspora.”¹¹VIII/585, 599. One may be somewhat surprised to hear that inertia, rigidity, passivity, and obstinacy are conducive to survival. Survival depends on adaptability to environment or ability to change one’s environment; in either case, what is needed is elasticity, alertness, and creativity.

Mr. Toynbee does say a great deal of blatant nonsense, especially as regards Judaism and Jewry—but not without reason. Not only must he explain the “survival” of the fossil in circumstances in which fossils never survive, but he must be careful not to permit the fossil any measure of sensitivity. A “sensitive fossil” not only would be a contradiction in terms but would still further derange the Toynbean scheme and “laws” of history. The breakdowns of civilizations are the birth-pangs of the Higher Religions. Toynbee cannot repeat often enough that suffering is the key to salvation; it is in human suffering that God reveals himself to man.¹²See, e.g., I/286, VI/275, VII/423-5. See also above Ch. I, section 1. But here is a people that has known more suffering than any other branch of the human family, that has been crucified for many centuries, generation after generation. Not enough that Jewry hs survived, it has also “drained the cup of staggering” and thus, perchance, it may even hold the key to salvation. Toynbee begrudges Jewry nothing more than its survival and its martyrdom. This people, that should have perished for taking the sword, is the only one in the entire realm of Christendom that for nineteen centuries lived without the sword and survived in the Jesus-like manner, by submitting to abuse, insult, and slaughter. It must never be! And so Toynbee proceeds to rob Jewry not only of life but also of sensitivity. According to Toynbee the nineteen centuries of Jewish Diaspora were “living without disaster.” The descendants of the Jewish Quietists for sixty generations rendered themselves successfully “insensible to the painfulness of the mundane Present by a minute observance of a God-given law and by a patient expectation of a Kingdom which is to be established on Earth in God’s own time by God’s omnipotence alone, without the lifting of one human finger.”¹³VI/216. The “social-drill” Judaism is the very obvious explanation of the survival of the Jewish fossil; it equipped Jewry with all the power and strength that are consistent with the condition of being dead: with inertia, rigidity, obstinacy, passivity, and insensitivity. No wonder it survived! A Jew has no senses, affections, passions. No, he is not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is. If you prick him he does not bleed; if you tickle him he does not laugh; if you poison him he does not die. He is a fossil. At last, Shylock has been given his answer.