304 Yair Zakovitch
if not pleasant, to all who hear it: this Bible belongs to one faction, the fac-
tion that has recently claimed exclusive rights not only to the whole biblical
land of Israel but also to the Bible.
In spite of all this, a return to the Bible is possible in our generation, but
from a place of maturity and lowered expectations. We must recognize that
the Bible can no longer serve as the center of an addictive national identi-
fi cation; it cannot provide ready-made answers to questions regarding our
existence. Although our relation to the Bible is a familial one, it is a dis-
tant relative, an ancient relation that was not written with our generation in
mind, and we cannot disregard the thousands of years that separate us in
order to embrace it.
What is it that causes us to view the Bible as alien and strange?12 Th e
Bible is a religious document in which God plays the central role. For many
Jews in Israel, God is not present, so that much of the Bible seems mean-
ingless. A Jew for whom God does not fi ll a central role, or even any role
— a Jew who does not believe — remains oblivious to a signifi cant dimen-
sion in this literature; participation in religious rituals is likewise not a part
of his or her life. Moreover, it is not only the worship of God that is alien
to the secular Israeli. Th e whole notion of a relationship between humanity
and God — an elemental feature in biblical literature — is likewise incom-
prehensible. Like someone blind from birth who knows not what color is,
or someone born deaf who has never heard music, thus is the secular Jew
precluded from grasping the depth of the religious experience, even if he or
she makes a concerted eff ort to trace its roots.
Many subjects that the Bible addresses are not relevant to secular life:
off ering sacrifi ces, dietary laws, the war against idolatry. Quite a few top-
ics may even off end us, such as the fundamental premise that God’s rule
in the world is a just one or the idea of Israel being the chosen people.
What is more, the Bible’s value system, as a whole, is not necessarily one in
whose light I wish to live my life or educate our youth. Take, for example,
the book of Joshua. How are we to identify with the policy of total exter-
mination (herem) to which Jericho was condemned? “Th ey exterminated
everything in the city with the sword: man and woman, young and old,
ox and sheep and ass. . . . Th ey burned down the city and everything in it”
(Joshua 6:21 – 24). Other inhabitants of Canaan did not fare much better,
as apparent from the number of dead in the battle at Ai (see Joshua 8:22 –
29). It is equally diffi cult to read about Joshua’s treatment of the fi ve kings
whom he captured in a cave at Makkedah and had impaled on fi ve stakes
(Joshua 10:24 – 26).