ANARCHO-COMMUNISM IS AN ANCIENT JEWISH CONCEPT
I have termed my vision of Anarchy, that is, the one and only version
of Anarchy that I propound and believe is possible, Mystical Anarchy.
By Mystical Anarchy I mean that the exalted and noble (non)state of
true Anarchy can only be realized by a People, or, preferably,
Peoples, who *know* that there is a God because they are in God-
consciousness and whose faith in Humankind is unshakable.
Faith in God alone will not suffice to bring us to an Anarchy that
will not quickly deteriorate into chaos. Even the knowledge of God
without faith in Humankind that has been tested in the crucible of
failure and disappointment repeatedly, and over a protracted period of
time, but has yet been sustained, and thus proven true, will not
suffice as the basis upon which we will build a society.
Anarchy, then, is the mode of society built and sustained by Peoples
who are in God-consciousness and love Humankind enough to want every
Human being to fulfill his or her potential and much as they want this
for themselves and possess the requisite patience not to be
disappointed when Humankind falls short of their potential for
greatness.
Religion requires revision (in the sense of seeing it with new eyes),
rehabilitation, restoration return to the Source, rekindling and
rededication. It is not organized religion that is the source of our
woes, but, rather, the ersatz that has been put in its place. Indeed,
Anarchy is the most perfect realization of organized religion.
Only those Jews with an intimate knowledge of the intricacies of
Jewish Law are fully equipped for the task of returning we Jews to
true Judaism. However, in order to do so, they must admit and be fully
cognizant of the fact that Judaism is deeply infiltrated with foreign
ideas and they must be brave enough to examine every teaching in light
of ancient sources and on the basis of its merits – that is: whether
or not they serve to build a just world that is fit for human
habitation.
That it was God's intention that the Jews were intended to live in a
society that we would now call Anarcho-Communism from the time we
crossed the Yarden into the Promised Land is amply evidenced in the
Book of Yehoshua (Joshua).
Yehoshua 's intention was to settle the Holy Land according to Anarcho-
Communistic principles.
Please Read Yehoshua 6:18-19
19 But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are
holy unto the LORD; they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.'
This is the translation that I have used because, although very
partial and imperfect, as all translations of Hebrew necessarily are;
at least it is not skewed and intentionally misleading as are all
versions of the "Christian Bible":
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0606.htm
Yehoshua wanted everything that can be made into capital or weapons to
be sanctified to God, not to fall into the hands of private owners.
It should be mentioned that the Hebrew word חרם which is translated as
'devoted', is not precisely devoted. A more correct translation of
the term would be that which is to be expropriated.
In the Hebrew version of this piece I will prove that the Holy Name of
God comprised of four letters (known as "the Tetragrammaton and
translated as the Lord) is actually the Name of the phrase the Whole
House of Yisrael Together. From this we understand that all of the
silver, the gold and the implements of brass and iron were to be
expropriated from the treasuries of the gentiles who had defiled
Yericho with their paganism and immorality and made the common
property of the Whole House of Yisrael Together. Had the Hebrews been
ready to live in this exalted, noble and holy (non)state in this
world, they would have realized Anarcho-Communism in its purest form
from their very entrance into the Holy Land.
The incident with Akhan (Book of Yehoshua, Chapter 7) surreptitiously
taking booty and hiding it for his own personal use and that of his
relatives, and the other members of the tribe of Yehudah who protected
him, made Yehoshua understand that compelling the Hebrews to adopt
Anarcho-Communistic principles before they were prepared to was a
higher level of moral-spirituality than they were ready to live
according to and would only lead to many being punished and so he
relaxed his expectations. There are a number of places in Torah in
which the will of God and the will of the Prophets was more than the
People were ready for and concessions were made.
Nevertheless, that the Jewish People will live according to Anarcho-
Communism is the will of God and has been the way of life either aimed
for or adopted by those Jews who have striven for the highest level of
perfection of this world.
It must be mentioned that Yehoshua was a moral-spiritual and military
leader who was chosen by the Lord – that is, the Whole House of
Yisrael Together and he derived all of his authority and duties from
them. His leadership was based solely upon the trust and love that the
Whole House of Yisrael Together had invested in him. He was the
embodiment of the collective Will of the entire House of Yisrael and
he was fully aware of this collective Will. He in no wise imposed his
will on the People.
Our earliest record of Jews having lived communally comes from the
time of Elisha the Prophet and there is every reason to believe that
he inherited that tradition from his Teachers. We learn from the Book
of Kings II, Chapter 4, Verses 38 – 44 that the followers of Prophets,
called B'nei Nevi'im, the Spiritual children of Prophets, lived
communally and took their meals communally. We learn from these
passages that eating communally results in abundance.
Likewise, HaYachad (as they called themselves, meaning the Ones Who
are Unified, a derivative from the Hebrew 'chad', meaning 'one; uni-,
mono-), more commonly known as "the Dead Sea Sect" and also as "the
Essenes" (probably from the Aramaic 'assouta' meaning healing, for
they were renowned for their knowledge of health and healing), the
sect of very pious Jews during the Second Temple Period who wrote and
preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls, lived communally according to their
reports about themselves; the writings of Josephus Flavius, who lived
amongst them; the observational reports of Philo; an account by Pliny
the Elder and contemporaneous reports of their way of life based on
archeological evidence. They, like the Prophets and their students,
took all their meals communally. A large communal dining hall was
built for this specific purpose. Their community and their habit of
communal dining, as witnessed by Josephus, are described by him in
Chapter VIII of his WARS OF THE JEWS. There he writes: "These are
despisers of riches…Nor is there any one to be found among them who
hath more than another; for it is a law among them, that those who
come to them must let what they have be common to the whole order –
insomuch, that among them all there is no appearance of poverty or
excess of riches, but every one's possessions are intermingled with
every other's possession; and so there is, as it were, one patrimony
among all the brethren." Josephus' description of their communal
dining is borne out by the archeological evidence of their dining hall
that was discovered at Qumran. Communal dining always was, and
remains, an important aspect of life on Kibbutz as well.
Thus, our records establish that Communism is a very ancient Jewish
social system.
When I speak of Communism I do not refer at all to the system of
Marx, which is nothing other than transfer of property rights to the
State. I am an Anarcho-Communist, one who believes in the abolition of
the concept of property all in all as well as in the abolition of all
States. Anarchists have always warned about the dangers of Marxism.
The most articulate and prolific proponent of Anarcho-Communism was
Peter Kropotkin. Only Anarcho-Communism, a society in which there is
no personal property whatsoever, can provide the conditions under
which we can keep such mitzvoth as Pesach (Passover) and the Yovel
(Jubilee), and to a lesser extent Shmitta (every 7th year when the
land must lie fallow) as well.
A bit less than one hundred years before the "Manifesto" was written
by Marx and Engels, Rabbi Hillel Livlin of Shklover, the grand-nephew
and disciple of the famous Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Kramer, the Ga'on
(Genius) of Vilna (1720-1797; See: http://tinyurl.com/ccwdh
http://tinyurl.com/a9mzr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilna_Ga'on )
wrote the very mystical work קול התור, KOL HATOR, meaning VOICE OF
THE TURTLEDOVE, - the latter term being a designation for the Messiah,
as found in Song of Solomon 2:12. Rabbi Livlin of Shklover did not
simply interpret the passages in the Bible that I will quote presently
to mean that one must not use unfair weights and measures when
conducting commerce, as they are usually interpreted. He went much
further than that. He said that the passages actually mean that the
Messianic Age cannot come until there is economic equality in Israel
and he was basing his interpretation on ancient sources. The passages
that speak of the demand for equality most clearly are: Deuteronomy
25: 13- 16. "There we read: "Thou shalt not have in thy bag diverse
weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thy house diverse
measures, a great and a small. A perfect and just weight shalt thou
have; a perfect and just measure shalt thou have; that thy days may be
long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. For all that do
such things, even all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto
the LORD thy God." The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic
Text, The Jewish Publication Society translation [1917].
Rabbi Livlin's interpretation is astounding. For it means that only
in an Anarcho-Communistic society will the inner Torah, the Torah as
it will appear during the Messianic Age, be revealed. Therefore, that
society must be founded previous to the Messianic Age. We cannot wait
for the Messianic Age in order for perfect economic justice to be
brought about. We are invested with the responsibility to create that
society, not the Messiah.
Marx had to dress ancient Jewish ideas in Teutonic garments (most
certainly, appealing to the philosophical authority of one George
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel served as a more reliable endorsement in the
minds of the Germans and English than would appealing to the exegesis
of one Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman) in order to gain legitimacy in
a xenophobic and anti-Semitic Europe, even as Freud didn't mention how
many of his ideas came from the Zohar (one of the central works of
Jewish mysticism).It must be mentioned that the Ga'on of Vilna based
all of his Biblical studies on the Talmud (the compendium of the Oral
Jewish tradition as passed down to and interpreted by the Pharisees of
the Second Temple Period. It is considered the unquestionable body of
Biblical exegesis based on ancient authority among Orthodox Jews to
this day) and would not have made so categorical a statement about
economic equality had he not found ample basis for doing so in the
Bible as interpreted in the Talmud. The year that Hegel was born, The
Ga'on of Vilna was a man of 50, surrounded by adoring students and
renowned internationally in the European Jewish Diaspora. After his
death he became equally famous in the Jewish Diasporas of North
Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India and the Far East as well. No one
in the Jewish world questioned or questions his brilliance or
exegetical ability. No matter how assimilated and Western in his
orientation Marx was, he could not have but come under the influence
of Rabbinical thinking.
The most startling example of a Jewish mystic who propounded Anarcho-
Communistic ideas known to me is that of Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag. Rabbi
Ashlag was aware of Marxist theory, but was wholly in disagreement
with the authoritative aspects of it. He arrived at Anarcho-Communism
through his study of the Kabbalah. Evidently, he was not aware of the
writings of the Anarchists, with which his own teachings were in full
agreement. I surmise this because though the concepts he speaks of,
which he termed "altruist Communism" are pure Anarcho-Communism; he
employed Marxist, not Anarchist rhetoric. (See the heading
"Teachings" on this link: http://tinyurl.com/ywuydc). The personal
notes of David ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of the State of
Israel, who belonged to the Labor Party reflect the fact that he and
Rabbi Ashlag met on a number of occasions. Ben Gurion wrote: "While I
wanted to speak with him about the Kabbalah, he wanted to speak to me
about Socialism and Communism". [My translation. Quoted from דרך הקבלה
אל הקומוניזם ("Arriving at Communism by Way of the Kabbalah". See:
http://tinyurl.com/3xeqxe (in Hebrew)]. That same article speaks of
the close friendship that Rabbi Ashlag enjoyed with Avraham Yitzchak
Kook (1864–1935), who was the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi during the
time of the British Mandate for Palestine and is renowned for his
devotion to the mystic tradition of Judaism as well. While Rav Kook
did not call for Anarchy or Anarcho-Communism, as did his dear friend
Rabbi Ashlag, he did see the Kibbutz Movement, including the secular
Kibbutz Movement, as part of the heralding of the Messianic age.
In classical Jewish thought economic equality in communal society is
a sine qua non for the attainment of spiritual advancement, as the
very desire to amass property and hold it to oneself reflects
spiritual taint. However, communal living is not seen as an end in
itself, or as the zenith of human achievement. It is meant to serve
the mega-purpose of man's existence on earth, which is the revelation
of God in the material world. In order to do this, Man is "clothed" in
a physical body, which has its own needs. By supplying those needs in
a pure and holy way: by eating as prescribed the tenants of one's
spiritual culture, temperance in sexual relations, attending to
agriculture and horticulture with loving-kindness, uprightness in
business dealings, and by being as concerned with the welfare of one's
fellows exactly as one is concerned with one's own, one purifies one's
own body as well as strengthens the vessels of physical existence to
receive Godliness. Communism, as understood in Jewish thought is the
physical and cultural parallel of the spiritual quest - the attainment
of the greatest good FOR ALL. As God imparts of Its Divine Knowledge
freely, so we are to share our knowledge and all manners of wealth one
with the other.
The ability to live according to the principles "LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS
YOURSELF" and, as Rabbi Akiva taught during the time of the Second
Temple: "What is mine is yours. This is the great central point of the
entire Bible" is the sine qua non of communism. These are central
Jewish teachings.
The fact that Marx presented Communism removed from its Jewish ground,
which, no doubt, was a capitulation to European anti-Semitism, opened
Communism to being arrogated entirely by those who, not knowing the
Spiritual substrate of true Communism, without which it is
impracticable, distorted Communism into being the basis not only of
repressive regimes, but as yet another excuse for anti-Semitism.
Anarcho-Communism is the social invention of the Jewish People. It is
certainly not the exclusive social invention of the Jewish People.
Other people lived in Anarcho-Communist societies, but it was our way
of living during the time of the Judges. It is the sine qua non for
the establishment of a just society. It was our past. It will be our
future.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
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