In step with the last post about deviated hebrew words I thought it fitting to dedicate a separate entry for the deviation of the words גוי, עם, ולאום since there seems to be an isaeli academic debate of mass proportions as to these issues.
I'm not aiming here to write all the various proofs and textual analysis just want to mention to the blogosphere the insights of the Malbim and those interested will search further. (I'm paraphrasing from יאיר אור [on the entry of גוי] but admittedly I really should be looking deeper at the Malbim's writings in Pr' Noach itself on the pesukim there in פרק ט' ופרק י , but for that I don't have access to them)
The Malbim explains that גוי comes from the word גוה (body,back) and is used specifically to connote a gathering of physical bodies per se. Given that fact we have an interesting pasuk to deal with:
י,ה מאלה נפרדו איי הגוים, בארצתם, איש, ללשנו--למשפחתם, בגויהם
The pasuk is then saying that further sub-division (הפרדה) of גויים is possible along 3-4 paths:
1. Territorial borders ארצתם
2. Language (and I would add culture) לשון
3. Ancestral/Genetic bonds - משפחה
4. Voluntary ad hoc choice to gather together into sub-groups, clubs, organizations, etc בגויהם
עם the Malbim explains as any body of גויים that comes under a structure of authority i.e. מלכות. He points out that עם and מלך go often along with each other (as in אין מלך בלא עם my addition).
לאום: In contrast to the common israeli usage as "nationality", the Malbim defines it as any group that shares a common ideology/belief system.
[It is interesting to note that the apperance of the term לאום in the Torah is nowhere to be found in the desription of the 70 עמים of נח but then spontaneously becomes frequently used repeatedly in Bereishit 25, in regard to בני קטורה, בני ישמעאל, and of course יעקב ועשו...and yet Chazal say "ע' אומות".. also note Bereishit Rabba 38:10 that 30 of the original 70 were lost in מגדל בבל and were substituted by 12, 16, and 2 new אומות from בני ישמעל בני קטורה ובני רבקה, respectively.]
Absent any analysis I would note that a word like אומה/לאום related to the word אם/mother should logically have a more fundamental, existential connotation as opposed to עם...
The interesting implications to note from this then is that לאום is not necessarily territorial in nature. It then in fact has nothing to do with being a citizen (אזרח in modern hebrew, also a deviation of true meaning) of a sovereign state. Accordingly, American Jews and Israeli Jews are part of one לאום, even if they're not part of one עם. Amazingly enough as per this understanding Israeli Jews and Arab-Israelis are in fact one עם (since they are both under one authority) while American Jews and Israeli Jews are not one עם, only one לאום.
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2 comments:
Hi Daniel,
You wrote that according to the Malbim: "American Jews and Israeli Jews are part of one לאום"
But many American Jews don't share the same culture or beliefs. Compare the Chasidim/Chariedi versus the people who identify as secular or some other religion such as Buddhist. Some Jews are merely Jewish by historic identification or family ties.
It's interesting to note that the more you try to break down what defines Jewish the less clear it becomes. A Buddhist would no doubt smile and say that's true for all phenomena we examine. The more closely you observe something, the harder it is to hold onto as a thing in of itself
Hi Aryeh. You're definitely correct that the sole definition of לאום as belief/ideology (you added culture but that's not what I wrote) would not suffice to encompass all jews and hence be a clear contradiction to the pasuk itself seeing ALL descendants of Yaakov as one le'om-- שני לאומים ממעיך יפרדו.
I don't think the Malbim is suggesting his definition as an iron-clad of the word לאום but rather only as a relative one in the context of the other words.
In other words, לאום means a more deeper common denominator binding people together, moreso than עם. In many instances that level of depth is in ideology/belief (as the Malbim is saying), in others even deeper (what i like to call existential. possibly hinted to kabbalistically as I mentioned regarding the אם in the word לאום). At the end of the day there's no escaping the pasuk that clearly sees all jews descending from yaakov as ONE לאום i.e. שני לאומים ממעיך יפרדו.
The question of what makes jews different from non-jews is a serious one that I've thought of for a long time (and still do). My personal feeling at present is that jews are more predisposed towards existential dimensions whereas non-jews are more pre-disposed to the world as we have it. I think that categorization actually serves very well in showing common unities along a much wider swath of jewish personlaties than anything else. A bold statement and certainly not said without the awareness that I have much to learn and understand in life.. that's just what I think at present.
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