Mattot 5774 - English

By Rabino Dana Kaplan
Congregation Shaare Shalom, Kingston, Jamaica

Mattot is Hebrew for “tribes.”  The biblical term "Israelites", also known as the "Twelve Tribes" or "Children of Israel", means both the direct descendants of the patriarch Jacob as well as the historical populations of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah.  These two units were divided after the death of King Solomon.

Historians and archeologists continue to study how much of Israelite history is actually historical and how much is mythical.  As Progressive Jews, the answer to that historical line of research is not of critical importance in terms of our religious faith.  It is, however, extraordinarily interesting and warrants investigation for that reason.  For our purposes this week, the question is to what degree the 12 tribes are historical rather than mythical.

Please understand that I am using the word mythical in the religious study sense of the term.  A myth in religious studies is a story or legend which is passed on from generation to generation and continues to have existential meaning for the collective.  It is not a judgment on whether that story or legend actually occurred or not.  That is not the point from that particular perspective.  What is important is that the story helps the followers of that faith to transmit their beliefs in a particular context from generation to generation.

The “Jews”, as we have come to be called, included the tribes of Judah, Simeon, Benjamin and partially Levi, and are named after the Kingdom of Judah.  The other ten tribes settled in Samaria, according to the account in the Tanach.  When Assyria conquered this area, these tribes were dispersed and lost to history.  Thus they came to be known as the Ten Lost Tribes.

The Torah uses the term Israelites.  The newer word Jews is first found in the Book of Esther.  In the nineteenth century, we called ourselves “Israelites” and it is only relatively recently that we refer to those following Judaism as “Jews.”

The Tribes of Israel are the way that we have traditionally divided the ancient Israelites.  The Tanach indicates that the 12 tribes of Israel are descendants of the 12 sons of Jacob, who was named Israel by God.  The twelve tribes are: Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim, and Manasseh.

According to the Torah, the 12 tribes maintained their separate entities throughout the period of slavery and also while wandering through the desert for 40 years.  After Joshua led them into conquering the land of Canaan, each tribe was given a certain territory.  The tribe of Levy was given responsibility for the ritual and was not included in the territorial division.

Most scholars do not literally accept the idea from the Bible that the 12 tribes developed organically out of the 12 sons of Jacob.  The number 12 is a common organizational pattern found in the ancient near East, not only in Israel but in Greece, Italy, Turkey, and other regions entirely.  That may explain why the number 12 is preserved, even if one of the tribes withdrew or was absorbed.  In such cases, one of the remaining tribes could be split into two or a new tribe could be accepted as long as the total number never exceeded 12. In our own history, Simon was absorbed into Judah and Manasseh was split into two.

What may have happened was that later thinkers looked back and wanted to explain the existence of the 12 tribes not in terms of organizational theory but rather from a perspective of familial relationships.  The tribes may indeed have been separate independent units that came together out of ideological conviction or were forced together because of unfavorable circumstances, perhaps a common enemy or a series of events including natural catastrophes.  We don’t know the exact process by which these tribes came together and we don’t know exactly when it occurred.

Some believe that the unification of the tribes came about towards the end of the period of the judges and even into the early years of the monarchy.  As you remember, the first king was King Saul and then he was followed by King David and then finally King Solomon.  We can put a very rough date of about 1000 B.C.E. for this time, a little more than 3000 years ago.  If we accept this theory, the names of many of the tribes are based on sites in ancient Canaan, which may have served as the inspiration for the naming of particular tribes or may have been the geographical center of those tribes.

Another theory is that the tribes that descend from Leah which are Reuben, Simon, Levy, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, were separate tribes before the others.  They had a federation in Canaan consisting of those six tribes which formed a certain territorial area.  Later, other tribes either moved to nearby territory or people in those territories began to develop tribal consciousness.  Either way, over the course of time additional tribes were added to the original federation.

Some even go so far as to suggest that the 12 tribes existed a long, long time before this and that the 12 tribes did not conquer Canaan as a single unit.  Rather, there were a number of incursions and entrances into Canaan from different directions and at different times and with completely different mechanisms. These thinkers believe that once the 12 tribes were all settled in Canaan, the fact that they had a common history brought them together.

It seems far more likely, however, that the reverse process occurred.  The 12 tribes were initially from different backgrounds.  Most of them had not left Egypt, had not been slaves, had not conquered territory in Canaan, and were not fully believers in ethical monotheism.  It was over the course of time that these separate tribes began to work together and they did so not only for economic and political reasons, but because they were jointly developing a common religious consciousness.

It is this religious consciousness, focusing on ethical monotheism, which bound us together then and now.  While tribal ties can be enormously beneficial and can be historically fascinating, we have to remember that our primary focus should be on our common religious beliefs. It is the Jewish faith which transcends geographical boundaries as well as all other sorts of potentially divisive cultural and ethnic barriers.  Judaism is a pure form of monotheism that can teach us so much about how to live.  Judaism is an ancient religion that has so much to offer the modern and postmodern world.  We need to avoid the trap of petty tribalism if we are to fulfill our obligation to God as the chosen people, those who are in covenant with the divine presence.

Rabino Dana Kaplan

Congregation Shaare Shalom, Kingston, Jamaica