Not yet a Conclusion—Homens de Nação and Homens de Negócios:
Horizontal and Not Horizontal
Relations
Listen to the word simulacrum,
within it is simul, maning “at the
same time”; and simul is the common
root of two rather contradictory trajectories of meaning: similitude, meaning resemblance or imaginary proximation; and simulis, reciprocal hatred, rivalry.[1]
Throughout one’s whole life and in ther course of many generations, the
Marrano or Crypto-Jew or simply the Sepharad who called himself and his family
part of the men of the nation, there was series of deceptions, imitations and
ambiguous self-presentations. These
masking and unmasking events were prompted by changes in circumstances—a move
to a new country, an appearance of a an eager and strict ecclesiastical
official, a moment of distrust in one’s spouse, child, servant, neighbor or
self. Some people could virtually go
through a lifetime without the need to confront he secret in one’s soul but at
any point the stress, strain and anxiety of the illusion could become too much,
the delusion would burst forth, the individual or small group would decide to
confess, present themselves before the Holy Office, denounce one another,
plead for mercy, and then disavow the revelation, argue for a re-trial, or,
hearing the Inquisitoors read out lengthy charges accumulated over many years
about one’s self and one’s ancestors, out of pique, out of a decision to affirm
something contrary to the requested faith and commitment, one professed a
belief in the Law of Moses and the God of Abraham, no matter that one had never
heard of or imagined such things as the friar or inquisitorial lawyer read out.
And if one tried to temporize and trivialize the charges, saying one was only a
businessman, someone concerned with commerce and manufacturing, not with
beliefs and practices of religion, the anti-Semites turned that against you. Where you tried to find your identity you
found your identity: that is, when you wanted to be like everyone else and
denied the differences, you were told you were only like those you pretended
not to be. Like the Devil, that master
of disguises and duiplicity, you were a demonic fool, a heretic, an enemy of
the Church and of the one true God.
The question next arises as to
whether there really was a connection between this notion of naçio and
the term negoçio, a businessman or a
commercial agent. Rather than arguing as
Claude B. Stuczynci does in terms set by Werner Stombart in 1911 and based in
turn on the model sketched by Max Weber in regard to the historical relationship
between Protestantism and Capitalism, I want to bring this long discussion on
the homens de naçio io a close by continuing to put at the centre the relationship
between different branches of the Sephardic family in and out of exile and the
rest of world Jewry. Yet even here the
question revolves around something other than ethnicity, that is, a more or
less polite term for a racial essence in Judaism.[2] The key characteristic of the whole
enterprise of Sephardic nationalism cutting across the normal legal, political
and geographical boundaries that mark the national status of other peoples lies
precisely in their collective activity in and loyalty towards the modern,
post-feudal economic system. This
juxtaposition of the regressive and the progressive is paradoxical, but it is
not our perceptions that force such a contradictory alignment. Again, this characteristic is self-declared
and implicit in the self-expression of the Sephardic community in exile during
the first two centuries following the 1490s; it is not a racial slur invented
by anti-Semites to stigmatize all Jews as demonic agents of modern capitalism
and communism (combined).
What is traditional about the situation is that Jews respond to
historical transformations in two contradictory ways: in very rough general
outline they are—one, by withdrawing into their own world of Talmudic study and
obsessive concern with the picayune rituals of life that protect the
psychological boundaries of their identity as a people apart; and by moving
into the new ways of life which have not built up institutionalized rules of
exclusion (such as the trade guilds, military orders, and faculties of most
universities) and the high-risk ventures
which most non-Jews tend to avoid until profits are assured and
strategies of protected working out are established (international banking and
commerce, import-export to the new worlds, and new technologies, such as gun
powder, silk, etc.) after which they suffer from exclusion again. As Crypto-Jews or Marranos, however, using
the disguise of New Christians, Sephardim could—at least, more than before the
crisis period—move into the professions, orders and social circles forbidden to
Jews. These “passings over” were,
however, always fraught with high degrees of anxiety and danger, so that before
even one generation of the mass conversions had completed its transition to the
new modes of living and working, the main reasons for turning away from Judaism
and the Jewish community had been compromised: New Christians tended to live
and work with New Christians more than with non-Christians and to maintain
many, though not all, mannerisms and contacts with both Old Jews (who had never
converted but chose to escape or accept deportation to other parts of the
world) and ba’alim teshuvim (those
who returned to Judaism as soon as they could or when they deemed such a return
strategically or spiritually opportune), with a significant minority of
individuals and families not only dividing into units on both sides of the new
confessional boundaries but occupying more tentative and fluid areas
between—sequentially, alternatively, or ambiguously.
It has been suggested that the members of the naçio were more interested in their own economic well-being than in
the spiritual or moral standing of the group.
According to this argument, they made choices about where they would
live, with whom they would marry and trade, and what they would perform in
public and private as religious duties simply on the grounds of
expediency. Such a view is jaundiced or
disingenuously takes the Sephardim to be little more than cynics
themselves. It assumes that these people
were making modern choices in a world that was not yet modern, that is, that
they were secular beyond their times, and more inward turning than other Jews
or Christians of the time. That this
perception is possible, of course, aptly suggests that something was in the
process of change in their collective mentality, to be sure; but it projects
the clarity and purposefulness of the historical outcome for the more confused
circumstances of the earlier moment. The
analogy to be drawn comes from a series of crucial moments in Jewish history
when an individual, family or small community chooses to enter into a
covenantal relationship with one another and with an until-then unknown,
unrecognized or misunderstood supernatural entity: i.e., the choosing or
self-choosing of Abraham to be the founder of a monotheistic belief system, the
revelation of the Law to Moses and the acceptance of the covenant by the
Children of Israel at Sinai, and the promulgation of the Mishnah by Yohannan
ben Zakkai in the Academy of Yavneh to establish an interpretive community in
lieu of the priestly cult of temple sacrifices.
Underlying these revolutions, as it were, in the development of the Jewish nation stands
the truly unique notion that the Covenant entered into by each generation of
the Children of Israel is a compact between God and, not a state or a sovereign
ruler, nor even a collective body of persons, but each individual, male and
female. In entering into this covenantal
relationship, moreover, each party both constitutes itself as a legal partner
with responsibilities determined by the nature of their historical being and
also creates a mutual dependence albeit not of equal strengths or
insights. On the one hand, whatever
reality God may have had prior to the event at Sinai—whatever His overwhelming
powers as Creator of the Universe and source or agency of Fate—from the making
of the Covenant He defines Himself as and takes on the responsibilities of the
Lord who led the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and made them a
sovereign nation of priests in the Promised Land. On the other hand, each individual Jew, no
matter what their prior condition as slaves, nomads or worshipers of lesser or
false deities, becomes a responsible party with responsibilities to sanctify
the world and develop its inherent propensities towards perfection. Performance of the obligations mandated by
this contractual Law—the observation of the mitzvoth—also
requires acts of love, justice, and charity towards fellow partners in the
agreement and with other individuals and nations who fall within the included
sub-category of covenantal relationships, the Noachic Code. Each individual is thus required to know,
understand and act on these mitzvoth according to their underlying principles
and in the light of changing historical circumstances.
The crises of the forced conversions and dispersions of the Sephardim in
the early modern period test these precepts to their utmost, putting the
individuals and families involved into a situation where they have to relate to
one another as both Jews and non-Jews, as victims of and agents for the
institutions of repression represented by the Catholic Monarchies, their allies
and colonial territories. While there is
a tendency, especially amongst those who return to rabbinic Judaism after one
or more generations as New Christians, to emphasize either the strict
constructionism of Talmudic law in the style of Ashkenazi pilpul or to stress the mystical and mythological messianism of
kabbalah, the heart of the naçio’s
mentality seems to keep hold to the traditional Pharisaic notion of
revelation. As Georges Hansel puts it,
“Jewish law is not a horizontal accumulation of juxtaposed imperatives[3]but
an ongoing dialectic of discussion and debate between individuals. These individuals have been empowered by the
Covenant with God to speak and reach decisions on their own appropriate to
their own varying circumstances, circumstances which include the confusing and
shocking effect of sustained persecution, massive conversion, and repeated
expulsion, escape and wandering. The
Maharal of Prague explained the principle of majority rule amongst sages and
judges in The Well of the Diaspora:
Truth in itself is complex and
subtle; it has many facets. The multiplicity
of opinions does not reflect different degrees on a scale from error to truth,
but rather the diverse and sometimes contradictory aspects of a truth that is
unique only by way of that multiplicity.
Every judge has the duty to forge his own conviction. This collective effort brings to light the
various principles and ideas to be considered in the elaboration of the
decision. [4]
`
Finally, the matter is summed up by Hansel, thus indicating implicitly
how and why the Sephardic nation could formulate itself into a powerful
political and religious institution without requiring a separate and specific
geographical space, linguistic zone or cultural matrix:
In its legal component, the
essential objective of Jewish law is not to establish an efficient social
organization and harmony in the community.
Likewise, in its ritual component it is not limited to establishing the
framework for the expression of religious feeling. . . . it’s very aim is to
impose on men a model of justice and rules of conduct governed by a set of
abstract principles. This model of
justice and these abstract principles go largely beyond what is required for
good administration of the collective [5]
Because this kind of conceptual discussion deals with matters which are
normally the domain of nations and not of religions per se in the current academic sense the kind of self-identifying
people at the heart of this essay are best approached as a nation: like the
rest of the People of Israel until an independent, autonomous state was founded
on part of the ancient territory of the Land of Israel, these “men of the
nation” were part of a “nation in exile”, whose laws, customs and social
institutions drew from the texts of the ancient books and developed from shared
and analogous historical experiences.
The naçio was a collective
group which could both be considered part of the larger collectivity of world
Jewry, to be sure, as well as of that section known as Sephardim, but also at
times part of the different non-Jewish states, societies and countries they
found themselves in from time to time, even before emancipation was granted and
assimilation made possible.
[2] See Aya Elyada’s review of Yaacov Deutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes: Ethnographic Descriptions of Jews and
Judaism in Early Modern Europe, trans. Avi Aronsky (Oxford: Oxford
University Pres, 2012) on H-Net Reviews
(August 2013) at http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=36682.
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