ask the rabbis
Is political compromise a Jewish virtue?
ILLUSTRATION COMPOSITE MADE FROM DRAWKIT
independent Absolutely. That’s how Abraham resolves his dispute with Lot over grazing lands: “If you head left, I’ll head right. If you head right, I’ll go left” (Genesis 13:9). Four hundred years later, Moses introduces the politics of tribal land apportionment via the male heads of each family, which works fine for everyone but five orphaned brotherless sisters of the tribe of Menashe—Mah’lah, No’ah, Tirzah, Milkah and Hag’lah (Numbers 26:33). Rather than dismiss the sisters’ 16
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complaints, Moses works out a compromise: They get the land that would have been assigned to their father, in return for keeping it within their tribe (Numbers 27:1-8 and 36:6-10). Centuries later, the prophet Ezekiel asks: What to do about non-Jewish settlers pouring into the Promised Land, where every inch has already been split among our tribes? Comes the Word of God: “‘And you shall divide up this land amongst all of you… and also to the strangers [the non-Jews] who sojourn amongst you and who have borne children amongst you, and they
shall be to you like native citizens amid the Children of Israel…within whichever [Jewish] tribal land that the stranger is living…you should give to him his portion” (Ezekiel 47:22). Rabbi Gershon Winkler Walking Stick Foundation Monument, CO
humanist Politics is group decision-making, which by definition includes individuals
