家里的来信：犹太古代的侨民

犹太出版社协会主任兼主编Malka Z. Simkovich是对古代犹太人社区与埃及之间关系的深入研究，学术和迷人的探索。

A new book explores the relationship between the Jewish communities of Israel and Egypt in ancient times, examining the integration of the elite into the ruling class in Ptolemaic Egypt and the political failures of the Hasmonean monarchy in Judea.

一本新书探讨了古代以色列和埃及犹太社区之间的关系，研究了精英阶层纳入托勒密埃及的统治阶级，以及犹太人的哈斯蒙君主制的政治失败。

During the late second century BCE, while Jews in Egypt were well represented in the Ptolemaic government, the political failures of the Hasmonean monarchy in Judea were becoming apparent, with the Jews remaining in conflict with the Seleucid Greeks.

在公元前第二世纪后期，尽管埃及的犹太人在托勒密政府中得到了很好的代表，但犹太人的哈斯蒙君主制的政治失败越来越明显，犹太人仍与希腊人冲突。

“Jews wanted to show their kin who lived abroad, particularly those living in Egypt, that they were far from powerless. They believed that Jews in Egypt should neither pity nor condescend to them. Instead, Egyptian Jews were to admire them as authorities,” writes Malka Z. Simkovich, director and editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society, in her new book, Letters from Home: The Creation of Diaspora in Jewish Antiquity (Johns Hopkins University Press).

犹太人想向他们展示住在国外的亲戚，尤其是居住在埃及的人，他们远非无能。他们认为，埃及的犹太人既不应该怜悯或屈服于他们。相反，埃及犹太人要欣赏他们作为当局的权威。”犹太古代（约翰·霍普金斯大学出版社）。

This Stone block portrays the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten as a sphinx. It is kept at the Kestner Museum of Hanover, Germany. (credit: Hans Ollermann/Wikimedia Commons)

这个石块将埃及法老王阿克哈纳嫩描绘成狮身人面像。它保存在德国汉诺威的凯斯特纳博物馆。 （信用：Hans Ollermann/Wikimedia Commons）

Simkovich explains that Judean Jewish texts produced during the Second Temple period for the Jewish community in Egypt quoted biblical heroes and religious leaders who lamented that Jewish suffering outside Judea was a consequence of sin. Meanwhile, Jewish texts produced in Egypt purported to quote Judean Jewish leaders who embraced life outside the homeland as legitimate and long-lasting.

辛科维奇（Simkovich）解释说，第二座圣殿时期为埃及的犹太社区制作的犹太犹太文本引用了圣经英雄和宗教领袖，他们对犹太以外的犹太人痛苦感叹是罪恶的结果。同时，在埃及制作的犹太文本据称是引用犹太犹太领导人的话，他们将祖国以外的生活视为合法和持久的生活。

“The idea of diaspora became a flexible template upon which early Jews developed competing cosmologies that addressed the question of how the Land of Israel figured into God’s relationship with the covenantal people,” she writes.

她写道：“侨民的想法成为了一个灵活的模板，早期犹太人开发了竞争的宇宙学，该宇宙学解决了以色列土地如何使上帝与盟约人的关系的问题。”

The dynamic between Jews inside Israel and those living outside

以色列内部的犹太人与生活在外面的人之间的动态

LETTERS FROM Home is divided into three sections. The first discusses the dynamic between the Jewish community inside Israel and those living outside.

家中的信件分为三个部分。第一个讨论了以色列内部犹太社区与居住在外面的人之间的动态。

While the Jews in Israel attempted to explain that Jewish existence outside the land was a result of sin that resulted in God’s anger and rejection, those living outside of Israel “wrote texts that present the family of world Jewry as united in values and bound by a common history” and emphasized that God is equally accessible anywhere.

尽管以色列的犹太人试图解释，土地之外的犹太人的存在是罪的结果，导致了上帝的愤怒和拒绝，但生活在以色列以外的人”写了“写下世界犹太人的犹太人家庭，在价值观上，并受到共同的历史的束缚”，并强调上帝在任何地方都可以在任何地方访问。

Simkovich posits that the writers of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Torah written in the late 3rd century BCE, were influential in creating a negative attitude toward Jewish life outside of the land, inventing the word diaspora, which means “a scattering of seeds.”

辛科维奇（Simkovich）认为，七十年代的作者是公元前3世纪后期写的《摩西五经》的译本，在对土地之外的犹太人生活中产生消极态度，发明了侨民一词，这意味着“散布种子”。

This term was used in translating passages of the Bible that predicted the future expulsions of the Jews from their land and exposure to other nations.

该术语用于翻译圣经的段落，这些段落预测了犹太人未来被驱逐出其土地并曝光到其他国家。

“The Septuagint, which may have been produced in Egypt but was influenced by Judean modes of thinking, can be read as a Judean missive intended for Egyptian Jewry,” she writes. Eventually, the negative connotation of the word became dissonant with the reality of most Jews living outside of Israel.

她写道：“ Septuagint可能是在埃及生产的，但受到犹太人思维方式的影响，可以看作是旨在用于埃及犹太人的犹太人的遗书。”最终，这个词的负面含义与居住在以色列以外的大多数犹太人的现实变得不和谐。

The second section of the book analyzes 2nd-century BCE Judean texts in which the writers posited that Jewish existence outside of Israel was an indication of divine rejection. The Judean Jews had hoped that the Hasmonean victory over the Seleucid Greeks would signal a new era of Jewish sovereignty and an ingathering of Jews to Israel.

本书的第二部分分析了公元前2世纪的犹太人文本，其中作家认为以色列以外的犹太人存在是神圣拒绝的迹象。犹太人犹太人曾希望，哈斯米尼（Hasmonean）击败塞伐希腊人的胜利将表明犹太人主权的新时代，并促使犹太人进入以色列。

To their dismay, a mass return did not take place. The Jews of Judea exhorted the Egyptian Jews to observe holidays that affirmed Judean authority, and their texts expressed concern that they were not sufficiently devoted to Judea.

令他们沮丧的是，没有发生大规模回报。犹太人的犹太人劝告埃及犹太人观察肯定犹太权威的假期，他们的文字表示关注他们没有足够致力于犹太人。

The book’s final section discusses how the Egyptian Jews related to the Jews of Israel, embracing both identities – of citizens loyal to their host country while retaining their feelings for their homeland. In these documents, God is presented as universally present and interested in all humankind, thereby strengthening their claim that Egypt could be their home.

该书的最后一部分讨论了埃及犹太人如何与以色列犹太人相关，拥抱了这两个身份 - 忠于东道国的公民，同时保留对家乡的感情。在这些文件中，上帝被普遍存在和感兴趣，从而加强了他们的主张，即埃及可能是他们的家。

What did the success of these Diaspora communities indicate? Would God someday put an end to their state of exile? Or, if God would allow them to remain, what did life outside the land mean, theologically speaking?

这些侨民社区的成功表明了什么？上帝有一天会结束他们流放的状态吗？或者，如果上帝允许他们留下来，从神学上讲，土地以外的生活意味着什么？

Ultimately, the Jewish people never agreed on the answers to these questions. The author points out that the relationship between the two communities created an underlying tension in their relationship, not unlike the modern-day relationship between world Jewry and the Jews of the State of Israel.

最终，犹太人从未同意这些问题的答案。作者指出，两个社区之间的关系在他们的关系中造成了潜在的紧张关系，这与世界犹太人与以色列国犹太人之间的现代关系不同。

With the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the rabbis, realizing that Jewish life outside of Israel was a reality that required attention, created a way of Jewish life that could accommodate the absence of a Temple, focusing on study and synagogue attendance.

随着公元70年的寺庙破坏，拉比人意识到以色列以外的犹太人生活是一个需要关注的现实，创造了一种犹太人生活的方式，可以适应缺席的寺庙，专注于学习和犹太教堂的出席。

Their innovations, concludes Simkovich, enabled Jews, wherever they lived, “to embrace sacred space and sacred time as twin pillars of Jewish faith. Even today, these features form a tension that cannot – and need not – be resolved.”

辛科维奇（Simkovich）总结说，他们的创新能够使犹太人居住在任何地方，以“拥抱神圣的空间和神圣的时间，作为犹太信仰的双支柱。即使在今天，这些特征即使在今天也无法解决 - 不需要解决 - 不需要 - 可以解决。”