The Tanach (Hebrew Bible) has played an integral part in the development of modern Israeli society. Using popular music as a measure of this phenomenon, large numbers of songs were written in the early decades of the country whose lyrics – sung by an eager public – were taken from the Tanach. Shir HaShirim (The Song of Songs) was a particular favorite. At first glance this may seem surprising, given that the overwhelming tendency in Israeli cultural creativity has been secular. Why would so secular a generation turn so enthusiastically to the Tanach?

The answer seems to be that the most new Zionist Jews, who identified themselves as secular, considered the Tanach as a cultural, historical, poetic, even a geographical text – anything, in fact, but a religious one. Thus, while many disassociated themselves from the religious context and philosophy of the text, they identified very strongly with its other aspects. No less than religious Jews, they felt that the text was theirs. They learned it and – for the most part – celebrated it. In a sense, their reaction to such texts was akin to the reaction towards archaeology mentioned above. In fact, text and archaeology were perceived as being aspects of the same thing – the claim to Jewish identity in this land. The walks and hikes through the land that became second nature to the early pioneering generations were seldom undertaken without a Bible stashed in the backpack.

Early Israeli literature carried on the tradition that had been born in the Haskalah. It attempted to expand the Biblical stories in prose and poetry by penetrating to the emotional and psychological aspects of the narratives that had been largely left out of the original. A good example of this tendency is Moshe Shamir’s books on King David and Bathsheva, and on the Maccabee kings. Now living back on the soil of the Biblical homeland, writers (including playwrights) were apparently able to connect with these ancient figures and tell their stories in a way which de-mythologized them, made them more real – like the land itself.

Sculpture and art also contributed to the new trends of realism. Freed from religious constraints regarding figurative art, many artists began to depict Biblical figures, often in strange and rather surrealistic surroundings. The work of Ivan Schwebel, who showed King David cavorting down the streets of modern Jerusalem, is a strong example of this phenomenon.

The point being made here is simply that the Bible is a living, approachable text for many Israelis who have broken with the religious tradition and feel free to re-imagine and re-examine its text from a fresh perspective. Living on the land has somehow freed the imagination of many of the country’s creative minds, allowing them to mine the depths of the Biblical text for a new generation.

Many have discerned in it a potential for paradigms that express the modern Jewish and Israeli reality. Perhaps the most powerful example of this is the deep relevance that many have found in the story of the binding of Isaac (Akedah). There have been two important modern interpretations of this story in modern Israel, both taking the standpoint of Isaac, the innocent victim. The first one interprets him as a victim of the Shoah (Holocaust); the second shows him as a victim of Israel’s wars – the fallen soldier. The element common to these interpretations is identification with the figure of the victim of ideologies be they racial or national. They portray Isaac – the modern Jew or the modern Israeli –as the one who pays the human price of others’ ideological fanaticism and blindness.

Some deeply powerful texts have emerged out of this reading of the traditional story. Amihai, for instance, wrote a stunning poem that goes beyond the idea of Isaac as victim. He closes his poem by commenting that the reader of the poem and the audience of the dramatic act tend to go home together with Abraham and Isaac, sighing with relief. He points out, however, that the real victim – the ram, which does not survive the conclusion of the story – is usually forgotten. For Amihai, the ram represents the real hero of the Biblical story as the ultimate victim.