A group of three friends from college decided to meet at a cafe one day to catch up on each other’s lives and new jobs.
“I’m the new librarian at my neighborhood library and I couldn’t be happier,” the first one said. “They told me that’d I’d already nailed the position in the interview when I told them I was a total bibliophile.”
“Same here!” the second friend said. “The vineyard couldn’t wait to hire me as head winemaker once I told them I was a huge oenophile.”
“Well,” the last friend said sadly. “I guess schools aren’t looking for teachers who really love children, because no one hired me when I told them I was a proud pedophile.”
I remember the first time I heard the term “erev rav” used as self-referential in a Jewish context.
It was at a Bechol Lashon think-tank conference in San Francisco back in 2009, and the specific phrase used was “The Jews came out of Egypt as a mixed multitude.”
I cringed a bit at the time, but rolled with it because the inaccuracy had a tinge of semantics operating in it. Because while the text is very clear that when the Children of Israel left Egypt, a separate mixed group left with them…:
“And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.” (Exodus 12:37-38)
…the fact remains that “Jews” as the socio-religious culture it is currently known as–with rituals, commandments, sacrifices, et al–did not exist until the mass conversion of the revelation at Sinai, during which both the Children of Israel and the erev rav became “Jewish” at the same time.
However, it’s clear from the passage that when leaving Egypt, the two groups were distinct, not one integrated melting pot. But the speaker’s gist was that the Jewish people have always been multiethnic and multiracial, and it was understandable enough that a “Well, actually” wouldn’t have added anything constructive to the dialogue.
Fast forward about a decade or so, and somehow the fairly benign “the Jews left Egypt as a mixed multitude” has evolved into the egregious trend of Jews of Color declaring “We are the mixed multitude”, which is just as horrific and ill-informed as someone professing their dedication and care for children as being a self-proclaimed pedophile. Not only are the scriptural and theological connotations problematic, but even at its most rudimentary level, it casts Jews of Color as add-ons to the Jewish people and not authentic members of it. As something in the Jewish people, but not of it.
After all, there is a reason why the term “erev rav” survives as a slur against other Jews in modern Jewish discourse. Because the erev rav were never at any point seen as a positive influence on the Jewish people or truly spiritually part of it.
Starting at the first word “erev“, deriving from the root meaning “to mix”, it also shares a connotation and root with the word “arov“, the Plague of Locusts, which is consistent with the sustained Jewish thought that the erev rav were not only insincere converts who joined the Children of Israel because they were on the winning side of the confrontation with Pharaoh, but also that they were a “plague” to the Jewish people, instigating many of its complaints and uprisings during the Jews’ journeys in the desert.
Indeed, in classic Jewish tradition Moses was warned against welcoming the erev rav to the Jewish people by G’d:
“When they saw the signs and the wonders which Moses wrought in Egypt, they came to Moses to be converted. Said the Holy One to Moses: “Do not receive them.” Moses, however, replied: “Sovereign of the universe, now that they have seen Your power they desire to accept our Faith, let them see Your power every day and they will learn that there is no G’d like You.” And Moshe accepted them.” (Zohar Ha Kadosh, Ki Tisa 191a).
This gets referenced in Exodus 32:7 during the episode of the Golden Calf:
“And the LORD spoke unto Moses: ‘Go, get thee down; for thy people, that thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt, have dealt corruptly.”
G’d doesn’t say “My people” or “the Children of Israel/Jacob”. G’d says “your people, the ones you brought out of Egypt, not the people that I did.”
The “people” being referenced here are traditionally the erev rav, the same ambiguous “they” that are the subject of Exodus 32:4 just three verses earlier:
“And he [Aaron] received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said: ‘This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”
This is your god, O Israel, “they” say. Not “our” god. Compare that with Deuteronomy 6:4:
“Hear, O Israel: the LORD our G’d, the LORD is one.”
Our G’d.
The Tikkune Zohar (97a) builds on this idea even more, writing: “All the exile and the destruction of the Temple and all the suffering, all of it came through Moses’ acceptance of the erev rav, and all wicked people and evildoers in each generation come from them, meaning from their souls, for they are reincarnations of those who left Egypt and this is what the Gemara refers to: “They come from the Erev Rav”.
The numerous views over the centuries of the erev rav remain consistently negative, with the most positive view being that of the Arizal, who states that the reason the Jewish people descended to Egypt was to purify the souls of the erev rav and retrieve the errant sparks of holiness that existed in Egypt that they represented. However, even according to this view, the erev rav were collected “too early”, and that the final step in their purification will be at last complete with the coming of Mashiach.
The less than favorable perception of the erev rav is not only relegated to the past, but is also projected into the modern day and future:
“Before the coming of the Messiah most of the rabbis will be from the mixed multitude. Because Israel in themselves are holy, but the mixed multitude work only for their own benefit as we can clearly see that the rabbis and the Chassidim and many regular Jews of the generation are, due to our many sins, mostly from the mixed multitude and want to rule over the public. All their actions are only for their own sake, to acquire honor and money. One should only join with those who truly serve G-d and sacrifice themselves to Him, but not in order to receive any benefit.” (Divrei Chaim, Parashas Vayakhel, ‘Omissions’)
It is quite ironic that Jews of Color, in particular, have increasingly begun to self-identify with a moniker that has been traditionally applied to the ideologies and institutions we are actively fighting against and which constantly seek to undermine and delegitimize us.
This sentiment of the identity of the modern day erev rav is repeated in the Zohar, which identifies as sub-group of erev rav as being named “Gibborim”:
“The Gibborim (mighty ones) are those of whom it is written: “They are the mighty ones…men of name” (Genesis 6:4). They come from the side of those who said: “Come, let us build a city and make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 11:4). These men build synagogues and Yeshivot and place in them Torah Scrolls with rich ornaments, but they do it not for the sake of G’d, but only to make themselves a name, and as a result of this the powers of evil rule over Israel (who are the dust of the earth), according to the verse “And the waters prevailed greatly upon the earth” (Genesis 7:19).
The Vilna Gaon concurs in his work Even Shlema:
“And the five types of Erev Rav are:
1- Those that create strife and talk evil talk
2- Those who pursue their desires like prostitution, etc.
3- The swindlers who pretend to be righteous but their hearts are not straight.
4- Those who pursue honor and build great synagogues to make a name for themselves.
5- Those who pursue money and strife.”
The wealth of literature in Jewish thought on the erev rav/mixed multitude is wide and varied, ranging from textual analysis to mystical deep-dives into the origins of the world. But one thing is clear: Jews of Color need to stop identifying with, and allowing ourselves to be identified with, the erev rav.
It inherently paints us as a fringe group of eternal “troublemakers”, and validates those who would seek to silence our voices and dismiss us as perhaps even having some Divine imperative or justification to do so.
The need to see ourselves in the story of us as Jews is strong and necessary and important.
But we cannot be content to allow ourselves to be cast in the role of villian just so we can see ourselves onstage.