Exile

Exile

EXILE. Often prompted by historical conditions, the concept of exile appears in various religious traditions as a symbol of separation, alienation, and that which is unredeemed.

In Judaism

With the Babylonian invasion of Judah and the subsequent destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 587/6 BCE, the concept of exile (Heb., golah or galut) came to reflect both a historical reality and a communal perception. Forced into exile in Babylonia, members of the upper classes found themselves uprooted from their national and spiritual homeland. Literally, then, the term exile came to describe the forced dispersion of the Jewish people and their subjugation under alien rule. Although according to Jewish tradition (Jer 29:10) the Babylonian exile was only seventy years in duration, the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the triumph of Rome caused a national uprootedness that lasted for almost two thousand years. Historically, one can thus maintain that the exile of the Jewish people from the land of Israel began in the sixth century BCE and came to an end in 1948 with the establishment of the state of Israel and the restoration of Jewish political independence.

Metaphorically, however, the term exile was and is still used as a symbol of alienation, reflecting the Jews' separation from the land of Israel, from the Torah by which God commanded them to live, from God, and from the non-Jew and the non-Jewish world in general.

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