Our feature article "DNA and the Chain Of Tradition" this
week reports on recent genetic research that shows that the
Jewish people are genetically coherent and pure. The
discoveries of molecular genetics and reading the code of the
human genome have shown that the Jewish people are closely
related to each other no matter where they lived for
thousands of years. This is a kiddush Hashem of the
highest order.
Many people have questioned, based on what could "reasonably"
be expected from a group living for thousands of years as a
downtrodden minority, how pure the Jewish people really
remained. This was a canard that was raised even in our first
exile in Egypt: If the Egyptians ruled so thoroughly over the
bodily efforts of the Jewish people, surely they must have
dominated their wives as well. The Jewish people, laughed the
surrounding nations, must be full of Egyptian blood.
The charge of those days was utterly false and the Jews
themselves certainly knew this well. Yet this was
insufficient for Hashem. He, so to speak, did not want to let
this cheap charge pass unchallenged. So, in parshas
Pinchos, He stamped each of the family names listed of
the Jewish people with His own name (putting the letters
yud and hei around their names, see Rashi on
Bamidbar 26,5), to certify that all of them are truly
the sons of the fathers. It was not sufficient that the
charge be false, and not even enough that each Jewish woman
know the suggestion to be a lie. It was important enough to
declare openly, in the permanent and very public record of
the Written Torah, that the people of Hashem maintained a
pure lineage.
The genetic research reported in our pages provides a new,
strong certification of this same ancient truth. The genetic
signature of Jews throughout the world is so closely related
that it indicates strongly that the Jews married only among
themselves. The similarities are so strong between
communities that were isolated from each other for thousands
of years that there could be no significant mixing from the
surrounding non-Jews.
Moreover, there is strong evidence that all Jews are native
to the Middle East since there is also a strong resemblance
between Jewish genes and the genes of the other peoples who
live in this area. We are not the descendants of non-Jews,
whether converted or not, and are clearly native to the Land
of Israel.
The integrity of the family is no small matter for the Jewish
people and the Jewish religion. Many people -- outsiders and
even some who should be insiders -- consider the main focus
of observance to be the public rituals in shul. Some
women, for example, long to participate more publicly in the
davening and the reading of the Torah.
Far be it from us to determine what is more or less important
in Torah observance, but it is clear that there are many ways
in which the family figures far more prominently in the
performance of mitzvos. Most of the special mitzvos that
apply at a particular time are performed by and within the
family. Just think of matzo, the seder, the
succah, and the Shabbos meals. A truly Jewish
generation cannot grow up without a thoroughly Jewish
family.
In this way, the strong evidence for the integrity of the
Jewish family demonstrates the integrity of our entire
mesorah.
