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4

The Perpetuity of

Emperors and Priests

THE DEATH of Emperor Hirohito in January 1989 and the enthronement ceremonies of Emperor Akihito in 1990 turned the attention of the world to the unique phenomenon of the Japanese imperial dynasty, which has existed continuously since the establishment of Japan as a unified state sometime in the first centuries of the common era. This uninterrupted reign of one family is strikingly different from the historical experience of other countries, Western as well as Eastern, where one dynasty of kings or emperors has periodically succeeded another. The perpetuity of the imperial family has fostered a strong sense of continuity and stability in the national life of Japan. Political power could shift from one group to another, but the source of legitimacy remained in the hands of the emperors. Although power was held by others—whether court aristocrats or military rulers—it was hardly ever concentrated in the hands of one man, which would have infringed upon the symbolic authority of the emperor. Conversely, although power was usually split among various officeholders and local strongmen, decentralization could not go too far, as the division of Japan into separate independent states would again impinge upon the status of the emperor. The imperial institution thus saved Japan from both one-man rule and total political fragmentation.

For more than a millennium, since the ascendancy to power of the Fujiwara nobles in the ninth century, the emperors of Japan wielded no political or military power of their own and were totally dependent on the goodwill of the actual rulers. But the imperial family in Kyoto, although powerless and often poor, continued to fill an irreplaceably important role as the symbolic underpinning of the political body of Japan, and to play a religious role no other family could play. As the direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, the emperor was the only person on earth who could mediate between her and the people of Japan. The religious rites that he performed, such as the first planting and harvesting of rice, were essential to secure the continuing fertility of the land and the favorable disposition of the natural forces; these duties could not be transferred to others.

Not only was the imperial family preserved in Japan but so was also the hereditary nobility (kuge) that surrounded the imperial household and provided it with services and brides. Although these aristocratic families had already lost their power and much of their income by the twelfth century, they continued to retain high social status. The military rulers did not usurp the court posts, and the nobles of Kyoto continued for centuries to be appointed to empty high court positions and to officiate at elaborate, traditional court ceremonies.

The hereditary perpetuity of the Japanese emperors and nobles, and their lack of practical power, had an equivalent in Jewish hereditary institutions. As the religious teachers, the rabbis, took over the spiritual leadership from the hereditary priests (kohanim) during the period of the Second Temple, the power of the latter declined. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., the ceremonies officiated by the priests there were abruptly halted, and have never been resumed. Despite the fact that for almost two thousand years there has been no Temple, the hereditary Jewish priests still enjoy a special religious status and a Jewish male usually knows if he is a priest or not. This is often apparent in his last name, for if it is Cohen, Kuhn, Kagan, Kaplan, or any of the derivatives of these, it is highly probable that he is a kohen. As the distinction between priests and ordinary Israelites is transmitted from one generation to the next, those who are kohanim are usually aware of their status even if their names do not suggest it. According to Jewish religious law, or Halakha, they are forbidden to defile themselves by contact with a corpse or by entering a cemetery, except in the case of the death of an immediate relative, nor are they allowed to marry divorcees or proselytes. In the synagogue they are called first to the reading of the Torah and they officiate at the redemption ceremony of the first-born son. On festivals and the Day of Atonement, they perform the Priestly Blessing, standing in front of the congregation with their shoes removed, their heads covered by a prayer shawl (tallit), and their fingers outstretched in a prescribed position. They have been performing these duties for the last two thousand years.

The Jews have preserved the identity not only of their hereditary priests, but also of the whole tribe of Levi, of which the priests were a part. Descendants of that tribe, the Levites, still tend to carry such last names as Levy, Levinson, Segal (an abbreviation of segan Levi, or deputy Levite), or derivations of these. The Levites, who in ancient times officiated as assistants to the priests, still perform the rite of washing the hands of the kohanim before the Priestly Blessing, and they have the privilege of being called second to the reading of the Torah, immediately after the priests.

The preservation of the priestly and Levite family identities for two thousand years after the destruction of the Temple in which they officiated is just one case of the preservation by Jews of various traditions and regulations that have no immediate relevance. These practices are retained in reverence for the past, as a substitute for the rites of the Temple, and in anticipation of the eventual return to the Holy Land and the building of the Third Temple there. For this same reason, the laws dealing with Temple sacrifices have been taught, discussed, and elaborated on in subsequent centuries. The Talmud, completed around the year 500 C.E. and still the most authoritative commentary on Halakha, is based on the Mishnah, out of whose six orders one (Kodashim) is devoted to Temple sacrifices, a subject with absolutely no practical application.

Despite the fact that for almost two millennia the Jews have been living outside Palestine and have not engaged in agriculture, agricultural laws that apply only to the Land of Israel have also been continuously taught and developed. The first of the six orders of the Mishnah (Zera'im) is devoted to them. For many centuries the Jews have been learning about and debating these topics that relate only to farming in their ancient land—such as what part of the harvest should be left to the poor, which seeds should not be mixed, what to do with the fruits of a newly planted tree, and how to let the field rest every seventh year—with no opportunity to put these regulations into practice.

The phantom power and hollow courtly rituals of the Japanese emperors, and the phantom existence of Jewish agricultural laws and ancient priestly families may appear as odd conservatism. But the remarkable perpetuity of these institutions with their purely symbolic significance has provided both Japanese and Jews with a familiarity with their antiquity, a national cohesive force, and a system of values and symbols that could later be used for legitimizing change.

Familiarity with their own history has been very pronounced among Jews and Japanese. Although the exodus of the Jews from their bondage in Egypt took place sometime in the middle of the second millennium B.C.E., it is still vividly recalled every spring when Jews gather around the Passover table and recite the Haggadah, the liturgy of the Passover seder, or festive meal. Although for two millennia most Jews have lived far from their ancient homeland, the geography of the Land of Israel has been familiar to every Jewish child. Jerusalem, Jericho, Hebron, and the Jordan River were household words, as were the names of the fauna and flora of Palestine.

Identification with their ancient past has provided the Jews with the strength to bear the difficulties of the present, as each generation regarded itself as the one in which the Messiah might appear. "In every generation," says the Haggadah, "should a person consider himself as if he had personally gone forth out of Egypt.... For not only our ancestors did God redeem, but us also did He redeem with them... in order to give us the land which He swore unto our fathers."

In Japan, the imperial family and the Shinto shrines have been the main repository of ancient arts and reverence for antiquity. The emperors patronized literature and art and were often themselves accomplished poets and artists. The most important poetry collections were compiled and published by the imperial court. By becoming gods the emperors deified these cultural pursuits. Japanese on pilgrimages to the temples and shrines of their land could relive the mythology, history, and art of their nation. At the Grand Shrine of Ise they could worship the progenitress of the imperial family, and at the shrines of Hachiman they could worship the legendary Emperor Ojin, said to have reigned in the third century. Important imperial officials like Sugawara no Michizane in the ninth century, who was deified as the god of literature, and Kusunoki Masashige in the fourteenth century, who was deified as an exponent of loyalty, had their respective shrines, as do Tokugawa Ieyasu and the twentieth-century general, Nogi Maresuke, who committed suicide after the death of Emperor Meiji. Through this deification of their famous persons in special shrines, the Japanese have integrated their past with their present.

Both the imperial family of Japan and the Jewish Halakha enhanced national consolidation. To be a Japanese meant not only to be a native of one country, Japan, but also to be a subject of the emperor. To be a Jew meant not only to be born to a Jewish mother, but also to be subject to the laws of the Torah and the Talmud. Unlike the emperors of China, the Japanese emperor was not considered to be a universal ruler; he was the fatherly monarch of one particular people, a role that served to enhance their sense of community and self-esteem. By performing ceremonies that only he and his biological kin were allowed to do and by mediating between man and god, the Japanese emperor was more similar to the ancient Jewish High Priest than to Western or Chinese monarchs. Halakha did not bind gentiles, and its agricultural rules did not apply outside the Land of Israel. Foreigners could settle in Japan and become Japanese, but no foreigner or ordinary Japanese could ever become an emperor. Similarly, gentiles could become Jews by conversion, but holy duties in the Temple or synagogue had to be performed by those born as priests.

The political irrelevance of the Japanese emperors and the inapplicability of much Jewish religious law eventually also served as progressive forces. Their detachment from actual affairs enabled them later to sanction change. The imperial institution of Japan was often used to legitimize political authority, but it could also serve to delegitimize, making that authority appear as a usurper of imperial prerogatives, as indeed happened when the Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown in 1868. Among Jews, observance of the rich body of law pertaining to life in their ancient homeland served not only as preparation for the coming of the Messiah, but in modern times, could be interpreted as an injunction to terminate the Diaspora, to settle in the Land of Israel and to rebuild the Jewish homeland.