Q&A: Reconciling Plain-Sense Conservatism with Midrashic Conservatism
Reconciling Plain-Sense Conservatism with Midrashic Conservatism
Question
Hello Rabbi, I’m watching the (excellent) lecture series “Innovation, Conservatism, and Tradition,” and I’m currently on the tenth installment, where you talk about Religious Zionism and distinguish between a religious motivation (plain-sense/scriptural) and a secular motivation. On the one hand, I feel identified with what you described as Modern Orthodox (renewing values), but on the other hand I do believe that the Torah contains values such as conquering and settling the Land, and it’s important to me to preserve them (on the plain-sense level). Is that hypocrisy? Is that something that can be reconciled? Sometimes it feels to me like I’m drawing the target around the arrow, but these are values I sincerely believe in. Sorry for the somewhat confused wording.
Answer
Hello. That lecture was the basis for my manifesto, which was distributed in synagogues and published in Makor Rishon (column 500 here on the site).
Conquering and settling the Land can be considered a commandment (if that is your view; Nachmanides, Addendum D), but I do not see this as a value. More generally, I do not think there is any Torah value beyond Jewish law. You can of course have a national consciousness and act on that basis, and that is perfectly fine, as with any people. But don’t hang it on the Torah (though perhaps yes on God, since every value should be grounded in Him, including morality).
True, there are ideas that arise from reason and do not need to be written in the Torah, but then by definition they are universal. The only category that might perhaps fit what you described is the will of God, as I defined it in my article on terumah and challah: