Did Zionism Ever Have a 'Role'?

With God's help

Nekuda – 5767

(Why It Makes No Sense to Discuss Whether Zionism Has Completed Its Role)

Introduction

At the basis of the discussion about Zionism's 'role' lies a flawed and misleading assumption: that Zionism was intended for some role. I would like to reject that assumption (quite apart from the disengagement and its aftermath, since to the best of my understanding it expresses no essential change).

The Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot: On Physics and Metaphysics

I will begin, specifically, with the shallow bestseller by Sefi Rachlevsky, 'The Messiah's Donkey.' It seems to me that the very fact of conducting the present discussion proves that on at least one point there is substance to his claims: Religious Zionism sees Zionism as the Messiah's donkey, and is now discussing whether the time has already come to bring the Messiah himself and send away the donkey.

The approach according to which there are 'roles' for historical movements assumes that history is not merely a collection of facts and occurrences, but the concrete realization of some spiritual-divine sphere. Those who advocate it also assume that the fact that history is an expression of that hidden sphere does not depend on the awareness of its various bearers. Human beings who do not believe in God can serve as bearers of divine ideas, and perhaps even fulfill commandments (such as settling and conquering the Land of Israel, and defending its inhabitants) unwittingly. Beyond these two assumptions there is an additional one: that we are supposed to analyze the relation between these two planes, and take the metaphysical plane into account in our practical deliberations as well, and not only the concrete one.

As a believer, it is difficult to dispute the first claim. We accept that someone turns the wheel, and that the palace has a master. But I find the other two very difficult to accept in themselves. Both arise from turning the desired into the actual, from wishes that replace reality. At least on the practical plane these assumptions seem disastrous. I addressed the second assumption in my articles in Tzohar 22 and 25, and here I will deal mainly with the third.

Detachment from Reality

Religious Zionism suffers from chronic detachment from reality, whose root lies mainly in the fact that instead of seeing reality, we look through reality, as though it were transparent, and relate primarily to the metaphysical sphere (or, more precisely, to our speculations about it) that stands behind it and drives it (Husserl called this 'eidetic vision,' that is, viewing ideas through the concrete). We do not really see the president of the state, but rather the 'throne of God in the world' on which he sits. We do not see flesh-and-blood soldiers occupied with silly things like uniforms, insignia, flags, and parades, but the 'priestly garments' they are supposed to wear (an obligation enforced by the military police). We do not see a prime minister, but a representative of the Holy One, blessed be He, and of the Jewish people across its generations, and the conqueror of the land (the continuation of Joshua son of Nun in our generation). We do not see Palestinians, but descendants of Ishmael, wild men whose hand is against everyone, and whose significance is primarily metaphysical-religious rather than political-concrete. We see the nations of the world as Esau, of whom It is an established rule that he hates Jacob ('it is an established rule that he hates Jacob'). The kindness of the nations is sin ('the kindness of nations is sin'), and therefore a good gentile is necessarily an illusion (he is simply acting out of self-interest). The Zionist movement, a historical product of the Spring of Nations, is nothing but an awakening of Israel's intrinsic special quality. The soldiers of the IDF, who fight like any other army in the world (only usually less professionally), we see as the embodiment of self-sacrifice for Torah, and as the best army in the world ('Let the IDF win'—have we not said that already?). And above all, we see ourselves—that is, the State of Israel, which for quite some time has been nothing more than a state of all its citizens—as a 'Third Temple,' which we were promised would not be destroyed.

In order to establish and sustain this detached speculative structure, many people (mainly in the yeshivot; the older people are less likely to buy into this hokum) spend day and night producing excuses and apologetic hair-splitting to explain why everything that happens corresponds exactly to the prophetic insights of the great Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and is in fact written explicitly in the words of all the prophets. And even if not, as is well known, Such is the redemption of the Jewish people: little by little ('such is Israel's redemption: little by little'). The secular Zionist, in their eyes, is someone who connects to his inner divine point through sacred (and fascistic) Jewish nationalism. Our theory is perfect. It can never be refuted, because whatever does or does not happen is already found in one passage or another of Orot HaKodesh, or in Ma'amar HaDor (for our generation?!).

Such hair-splitting could once be found in materialist dialectic (for example in the important pamphlet 'Lenin and Modern Physics,' which was brought out into darkness in the 'Red Line' series of the 'Workers in Struggle' library). Even today they can be found in abundance in Chabad (Maimonides explicitly says that in every generation there is a messiah and a half who dies and rises from the dead, and one must distinguish him from a 'messianic aspect' that does not rise from the dead. It was entirely predictable in advance that the Messiah would die, and this fits exactly the scenario encoded by letter-skips in the Tanya and Likkutei Sichot. Send a fax to the grave of the Rebbe, long may he live, of most blessed and saintly memory, and see for yourself).

What all these have in common is a situation in which a 'solid' ideological position approaches reality with a system of a priori assumptions and tries to force upon it a preordained conceptual-ideological straitjacket (dictated by a few 'popes' who are never wrong). Such a position usually finds itself shattering against the rocks of stubborn reality, and in order to survive it begins to split hairs and twist itself, building epicycles and deferents, so long as the world will continue to move in its own circles. Stubborn belief in the basic assumptions, despite the fact that they clash head-on with reality, is nothing but a 'test of faith.' Anyone who 'surrenders' to the facts is simply a pitiful pragmatist. Intelligent people find themselves in a bind, and the greater the idealism and the intelligence, the greater the speculation and detachment become.

There are quite a few indications of this autism. For example, one among many, the astonishment that seized the religious public when the High Court of Justice ended the exclusivity of Orthodox conversion. Where did this astonishment come from? For years I have been wondering how it was that this did not happen until now, and the only astonishment that seized me was at the sight of the astonishment itself. This autism stems from seeing the High Court as expressing Judaism—the metaphysical High Court instead of the concrete High Court. Similar astonishment prevailed in the public as a result of Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan, despite the fact that he said so before the elections in a clear and ringing voice (as clear as one could say things at that stage). Everyone who quoted 'Netzarim is like Tel Aviv' heard only the musings of his own heart, as detached people always do. They see metaphysical Ariel Sharon (the high priest produced by the sacred IDF), not the concrete one. There are hundreds more such examples.

Has Zionism Completed Its Role?

From this collection of dogmas it now clearly emerges that the time has come to shed the shallow secular shell and expose from within it the potent holiness of the holy people in the holy land. Now comes the hard part, and the time has come to tell Zionism that it has completed its role. We must move to the next phase, in which the hidden point of Israel's special quality will be revealed—a point that for the time being no one senses or notices, but which certainly exists in every person (except for the 'mixed multitude'), and it is this that drives the processes.

From here comes the absurd and ridiculous establishment of the 'Sanhedrin,' about which I wrote here a few issues ago. From here arise ideas such as the 'State of Judah,' or 'the people are with us' (regarding the disengagement, and in general), 'the people have sobered up' (after every terrorist attack, or Kassam rocket, or Mina Tzemach poll), fantasies about wars to conquer the globe (at least as far as Iran) by means of the immortal IDF, 'Jewish Leadership,' 'Face to Face' (or back to back), Operation 'Believe and Sow' (in which millions of shekels were sown devotedly into Palestinian soil), 'It shall not be,' and also… the discussion of the question 'Has Zionism Completed Its Role?'

The common denominator of all these is the assumption that all that remains for us is to raise the flag, and then all the 'gentiles' (children of Jewish mothers) will stream after us to the mountain of the House of the Lord. All the weary, the mistaken, those with self-destructive tendencies, the confused. Those who do not know what they themselves want or intend. Those whose Jewish point, which they themselves deny, lies within the very essence of their potent special quality and waits for us to awaken and inflame it.

As a result of these conceptions, Zionism, as an expression of the Jewish people as a whole, is the lever for change (at least until now). We do not act on Rabbi Yosef ben Shimon, but only on 'Zionism' as a whole. Reuven and Shimon will change automatically. We will change the law, and the character of the public sphere, Sabbath observance and kashrut in the embassies, and then the spirit of the nation will guide the individuals. This is the essence of Religious Zionism, unlike the pragmatic Haredi approach, which, ironically enough, advocates… 'another dunam and another goat.'

So What, After All?

After slaughtering all the cows, the sacred ones and the non-sacred ones alike, what exactly is the alternative? As stated, from a Torah perspective it is hard to deny that there is a guiding hand to history. It is also hard to deny that we have some role in the historical system. What, then, is not necessary in the system of detached assumptions described above?

The element that distinguishes the necessary assumptions from the misleading ones is connected chiefly to the distortion involved in ignoring reality itself and clinging to observations made through it toward the metaphysical sphere behind it. From this arises viewing things in terms of their 'role,' instead of viewing them in themselves.

Jews have never occupied themselves with the Merciful One's secrets (the hidden counsels of the Merciful One). Since the end of the prophetic period, no one has made decisions in light of speculations about the metaphysics behind events. One's relation to a person, or to any society, is determined in light of what it is, not of what it represents. Our 'role' is nothing but to fulfill our obligations in the best possible way under the concrete circumstances. According to Nachmanides, Joseph was occupied with realizing his dreams and carrying out the course intended by the Holy One, blessed be He, but we are meant to concern ourselves with our own obligations. The path to instilling religious-spiritual ideas does not pass through the dogmatic assumption that they already exist, nor through treating symptoms instead of diseases, or the public sphere instead of the individual. When a person does not believe, one cannot come to him with demands about the integrity of the Land, Jewish identity, and certainly not with a demand to grant superiority to conversion according to Jewish law.

The plane on which one can try to address problems is not the public-general plane but the private one. The Jewish people is not a faceless collective, but a collection of individuals. The time has come to stop the fantasies about the 'foundation of God's throne in the world,' 'priestly garments,' and the like, which lead only to disappointments. The state is not the foundation of God's throne in the world (if such a thing exists at all). It never was. One may perhaps try to act so that it will become such. One cannot tell another person what he really thinks, or awaken within him some mystical point supposedly hidden there without his knowledge. One cannot turn Likud into a messianic movement, even if its leader is 'Jewish.' At most, one can try to persuade Rabbi Yosef ben Shimon to begin observing the commandments. Only after this basic foundation has been formed can one make demands of the public sphere. The path is from below upward, not—as in the traditional way of Religious Zionism—from above downward.

Superficial coalitions with a national-secular camp also stem from the conception that behind secular nationalism there lies a Jewish point. Therefore battalions of naïve children (up to age 22 and well beyond), wearers of knitted kippot, work energetically and enthusiastically in every election for the idol of the moment: Begin, Bibi, Ariel Sharon, Shamir, and afterward of course are bitterly disappointed: 'But he wasn't like that.' 'But that's not what he said.' It turns out that in the next elections too, all these people will work, with the same energy, for the same idols. These politicians place their trust, and rightly so, in the metaphysics that causes the concrete to be forgotten, in seeing the desired instead of the actual. They will continue delivering speeches in public squares, bareheaded individuals before the eyes of an inflamed throng of knitted-kippah wearers, until they reach the coveted chair from which one sees things one cannot see from here. But do not worry: the eyes of the crowd do not really see them at all. They look through them and turn toward the rising sun, their faces eastward.

Summary

There is no point at all in discussing the 'role' of Zionism, if it has one at all. Zionism is a factual historical phenomenon (which still exists, or perhaps has already passed from the world), and it should be related to as such. The relevant question is what each of us is supposed to do now in the given situation.

My concern here is not only with the answer to the question whether Zionism has completed its role. Nor is the problem exhausted by the fact that the assumption underlying the question is incorrect. This very question does not seem to me interesting or important. It is far more interesting and useful to ask: How does science work? What is our relation to myth? Is there free will, and what does it mean? Is migo (the Talmudic presumption based on a better alternative claim) a 'power of claim' or Why should I lie? ('why would I lie')? What is the ruling when one forgot May it rise and come in the evening prayer of Rosh Chodesh Tishrei that falls on the fifteenth of Sivan, and the like. It is not only more interesting; it is also more constructive and practical…