From the Songs of the Land I Love: An Aesthetic Look at Homeland Studies (Column 153)
With God's help
Dedicated in appreciation to the commenter with the nickname Perplexed
This past weekend, the group stage of the World Cup in Russia came to an end. I heard one of the reporters on the radio describing the amazing experience he had undergone. He described the variety of smells, sounds, colors, voices, languages, foods, and clothing from all over the world, and said that there is no experience like it in any other sporting event. In his view, one of the reasons is that the World Cup is about national competition, without foreign imports and without the professional technocratic machinery that is now common in leagues and all other sporting frameworks. Here we are dealing with the talents of one's own people confronting the talents of other peoples. A struggle of nations against one another in the purest and most distilled form. There is here a certain return to the sporting competition that once existed before everything became professional, commercial, and mechanized. Support in the World Cup is not based on competitive emotion alone, but on love of your homeland and your people, and on the desire that "we" defeat "them".
National sentiment is ostensibly something that has already passed from the world. In our global village, where Black players from Senegal together with South Korean players under a Chilean coach play in the German league against other South Korean players under an Uzbek coach (and all of them earn like the wealthy of the business world), it seems there is no room for the primitive nationalism we once knew. But to our astonishment it becomes clear to us again and again that somewhere within us all this is still alive and kicking. The national sentiment exists and is present, and it is easier to deny it (see When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?) than to eradicate it.
As someone who enjoys good basketball (and a bit of football too), and even sins by secretly hoping that Israel (or Maccabi) will win, though without admitting it openly, I decided this time to go with the natural feeling instead of rejecting it with contempt, as I usually do. Forgive the effusiveness and this unusual column, but for some reason I now feel, and of course without this serving as a precedent, that it is worthwhile for once to touch this repressed sentiment and its meaning. I hope I will succeed in conveying the feeling, for this is quite an elusive distinction. Once I understood and internalized it, I realized that it has broader philosophical and human implications, to which I intend to devote the next column.
Songs of the Land I Love
A similar phenomenon occurs in a person's attitude toward his land and his people (the two usually go together). Your faithful servant, a cold-blooded bastard, would never admit to such feelings stirring within him. But despite attempts at repression, it is there. I confess, to my shame: usually I despise myself for the herd instinct and for descending to this low level, but in my present mood I have decided that this time it is nevertheless worth addressing the matter honestly.
In this context I am reminded of a phenomenon I noticed a few years ago. The most beautiful and delicate songs I know are songs of love for the homeland. There are millions of love songs, some of them very beautiful and moving (don't tell anyone), and some less so. But there is something in songs of homeland that is far more powerful in its delicacy. In many cases they are much deeper and more touching than songs of romantic love. Think, for example, of From the Songs of the Land I Love by Leah Goldberg, or A Jewish Autumn in the Land of My Fathers by Halfi (which, as is well known, were written about Lithuania; see here). So too Not Yet Have All Your Wonders Ended by Rami Kleinstein, Homeland Studies by Eli Mohar, They Say There Is a Land by Tchernichovsky, and many others. This is, of course, only a random sample, but it is enough to notice something very delicate and deep in these songs. To my feeling, it is much more than what one sees in love songs to romantic partners, or in romances about disappointed and unrealized loves of various kinds, which may break the heart but in a completely different way.
This sentiment toward the homeland reminds me of the feelings I described above in the World Cup. We have a deep sentiment toward our land, our state, and our people, which sometimes appears with boldness and storminess (and then it is called fascism), but I want to argue that in both contexts there is a sense that precisely the more minor manifestations of it are deeper.
The Connection to the Land: Ultranationalism and Nationalism
Many people today distinguish between ultranationalism and nationalism. Nationalism is a connection to the nation and also to the homeland, but not a fierce, wild, and extreme connection. It is simply there, that is all. Ultranationalism has extreme, chauvinistic, and strident expressions, which are nowadays regarded as reprehensible. The Left accuses the Right of ultranationalism rather than nationalism, while the nationalists on the Right ("the national camp") tend to accuse the Left of making a false distinction that covers up the absence of national feeling and of a genuine connection to the land. Talk from the Left about connection to the land, to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), to the Jewish people, and to its history is perceived by people on the Right as mere lip service.
But in my opinion there is a conflation here between two kinds of Left. There is a post-Zionist or anti-Zionist Left that has no real affinity to the land and the people (the Left that forgot what it means to be Jews). But there is another part of the Left that is actually very deeply rooted (its roots are in the historic Labor movement, not necessarily in its gloomy party-political expression today). Writers and intellectuals such as Meir Shalev express a very deep attachment to the land, to the soil, and also to the people and its history. In my eyes there is something very deep in the Zionist Left's connection to the land, perhaps much more than on the Right (forgive the generalization, which of course is not precise). Love of the land, of history, and of the connection to the Hebrew Bible in Meir Shalev (I am using him as an illustration) has something deep and authentic about it, although—and perhaps precisely because—he does not express it sharply and bombastically with pompous declarations, as is customary on the Right. The Zionist Left also does not always act on the basis of these connections (to the land and to the Hebrew Bible). It is even prepared to give up some of them (such as the connection to the land) for the sake of peace and out of pragmatic security considerations, or sometimes even because of consideration for the other, who in its understanding also has such feelings. That is why it is accused of not really having such connections at all. That they are mere lip service.
For the ultranationalist, the connection to the land is an intense feeling translated into an interest that cannot be relinquished. From his point of view, this connection must be realized in practice; otherwise it is left-wing lip service.[1] Ostensibly there is a deeper feeling here, but in my eyes there is actually something shallow and superficial in it. For him, this connection must be realized or else it does not exist. If it remains within the soul, that nullifies it—or rather reveals that it never existed at all. That it is not real. One has to touch it in practice in order to make sure that it is there and that it exists.
Someone who speaks pompously and obsessively about something often thereby testifies to the flimsiness of his connection to it. The pompous (secular) Right has hardly established settlements in the land, unlike the Zionist Left. It mainly gives speeches, talks, and declares, but in many cases my feeling is that this is mere lip service. It is not something natural in it, but an ideology that requires constant fanning and refueling so that it not go out.[2] As our Sages said (ibid., ibid.), one who talks does not act, and vice versa.[3]
Love and Desire
In my article on emotions I distinguished between love and desire. Not for nothing is it so hard for us to distinguish between these two emotions. Following Don Judah Abravanel and the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, I explained there that in both cases I have a desire to connect with the object of my emotion, but the direction of movement is opposite in the two cases. Desire is centripetal, that is, directed toward me. The desire for connection exists only if the relation to the object of desire is realized such that it comes to belong to me and comes from its place somewhere out there to me and under my control. I need to attain it. Love, by contrast, includes a willingness to remain distant, so long as that is necessary for the beloved (as in the well-known interpretation of the verse And in his love for her, they seemed to him but a few days ("and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her")).[4] The direction of love is centrifugal (from me toward it). I said there that love can be controlled, because its basis is an intellectual movement and the emotion is its product. Therefore one can also command it and establish an obligation in Jewish law regarding this emotion. Desire, by contrast, begins from emotion and impulse and lets them lead us, and therefore there is no place for commands about such emotions and no obligation to feel them. Such an emotion is simply a fact and not something of value, unlike an emotion such as (Platonic) love.
In terms of our discussion here, I will now add that one implication of this distinction is that love need not be realized. The very existence of the bond is the main thing, and its realization is relatively marginal, whereas desire must be realized. Until that happens, and until it takes hold of its object, I do not rest.
Back to Love of Homeland
In the Zionist man of the Left there is something natural in this connection. There is a connection simply by virtue of the fact that the land and the history are part of him. It is not because there is a commandment, for he is not bound by commandments. It is simply because the matter is part of him and of the history of his people. This does not have to be realized, certainly not when it is done at the expense of others. On the national Right (the ultranationalist Right?) there is an obligation of realization; otherwise, in their eyes, it is slogans and empty words. But this very fact proves that what we really have here is an ideology, a slogan, or a declaration, and not something flowing in the veins.
Perhaps this is part of the feeling of superficiality present in songs about the bond between romantic partners. There, usually, it is not enough that the bond simply exists; rather, there is a romantic aspiration (sometimes disappointed, and then it is a tragedy) to realize it. What is missing there is the delicacy that comes to terms with loss and non-realization, the delicacy that exists in homeland songs. Connection to the homeland permits non-realization. One can be attached to a homeland that is not under my control. Longing expresses the bond. In romantic love this is much less acceptable, and therefore it actually seems to me less deep.
I am sure there will be criticism here of what I am writing, and of course it is very difficult to prove it, yet I have a very strong feeling that it is true. It is important for me to note that my words here do not express any position regarding the question of realization and its justification when it comes at the expense of others. I am only describing the two phenomena here side by side.
First Formulation: Relinquishing Realization
On the view I have described until now, if my connection to the land comes at the expense of others, then as someone with a natural national feeling I am prepared to give it up, since from my perspective there is no obligation of realization. I can live in the Land of Israel and sing songs to the land I love in Lithuania. That is perfectly fine, and our connection is full and deep nonetheless. So too the connection to the history of my people, which by definition is not capable of realization, since the historical figures and landscapes have already passed and are no more. But they are within me, and that is their realization. The same applies to connection to the homeland. This connection is part of me and does not necessarily have to find external expression.
Second Formulation: Realization Destroys
But it seems to me that there is something even deeper here. The realization of the bond at any cost, even at the expense of others, sometimes damages the bond itself. I am not willing for this bond to harm someone, because otherwise the bond itself becomes an interest and not something that lies deep within me (in a way that does not depend on actual realization). Realization at any cost is really desire for homeland instead of love of homeland. The connection to the homeland is one of the innermost fibers of my soul, and I can live it and sing of it even if in practice I am not the sole ruler, and perhaps not a ruler at all, over this land. On the contrary, precisely in such a situation it is clear to me that the bond is real and inward, for this bond is a case of love and not desire (which by its nature demands realization). As stated, even when it comes to Lithuania, my (spiritual) birthplace, over which I have no control and no actual connection at all, there is still something very deep within me that is connected to there and built from there.
According to this formulation, the desire to realize this in practice at any cost and without regard for others is not only set aside in the face of other values, but the realization of such a desire actually damages the bond itself. It shows that the bond is not real, and therefore it is so important for me to test it and realize it. I must see whether it is real and whether it is really there. If this bond demands realization from me at any cost, then there is something external and not deep about it. If I am at peace with myself and with who I am, I have no need to define myself at the expense of the other and through him. Not for nothing is there something more sublime and pure in unrealized love (such as love of homeland for Lithuania), and it is no wonder that it is precisely about this that the minor-key songs with the stronger aesthetic power are written. Because of the lack of realization there is in it something more whole and more Platonic.
Example: Saving a Life Overrides the Sabbath
An illustrative example of the difference between the two formulations can be drawn from the Talmudic topic of saving life and the Sabbath. The Talmud in tractate Yoma (85b) discusses from where we learn that saving a life overrides the Sabbath. Two reasons are brought there that remain in the practical ruling:
- Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya, who holds Desecrate one Sabbath for his sake so that he may keep many Sabbaths ("Desecrate one Sabbath for him so that he may keep many Sabbaths").
- Shmuel, who expounds "and live by them" — and not die by them ("'and live by them'—and not die by them").
At first glance these are two contradictory reasons. The first seems to see life as a means for fulfilling commandments. For Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya, the value of human life as such does not justify desecrating the Sabbath, but only because it makes possible the keeping of many other Sabbaths. By contrast, Shmuel's reason is based on a completely opposite argument: if the fulfillment of the commandments requires the loss of life, then one need not fulfill commandments. According to his view, life seems to have a more fundamental value than the fulfillment of commandments.
These are two contradictory reasons, not merely different ones, and that itself raises a difficulty. In the halakhic authorities, both of these reasons are brought together as the practical ruling. There are practical differences between them (saving a life for only a short while, saving someone who does not observe and therefore presumably will not keep Sabbaths either, saving a fetus whose life's value is not yet full, and more). But if these are indeed two contradictory reasons, how can one rely on both together within the same approach?
One can explain that even Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya's reason does not really ground the value of life in the observance of commandments. I have explained this in several places (see, for example, my audio lectures on ethics and Jewish law in the discussion of moral conflicts, and more), but here I will suggest another direction that occurred to me just now, which is actually a completely opposite direction. According to this suggestion, the two sages offer a similar direction. Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya does not necessarily say that life is a means to keeping commandments. And perhaps the commandments are not a means to life either (as seems implied by Shmuel). It may be that Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya's claim is that the value of life and the value of the commandments are both clear and natural values, and it is not right to aspire to realize them at any cost. Even if this is not realized in practice, that does not damage the force of our commitment to them. The balance precisely points to the naturalness and health of our connection both to life and to the commandments. That is what Shmuel says with regard to the value of the commandments. Total commitment to the commandments without taking account of the value of life damages commitment to the commandments. It testifies that they are not part of my life but something external. Some binding ideology. A natural attitude toward them leads to compromises when they come into conflict with life.
Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya says that life without connection to the commandments is not life (the value of life derives from man's advantage over the beast ["the superiority of the human over the beast"]), but commandments that harm life are not worth much either. Seeing either of them as exclusive and total turns it into a declaration instead of a natural and internalized value. The obligation to to live by them ("live by them") says two things: it is not true that there is value simply in living. Life has value when it comes together with the observance of commandments, and at the same time Shmuel is also right that it is not proper to die for them. The commandments are part of our lives, and this does not detract from their importance. The declaration as though this overrides everything indicates that, for us, it is not natural and not real. In life there is nothing total. Life is a kind of ongoing and pragmatic flow, without constantly checking what does or does not fit an ideology. Uncompromising fundamentalism is something external to us, and our relation to it is determined by ideological declarations.
Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya tells us: Desecrate one Sabbath for his sake ("Desecrate one Sabbath for him"), do not worry, for by virtue of this so that many Sabbaths may be kept ("many Sabbaths will still be kept"). When we have a peace agreement with life and with the commandments, the practical conflict will be resolved; then we will be able to realize everything in its purity and fullness. In the meantime we compromise with reality. According to this suggestion, Rabbi Shimon is such a compromise-seeking leftist. He is not willing to enter into an absolute decision regarding the priority of life or the commandments.
As with commandments, so too with life. The need to realize the value of life at any cost also damages the value of life itself. Desecrating one Sabbath is certainly worthwhile, but only because afterward there will be the keeping of many Sabbaths. Moreover, there are other things for which I will indeed give up life (the three cardinal transgressions). Here too, not necessarily because they are preferable to life, but perhaps because if I prefer life in every case and situation, although in principle and in essence life is indeed a supreme value, I thereby damage its value. Such a life is not natural but declarative, and therefore our relation to it does not possess genuine natural depth.[5]
This is analogous to what I argued regarding love of homeland. Seeing this love as something that must be realized in every situation and at any cost turns it into an empty idea, external and unnatural. Therefore I am at the center and not the object of love. Life is always complex, and therefore it is enough for me that this love exists within me even if it is not realized. Love of homeland is supposed to be part of my life and not a pompous declaration, and every part of life is something that has measure and limit, cost, constraints, and the like. Someone who acts automatically on the basis of calculation driven by declarations can reach extreme and sweeping decisions. But a person for whom this is his natural life will make more moderate decisions. For our purposes, he will be a pragmatic man of the Left.[6]
Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya tells us: "Desecrate one Sabbath for him"—do not worry, for by virtue of this "many Sabbaths will still be kept." When we have a peace agreement with life and with the commandments, the practical conflict will be resolved; then we will be able to realize everything in its purity and fullness. In the meantime we compromise with reality. According to this suggestion, Rabbi Shimon is such a compromise-seeking leftist. He is not willing to enter into an absolute decision regarding the priority of life or the commandments.
Back to Football Fans and Songs of the Land of Israel
The delicate love songs to the land reflect love and not desire. That is exactly their beauty and their power. They are minor-key and somewhat melancholy, but not really sad, and they do not express stormy emotions. Romantic love songs, by contrast, always revolve around realization or non-realization. This is not a contemplative distance that expresses feeling, but frustration and disappointment at non-realization. The tragedy in non-realization can also be interpreted as desire. Therefore they may be stronger, more moving, and more powerful, but that is also their weakness. Love of homeland, by contrast, is simply there. It is natural and obvious, and precisely because of that there is no need whatsoever to realize it in order to prove it. The one who needs realization in practice is only someone who is not sure of this bond and must touch and realize it in order to make sure that it really exists.
It is told of the Kotzker Rebbe that once someone came to him and asked why, despite the fact that he flees from honor, honor does not obey the Sages—that is, does not chase after him. The Kotzker answered him: "That is because while fleeing from it you keep looking backward" (to make sure it is coming). Someone who flees honor shows thereby that he has a relation to it. Someone who is truly indifferent to honor does not flee from it, but simply does not relate to it. That is a natural relation to humility and not the fulfillment of a religious or moral duty to be humble.
In the World Cup there is expression for national feelings and for a person's love of his homeland and his people. Sometimes this turns into hooliganism (of the kind found among some British fans), and then the love stops being natural and becomes desire. It must be realized, and in that its flimsiness comes to expression. A fan who is unwilling to come to terms with the weaknesses and failures of his people is a hooligan. Such a fan does not really love them, but only on condition that they win. The intense expressions reflect shallowness in the connection to people and land. A deep relation is willing to live with the constraints of life that bring about non-realization. Deep love is not given conditionally.
There were moments in the World Cup that were genuinely moving, when disappointed fans shed tears over their team's loss. Usually that makes me laugh and seems downright childish to me, but within the framework of the perspective I have now adopted I suddenly see in it something beautiful and moving as well. It disappoints them, but they live with it. When it is not realized and does not happen, they do not run wild; they are disappointed and cry and wait for the possibility that the future will be better. Life is complicated, and one must hope that the whole business will improve in the future (that there will be a peace agreement that solves the conflict, and then life will be wonderful). The bond finds expression in the desire to win and not in actual victory.
A Distinction Between the Emotional Plane and the Behavioral Plane
It is important to clarify that my discussion here concerns mental hooliganism and not hooligan actions. Rioting and violence are bad things. But here our concern is only with feelings and with the hooligan's mental state, that is, with the inner storm that accompanies his love or desire. I am speaking about a person who is emotionally agitated and shaken by a loss in a game, and not necessarily about someone whom this brings to riot and behave violently. Set against this, I place emotional restraint and delicacy, not practical moderation. The comparison between the two types is made here on the mental-emotional plane and not on the plane of actions.
Between an Ethical and an Aesthetic Perspective
Contrary to what may perhaps be implied by my words here, I do not think there is value in this type of emotion, or in emotion in general, for emotions are what they are. Anyone familiar with what has been written on this site already knows that I am not inclined to see any value in emotions, but only in decisions and actions taken on their basis. The description I have offered here regarding the depth of the feeling and its naturalness is also not necessarily evaluative. I have not come to argue that one ought to be on the Zionist Left or that one ought not to be an ultranationalist. At bottom these are two types of feelings or mental states, and they do not necessarily express values or ideology. Therefore I am not judging them here, but only presenting them side by side. Nor am I saying here that one ought to be a moderate World Cup fan and not a hooligan (on the mental plane, of course). I have simply set these two figures alongside one another as a typological description for the reader's examination.
In column 140 I mentioned the existentialist doctrine of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who distinguishes between three planes of discussion and stages in human development: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. In his view, these are three stages through which the religious person passes in his development until he reaches the state of mature belief.
- The aesthetic stage is natural life. In youth, the flow of life takes us wherever it takes us. This is a Dionysian and hedonistic stage in which we lack reflexivity and do not examine ourselves and our actions too much, but simply flow. Art, by its very nature, belongs to this plane. When you stand before a work of art, you do not ask whether it is moral or not, nor what it teaches me on the logical and philosophical plane. You mainly ask what it does to me and what it arouses in me (catharsis). An aesthetic judgment is also a judgment, but on a different plane from ethical judgment. Here too storms of emotion may arise, or something more delicate and deep. High art arouses more delicate emotions. Something too stormy is usually superficial and shallow. In most cases this is provocation and not art.
- The ethical stage is the result of the overcoming of judgment over aesthetic vitality and over the flow of life and the perpetual Dionysian feast. It is something more sober and colder, involving self-mastery. Judgment and ethical and rational decisions overcome the directions of natural flow through which life operates upon me. This is a more adult and mature stage, but it too is not final.
- The religious layer is a third stage in which a person matures and reaches his final, mature state. Here one passes beyond the two previous stages (and arrives at life in paradox), but this stage does not concern us here.
In this terminology one can say that this column should be examined on the aesthetic plane and not on the ethical one. There is something more aesthetic and natural (vital) in the moderate fan, in the quiet and melancholy songs of homeland, or in the Zionist leftist's relation to his homeland. This stands against the inner storms of the hooligan and of the man of intense romances, or of the man of the ultranationalist Right. This is a question of depth and shallowness, not of being more or less ethical and value-laden. I place these two human figures here side by side for aesthetic examination and not ethical examination. In fact, this is a kind of display in the typological museum. These two human figures are presented here before our eyes, and they are supposed to arouse in us different feelings, like a work of art and not like an ethical dilemma. I am not asking which of them is better or worse, but which of them is a case of higher art and which of lower art. That depends on whether it arouses in us something delicate, or whether it is a stormy provocation.
Well, so after all I emerged from this safely. All this sentimental effusion belongs only to the low and degraded aesthetic plane, pfui, and not, Heaven forbid, to the lofty ethical plane. One may discuss this esoteric foolishness (in the words of the aforementioned Perplexed to whom I dedicated this above), so long as one is careful that the two not get mixed together, Heaven forbid, and that emotion not stick its head in among great mountains that will crush its skull (see Yevamot 15b).
And perhaps there is nevertheless something here that touches the ethical plane as well? Is there some human value in this aesthetics? On that, in a follow-up column.
[1] I wanted to write "smolani" (a derogatory slang term for a leftist) and deleted it. I detest this patronizing expression.
[2] On the religious, settler Right there has indeed been settlement-building over the past decades, but it seems to me that this is a continuation of the path of the Labor movement, harnessed to the realization of the religious command (something that does not exist on the secular Right). The secular Right gives, at most, flimsy ex post facto backing to the galloping settlement wagon. For them these are declarations, not nature. It does not flow in their blood. Ariel Sharon, a product of the Labor movement, is almost the only secular right-wing figure who did something in this matter (until he decided to return to his roots).
[3] And as they of blessed memory said: When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk (ibid., ibid.).
[4] On this matter, see Suzuki's comparison between an Eastern and a Western way of looking at the beauty of a flower, brought in column 115.
[5] By contrast, according to Shmuel, the three cardinal transgressions override the value of life because of their importance. This is a case of setting life aside, and not a consideration of the value of life itself, as I suggested according to Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya.
[6] This should not be understood to mean that I intend here to side with the political Left. This is a description of types. See the end of the column.
Discussion
Regarding the approach that sees love of homeland as a kind of delicate feeling of attachment that exists in a romantic relationship, Meir Ariel’s song “One Gives Up a Land Only in the Heart” expresses this precisely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsIi95GYTJs
You give up a land only in the heart
You leave a land only in the heart
You forget a land only in the heart
You give up a land only in the heart
Only in the heart
This land has already changed
Peoples and nations as if changing a dress
Like jewelry it only keeps
The names it was given
It changed me twice
I almost became someone else
But I’ve got a thousand years and another thousand
That won’t give up a grain
It changed me—how and why,
How, why—I did not notice
Just as I trod upon it,
So too I did not notice
Only it slipped from my hands,
At once it was caught in my heart
And in my heart I held onto it,
Lest my right hand forget
For you may find yourself a land
And become a citizen there
Treat it with proper respect
Hear this from one who went astray
A land likes a bit of regard
A land wants attention
No matter who or what you are
A land wants attention
For you give up a land only in the heart
You leave a land only in the heart
You forget a land only in the heart
You give up a land only in the heart
Only in the heart
You would do well if first of all
You made clear to all the sharp-tongued ones
Whether this concerns matters of sense, intellect, and reason,
Or perhaps current affairs, emotion, and will,
Whose value, without desiring mockery at all,
Is equal in man and in sheep
A slight correction..
You would do well if first of all
You made clear to all the sharp-tongued ones
Before they attack you with axe and pitchfork
Whether the subject of the column is as precious as the pupil of the eye
Is it indeed a matter of sense, intellect, and reason,
Or perhaps current affairs, emotion, and will,
Whose value, without desiring mockery at all,
Is equal in man and in sheep
I didn’t write that there is no need to actualize, but that there is no obligation to actualize. My claim is that the desire to actualize at any price is lust. The very desire to actualize certainly indicates that the desire for connection is genuine.
This is precisely the mistake in the criticism from the Right of the Zionist Left. They accuse them of not wanting to actualize, but that isn’t so. They do not want to do it at any price (that is, they are willing to compromise).
Nice. It definitely seems that he is joining Meir Shalev’s camp.
Fair are you, my wife, like Tirzah,
Innocent and pure to the one who bore her.
They saw her walking and the daughters praised her,
Yet when she returned, the demands did not cease.
A sharp knife slashes with the rod of her tongue,
And an axe in her hand—her iniquity does not end.
Who can foresee her end when she attacks in jest,
Coveting senses and reason for the sheep.
And I am a brutish lad and not a man,
Following the flocks and holding not even a hammer.
When at last the dung heap is fully burned,
I shall not consent to place the final stone upon it.
In a land of hardships I trod silently,
Mind, emotion, senses, and the work of creation.
Whoever seeks the Account of the Chariot and great halakhot,
Go your way from this place, where weaklings tread.
At the beginning of my words I shall nevertheless leave a blank page,
And seekers of wisdom shall seek it themselves like Balak.
Forgive and pardon me, master of questionings,
For I am confident in these things and in the merit of the three Patriarchs.
You would do well, in your opening words,
To keep explaining to the sharp-tongued ones
Whether the subject of the column is as precious as the pupil of the eye
And should be discussed and criticized with axe and pitchfork,
Or whether, once read, it is better to sleep
Is it indeed a matter of senses, intellect, and reason,
Or perhaps of emotion, will, current affairs, and imagination,
Whose value, without desiring mockery at all,
Is equal in man and in sheep
Even before rebuke and curse come upon my head
For my making use of the art of poetry,
Which is fashioned entirely from the sources of emotion,
To make a claim whose source is reason
Surely you recognize the distinction between matter and form,
And certainly distinguish between thinking and awareness.
If the content is of meager importance,
Even mighty language will not help it
But if it deals with matters at the heights of the world,
Then though ideally it would be better for all
To discuss and present them to every hidden one
With sharpness and dryness, as befits most intellects
Yet in order to fulfill “Do not hide yourself from your own flesh,”
One may even speak in the language of Balaam,
Without veering right or left from them,
So long as the words are understood by all the people
Peretz Smolenskin wrote:
All the nations that we know today, or whose names remain to us in the chronicles, were born in their land. That is, at first they were wild men, and from generation to generation they multiplied and increased until they became a people. At first the father of the family was their king and judge, and afterwards, when they grew numerous and strong, they established for themselves a great kingdom and set up laws for themselves. And even those peoples who came to inherit dwellings not their own became a people only after inheriting a new land, where they forgot their former people and the name they had from earliest times, and were called by another name. At every stage, the land preceded their being called a people. They established the kingdom upon the land on which they dwelt; laws were given to them after they were already a people and a kingdom in their own land. Therefore from youth they became accustomed to think that only by dwelling on their soil were they a people. And even when their rule was removed and they were under an oppressor’s rod, and even when they were forced to abandon their language and laws, still they considered themselves a people so long as they dwelt in their land, for they hoped for a day of redemption when the kingdom would return to them as before. But after they were exiled from it, they ceased being a people, because only upon that soil had they become a people and a kingdom and received laws; it alone was the foundation of all unity and national feeling, and if it was no longer theirs, then their hope was lost forever. But it was not so with Israel. The people of Israel was born on foreign soil, and yet began to think of itself as a people. Even before it conquered foreign lands and took them as its hereditary possession, even while the heads of its tribes wandered from land to land, even while serving as slaves to the kingdom of Egypt, it already thought of itself as a people. Therefore the land, even afterward, was not in its eyes the bond of unity for the whole people, for it had already become a people while on foreign soil. It also had a kingdom and laws before it dwelt in its land. Hence the notion never took root in its heart, as with all other peoples, that if its land were stolen from it, or if it were exiled and scattered to the ends of the earth, then it would cease to be a people. And indeed so it was: they always considered themselves a people. In all the songs of their poets and all their prayers they call themselves “the people of Israel,” not the sons of the religion of Israel, for thus they learned from their books that the land was only secondary to the unity of the nation. So they became accustomed to think, and thus they remained alive—alive as a people—because the other principles that made them a people still remained in their hands, and no man had the power to rob them of these. This is the reason that distinguished the people of Israel from all other peoples in thought, and also distinguished it in practice, giving it life when other peoples died and their name was lost. Yet despite all this, although the life of the children of Israel does not depend on the land and the language and the kingdom, we would be gravely mistaken if we said that for this reason they are not a people. True, they are not a people like all other peoples, but this was also true when they dwelt on their land. Even then they were distinct in thought and spirit, and so they remain to this day, for when their land was taken from them, nothing was taken from the unity of the people itself. And just as we cannot say that the Indians are not human beings because they nourish themselves not with meat like us but with rice, so we cannot say that Israel is not a people because the principles of its unity are not like those of other peoples. Especially since no one denies that in former days, when they dwelt on their land, they were a people—even though even then they did not look upon the land as the source of the nation’s life. So too they have not ceased to be a people now, after their land has been taken from them, since it was only secondary and not essential
to their unity. And all the other sources of the people’s life still remain in their hands to this day.
Accordingly, there is a difference between Tchernichovsky’s love of homeland:
Man is nothing but a small patch of earth,
Man is nothing but the landscape of his birthplace,
Only what his ear absorbed remains fresh,
Only what his eye absorbed before it had seen its fill
and Naftali Herz Imber’s love of nationhood:
I saw the Shekhinah weeping,
And with her hand she touched my lips,
And in a storm of throbbing soul
The spirit of my song arose;
I saw the Shekhinah, and my spirit awoke,
And I became another man—a poet.
“Take a lyre,” she said, “strike its strings,
I have filled your spirit with song,
When my spirit passes through its parts,
Then the voice of your music will be heard.”
From her comes the gift of my song to this day—
Do you know the Shekhinah? She is the spirit of the nation.
and Yosef Zvi Rimon’s love of the Land of Israel:
I loved the rocks of my land upon its mountains,
Every stone speaks poetry,
I climb from one to another,
And my inward parts awaken in song,
These lived as I do,
Dreamed much, yearned,
Their dream was only a prelude—
And they became stones…
I climbed mountains of rock,
Bathed in divine light…
It called me from path to path, from way to way,
And I went after it,
God came down upon me in song, God came down upon me in vision.
Does this happen to everyone after they become a grandfather?
I read the article and understood what I understood, but I began to doubt whether what I understood was what you meant.
It reminds me of the philosophical doubt whether the green I see is the green you see.
That’s generally a problem with an article that tries to describe emotions.
I’ll try to describe some of the feelings this article stirred in me. (I’m allowed too.)
1. The idea in the article reminds me of Leibowitz’s statement, of blessed memory, regarding the Messiah: “I believe… and even though he tarries, still I await him every day ‘that he will come.’” “That he will come”—and not that he has come. A messiah who has already come is not the Messiah. 2. As a Haredi person (educated and raised in a Haredi home, even a modern one), I feel very uncomfortable when I am in a Zionist synagogue where they recite a prayer for the state. My discomfort stems from what you described: something as great as redemption comes to be realized (albeit partially) in the practical, real state that we know. I feel disappointed—is that all? I want to believe in and await something bigger, holier, cleaner.
Usually the realization of an aspiration profanes the vision.
A substantive remark.
This is fairly new in the world of Religious Zionism (I assume most of your readers belong to Religious Zionism):
to see an article that somewhat moderates the messianic fervor regarding the Land of Israel and the state (though it seems you are quite careful not to annoy the readers too much).
It is always surprising to see that in sectoral journalism one can talk about everything, cast doubt on everything—discussions about LGBT people, former religious Zionists, Reform ideas and trends (see Shabbaton, Makor Rishon, etc.)—but on one thing there is no casting doubt, no room for differing opinions: the Land of Israel, the State of Israel, according to the worldview of HaBayit HaYehudi. Truly Haredi journalism about one thing.
By the way, educationally speaking, on this issue there is success on a Haredi scale: most former religious people are loyal right-wingers. Apparently, where there is no doubt and no room for discussion, education works well.
I connected very strongly to the article, but then suddenly after reading Yaakov M.’s response a kind of concern arose in me…
Perhaps the feeling that there is a deeper emotion here stems from the fact that what is not here yet, the thing that has not yet been realized—only then are we able to imagine it as something greater and more exalted?
Perhaps in truth there is no such thing as lofty and pure love, and it is all just the imagination leading us to imagine it as such until the great disillusionment when its realization arrives?
Perhaps in order to write a good poem about Lithuania, one must not be in Lithuania, because it is hard to imagine the beauty when the ugliness is before you?
What does the rabbi think?
This is what is written: “Desist from emotion and imagination, urge and will” (ibid., ibid.)
Let go of the subjective and cling to the objective
Perhaps the reason old songs of the Land of Israel seem more beautiful to you than new songs is simply nostalgia, nothing more?
I think the young people I work with (the secular / left-wing ones among them) do not connect to those songs at all. They grew up on “Sing a Song for Peace” and “You Promised a Dove.” Those are the only songs that move them.
They find “There Is a Land” boring.
Someone told me he thought I meant this as criticism here (apparently that’s the default assumption about me), so let me clarify that it was entirely in jest.
Yaakov, greetings.
With all due respect, I do not recall a passage in which the number of mistakes per unit of text was so large as in what you wrote here. There is not a single word here that holds water. Here are a few examples for your consideration:
0. I’ll begin with the most basic mistake, which accompanies everything you wrote from beginning to end. My article has nothing to do with the state in any way that I can discern. It deals with love of homeland and people. What does that have to do with the state, institutions, government, sovereignty, etc.? After all, I wrote that love of homeland and people can exist even in exile, and there it is even purer. In other words: are Haredim not supposed to have love of homeland and people? So what does this column have to do at all with the state, Haredism, Zionism, and the rest of the vegetables? This is complete misunderstanding.
1. The problem known as “the philosophers’ chestnut” accompanies every description of facts, not only of emotions. Moreover, with facts it is actually more severe (since the doubt is about the cognitions that accompany the facts). When dealing with emotions themselves the problematic nature certainly also exists, but no more than with facts (perhaps even less).
2. Leibowitz’s statement is mindless nonsense. An aspiration that under no circumstances will be realized, and that I will not allow to be realized, is not an aspiration at all, but living in a movie. A person who convinces himself to await the Messiah even though he himself does not want him to come and will not let him come is simply a fool. That is not awaiting the Messiah. Here too I wrote (and sharpened the point in a reply to one of the comments) that a bond that need not be realized at any price (Zionist Left) is purer and more delicate than a bond that is realized at any price (right-wing nationalism). But a bond that is not supposed to be realized at all, and that one does not want realized, is no bond at all (post-Zionist Left). The two are not even close.
3. The childish Haredi outlook (= infantile, in the standard translation) says that if complete redemption has not arrived, then it is worthless and there is no need to thank God for it. No Religious Zionist thinks that the present state is the realization of the vision of redemption. Anyone who thinks so is a fool, not a Religious Zionist. Rather, in their view even the beginning of the process is worth thanking the Holy One, blessed be He, for. If you earned money to buy ice cream, is there no need to give thanks for that? And if you ate an apple, should you not recite a blessing because you would prefer ice cream? This is nonsense.
4. Indeed every realization of a vision diminishes it. But if because of this you do not want it realized at all, then you have no vision. Those are mere words. See section 2. According to what you say, you want to await something bigger and cleaner, but that too would be a realization. Would it not diminish the vision?
5. There is nothing new here in the world of Religious-Zionism, because I am not in the world of Religious-Zionism (but rather of religious Zionism, without the hyphen, just like most Haredim). I have written much harsher things more than once, and indeed I have criticized them for their unwillingness to think critically about their path, just like the Haredim (in fact much less than the Haredim, of course).
6. I do not share messianic fervor regarding the state. My attitude toward it is entirely secular, and I have written this more than once. In sectoral journalism one can cast doubt on everything, including the attitude toward the state (and I have even written things in that spirit there, including in Tzohar rabbis’ journal). This is unlike the Haredi sectoral press. True, usually the readers will not agree, but at least the article will be published. That too is something, no? So this is really not Haredi journalism (except perhaps that the public is “Haredi”).
7. Regarding former religious people, that is not entirely correct. By the way, there has been a change in this matter compared to years past, when former religious people rebelled also against the culture of the home and not only against religion. Today they remain more connected and leave only the religiosity (and today not even that entirely—the sacred “continuum”).
All the best,
Indeed there is such a concern. Realization is usually smaller than the ideal vision. Should we therefore give up the vision? About this it is said: “Where there is no vision, a people is left unrestrained” (ibid., ibid.).
See the next column, where I will address the fact that aesthetics is context-dependent. By the way, I did not distinguish here between new songs and old ones. Where did you see that in my words? The distinction was between songs of love for the homeland and songs of love for a spouse or other songs. The difference is in the content, not along the time axis.
As for your point itself, I also don’t think you are right. It depends which young people you meet. I meet others as well.
And by the way, “Sing a Song for Peace” and “You Promised a Dove” are exactly the kind of songs I was talking about here.
That’s how I took it too.
But it’s good that you wrote this clarification, because now I see that for some reason a response I sent yesterday from my mobile didn’t register here. So here it is in my own holy and pure tongue:
I don’t know, but don’t worry—the cat is on the way.
One can continue in this spirit and explain accordingly the delicacy of homeland songs. They are delicate and beautiful because they are the personification of romantic love laid over clods of earth. By definition, this personification cannot be realized (unless you are a priest of Baal—and ponder this, and enough said), and therefore it is refined. It touches the strings of the heart because it raises the object to a higher plane than what it really is—and such has poetry always been. “Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy… the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing.” That is what excites and moves. Precisely because it is not realized in real reality. Not so romantic poetry between man and woman (“How you drive me crazy”… “Let him feel like a king”… “You burned my heart”—Kobi/Moshe Peretz, order unimportant), which is realized in butterflies in the stomach—and precisely for that reason also shatters into the grayness of everyday life after some time (“If you want to be in love—don’t get married,” Oscar Wilde). And from one matter to another: perhaps this article contains an infrastructure for your view regarding God’s hiding His face from the world since the days of revelation—not only so that we may be mature and manage by our own powers, but so that the bond with Him will be thinner and therefore deeper, one that depends not at all on miracles, not on reward, and not even on providence. Platonic love. And somewhat like what Ramchal wrote in Da’at Tevunot: “The third state—when the Holy One, blessed be He, takes rule over His world with signs and wonders, revealed to all nations, so that they may know that the Lord is God in Israel; that is, throughout the time of the First and Second Temples. Yet understand that even this revelation is an external revelation, meaning: there is no revelation here except from the side of actions alone, by virtue of the miracles that are seen, for if those miracles were lacking, faith would not be clarified. But this is not the ultimate revelation, which is what the Holy One, blessed be He, desires—that His glory be revealed in His world.
The fourth state is that the Holy One, blessed be He, will be revealed to all His creatures by way of knowledge and apprehension, not by way of miracles; rather, they will see His glory, may He be blessed, and apprehend Him through an abundance of knowledge and wisdom. And this is what is said (Isaiah 11:9), ‘for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,’ and it is written (Isaiah 52:8), ‘for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord returns to Zion,’ and ‘the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together’; for then signs and wonders will not be needed to verify faith. Rather, through knowledge and apprehension, like all the prophets and all the angels who know God, may He be blessed, by virtue of their apprehension. And this is clear and true knowledge, upon which no doubt can fall. So too was the apprehension of all Israel at Mount Sinai, as it is written (Deuteronomy 5:4), ‘Face to face the Lord spoke with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire’; and it says (Exodus 20:19), ‘For from heaven I spoke with you’; and it is said (Exodus 19:9), ‘So that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe in you forever’—that faith should not be by way of miracles, for if any doubt should arise concerning the miracles themselves, faith would be confounded, but rather clear knowledge by way of sight and apprehension, where there is no doubt at all.”
Very nice indeed. More power to you.
It seems that the rabbi’s words fit with Maimonides’ statement that one may transgress Torah laws in order to save a life, because the Torah’s laws are not vengeance in the world but life for the world (and therefore it is rare that there would be a conflict requiring one to choose between life and the Torah).
Are religious love songs—that is, songs directed toward religion and toward God (or the object of worship, speaking more generally)—similar as well to homeland songs in this respect?
I accept Gil’s point (if I understood him correctly) that the fact that homeland songs address something more abstract and less instinctual allows the more spiritual side of the personality to connect, and therefore they are closer to “love” than to “lust” in the terms of the article. This of course also applies to songs of religious devotion of various kinds (and perhaps it also distinguishes between better and worse love songs in every field to which the song or the emotion is directed).
Greetings,
Your response made me very happy. I respect and value your opinion, and to receive confirmation from you that there are many things (mistakes, in your view) in my short unit of text—that’s nice.
0. You mentioned in your article the Zionist Left and the nationalist Right. It seems to me that these are concepts connected to the policy of a state, not to a people connected to a land (homeland). Without a state, “Zionist Left” is a concept devoid of content. So even if the explicit word “state” does not appear in your article, it is there, and a lot.
1. Obviously “the philosophers’ chestnut” also speaks about facts, but generally when talking about facts they are usually simpler and more defined than emotions. The concept “meter of cloth” is a simpler concept than “delicate emotion.” I am willing to bet that almost every person will understand the words “delicate emotion” a bit differently.
2. I am not Leibowitz’s defense attorney, but your article somewhat resembles his idea. Certainly distinctions must be made, but certainly there are similar emotional aspects.
3. You define yourself as a religious and secular Zionist.
Do you recite a prayer for the welfare of your successful private business? Certainly one must thank Heaven for your great success, etc., but “the beginning of the flowering of our redemption” is a religious concept.
A prayer for the state is not a blessing recited over enjoyment.
4. 5. 6. It seems that you quite agree with me. True, you moderate my point somewhat, but you too quite agree that policy views different from the outlook of HaBayit HaYehudi are something unusual. I agree, this is not really Haredism, but such a tendency does exist.
All the best, and many thanks for the opportunity you give to sharpen and express opinions.
I do indeed strongly recommend that the rabbi read the above passage in Ramchal (as was written, this is in Da’at Tevunot). He arranges four periods, or five, in God’s governance of the people of Israel and in the life of the people of Israel, according to the partzufim of the world of Atzilut and corresponding to five sefirot, and it seems to me also in parallel to periods in a person’s life. It is really physics there. Especially his parallel elaboration of these partzufim in Pitchei Chokhmah VaDa’at.
Meow! Is he on the way or is he not there?
I just hope I won’t be disappointed after all the nagging.
Except that it should be noted that the fourth state is apparently not merely a reality like ours, of the appearance of deterministic laws of nature + free choice—that is, a boring world (the rabbi will forgive me for saying so; God forbid I mean that nature is boring, rather I mean its blindness)—but a reality in which nature and miracle are united, and not an ordinary reality with sporadic open miracles that are not all that rare, as in the second period (what Ramchal calls the third state; the second state is actually the third period—the period in which we live, the exile of the Second Temple). This is a state resembling the reality of Adam before the sin. I call this state supra-determinism. A state in which everything can happen (good things—and they indeed also occur), but it is not considered a miracle because the rule of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world is clear for all to see. A state in which miracle is considered normal, that is, “nature.” Nor is this an “Alice in Wonderland” state, of course, but rather an ordered world in which reality progresses toward its perfection in a way that today would be considered supernatural. Part of this perfection is that the laws of physics discovered until now will not be thrown in the trash but will be redeemed from their current blindness (they will be the approximation at the “deterministic limit” of the “theory of God’s governance of reality”). Half-jokingly, what I am really saying is that this is the Torah that will come after the solution to the problem of quantum gravity within string theory (in whatever version it may be), and of the true interpretation of quantum mechanics (I believe the two problems are tightly connected)………………..
My correction to the previous comment
“This is a state that resembles…”
“I call this state ‘supra-determinism.’ A miraculous reality, but one that contains the order, constancy, seriousness, and maturity of modern science from Newton onward, in which our laws of nature are the sole of the shoe of the governance of reality as a whole (the laws of the worlds of spirit [ABYA] and matter in their totality)…….”.
“A state in which miracle is considered normal—that is, ‘nature’….”
“Part of this perfection is also the fact that the laws of physics discovered until now will not be thrown in the trash but will be redeemed from their current blindness (they will be the approximation at the ‘deterministic limit’ of the ‘theory of God’s governance of reality’)….”
This is roughly also the Talmudic principle “Her ways are ways of pleasantness.”
That is an interesting point. I would definitely expect that to be so, but so far not really. Perhaps the problem is that one cannot compare the talents of writers of ordinary songs (such as homeland songs) to those of writers of religious songs (like the difference between religious literature and general literature). But this has definitely been improving in recent years as talented religious people enter these fields.
Generally speaking, one could say that the love of man and woman ought to be more delicate, pure, and modest than love of nation/land/homeland/people, because the love of man and woman is of the essence of creation and foundational to everything, whereas love of nation/land/homeland/people is a consequence of the sins of the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Dispersion. As for poetry: the loftier the subject, the rarer high-quality poems are. Usually the best poems are written when a nation is at the beginning of its path. For in the springtime of a nation’s youth, the thoughts are noble, the feelings distinctive, and the vision great, before politics and money gradually ruin almost every good thing. Until the next renewal.
Not really true.
Most homeland songs are not of a high literary level. Only a minority have real poetic qualities.
And that is true of religious poetry as well. Over the generations there has also been religious poetry of the very highest rank.
With God’s help, 20 Tammuz 5778
The love of the land expressed in “homeland songs” is not merely the natural love of a person for “the landscape of his birthplace.” After all, most of the poets were not born here. Their coming to the land and taking root in it involved countless struggles and sufferings. And what they found in it were landscapes of the sort “a bald mountain of crags” and “a land that devours its inhabitants,” with hardships and wars.
Their expectation was that the building of the land and the rebirth of the state would be bound up with the creation of a more ideal and moral society, out of the conception that when “we shall live a life of freedom and liberty,” and no longer be humiliated and persecuted, we would be able to bring into practice the ideal powers hidden within us. Accordingly, the songs of love for the land express a delicate feeling of aspiration toward the good.
The view of the land as the place for the ideal building of the spirit of the nation is founded on the heritage of Judaism, both in Scripture and in the words of the Sages, who saw the land not only as “a desirable land” dazzling in its scenery, and not only as “a land flowing with milk and honey” bringing its inhabitants material good, but as “the palace of the King,” in which a person is required to conduct himself with holiness and at the highest moral level in order to be worthy to dwell there: “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord, and who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart…” (Psalms 24).
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
The same is true also in love between one person and another, and between husband and wife: recognition of the other’s worth and preciousness, which brings love, is what brings a delicate attitude toward the beloved.
Rabbi M.A.’s conjecture that the delicacy of songs of love for the Land of Israel stems from a willingness to forgo realizing the dream does not fit reality all that well.
The songs of love for the Land of Israel came from circles that struggled hard for the realization of the Zionist dream. People of the Labor movement gave their lives for settling and defending the land, and the Revisionists fought with self-sacrifice to remove the foreign rule. Both Palmach fighters and Etzel and Lehi fighters were among the songwriters who inspired the youth to action.
In later periods, when the very existence of the Jewish state and our dwelling in the Land of Israel became supposedly “trivial,” songs of love for the land also diminished. And yet whoever still advocates “Zionist activism” has not stopped singing to the land; see for example Naomi Shemer.
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
Even in that period, people in the Labor movement supported compromises. They were willing to fight in self-defense, but certainly also to compromise. The very declaration of the state was a compromise on the partition plan.
In love poetry for the Land of Israel in recent generations there are five stages (which sometimes overlap):
1. Romantic poetry of longing for the days of the nation’s glory, whose clearest expression is Mapu’s “Love of Zion”—a poetic-moral novel that was the pinnacle of Haskalah literature.
2. Hibbat Zion poetry—the awakening of the national spirit to restore the crown to its former glory, a powerful sentimental-rhetorical poetry of yearning.
3. Songs of rejoicing, written in the Land of Israel in the period of the First Aliyah, meant to encourage the settlers and educate them in Zionist values. Its style was folk songs in an East-European style.
4. National poetry composed from the Second Aliyah onward, expressing the values of the Yishuv, and also calling for and educating toward a life of practical settlement of the land.
5. Modern poetry containing criticism and irony, expressing a complex relation to the land.
With God’s help, 21 Tammuz 5778
To Gil—greetings,
Love founded on sensual lust may indeed fade with satiation and routine. But love that comes from recognizing excellence only grows with time, for the more one knows, the more one perceives the depth of the virtues of the object of love; and the more one is moved, the more powerful and more delicate the love becomes. Constant investment and giving also increase natural love.
These characteristics—that the more one knows and the more one invests, the more love intensifies—are true of all loves: the love of the Creator and the love of His Torah, His people and His land; the love of friends and family members; and the love of members of one’s community, nation, and all humanity—the more one reflects on the beloved’s excellence and the more one invests, the more one loves!
It is no accident that love is called “knowledge,” whose meaning in Scripture is “giving one’s mind.” The more mind one gives, the more one loves!
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
Regarding what you said about the secular Right not establishing settlements—
https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/משקי_חרות_בית”R
At first the link didn’t work, and I thought to myself how symbolic. Afterwards I saw that the final tav had fallen out of the link (it searches for “Herut estates of a house”). Here is a corrected link:
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A7%D7%99_%D7%97%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA%22%D7%A8
As for the matter itself, of course they established settlements. But compare them to the Labor movement. On the list here, most are settlements that were pulled along after Gush Emunim, and among the few veteran settlements a considerable part no longer exists (among the founders of Mishmar HaYarden were my father-in-law—an Etzel veteran—and my mother-in-law).
With God’s help, 21 Tammuz 5778
Rabbi M.A. argues that the maximalism of the Revisionists does not testify to the great love of the land that pulsed within them, and brings proof from the small number of settlements of “Herut Beitar.”
What Rabbi M.A. forgot (or perhaps never learned 🙂) is the fact that during the Mandate period the Revisionist movement was persecuted both by the Mandate authorities and by the leadership of the Yishuv because of its uncompromising demand for “a state now,” and the movement’s leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky was expelled from the land. The Histadrut fought violently against Revisionist workers who refused to join the Histadrut and forcibly prevented their employment.
And when from within the Revisionist movement arose the Etzel and Lehi organizations, which waged an armed struggle to drive out the British, the leaders of the Yishuv denounced them as “separatists,” persecuted them, and in certain periods even handed them over to the British (see “the Saison”). Is there any doubt that a persecuted and ostracized movement could do much less in the sphere of settlement than organizations operating legally?
Even when the struggle of Etzel and Lehi bore fruit and forced the British to leave and clear the way for the establishment of the State of Israel, its leaders from the Labor movement continued to treat the people of Herut as “set apart in disgust.” For example, see the article linked in the Wikipedia entry “Mishmar HaYarden (moshav),” note 7, about their troubles with the regional council, which refused to accept them and allocate them budgets because of their “invalid” affiliation with the wrong political party. (And I am not speaking of Arieh Yitzhaki’s claim that the colony of Mishmar HaYarden was abandoned during the War of Independence because it did not belong to the Labor movement. See the Wikipedia link, entry “Mishmar HaYarden (colony)”).
Indeed, when the Revisionists were a despised and persecuted opposition, they could not do much in the sphere of settlement. But when they rose to power and became established, the people of Herut showed their strength in encouraging the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria. Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, Ma’ale Efraim, and Beit Aryeh are not Gush Emunim “settlements,” but cities or local councils in whose creation the nationalist right-wing public had a dominant part.
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
In short:
The attempt to appropriate delicacy of soul and love of the land for the Left or the Right is pointless. Both gave their lives for the realization of the Zionist vision and did great things. Were it not for the forceful struggle of Etzel and Lehi, we would still be enslaved to the British to this very day. And on the other hand, were it not for the pragmatism of the people of the organized Yishuv, the organizational, settlement, economic, and military infrastructure for establishing the state could not have come into being.
The questions of how far one should go with forcefulness and how far one should act with moderation and pragmatism have accompanied, and still accompany, every great revolution. And it is probably necessary that there be a blessed tension between the aspiration to “go over from the outset,” and the insight taught us by Edmund Burke (whose yahrzeit fell last week, on 15 Tammuz) that “slowly, slowly” succeeds better….
Thus Phinehas earns praise for arousing his zeal when needed, yet his reward is “Behold, I give him My covenant of peace.” And Phinehas is Elijah, zealous with the zeal of the Lord, yet also one who pleads Israel’s merits, and he is destined to “turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers.”
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
I read the article eagerly, but I missed the dimension of songs of love for God. It seems to me that these reflect not only strong and powerful yearning, but also a great and infinite desire (which one can control with the intellect) for some truth or foothold in something greater than myself. Unlike homeland songs, which probably would not sound so beautiful to someone living in another country. Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” for example.
Just as people’s faces and opinions differ from one another, so too their loves differ from one another. The love of Moses ascending the summit and looking out over the Land of Israel is not like the love of Solomon walking the length and breadth of the land. Nor is the love of the exiles of Babylon who hung their lyres on the willows like the love of those who returned from Babylon and sanctified the land through conquering it and through the commandments dependent on the land. The natural love of those born into the wise-making air of the Land of Israel is not like the love of longing and yearning of those born in a land not their own. Nor is the love of those persecuted in exile for their faith like the love of those who rise to redeem the land of their birth and to be redeemed. The love of the pioneering men of action, innocent souls who came to grace the dust of the land and make the wasteland bloom, is not like the love of the native-born of the Yishuv who, despite being divided into camps and flocks, fight side by side to defend all Israel. Nor is the love of city dwellers, who love to argue and shake worlds with their opinions, like the love of country folk who walk modestly in a still small voice. And yet all these loves, and many others, join together into one love.
And still, without a concrete object, love will become imaginary. The songs about Lithuania were accepted דווקא because they were concrete. If I were to write a song about Lithuania, it would be ridiculous (and not only because I don’t know how to write poetry).
I am thinking of רבי יהודה הלוי and the lament “Zion, will you not ask.” In this poem, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi tries to do the impossible: to speak about the Land which, during exile, is imaginary, and to make it concrete while we are still in exile. I do not understand his attempt to immigrate to the Land of Israel as some lustful act, but rather as an attempt to test the concreteness of the Land—is it still there waiting for us?
The fact that today we are in the Land of Israel may perhaps stem from Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi’s success in establishing within us a concrete bond through the poem “Zion, will you not ask,” which, when the time came, stirred us to rise and ascend to Zion.