Messianism – Rabbi Michael Avraham – Lesson 8

Table of Contents

• Secular Zionism as a national, non-messianic movement
• Religious Zionism as a “trailing car” and the historical debate over the forerunners of the aliyot
• Torah codes, ad hoc reasoning, and the distinction between mockery and complex detail
• Jewish law, secular courts, and a legal system as an unavoidable deviation that is not messianic
• A central messianic feature: redemption as a decisive consideration in decision-making
• The parable of Rabbi Herzog and the rabbi from Brisk: realism versus metaphysical promises
• Extreme anti-Zionism and Satmar: the same metaphysical failure in opposite practice
• Haredi pragmatism and ideology as rhetoric after the fact
• Rabbi Kook, the “inner point,” and detachment from overt motivations
• The disengagement, paradigm crises, and Rabbi Tal and Rabbi Kellner
• Metaphysics versus realpolitik: images of communism, “Lenin and the new physics,” and the messianism of peace
• The principle of the norm: one must not draw practical conclusions from metaphysical analysis
• Free choice, the collective, and anti-humanism in directed historical conceptions
• Exceptional examples of metaphysical considerations among leaders: the Holocaust and the “Dvar Avraham”
• State symbols as objects of holiness, and Rabbi Tau as an extreme case
• Professor L. versus Ben-Gurion: a “crooked” scale of values that prefers symbols over human beings

Summary

General overview

The text argues that secular Zionism is mainly a national liberation movement within history and not a messianic movement, whereas Religious Zionism is a “trailing car” that loads the national move with religious-messianic content and thus comes much closer to the features of a messianic movement. The main dividing line is the incorporation of metaphysical and messianic considerations into practical decision-making, sometimes even at the expense of halakhic and realistic considerations, a phenomenon that creates detachment from reality and crises when reality does not fit the paradigm. The text maintains that extreme anti-Zionism as well, such as Satmar, operates through the same mechanism of mixing metaphysics into practice, even though the conclusions are the opposite, and it criticizes a pattern of working with “demons,” symbols, and institutions instead of with human beings, overt motivations, and realpolitik.

Secular Zionism as a national, non-messianic movement

Secular Zionism is very hard to regard as a messianic movement, even if it sometimes used messianic jargon in order to enlist a religious public. Secular Zionism is seen as part of the “Springtime of Nations” and as a move of national liberation or revival that seeks to return the Jewish people to history, not to realize an eschatological aspiration beyond history. The legends surrounding Herzl are described as far from establishing the movement as actually messianic.

Religious Zionism as a “trailing car” and the historical debate over the forerunners of the aliyot

Religious Zionism is presented as a factor dragged along behind the secular political act, similar to “philosophers of science” who arrive after the scientists and explain things retroactively, rather than as the force that generated the process. The text casts doubt on the claim that the immigration of the disciples of the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov was a decisive foundation without which modern Zionism would not have arisen, and it emphasizes that quantitatively the small religious yishuv was not a dominant factor. The text attributes motives to Herzl such as the Beilis affair, Dreyfus, and modern antisemitism, and estimates that he would have tried to launch a similar movement even without any connection to earlier waves of religious immigration.

Torah codes, ad hoc reasoning, and the distinction between mockery and complex detail

The text uses criticism of “skip codes” to illustrate a mechanism of retroactive interpretation, like “you always find Sadat’s murderer after Sadat has already been murdered.” It argues that the claim is not completely ridiculous, because after an event you know what to look for, but still there is a large degree of ad hoc reasoning and elastic criteria in it. The text concludes that it was not persuaded there is anything substantial there, and uses this as a parable for a broader pattern of explanations tailored after the fact.

Jewish law, secular courts, and a legal system as an unavoidable deviation that is not messianic

The text points to a halakhic difficulty in cooperating with a movement that has secular and at times anti-religious values, and to a particular severity in establishing a legal system foreign to Jewish law and appointing judges who are not Torah judges, while citing a Maimonidean-Talmudic line about “wicked men with no hand in the Torah of Moses.” The text presents a position according to which the prohibition exists, but in practice “you have to do it,” because a society cannot function without a legal system, and therefore the solution is a practical necessity rather than a messianic motive. It compares this to “the courts in Syria” and expands the principle that society needs legal order even when there is theoretically another possibility that is not realistic because most of the public does not recognize Jewish law. The text stresses that the deviation from Jewish law here is not like Sabbateanism, because it is not a ritual transgression meant to bring the messiah, but a compromise that stems from a desire to live together with the people and from the lack of any administrative alternative.

A central messianic feature: redemption as a decisive consideration in decision-making

The text identifies the core of messianism in the fact that the messianic consideration becomes a component of practical decision-making, and sometimes leads to actions that would not have been taken were it not for the belief that this will “advance the redemption.” The text distinguishes between choosing between two reasonable options, where one is perceived as promoting redemption, and choosing a step that is not justified by ordinary considerations and is driven mainly by the force of the messianic assumption. It argues that this is a major innovation relative to the tradition of Jewish “realistic and pragmatic” leadership over the generations, in which Jewish law and realpolitik stood at the center without “metaphysics” serving as the decisive factor, and it presents this as a legitimate but exceptional point of friction.

The parable of Rabbi Herzog and the rabbi from Brisk: realism versus metaphysical promises

The text brings a mythic story from the War of Independence in which Rabbi Herzog says, “We have a tradition that the Third Temple will not be destroyed,” in order to prevent demoralization and calm a dangerous situation, and the rabbi from Brisk responds, “I have a tradition from my father that when people are shooting, you run away.” The text sees this story as “formative,” because it presents decision-making that does not rely on metaphysical arguments even if they are not denied, but on realistic considerations in the face of danger. It emphasizes that the question is not whether the promise is true, but whether it is supposed to be a criterion for behavior, and links this to the distinction that success or failure in the result is not always the criterion for judging messianism.

Extreme anti-Zionism and Satmar: the same metaphysical failure in opposite practice

The text argues that the debate between Religious Zionism and extreme anti-Zionism rests on a shared platform of mixing metaphysics into one’s relation to reality. It describes “Vayoel Moshe” as a text that sees behind every event “the other side, demons, and plots,” and parallels this to similar tendencies in certain circles. The text distinguishes between mainstream Haredi society, which begins from practical concerns and recruits metaphysics after the fact, and Satmar, which begins from metaphysics, the Three Oaths, and uses practical arguments as a tool of struggle. It presents Rabbi Shach as someone whose anchor was the practical concern that “the children of Israel are going out to apostasy,” rather than a belief that redemption will not come through secular people.

Haredi pragmatism and ideology as rhetoric after the fact

The text describes mainstream Haredi society as pragmatic, including the example of Agudat Yisrael’s principled shift to accepting a ministerial role despite an earlier ideology against “ministerial responsibility.” It argues that metaphysical justifications such as “Torah protects and saves” are “mere lip service,” and that the root of the opposition to military conscription is fear of spiritual corruption. The text gives the example of a conversation with a Satmar rabbi in London who admits that the analytical criticism of the kal va-homer in “Divrei Yoel” is correct, but still rules in favor of spiritual authority and ascetic rigor, and presents this as proof of the book’s tendentiousness.

Rabbi Kook, the “inner point,” and detachment from overt motivations

The text states that Rabbi Kook established a pattern of interpretation according to which an “inner point” motivates the pioneers even if they themselves do not know it, and that this pattern analyzes the acts of the state while ignoring what the state and its people actually want in practice. The text argues that the method produces explanations about “the hand of God” that are not connected to the real motivations of human beings, and presents this as something that continues down to our own day. The text acknowledges the national value of the pioneers’ enterprise and a debt of gratitude toward it, but rejects attributing halakhic-commandment value to an act done without awareness and without commandment-based motivation.

The disengagement, paradigm crises, and Rabbi Tal and Rabbi Kellner

The text argues that the break following the disengagement stemmed from the fact that “the excuses ran out” for explaining the event within a paradigm of redemption, and not necessarily from its relative severity compared to earlier events. It presents Rabbi Tal’s shift in a Haredi direction as a response to the inability to reconcile the disengagement with the metaphysical interpretation, and compares this to moving over to an interpretation of “the other side” instead of giving up the metaphysical assumption itself. The text quotes Rabbi Kellner’s statement that if the State of Israel were destroyed, “he would take off his kippah,” as evidence of the link between the collapse of a Zionist-metaphysical paradigm and a religious or identity collapse.

Metaphysics versus realpolitik: images of communism, “Lenin and the new physics,” and the messianism of peace

The text compares the pattern of fitting reality into a metaphysical paradigm to communist pilpulim such as “Lenin and the new physics,” which explain science through dialectical materialism and fit every fact into a system of principles. It describes a detachment in which “reality is kicking you in the face and you explain that it’s raining,” and concludes that when the paradigm breaks, people adopt an opposite metaphysics instead of giving up metaphysics itself. The text attributes a similar detachment to the “messianism of the peace camp,” who do not listen to what the Palestinians are saying and prefer deep interpretations over explicit declarations, and it cites the statement that Boogie made about Kerry being “messianic” as a factual description of the phenomenon.

The principle of the norm: one must not draw practical conclusions from metaphysical analysis

The text allows for a metaphysical interpretation of history as “the hand of God” or alternatively as destruction, but rejects the move from interpretation to practical decisions. It explains that there is no knowledge of the “laws of metaphysics” or of their direction, and therefore one should act according to realistic and halakhic considerations, not according to assumptions about a redemptive process. The text emphasizes that even if Ben-Gurion is perceived as bringing redemption or destruction, he acted from human and not metaphysical considerations, and from here comes the possibility of continuing to act in a similar way without turning metaphysics into the criterion.

Free choice, the collective, and anti-humanism in directed historical conceptions

The text describes, within Rabbi Kook’s view, a component in which there is a directed historical process and people are “pawns” or “cogs in a machine,” with some resemblance to revolutionary conceptions in which people move within a “great process.” It presents this as an “anti-humanistic” conception and prefers a religious humanism in which human beings are judged by their considerations and conscious actions. The text warns against attributing action to a person by virtue of internal “homunculi” or super-conscious forces, and links this to an expansion of the idea that “it is not in heaven” beyond the strictly halakhic plane.

Exceptional examples of metaphysical considerations among leaders: the Holocaust and the “Dvar Avraham”

The text suggests that extreme cases in which the realistic considerations are “already no longer in our hands” can lead to decisions that involve metaphysics, and it brings an example from the “Dvar Avraham” in the ghetto, who described a situation in which “in any case we will die,” and therefore a certain stringency may be perceived as a lever for salvation. The text presents this as an exception born of realistic despair, not as the norm of ongoing Jewish leadership.

State symbols as objects of holiness, and Rabbi Tau as an extreme case

The text argues that parts of Religious Zionism attribute to the symbols and institutions of the state the status of an “object of holiness,” with images such as IDF uniforms as “the garments of the High Priest” and ecstatic dancing around symbols of government. It brings the case of Rabbi Tau’s letter of support for the President of the State during the accusations against Katsav as evidence that the letter was directed to “the institution” and not to the person, because the institution is perceived as representing a metaphysical principle that cannot be tainted. The text describes a pattern in which behind the actions of the Ministry of Education and the state systems people see “a new ray,” plots, and hidden forces, and presents this as blindness to visible reality.

Professor L. versus Ben-Gurion: a “crooked” scale of values that prefers symbols over human beings

The text describes an editorial case in which it was written “Professor L.” instead of Leibowitz because “we have a tradition from Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda that one does not say his name,” whereas “Ben-Gurion” was written in full. The text presents a reaction according to which Ben-Gurion “certainly was more righteous,” and defines this as a crooked scale of values in which someone who denies the Zionist-statist worldview is perceived as worse than someone who publicly desecrates the Sabbath or eats forbidden carcasses and non-kosher meat. The text concludes that this pattern stems from relating to what a person “represents” and to the “demons behind him,” instead of relating to the person himself and to his actual deeds.

Okay, so we’re basically coming to the end of this whole discussion of messianism, and at the end of the previous session—or the last one—I started talking a bit about the applications to Zionism, to the situation we’re in, to the period we’re living through. I spoke a bit about characteristics of the Zionist movement in general, about the legends woven around Herzl’s name, about various features that might perhaps touch on this issue of a messianic movement—but it’s far from that. Meaning, I think that in the secular sense, that is, secular Zionism, it’s very hard to treat it as a messianic movement. Sometimes they used messianic jargon because they had to mobilize the crowd, the public, a large part of which was religious, but in practice it was part of the Springtime of Nations. In other words, overall it was a national liberation movement—liberation or restoration, I’m not even sure what to call it—a national movement that wanted to return the Jewish people to history. An aspiration entirely within history, not something eschatological, not something beyond history.

That of course brings me to the discussion of Religious Zionism. Religious Zionism is basically some kind of trailing car, I would say. Not really—not really, in my opinion—did it have any substantial influence, as far as I know. Again, I’m not an expert. In the Zionist process. But it developed—like philosophers of science. You know, philosophers of science are always chasing after scientists. Scientists do things, do research, discover things, and then the philosophers of science come and explain. They explain what they should have done, or what they actually did. Why they should have done it—there’s never any criticism. It’s not criticism; it’s always just explanation. In other words, it always comes afterward, basically. It’s like the interpretation of science. Yes, exactly. It’s like that critique of the Bible codes. They always say you always find Sadat’s murderer after Sadat was murdered. In other words, nobody warned Sadat in advance on the basis of those codes. You found in the codes when it would happen and who would do it—so warn him beforehand. No, no, you always find it after he’s murdered.

The truth is that there the claim is weaker—you have to admit that. It’s not so simple, because you don’t know whom you found, you don’t realize it’s there. After you know there was a murderer and a murder happened and so on, then you know what to look for. So yes, there’s a degree of ad hoc-ness here, but it’s not completely ridiculous the way it’s presented. The picture is more complicated. Obviously, if it were mathematical then you’d be right, but they don’t claim it’s mathematics either—that it’s an equation with one solution. Rather, they do claim that you can see, say, a collection of events from among which something will happen. In other words, the probability is still a very low probability. The criterion there is a very elastic criterion. It’s across seventy percent of the text, eighty percent of the text—each time it’s these kinds of criteria that are built a bit ad hoc. With how many letters you write Sadat, which parts of his name’s prefix you include, and so on. A lot of things. So in a certain sense I’m saying that this claim is not as ridiculous as people make it out to be, although there is still a lot of ad hoc reasoning here. I don’t know, I haven’t checked it in depth, I’m not qualified; very important mathematicians have checked it. I’m not persuaded. I wasn’t convinced there’s really something there.

Okay, back to our subject. What I’m saying, then, is that Religious Zionism poured a kind of religious-messianic content into this movement whose basis was really a movement of national awakening. Now it’s true that the early heralds—the first ones—started talking a bit before it was actually realized and turned into a political movement. But in the end, fine, you can write lots of such things. The ones who actually did it were mainly the secular activists, and the political or religious political group was basically some kind of trailing wagon.

Question: without the immigration of the students of the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov in the previous centuries, would there have been a basis? Look, I don’t know the facts and details well enough, I haven’t examined it deeply, I assume yes. It doesn’t seem likely to me at all. I know, we all learned in school that the immigration of the students of the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov was really the beginning of Zionism, and without Rabbi Eliyahu Gutmacher there of course would have been no Zionism at all. Allow me to doubt that.

Question: whether in practice the Land of Israel was empty of Jews who came here for religious reasons altogether. It was empty of Jews even after the immigration of the students of the Baal Shem Tov and the Vilna Gaon. How many were here? There was some small group in Jerusalem that in any case didn’t help the Zionist movement in any way. Quantitatively, it wasn’t such a dominant factor as the very… So about that I’m doubtful. Again, this is more a question for historians; I haven’t examined it deeply. From my impression, I’m really doubtful. I mean, it was part of a Zionist movement—Herzl, in my opinion, wasn’t stirred by the students of the Vilna Gaon at all. What stirred him was Beilis and Dreyfus and all those things, and in the end he set in motion some movement that I believe he would have set in motion anyway, or at least tried to set in motion anyway. The First Aliyah started before Herzl. What? I mean the beginning—fine, and still I don’t think this was built on the basis of the immigration of the students of the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov. Doesn’t seem so to me. Again, I’m speaking off the cuff. You’d have to—also I don’t know if there’s some historian who could say more solid things.

Arie Morgenstern gave a series of lectures about this in Academia A. Okay. He says they immigrated on messianic grounds, they made end-of-days calculations. No, the question is whether without them the movement would not have arisen. Yes, obviously there was a messianic dimension there. The question is whether without them the more modern Zionist movement, the newer one, would not have arisen. I don’t know. Also, what Arie Morgenstern says, you know, is often disputed. He’s almost an ideologue of Religious Zionism beyond being a historian.

All right. So now I want to focus more on that trailing wagon, on that car. Because there are a few characteristics there that do begin to come closer to the issue of a messianic movement, or get closer. We have to discuss it. I said, I can’t reach any clear conclusions here. First of all, on the first plane, again I go over the options I proposed for describing a messianic movement. The very fact that people see this process as some process that is supposed to bring redemption—that itself is already the second plane, not the first. I just went over the first, which is simply that you believe in the coming of the messiah. The second says that you do something for it. That itself is already a certain element, and I spoke about it a bit last time. That’s certainly an element that exists here. And again, even if this is a trailing wagon, they didn’t really bring this thing about, but still, joining such a process when your goal is a messianic goal, not a goal of national return to history—that’s already the first dimension. And again, where exactly the line passes, I can’t judge. I can’t say. I’m sketching the map here; I don’t know. Let each person decide for himself what he thinks about this.

The next planes—the mode of conduct—there there is some room for hesitation. It’s delicate. I talked about the mode of conduct. I said there is a dimension of acting against Jewish law, there is a dimension of acting against accepted tradition even if it doesn’t breach Jewish law, and there is a dimension of disregarding realpolitik, meaning the accepted political planes. So as I said last time too regarding the general Zionist movement, I don’t think Religious Zionism was more delusional than it. I don’t remember—or at least it doesn’t seem to me—that there were unrealistic proposals because of the religious dimensions of the matter. Overall they didn’t deviate from the policy accepted by the Zionist movement in general.

A neglected chapter in the history of Religious Zionism. In any event, if anything, if we’re talking about the Mizrachi view before the Six-Day War, it was generally very, very timid, I would say. That’s a continuation of the same thing, a continuation of the pre-state stages. Meaning, there’s no doubt that the Six-Day War is the line from which… Right. I’m saying it already enters the period after the state was founded. In the first nineteen years it was still a continuation of that same trailing wagon it had always been: give us our place and we won’t bother you, so to speak.

And not only that—I think it was a very positive trailing wagon, one that today people greatly disparage. It was a real bridge between secular and religious Jews in that period. That was its purpose. Yes, I’m not sure. I’m not sure I agree. I don’t think there was a real bridge there. In my opinion, no. I mean, there was a kind of self-effacement there that precisely failed to create a bridge. In a certain sense, when two movements stand their ground and don’t grovel, a more proper bridge is created. True, that comes with tensions and so on, but you see there’s a partner here; you can’t belittle him, you can’t toy with him. That’s how it seems to me. But fine, that’s of course a matter of assessment. In any case, I didn’t see a bridge there. They always said that this bridge was a one-way bridge; that was always the joke. Because the National Religious Party didn’t have enough power at that time. Doesn’t matter. Okay, but in terms of the personalities who played a role there—they had… why, do they have power now? But part of the reason they didn’t have power was because of the lack of confidence, because of that lack of backbone. And that’s part of it. That’s part of the matter. I explained it in a more extreme way. That’s what I think. But again, it’s a matter of how you assess it.

So I’m saying that in the sense of crazy activity, I don’t think there were such dimensions. But I said, regarding deviation from Jewish law there’s a little room for hesitation. Although again it’s hard to classify it exactly that way, because yes—look, cooperation with a movement that emblazoned secular values on its flag, even in a somewhat militant way, at least parts of that movement—with the Kulturkampf controversy, maybe I mentioned it, I don’t remember anymore, the Kulturkampf controversy where they really wanted to get in; in the end they made some compromise with the religious and didn’t get in. Herzl sort of moderated the Ben-Gurions and the more militant guys. But yes, absolutely there is some movement here trying to create a renaissance that was not merely purely national as people present it. Clearly there was here too—at least broad parts of it—also a goal of refreshing themselves from religion. Not only of raising nationality from the dust. And I don’t think you can ignore that. True, in discourse you often don’t see it because you have to speak to the people and yes, there is always a difference between discourse and underlying trends. “To be a free people in our land”—yes, free in the sense—not as people understand it today—free in the sense of not being under foreign sovereignty.

So to cooperate with something like that—again, I’m not sure I can point to it as a halakhic prohibition. But let’s say it very much departs from what had been accepted. It seems to me—I’m not sure to what extent—that this doesn’t enter into that category of deviation from Jewish law. I mean, I don’t know. Not to mention that they established a legal system according to standards or criteria completely foreign to Jewish law. A legal system completely alienated from Jewish law. And again, there are solutions for many things after the fact, but on the basic level—certainly the identity of the judges, I’m not even talking about the legal system itself—this is an absolute halakhic prohibition; it is “raising a hand against the Torah of Moses.” Maimonides speaks about this, and idol worship, and planting an Asherah tree beside the altar, and all kinds of things of that type. These are Talmudic passages, yes, not just Maimonides.

So here there are already points of contact. And again, I spoke about this once—one second—I once spoke about this issue of the prohibition of non-Jewish courts, as a prohibition on litigating in civil court or resorting to civil court, and I said that both sides are fighting over whether it is forbidden or permitted, and I think they are both mistaken, like in every argument. Why? The one who says it is forbidden is right, but his conclusion that therefore we should not do it is not right. And the one who says it is permitted is wrong, but the conclusion that therefore we should do it is right. In other words, I think in the end you have to say it’s forbidden but we are obligated to do it. That is the correct conclusion if one wants to be honest and not smooth over corners just to reach the conclusion one wants to reach.

There is no permission from the sources; it’s nonsense. I don’t accept all these arguments. But on the other hand there is no other option. What would we be without a legal system? A society can’t function without a legal system; it’s simply irrelevant. That’s the whole idea of the courts in Syria. Now true, with the courts in Syria this is in a place where there are no Torah scholars who can staff the rabbinical courts and serve as judges, so there they appoint whoever can, so that there will be order. The argument against the comparison to the courts in Syria is that here there are—there are people who can judge. So why not appoint them as judges? Because they don’t want them. Meaning society here doesn’t really want Jewish law. That’s true; it’s a correct distinction. But when you go deeper, I still don’t think it’s enough. Because in the end, with the courts in Syria, the value behind it is that a society cannot function without a legal system. Now true, there there was no option of Torah-scholar judges and you took other people. Here there is such an option on the theoretical level, but it is a theoretical option. When most of society does not recognize Jewish law, it is a theoretical option to appoint judges here who will judge people according to the Shulchan Arukh. It’s absurd.

Now true, this is a certain expansion of the law of the courts in Syria, but in my opinion it’s a necessary expansion. Let’s put it this way: nobody in the world would object to such a thing if it weren’t being forced on him. In other words, there are people doing the work for us, forcing it on us, and they don’t care that we disagree and that it’s a Torah-level prohibition and all sorts of things like that—nobody cares about you. So when nobody cares about you, you can say whatever you want. If you had to determine what would exist here, I don’t think there would be a single halakhic decisor who would say not to use the courts. Minimal responsibility—what, everyone here will rob each other, kill each other, and there’ll be no one to judge? You’ll summon him to his rabbi for a Torah court? What, he’ll look at you like you’re insane. You can’t run a society like that; it’s simply unrealistic.

So that’s why I’m saying—I’m coming back—our issue isn’t this. I remembered it because one could say this is a deviation from Jewish law. But on the other hand, when you are in the given situation, there is no way not to deviate from Jewish law. So what do you call that? Deviation from Jewish law? Here, deviation from Jewish law does not stem from messianism, at least in my view. I support this deviation from Jewish law not because the messiah will come if I do it, but because I think I want to live here with my people, and you can’t live otherwise; there is no other relevant legal system. That’s all. It has nothing to do with messianic aspirations. I’m not making these halakhic compromises thanks to that or because of that in order to bring the messiah, or I don’t know what, all sorts of things like Shabbetai Tzvi saying to commit various sins because these are rituals that bring the messiah. The similarity is a completely external similarity. Therefore I think that deviation from Jewish law, although one can point to certain places, is still far from really seeing a messianic movement here.

Question: can the prohibition of non-Jewish courts exist only if there is a king, with the king’s law alongside it? What? Again? The prohibition—if there’s the king’s law then there is no prohibition of non-Jewish courts? Yes, I’m saying: according to the rabbi’s argument, is that the only situation in which one can really forbid going to the courts? No. If there is an option of halakhic justice, leave the king aside. Could halakhic justice, with things like an innocuous ox and half damages and so on, be relevant today? No? Why not? Why exempt an innocuous ox from half damages? Fine, obligate him—what’s the problem? No, if you exempt him or have him pay only half damages, all sorts of things. Fine, that’s the law of Jewish law, what’s the problem? Let him pay half damages. Ordinary oxen are presumed guarded—so what? If you want, you can enact ordinances. Jewish law enacts ordinances. Ordinances were enacted even without great sovereignty. Everywhere communities could, they enacted ordinances. That too can be fixed. That’s not the point. The point is what your point of departure is, where you’re starting from, what the basic infrastructure is. Now you need to fix various things—not a few, I agree—but they can also be fixed if people want. That’s not the point. The point is that it’s not because Jewish law doesn’t fit reality—that’s another argument that I agree with, but that can be fixed. Rather, because Jewish law is not realistic; nobody will accept it. Even if it adapted itself in one way or another, nobody will accept the ordinances you make, because they don’t recognize you. What will the Chief Rabbinate enact? Who will enact ordinances?

But no, Roi, I remember once you said on some occasion there’s no need to fear a halakhic state because a halakhic state can’t exist. Look, it can exist. It would just look exactly like now. The lawbook of the halakhic state—you could copy it almost as is from our lawbook. It would be the same thing. There’d be no difference. A few marginal changes, but no. I came across—not that I’m really expert—that the Chatam Sofer somewhere says, “And had the matter come before us, we too would have enacted the same thing.” Meaning, someone came before him in a Torah court and claimed that this was some ordinance enacted by the town authorities—why should he pay such and such? And he says: if it had come before me, I too would have enacted it. There are responsa of the Rashba on this, responsa of the Rosh, things like that. The greatest halakhic decisors wrote about this. It’s obvious. On the contrary, they relied on the fact that we are not bound by the strict law of Jewish law. Because then you can do anything. You can accept women’s testimony. The Rashba writes there to accept self-incrimination—“a person does not make himself wicked”—you can do anything. And what do you mean you can do anything? Seemingly you ought to aspire not to do that. No, obviously not. If we had authority, then we would enact this by force of the authority of the Sanhedrin. If there is no Sanhedrin, then excellent, the king does the job for us. So the Rashba expresses joy over this matter. Yes. Sorry.

All right, so that’s why I say even the injury to Jewish law is somewhat hard to classify. Where do I nevertheless see a messianic dimension? It seems to me it lies in one fundamental plane that finds expression in several forms. It begins with the fact that the messianic consideration takes part in decision-making. Notice that itself—that itself is a messianic characteristic that I didn’t sharpen, because it seems to me it appears here, mainly in Religious Zionism. I think this is where you see Religious Zionism—I mean. But that’s the first one, no? What? That was literally the first consideration, that you do something to bring the messiah. Yes, but no, it’s more than that, what I’m saying now. My claim is—yes, it’s similar, but not exactly the same. You can do something to bring the messiah if that something is also justified in itself, and you have the option either to do it or not do it, and in your estimation this will bring the messiah and that won’t, then do it. But there are places where you take actions that, were it not for bringing the messiah, you wouldn’t do them. You do it in order to bring the messiah. What do you mean? But if you would do them even without bringing the messiah? What? If you’d do them even without bringing the messiah, then it’s not an action for the sake of bringing the messiah. No—you have a choice. You have two possible courses of action. You can choose to go here or go there. Both are sensible, both are reasonable, both are fine, both fit the ordinary considerations. Fine—this will bring the messiah, let’s do it. I’m drawing it of course very schematically, because it’s not completely symmetrical. It’s all a matter of degrees and dosage.

Now here there are situations where the feeling is that you don’t reach the realms of delusion, but you do indeed do things that you wouldn’t do were it not for your thinking that the messiah will come. Such as what I said earlier. There are people for whom the prohibition of non-Jewish courts is real—not as I said earlier—and they are willing to forgo it because this will bring the messiah. I’m saying: that’s a claim that reaches the same bottom line I reach, but from a different place. In other words, because they are essentially taking the bringing of the messiah… I brought that story about the rabbi of Brisk and Rabbi Herzog. Right, I mentioned it, I think? That mythological story that is always brought in these contexts: during the War of Independence there were rumors that the rabbi of Brisk was going to flee the city. Dangerous, shooting and all sorts of things. Rabbi Herzog feared there would be demoralization, so he went to the rabbi to try to persuade him to stay. So the story says that Rabbi Herzog told the rabbi of Brisk: look, we have a tradition that the Third Temple will not be destroyed. Fine? So don’t worry, everything will be all right, we’ll win here. In other words: all right, it won’t be destroyed, fine—but you still might die and Jerusalem might fall. It doesn’t mean… Fine, but that’s how he assumed. And the rabbi of Brisk said to him: and I have a tradition from my father that when people are shooting, you run away.

Now I think that everyone sees this story as a joke. To my mind it’s a truly foundational story. Because it so perfectly reflects the two forms of relating to things—even if it might not have been proper to believe that this was how that exchange should have gone. This practical stance of the rabbi of Brisk—he doesn’t even enter a discussion with him whether this will bring the messiah or not, or whether that promise is true. It may be that the promise is true and the Temple won’t be destroyed. I don’t know. But there are bullets here. Meaning, there’s something here saying: I don’t take metaphysical arguments into account—not because they’re untrue. At least that’s how I understand it. Not that I’m arguing with you about that promise. At least it’s not brought there that he argued with the promise. I don’t know about promises. What I do know is that I don’t make decisions on the basis of promises. I make decisions on the basis of realistic considerations. And among the considerations—again, one could have been brave and stayed. You can argue over his realistic judgment. But I’m only trying to show his reasoning. His reasoning was: promises don’t interest me. And this is not an argument about whether such a promise really exists. I don’t think the rabbi of Brisk, for example—I’m not sure at least—that he thought the Third Temple could be destroyed. It may be that he too held that view. The question again is: at what stage in the process are we? You can say we’re in the first stage, the footsteps of the messiah, the beginning of redemption, I don’t know exactly what—but it’s on the way. It’s on the way and the process is irreversible. Even people who can oppose Zionism perceive that. Except they say: very well, that it’s on the way is nice, but I don’t make my decisions according to what stage in the redemption I’m in. I make my decisions according to how I ought to make decisions: first, realpolitik, and second, Jewish law and worldview—my Torah worldview. And that’s all. I don’t care whether the messiah will come out of this process in the end or not. And again, this is not an argument about whether in the end it will really happen. Exactly as I judged messianic movements and said that the criterion is not always the outcome criterion, and that if someone failed then the messianism is false—here you see a reflection of that. The reflection is that there are people who will argue and tell you: the messiah will not come from this because secular people cannot bring the messiah, as we saw in a certain passage from Rabbi Shach. I think that’s the point. I also said last time: in my opinion that comes after the opposition. That’s not what… that’s not the reason for the opposition. The reason for the opposition is that he is unwilling to cooperate with such a movement; he thinks it is a destructive movement for the Jewish people, and therefore he is unwilling to cooperate with it. And after that—yes, and also the messiah will not come, etc.—that’s not the point, that’s not the argument. Even if the messiah would come through it, he still wouldn’t cooperate with it. Because he does not take the messiah into account as a criterion that determines how he should act.

All right? Or on the level of power-delusions, which usually was not the situation here. Maybe with Rabbi Herzog it was a little bit so, where ostensibly you should flee when there is danger—but even there, fine, you can also fight, and that’s not delusional, it’s not… yes? So it’s not on the level of delusions. But it is on the level that you take steps that are not justified from the standpoint of ordinary judgment, and you nevertheless take them because you think this will bring the messiah. That is a worldview fundamental to Religious Zionism. And in that sense, yes, there is a smell of messianism here. Because it seems to me that this is not what was done. In our accepted tradition, such considerations were not made. I’m not speaking about the time of the prophets. I’m speaking now, in our period, when we have no prophecy and no apprehensions beyond what the Torah or Jewish law tells us and what our common sense tells us. Usually Jewish leadership, and rabbinic leadership of course, was very realistic and pragmatic. It basically conducted itself more or less as one ought to, and of course to uphold Jewish law—I’m not talking only about political considerations. Jewish law and politics, no metaphysics. In other words, nobody made calculations about what would bring the messiah and what would not, almost nobody. They didn’t make such calculations. It simply did not take part in the decision of what I do and what I don’t do. In that sense there is a very big innovation here in the movement—in Religious Zionist thought.

Now again, I am not inclined to agree with this innovation. But I’m not saying that automatically disqualifies this outlook. There are people who really put it on the table and say yes, and I think that’s legitimate. And I can’t really say anything to them. I mean, I tend to think it’s not right to act that way. That’s my personal opinion. I see it as a legitimate dispute, with two legitimate sides. But I’m saying that here it already begins to touch on the characteristics of a messianic movement, because it is indeed some kind of detachment from realpolitik—not in the sense that you do absurd things, but even in the sense that you do things that are not right in Torah terms, or certainly not right in halakhic terms, and that too you would not do were it not for the messianic consideration. In other words, the messianic consideration takes part in your decision-making, even if you’re not delusional. That itself is an exceptional characteristic, and one should know it. You can accept it and you can say it is legitimate or illegitimate, but that’s not what… that’s not what happened over the generations.

But isn’t that… maybe it’s a halakhic consideration? After all, if there is “Did you conduct your business faithfully? Did you await salvation?”—they will ask, “Did you await salvation?” You awaited salvation—but who says I also had to do things, certainly things that are borderline prohibited or things I wouldn’t have had to do otherwise? I said: if there are two equivalent possibilities, and this one will bring the messiah and that one won’t, then yes, do the thing that brings the messiah. The basic Jewish law says that when… when they ask “Did you await salvation?” it’s not “Did you say: and may our eyes behold.” Fine, what? That’s the dispute. You’re taking a side in the dispute. Fine, I’m not saying—it’s a possible side. I’m not… I said it’s hard for me here to be judgmental. I’m expressing a view, which is my personal opinion, but I’m saying clearly there are others who think otherwise, and they are not disqualified. It is a completely legitimate position, yes.

Could it be that one need not claim that Rabbi Herzog’s request to Brisk was based on a messianic consideration, but rather on a more national one? No, no—obviously he wanted there not to be demoralization. Obviously that was the upper-level consideration. But how did the conversation proceed? He doesn’t tell him, listen, you’ll demoralize people. He tells him: don’t worry, the Third Temple will not be destroyed; we have a tradition. And Rabbi Herzog tells him: they’re shooting here. He maybe used… Fine, I’m speaking only about the discourse. I’m not getting into his psychology. That discourse doesn’t necessarily mean that because it’s on the level of… but he used a metaphysical argument. He says: look, they’re shooting here, it’s dangerous, true, but the Holy One, blessed be He, promised. The Holy One, blessed be He, promised. So I don’t know what He’ll do; He’ll do what He’ll do. I have to act as I understand—realpolitik considerations. Again, I agree that likely Rabbi Herzog didn’t come only because of promises. I said that too—that he came because he feared demoralization. So I’m speaking only about the discussion that took place between them, not about the motivations of each one. Rabbi Herzog was a realistic Jew; he was far from being a delusional Jew. But I’m saying that this discourse does reflect a Religious Zionist approach—not in the sense of delusion, but in the sense that you take messianism as a consideration in your decision-making. And that is an innovation. One should know that.

Now the same, by the way, from the other side of the barricade—from the anti-Zionist side. Satmar, or the extreme opposition to Zionism—not ordinary Haredism, the Haredi mainstream—suffers from the same flaw. Read VaYoel Moshe: he explains that everything is the Other Side, demons and plots—in other words, VaYoel Moshe is really a postmodern text. Behind everything that happens he sees demons and hidden schemes, much like what you see today a bit in Har HaMor—we’ll get to that in a moment. They too see things very similarly to him, by the way. Really, doing a study comparing them would make a wonderful doctoral dissertation. It’s the same thing.

Did the rabbi of Brisk leave Jerusalem? What? Did the rabbi of Brisk leave Jerusalem? Not that I know of. Not that I know of. He died in Jerusalem. What happened in ’48 I don’t know, but he died in Jerusalem. I don’t know. I’m not even sure the story happened at all. It’s a story people tell. I don’t know exactly, I haven’t checked how reliable it is, but people repeat it a lot. Doesn’t matter. To my mind it’s a marvelous story regardless of whether it happened, because it really reflects in a very fundamental way the difference.

Now I want to argue that the whole religious ideological dispute—meta-Torah, Torah, I don’t know what to call it—between Religious Zionism and Haredi anti-Zionism, anti-Zionism I say, not non-Zionism, but anti-Zionism—the extreme movements—these two sides have a very broad common platform. Both of them mix metaphysical considerations into their attitude toward reality. In other words, with Satmar, for example, the situation is the complete opposite of what I described earlier. Satmar says the Zionist movement came to make the Jewish people forsake their religion. And again, this does not seem implausible to me; there is something to that. Parts of it. What? Parts of it, but it was a very central element there. I don’t think one can dismiss it.

But in my opinion that is not the fundamental argument there. The fundamental argument is that it is an indication. Meaning, the fact that secular people are doing this means it is an act of Satan, and therefore one must not cooperate with it. As part of the battle against this matter, he says: look, they are leading Jewish children into apostasy and all kinds of things of that type. In other words, it’s often the opposite argument. Take what I said, for example: mainstream Haredism is often the reverse. You don’t cooperate with this movement because of practical concerns. Those are entirely practical arguments. And afterward you draft metaphysics in, saying that redemption cannot come through secular people, like Rabbi Shach. It doesn’t begin there. But in a certain sense, these two Haredi wings make completely opposite moves from one another. They make the same arguments, but I have the feeling—and I think it’s a grounded feeling; here it’s not just a feeling, fine—the order is reversed. The Satmar people begin from metaphysics, and the practical considerations—again, for me “practical” also includes halakhic. If you pay a halakhic price because Jewish children are led into apostasy, that counts as a practical consideration for me, yes? I’m not talking only about politics, but Jewish law and politics and so on. So for them that’s just a weapon in their battle. That’s not the point. Whereas with Rabbi Shach it’s the opposite. For Rabbi Shach, the fact that Jewish children were being led into apostasy—that was his problem with the Zionist movement. With the messianism and the metaphysics he would, in my opinion, have managed. In other words, that’s not the point.

You can see that he writes a eulogy for the Satmar Rebbe—Rabbi Shach—and there he writes how he marched at the head of the camp and spoke without fear and so on. Rabbi Shach was not a great coward. A very small coward. He was a courageous Jew; he said what he thought. Unlike many other leaders who don’t go against the operatives and don’t say things they fear to say, Rabbi Shach was not, in my opinion, like that. In fact there I even knew—so I can testify to it a little personally. And he didn’t say what Reb Yoelish said because he didn’t really agree with him. He didn’t agree with him. He just used Reb Yoelish’s opposition as the ideological anchor for his practical opposition. And the Haredi mainstream is completely pragmatic. That’s why today you see he becomes a minister when necessary. I spoke about this once—when Litzman became a minister. In the meantime things already changed, but when Litzman became a minister, that was an ideological revolution in the Agudat Yisrael movement. It was an article of faith that one must not be a minister because there is ministerial responsibility. The whole government is responsible for every decision of every minister. You are responsible for decisions that from your standpoint are outrageous. Fine? So there was such a principle. Now there isn’t.

At some point they reached the conclusion: there isn’t. You can’t be deputy minister under the prime minister in the Health Ministry— the Supreme Court ruled that you can’t. And suddenly, poof, he becomes a minister. Where are the prohibitions? Where are the bans? Where is the ideology? It’s about practice. It’s all practice. The ideology is… ideologies come after the practice among Haredim, and that’s how it is. By the way, I’m not saying this with contempt. I actually have respect for that approach. But on the other hand, I have less respect for the ideological arguments. Their ideological arguments are entirely meaningless. It doesn’t begin with ideology and it doesn’t end with ideology. There’s no point at all in even relating to the ideological claims. Nobody is interested in them. In other words, the claim that Torah protects and saves and therefore yeshiva students don’t enlist—nonsense. Nobody there actually imagines that’s true. Yeshiva students don’t enlist because they’re afraid they’ll be corrupted. That’s all. And now, yes, Torah protects and saves and everything is fine. The whole thing is entirely reversed. In other words, sometimes they resort to ideological, metaphysical rhetoric: the army, Zionism, idol worship, I don’t know exactly, all sorts of expressions like that. Nonsense. Nobody really believes it. Those who do believe it—that’s not where it comes from. It doesn’t come from there. It doesn’t. With Satmar it does come from there; that’s the difference. And Satmar’s central point is not the secular issue but the issue of the Three Oaths. Yes, right—that’s what I’m saying, that’s the root. And for them the idea that secular people can’t bring the messiah is an essential argument, not because they’re leading Jewish children into apostasy. That too is true, but it’s also a battle tool; it doesn’t begin there.

Many years ago I asked a Satmar community rabbi a difficulty on Divrei Yoel. He writes that speaking Hebrew is forbidden by an a fortiori argument. If a Torah scroll written by a heretic is [forbidden], then Hebrew, which the Zionists made and which is far worse than a Torah scroll written by heretics—and he elaborates on this—well, to that a fortiori argument one can raise several objections. Yes, quite a few objections—that one case is sacred and this is for everyday use; nobody said to write a Torah scroll. If you start checking the a fortiori arguments of VaYoel Moshe, you won’t get far. Yes, yes, so there’s a lot. And the Satmar community rabbi in London answered me like this: from a conceptual Talmudic standpoint you’re right, but Reb Yoelish— we spoke Yiddish—fasted, afflicted himself, elevated himself, etc. etc. He knew better than you what was better for Jewish children, what was better for… No, so I’m saying—first of all, he gave away the target. Yes, exactly. It’s on the table; it’s obvious. The whole book—never in my life have I seen such a tendentious book.

I saw once another very tendentious book; it was quite amusing. It actually came out of Chabad—some Rabbi Wolpe from Kiryat Gat. I was somewhere and opened a book, saw some novellae on the laws of a burglar breaking in and theft—I don’t remember exactly what it was. There were two or three Talmudic topics he dealt with, a conceptual Talmudic book. I’m reading the book and he keeps discussing the view of the Avi Ezri. Now Avi Ezri is a relatively rare medieval authority—how much can you already discuss what the Avi Ezri says? So I couldn’t understand how there was so much Avi Ezri on these topics, until I realized he was talking about the Avi Ezri of Rabbi Shach, not the medieval Avi Ezri. And in fact the whole book was meant only to show that Rabbi Shach didn’t know how to learn. There’s no hint of that. A book dealing with a halakhic topic—you read it, everything seems fine. It was a super tendentious book, very amusing. Some of the arguments one could discuss, fine, there were some arguments, yes, but many arguments that really didn’t hold water.

By the way, I think very highly of Rabbi Shach in the conceptual learning sense. I think he is a very original innovator, and he is not enslaved to classic Brisker learning because he’s too old for that, and there are many gems in Avi Ezri, in my opinion, on the conceptual level. Avi Ezri and the Avi Ezri. What? Usually the medieval authority is Avi HaEzri. Okay, fine, maybe it had that extra letter and I didn’t even notice, but it was clear to me he was discussing—an entire book discussing Rabbi Shach’s words. It’s not logical; it’s disproportionate. I was sure he meant the medieval one. But at a certain point it didn’t add up for me—how much Avi Ezri can there be on this topic? We have one every few pages, some medieval authority quotes him. Who knows who he is there? Rabbi Yeh… maybe… But anyway.

So that too was a tendentious book. And again, a tendentious book can contain good arguments. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you, as I’ve said before. A tendentious book can also have good arguments, but usually—I don’t know—it’s the kind of thing there’s not much point in reading. But for our purposes, what I’m saying is that there is something common not only to Zionism but also to opposition to Zionism. And in that sense I think both are messianic movements, even though the second movement is of course fighting against it—but it fights against it because it thinks that’s not how you bring the messiah. That’s why it fights against it. In that sense it’s a messianic movement. A messianic movement in the… again, it has that characteristic of a messianic movement—I need to be careful. In other words, the characteristic I pointed to in Religious Zionism also exists in Satmar. Namely, mixing the consideration of what will bring the messiah into your practical reckoning, into what you do in practice, into your decision-making—what you join and what you fight against. Okay? So in that sense this really does not uniquely characterize Zionism, but rather both extremes, on both sides. Today extremists on both sides like to talk about this, right? The extremes on both sides, the bereaved families on both sides—so now we also have the messianists on both sides. Okay.

Now, Rabbi Kook really does speak about this in several places—the point awakened in the pioneers, the inner point awakened in the pioneers, which is basically what drives them even though they don’t know it. Which again is a kind of relation to a metaphysical demon standing behind the act or behind the doer rather than to the doer himself. And in that sense it continues this way to this day. We see that in various circles, yes—the messianic metaphysics of Religious Zionism analyzes the moves of the state while ignoring what the state actually wants to do. Rather, they are constantly explaining what stands behind it, and basically how the hand of God appears in one way or another, while this is totally detached from what people really think and from people’s real motivations. It is the same detachment that Rabbi Kook essentially began.

And I think part of the rupture—for example following the disengagement; this issue is very current—is really visible there. For example, what Rabbi Tal—yes, with the rupture that caused him to become Haredi after the disengagement also in his worldview—that rupture stemmed from the fact that he ran out of excuses. In other words, he could not explain that event in a way that fit the paradigm of Religious Zionism. Namely, how does this advance redemption? Here the excuses ran out. Now, it didn’t bother him that from 1948—what 1948? From the first Zionist Congress onward—nobody wanted to bring the messiah and nobody wanted to advance halakhic or religious ideas or anything. But the disengagement broke him. Why? Not because it was more severe than many other things they did, but because here the excuses ran out. In other words, he could no longer explain why the deep point of those secularists, or leftists, or whatever you want to call them, who did this—why that was actually bringing redemption, and what they say doesn’t really matter. In other words, it was only then that he joined Satmar to some extent. Suddenly he understands that there is an Other Side behind this. Whereas the more sensible option in my view—even if you don’t want to deal with such a thing—is simply to give up this link you’re making to metaphysics. Not to Zionist metaphysics and not to anti-Zionist metaphysics. Take things as they are. They are not an expression of the Other Side, and they are not an expression of the footsteps of the messiah, and nothing of the sort. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I have no idea and it doesn’t interest me either. Rather, they are an expression of what people do. So look at what people do and what they say and what their motivations are, and judge it accordingly—not according to ideas and plots and deeper layers behind it.

And again, this is the same thing as Satmar on one side and Religious Zionism on the other. That rupture was created from there. As I mentioned last time, Kellner—Rabbi Kellner, also from the Har HaMor circles—said that if the State of Israel is destroyed, he’ll take off his kippah. And that’s the same expression. Again, thank God the State of Israel was not destroyed in the disengagement, even by the standards of the greatest disappointed people. But there was still some kind of destruction there that caused them perhaps not to take off the kippah, but to take off the knitted kippah. Metaphorically. I think he maybe still wears a knitted kippah, I don’t know, but metaphorically—to take off the knitted kippah. Because they really are unwilling to give up the paradigm that these processes are supposed to express deep processes. And if I have no explanation, then something here—then apparently it’s the Other Side. So it can’t be that it is neither the Other Side nor the side of holiness, but just plain Ben-Gurion. No—leave the demons aside. There’s Ben-Gurion, there’s Bibi, there’s whoever, and they run things as they understand, with their politics and their reasons. You can argue with them, you can agree with them, but everything is clear, everything is on the table. Why search for deeper layers and how they want to screw everyone or save everyone or promote one agenda or another? I mean metaphysical agendas, not agendas they openly speak about. Okay?

In that sense it’s a kind of detachment from reality that I think—I mean, I wouldn’t dismiss its connection to the concept of a messianic movement. There is something there. And this rupture following the disengagement is a rupture that, for some people, also led them to leave religious commitment altogether. For certain people—I don’t know the extent of the phenomenon, but there was such a phenomenon—and for another part of the people, it caused them to abandon Zionist commitment. And I think that is an expression of the same crises I spoke about when I described messianic movements: that part of the concern of those who fought against messianic movements was that if it did not materialize in the end, there would be a crisis.

Now this is another characteristic that I think helps me tie detachment from reality under the heading of a messianic movement. Because this detachment from reality, also in terms of its consequences, brings about the same consequences. Because detachment from reality basically means that at some point your excuses will run out. These excuses are like the excuses of the communists, you understand? I once had some favorite books at home that I found from the Workers’ Press from the 1950s, in the “Red Line” series and all those things by the last communists in the world and here in Israel. And there, for example, one had Lenin and the New Physics. Someone named Omelnitsky—I still remember to this day, something like that, Omelnitsky. I still have that book. A marvelous book. I enjoy it so much. It’s really brilliant satire, that book. They explain how, in fact, there are parts of the new physics that are heresy, and therefore clearly incorrect. Other parts of the physics Lenin had already foreseen long before the experiments were ever done. In other words, everything fits dialectical materialism and all communist ideas. Of course! Casuistry—you won’t believe what goes on there. They explain how everything fits the ideas. It is exactly the same level, one-to-one the same level. One-to-one the same level. You come with some conceptual framework, with a set of principles. Reality kicks you in the face, and you explain that it’s raining. They’re jumping on your head from a diving board, and you explain that it’s raining. You explain: no, it all fits, this is really the move, and Lenin already foresaw it. It’s the same thing. You refuse to detach from the metaphysical platform standing behind events, and no blow will help. And even if the blow does help, you merely adopt the opposite metaphysics the moment you become anti-Zionist, yes? Because you’re not taking into account the possibility that there is no metaphysics here. Exactly.

Now if that metaphysics doesn’t work, then apparently there’s another metaphysics. It cannot be that there’s something here that doesn’t operate on a metaphysical basis, but rather people are running things, there are arguments, they have their views, and they say them. By the way, part of this is the same messianism of the peace camp and the like, who don’t listen to what the Palestinians are saying; they only know what lies behind what they are saying. Very often this is… now, I don’t care, I’m not expressing a political opinion for or against, that’s not important. I’m only saying this detachment from reality is completely messianic. When Bogie said about Kerry that he’s messianic, he said it was a factual description—that’s exactly right. You choose not to listen to what people are telling you to your face because it is obvious to you what lies behind what they’re saying. Behind what they’re saying, they desperately want peace; they’re just using rhetoric because they need to satisfy this segment, and really their jihad is an intellectual jihad, not a jihad with rifles—and all kinds of interpretations that are exactly the same interpretations as with Lenin.

And therefore we see this is a characteristic—and on exactly the same level—and it is a characteristic of messianic movements in the sense that when you cling to a metaphysical paradigm behind reality rather than to what you actually see in reality, you refuse to relate to reality. In other words, everything will fit if you’re sufficiently creative. And if you’re very honest, at some point you realize that the creativity now has to break the paradigm—yes, in Thomas Kuhn’s terms—so you break the paradigm and adopt the opposite metaphysics. But you are still within that paradigm that there must be metaphysics behind things. On that you are not willing to give up in any way. Because that is what it means to take off the kippah, which here is indeed relevant. In other words, it basically says: so that’s it, if there is no metaphysics behind events, then I’m not religious. In other words, it is built into my religious outlook that things do not happen except out of deep metaphysical currents and not because of realpolitik. And in that sense, yes, there is a deviation from realpolitik here—not in the sense that you do delusional acts, but in the sense that your considerations are not only realistic considerations; other things are mixed in here too, yes.

The reality here—that what happened with the Jewish people in the Land of Israel is a reality whose probability of such a sequence of events occurring, or some other sequence that would have led to a similar result, is in my view very low, for purposes of discussion, okay? Yes? Somehow very low, in a very extreme way. Meaning, if you take a sequence of say five events, where the probability of each one is ten to the minus ten. So what? So the assumption is that they are independent events. Never mind. I’m not inclined to agree, but let’s say yes for the sake of argument. So what? Both sides—both Religious Zionism and its opponent, Satmar—can say: okay, things happened here that we find hard to look at rationally. With that I can agree. But they do one more thing: they draw conclusions from it, and with that I don’t agree.

When you give an interpretation of history—I said, the rabbi of Brisk would not argue with Rabbi Herzog over whether the Third Temple would or would not be destroyed. Maybe it won’t be destroyed. The question is what I do now. The question is whether I make decisions… So I’m saying, if you offer me an interpretation because it’s very unlikely—I said, I’m not sure that’s true, but let’s say for the sake of argument; I don’t care because that’s not the point—and you come up with an interpretation: here was the hand of God, this is redemption, or the opposite, the Other Side, and this is destruction. Fine, all true. But now the question is what you do. It still does not follow that you should continue making decisions because of the metaphysical analysis, because just as Ben-Gurion, when he established the state and brought redemption according to these people or destruction according to those people, did not do it because he took metaphysical considerations into account. He acted as he thought one should act. So I’m saying one can continue like that as well. Therefore, even if I accept your metaphysical analysis, that’s not the point. The fact that you make a metaphysical analysis—that is not what makes it a messianic movement. A messianic movement is when you take this metaphysical analysis and use it in your decision-making. And that doesn’t follow from the analysis. Yes.

I don’t quite understand: if the analysis is right, why not use it in decision-making? I say no. I said—you can say that’s legitimate. I only think it’s not right to do it. I’m only saying that this is a characteristic of messianic movements. Messianic movements make a metaphysical analysis and derive conclusions from it, and I’m saying that from metaphysical analyses it is not right to derive practical conclusions. Why? What is the principle behind that? Because who knows what the metaphysical course is? I don’t know. Maybe that sounds plausible to you and maybe not. We need to act according to realistic considerations, not according to metaphysical ones. Maybe metaphysics is now going in one direction and has some point in it, and then it’ll make a turn. I don’t understand metaphysics. You understand? The laws of physics I more or less know; the laws of metaphysics I don’t know, and certainly not its chronology. So I’m saying—even if we say it were true—I can formulate it in an even more extreme way: even if you’re right and it will continue this way, who says that permits cooperating with secular people? So what if it’s the beginning of redemption? Even that can be said, you understand? But I’m saying first of all, who says this will bring redemption? That’s one challenge. Who says metaphysics is operating according to some—I don’t know—the first law of Newton applies in metaphysics and not only in physics, that once something starts it continues as long as no force acts on it? Who says it’ll continue? I don’t know.

What do you think, for example, of “The Generation”? That’s Rabbi Kook, that’s not… Rabbi Kook started this process of detachment from reality. Fine? Meaning when you say, for example, that Rabbi Motti also goes against Rabbi Kook—yes, Rabbi Kook started this process of detachment from reality. Detachment from reality, again, not in the sense of autism. Detachment from reality meaning bringing in considerations that somehow ignore, or at least don’t sufficiently take into account, what you see before your eyes, in favor of what lies behind what you see before your eyes—some metaphysical motives, motives of spiritual depth standing within people that they themselves are not at all aware of.

Part of this we discussed when we spoke a little—I don’t remember on what topic it was—about the question whether there is value in a person’s act when it is done from a motive of which he is unaware. In other words, let’s say the pioneers really did act from the deep Jewish point within them—that’s Rabbi Kook’s claim. I have no idea if that’s true. I don’t know how one checks that. Therefore I’m also not inclined to think it’s true. But fine, he may be right. The question is whether this now has value—how do you judge that person? Did that person perform a commandment, the commandment to settle the Land of Israel? I claim not, even if Rabbi Kook is right. Again, my dispute is not about how you assess reality, but what you do with that assessment of reality. He had awareness, he had awareness. Yes, exactly. You judge your decisions according to the considerations you made, not according to little homunculi inside that lead you and cause you to do all sorts of things. So judge the homunculus, not you.

Is this an extension of the principle of “it is not in heaven” only to the extra-halakhic plane? You could say that, yes. And regarding… and perhaps relying on metaphysics means you deny free choice on the collective level or even on the individual level, because if you say there is a metaphysical factor, that means people can’t act against it. No, not necessarily. The claim is: “He who acted with God, let him come and take his reward.” In other words, you can say that since the metaphysical analysis is that now the messiah is about to come, we must help him, because without that he won’t come. Meaning, if we don’t help him maybe he won’t come, but the Holy One, blessed be He, is knocking at the door—“Open for me, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one”—Rabbi Soloveitchik’s essay, yes.

I mean, regarding the approach to Zionists as… they act out of some positive metaphysical point. So maybe there really is a metaphysical point, but they simply choose not to cooperate with it or choose to act against it or something like that. In other words, you can’t know if… meaning, no, they’re not aware of it at all. Rabbi Kook claims they’re not aware of it at all. It’s not a question of whether they go with it or against it. Yes, but you say it guides them in their actions unconsciously. You’ve taken over their minds, yes. So I’m saying that in some sense denies their free choice. Yes, true. On the global plane, I think that is something behind Rabbi Kook’s view. Obviously they had free choice in the day-to-day and in what they consciously did—there they had free choice like anyone else. But in the global process there was something here that the Holy One, blessed be He, was driving, and the result was precisely directed. People are really just pawns, or oil in the wheels of the revolution. The communist image is a very interesting image in many aspects. People are basically driven by a great process. For communism there was no entity behind the great process—maybe the world proletariat—but there was no real entity. And for the religious, it’s the Holy One, blessed be He. But still they see people as cogs in a machine, not as people who really act. To my mind this is indeed a very non-humanistic conception. And humanism not in the sense of secular humanism—I’m in favor of religious humanism. I think both these conceptions are non-humanistic. Because people who do something do it because that’s what they think, and then judge them for better or worse, each case on its own. But people are responsible for what they do because what they do stems from their judgment, not because the Holy One, blessed be He, hardened their heart or stirred their heart, as people say about Pharaoh.

Fine, but maybe with Rabbi Kook the prominent point isn’t metaphysics but simply the fact that the pioneers were idealists and acted from an ideology of raising the Jewish people from the ash heap, of building the state—that itself gives them positive merit. Now those who today—those secular people today—project from “The Generation” onto the secular people of today who act, let’s call it, not out of Zionist ideology. Yes, that’s “The Generation for Our Generation,” that’s already phase two of “The Generation,” you know. It’s a new trend, “The Generation for Our Generation,” so there are already all sorts of essays on this. No, so I’m translating it to the postmodern, nihilistic, egotistic generation—still there is something tremendously great here. And this is Rabbi Shagar with postmodernity, who sees in it some great message. That’s the translation of “The Generation” to this generation. So I’m saying that Rabbi Kook one can still understand. Those who do… No, I’m saying: I see value in it, but not religious value—national value, obviously. I think pioneers who drained swamps here and gave their lives for establishing… I am grateful to them. I did not claim there is no value to their acts. Of course there is value to their acts. I only claim that it is not the act of a commandment. In other words, you do it because of the national value in it, and I owe you gratitude—you established a state for me, you gave your life for it, of course we owe them gratitude. But you can’t see this as religious value of fulfilling the commandment of settling the Land of Israel. They were not aware of that, that was not their motivation. And Rabbi Kook saw them as fulfilling the commandment of settling the Land of Israel, not as people building us a state for which we owe them thanks, the way one would for the founding of Belgium, or whatever, for the Belgians, or whoever.

So if you turn this, say, into halakhic definitions, isn’t this what’s called an unintentional act—someone who… because there was intention here, an intention to build the state. Not for the commandment. The intention was for something else. Like someone who intends to wear fringes but doesn’t believe in the Holy One, blessed be He—did he fulfill the commandment of fringes? No. He fully intends to wear fringes; it’s not that he didn’t intend. Yes, Chabad tefillin—we talked about that. But that’s already another dispute that doesn’t specifically relate to Rabbi Kook. Meaning this is a common view in the rabbinic world, it seems to me. Right, and I don’t mean to get into that thicket here. And this whole thing is just… true. I think it is certainly much more widespread than merely Rabbi Kook’s opinion. I think it was very widespread also in the Zionist context. Many people who were by no means more marginal than Rabbi Kook ultimately resorted to metaphysical analyses like these, either for or against. I’m not claiming it’s only Rabbi Kook. On the contrary, it was the majority of approaches in that period.

But that’s not specifically related to messianism. Right, right. I’m saying: the resort to some metaphysical considerations—in the context of bringing the messiah that is called messianism. In other contexts it is the same phenomenon but in other contexts. And when I oppose it, I oppose it not because it’s a messianic movement. A certain kind of this phenomenon is a messianic movement. I oppose it because I do not think metaphysics should take part in judging a situation or in evaluating decision-making about a situation, where messianism is a special case of that outlook. Yes, absolutely, I agree.

So additional aspects—you spoke about this too—I wanted one more thing. Again, the sages said several times that in the fact that one acts for the sake of bringing the messiah—or sorry, not acts for the sake of bringing the messiah, but makes decisions according to metaphysical considerations in a way that departs somewhat from reality—there is a deviation from the standard way Jews conducted themselves over the generations. I’m not sure I can find examples to know how much this influenced decisions, but at first glance it seems that at least in many places, considerations—at least in the way they explained reality—there were at least touches, for example, of action tied to metaphysical considerations. For example, there are descriptions—well, maybe the rabbi won’t like this—of Hasidic tales, say, about Napoleon. Fine, but Hasidim don’t count. But what, anecdotal tales? Let’s talk about who made decisions. Who made decisions and how he made them. I’m not talking about the man in the street telling anecdotes. I’m talking about people who made decisions from other considerations. There was, by the way—Rabbi Menachem Zemba.

The very immigration of the students of the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov to the Land of Israel—the commandment to settle the Land of Israel—is that not an action they would not have done without the desire to bring the messiah, or not right to do without the desire to bring the messiah? If the messiah is the motivation, fine—but the action in itself is fulfillment of the commandment to settle the Land of Israel. For me, Jewish law and politics are the same in this context; that’s reality. Of course one has to fulfill Jewish law, that’s obvious. I’m asking beyond Jewish law, whether ideas, whether the… yes, that famous Nachmanides, I think I mentioned him—the famous Nachmanides on Joseph, why he didn’t tell his father that he was alive. So in one of his answers Nachmanides says: because he wanted to promote the fulfillment of the dreams he had dreamed, that his father and mother and eleven children would come bow down to him. And on that people criticize Nachmanides: what is your job in bringing dreams to fulfillment? You need to tell your father that you’re alive, because your father is sitting there weeping. What are you fulfilling dreams for? Your father is sitting there crying. That’s exactly the rabbi of Brisk: they’re shooting here. What do you mean “fulfilling dreams”? Your father is crying—tell him you’re alive. Leave the dreams; the Holy One, blessed be He, will take care of them. In a certain sense this is very similar. The criticism is very similar. Because it says you need to make your calculations according to what you see before your eyes. I don’t know about metaphysics. It may be that the metaphysics is true. If the Holy One, blessed be He, sent that dream, then apparently it will also be fulfilled. If Joseph was a prophet, then he probably knew it would also be fulfilled. That still doesn’t mean that he is the one who should act according to that dream. You have to act according to the considerations relevant for you, which are Jewish law and realistic considerations—namely, how we realize this in life. That’s all. It’s not your job to advance the divine tendencies. That is basically the root of my argument here.

Another point I did think to mention: it seems to me that at least some of the considerations in Hasidic stories—not in the sense that they tell miracle stories, but that some of them at least, for example about Napoleon, there are all kinds of descriptions. I think they at least to some extent reflect reality: when Napoleon tried to conquer Russia, there was a major dispute among the rebbes whether this would bring… The rabbi of Liadi was imprisoned over this, I think, wasn’t he? And the rabbi of Liadi sent Hasidim to spy. No, at least they accused him of that—not specifically. No, he died, he died; he wasn’t imprisoned over that, he was imprisoned earlier. They accused him, though, of treason, of spying in favor of… No, that was earlier, when he sent money to the Land of Israel because the Land of Israel was under Turkish rule and Turkey was at war with Russia. Was that during some war? No, that was about the war with Turkey. Okay. He died in the middle of a war. Yes. Fine.

Anyway, for our purposes, I started earlier to talk about—not Rabbi Menachem Zemba but the Dvar Avraham. The Dvar Avraham from Kovno was the rabbi of Kovno already in the Holocaust period, and in the end he died in the ghetto; they didn’t murder him, but he died in the ghetto. There are truly amazing things there. He was apparently an extraordinary personality, the way he led the ghetto there. There are really amazing things. But the halakhic responsa he gave there, and the leadership he established there—truly remarkable things. In his responsa you can find many metaphysical considerations in the responsa from that period. I mean Dvar Avraham—you won’t find it there ordinarily, but in his halakhic responsa from the Holocaust period you often will. And there he is aware of it openly, on the table—he says so.

For example, he forbade yeshiva boys to eat legumes on Passover, I think—or they had nothing to eat. He said: in any case we’re all going to die here, so therefore we need to do something here that goes beyond this issue; perhaps by that merit the Holy One, blessed be He, will save us. And on that basis he ruled for them. And there, indeed, in such an extreme situation, he says: look, from the standpoint of realpolitik, whether you eat legumes or not, in any case we’re going to die here. That’s not the point. So there are extreme situations where I can indeed bring examples of spiritual, Torah leaders who do take metaphysical considerations into account—but that’s only in cases where the realistic considerations are no longer in our hands at all. So maybe there one can, exactly. So maybe there one can bring examples. But here, in these cases, I think it is still exceptional.

Now one additional aspect—and I’ve talked about this more than once—is the attitude toward the symbols and institutions of the state. The attitude toward the symbols and institutions of the state sometimes implies that people see them as if they were an object of holiness. Yes, the military uniform as the garments of the High Priest, from Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, or the ecstatic dancing when the chief of staff arrives on Jerusalem Day at Merkaz, or all kinds of state symbols and things like that. Or Rabbi Tau’s absurd outbursts, like when Katsav was accused of rape and he sent him a letter of support. That was utterly absurd. Clearly the man had completely lost his sound judgment in that context. Yes, in that context, clearly. Not “lost his mind,” I mean he lost his judgment. Because what—can’t it be that the president of the state is a rapist? Obviously he is being persecuted by all sorts of haters of Israel who are attacking the foundation of God’s throne in the world; otherwise it couldn’t be. And in any case obviously he also isn’t a rapist, and therefore obviously one has to send him a letter of support. Now that’s absurd. It’s absurd. Again, I don’t know what was there, and perhaps maybe he believed they were framing him, and so on. But so certain are you that you send a letter of support when there were already several judicial tribunals that had sat over the matter and concluded that yes? Fine, I don’t have full faith in the legal system either. It can make mistakes; sometimes it also has all sorts of trends and agendas. I accept that. But this is absurd.

And again this is an expression of that detachment. He didn’t write a letter of support to Katsav at all. It’s a mistake to read it that way. He wrote a letter of support to the president of the State, who in this case happened to be Katsav. He didn’t see Katsav before his eyes at all. The institution to which he wrote this letter was not a person with two hands and two feet and a few more organs. He wrote that letter to the institution, not to the person—to the demon, to the idea, not to the person. He doesn’t see human beings at all. Now you can see this a lot with Rabbi Tau. Meaning, everything the Ministry of Education does—maybe we’ll get to this later—everything the Ministry of Education does is really the New Israel Fund and all sorts of conspiring elements. Again, the New Israel Fund does various things, but there is something there that’s already a bit absurd. You see demons behind everything that happens. You simply don’t see what is really happening. You blind yourself to reality because it is obvious to you that all this merely reflects various metaphysics behind it. And that is of course a very extreme expression that isn’t typical, but it is an extreme expression of an approach that is typical. An approach that says I analyze things that happen in light of the demons behind them and not in light of what they are. Okay?

And therefore I gave an example of this when I spoke about Religious Zionism without a hyphen in that article. There too I spoke about the fact that it is more important to people that El Al not fly on the Sabbath than that people not desecrate the Sabbath. Because El Al is a state symbol, and a state symbol cannot desecrate the Sabbath. Now you can translate this into desecration of God’s name—after all the state reflects something Jewish. You can translate it that way. I’m not saying there isn’t an element of that. But clearly there is something beyond that. There is something saying: the State of Israel is the indwelling Divine Presence. It cannot be that it desecrates the Sabbath. That all the people desecrate the Sabbath doesn’t matter, but the institution must be pure, refined, and pure.

There’s an example perhaps with which I’ll finish. Once I wrote an article—maybe it was that article about Religious Zionism without a hyphen—and in that article I quoted Leibowitz. I wrote “Professor,” and anyway it came out there as “Professor L.” Yes. “Professor L.” So I asked the editor: tell me, what is the meaning of this? I wrote Leibowitz. What’s this “L.”? And he answered: we have a tradition from Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda not to say his name. Meaning, he is wicked. I told him: listen, I also wrote Ben-Gurion there, and you didn’t change it to B.G. Was Ben-Gurion more righteous than Leibowitz? Certainly, Ben-Gurion was certainly more righteous. Now Leibowitz, after all, was a Jew who observed the commandments. You can agree with his outlook, disagree with it—he was a commandment-observing Jew. Ben-Gurion was, let’s say, a Jew with a charged attitude toward religious views. With all his merits, and I don’t deny his merits—but what a warped scale of values this is.

And they insisted—that’s how it ended up. Ben-Gurion remained with his full name, and Professor… I only wrote at the bottom that I demand they put a clarifying note down there that this was the editorial decision; I wrote Leibowitz. It was the editorial decision to change it to Professor L. All right? So that—I don’t remember whether in that note they wrote Leibowitz’s name in full, I don’t remember anymore. But again, what does this mean? It means that from their standpoint, someone who denies their Zionist conception of the state is a greater heretic than someone who denies the Holy One, blessed be He.

I should add that he not only denied the Zionist conception, but the expressions he used, calling soldiers “Judeo-Nazis,” that’s… So what? So what? Is that greater heresy than Ben-Gurion’s? It’s a worldview you disagree with, very well. But what kind of greater religious heresy is that? What does that have to do with anything? What is the religious aspect here? What is the religious aspect here? Public desecration of the Sabbath, eating carcasses and non-kosher animals—what is there even to compare? It’s a warped world of values stemming from the fact that you are not relating to the person at all. You’re relating to what he represents. You’re relating to the demons behind him, and completely ignoring reality itself. That is an expression of this whole issue.

That’s it, we’ll stop here. We’ll continue.