Messianism, Lecture 8

Table of Contents

• Secular Zionism: historical nationalism, not eschatology
• Religious Zionism as a “trailing wagon” and the historical debate over the beginnings of Zionism
• Bible code letter skips: a critique of ad hoc reasoning and a more complex picture
• Criteria for a messianic movement and an assessment of Religious Zionism
• Cooperation with secularism, deviation from Jewish law, and the legal system
• The messianic consideration as a decision criterion: the story of the rabbi of Brisk and Rabbi Herzog
• Extreme anti-Zionism and Satmar: metaphysics, “VaYoel Moshe,” and Haredi pragmatism
• A shared platform for both extremes: metaphysical interpretation instead of attentiveness to reality
• Examples of fracture and paradigm: Rabbi Tal, Rabbi Kellner, and Har Hamor
• “Messianist” also in peace discourse and the debate over historical probability
• Responsibility, choice, and a critique of the homunculus: evaluating actions and the status of a commandment
• Extreme exceptions: halakhic ruling during the Holocaust and considerations like “in any case we’ll all die”
• The sanctity of state symbols, institutions, and the concept of an “object of holiness”
• A distortion of value priorities: El Al on the Sabbath, and Leibowitz as “Professor L.”

Summary

General Overview

The text presents the position that secular Zionism is primarily a historical national liberation movement and not a messianic movement, whereas Religious Zionism pours messianic content into that process and brings metaphysical considerations into practical decision-making. The author acknowledges that there were points of deviation from Jewish law in the framework of establishing a state and a legal system, but argues that at times there was no realistic alternative, and therefore this is not necessarily comparable to a messianism that breaks the boundaries of Jewish law in order to “bring” redemption. He identifies a central messianic feature in the fact that the consideration of “what will bring the messiah” becomes a criterion in decision-making, and argues that this also characterizes extreme anti-Zionism such as Satmar, which interprets reality through the lens of the demonic “other side,” demons, and conspiracies. The text points to a phenomenon of detachment from practical reality through metaphysical deep-structure interpretations, to ruptures such as the disengagement, and to the sanctification of state symbols to the point of distorting value priorities, and concludes with examples of this from public discourse and from attitudes toward figures and institutions.

Secular Zionism: Historical Nationalism, Not Eschatology

Secular Zionism is difficult to describe as a messianic movement, even if it sometimes used messianic jargon in order to mobilize a religious public. Secular Zionism is perceived as part of the “Springtime of Nations” and as a national liberation movement that seeks to return the Jewish people to history, not as an eschatological move beyond history. The legends surrounding Herzl are presented as a cultural component that does not turn secular Zionism into a truly messianic movement, and Herzl’s main motivations are attributed more to Beilis, Dreyfus, and similar events than to earlier religious immigrations.

Religious Zionism as a “Trailing Wagon” and the Historical Debate Over the Beginnings of Zionism

Religious Zionism is described as coming mainly as a retrospective interpretation of a process carried out by secular activists, similar to “philosophers of science” who explain things after the fact. The text casts doubt on the claim that the teachings of the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov, or Aryeh Morgenstern, are a necessary foundation for modern Zionism, and raises a quantitative and historical question about the influence of small groups in Jerusalem. It argues that Religious Zionism poured religious-messianic content into a movement of national awakening, even if it did not initiate the process in the first place.

Bible Code Letter Skips: A Critique of Ad Hoc Reasoning and a More Complex Picture

The text uses criticism of “Bible code letter skips” as a metaphor for retrospective explanations, like finding “Sadat’s murderer” after the murder instead of giving a warning in advance. It argues that there is a measure of ad hoc reasoning in elastic criteria, spelling choices, and text selection, but also states that the popular criticism presents the matter as too ridiculous and that the picture is more complex. It notes that important mathematicians examined the issue, though he himself is not persuaded that there is anything substantial there.

Criteria for a Messianic Movement and an Assessment of Religious Zionism

The text returns to an earlier mapping of “levels” for describing a messianic movement, and distinguishes between belief in the coming of the messiah and intentional action aimed at bringing him. It argues that when people join a political-national process with a messianic purpose rather than a historical-national one, a messianic element already appears. It expresses hesitation regarding the levels having to do with modes of conduct, such as attitudes toward Jewish law, accepted tradition, and realpolitik, and argues that Religious Zionism was not “more delusional” than the general Zionist movement; it even mentions Mizrachi’s support for the Uganda Plan as a “downplayed chapter.”

Cooperation with Secularism, Deviation from Jewish Law, and the Legal System

The text presents cooperation with a movement that held secular and at times militant values as a deviation from what had been accepted, even if it is hard to define it as a clear halakhic prohibition. It describes the establishment of a legal system “alienated from Jewish law” as a severe halakhic problem, and cites the sharp language of Maimonides and the Talmud regarding non-Jewish courts. It presents the position that the prohibition exists, but that the practical conclusion is that “you have to say it’s forbidden, but you still have to do it,” because a society cannot function without a legal system, and the possibility of appointing judges according to the Shulchan Arukh is seen as unrealistic when most of society does not recognize the authority of Jewish law. It clarifies that these halakhic compromises do not stem from a messianic aspiration but from social-existential necessity, and therefore the resemblance to transgressive-for-redemption movements such as Shabbetai Tzvi is “purely external.”

The Messianic Consideration as a Decision Criterion: the Story of the Rabbi of Brisk and Rabbi Herzog

The text identifies a fundamental messianic dimension in the fact that the messianic consideration takes part in decision-making, not merely as a preference between reasonable options but as the basis for actions that would not have been taken were it not for the belief that this “will bring the messiah.” It brings a common story about Rabbi Herzog saying to the rabbi of Brisk, “We have a tradition that the Third Temple will not be destroyed,” as opposed to the rabbi of Brisk’s response, “When they’re shooting, you have to run,” and presents this as a formative story expressing a decision based on realistic considerations rather than on metaphysical promises. It emphasizes that this is not necessarily a dispute over the truth of the promise, but over whether practical decisions should be made on the basis of a metaphysical analysis of stages of redemption such as “the footsteps of redemption” and “the beginning of the messianic era.”

Extreme Anti-Zionism and Satmar: Metaphysics, “VaYoel Moshe,” and Haredi Pragmatism

The text argues that extreme anti-Zionism too, and especially Satmar, “suffers from the same flaw” of mixing metaphysical considerations into one’s relation to reality, and presents VaYoel Moshe as a text that sees behind events “the demonic ‘other side,’ demons, and conspiracies.” It distinguishes between Satmar, which starts from metaphysics—the Three Oaths—and uses practical considerations as a tool of combat, and mainstream Haredi society, which starts from practical considerations and recruits metaphysics after the fact. It gives an example of Haredi pragmatism through the shift in attitude regarding whether Litzman could serve as a minister, and argues that rhetoric like “Torah protects and saves” is “lip service,” while the practical reason for avoiding military service is fear of corruption. He tells of an objection he raised to an a fortiori argument in VaYoel Moshe against speaking Hebrew, and of the answer he received, that “Rabbi Yoelish had it all figured out, all arranged,” and presents this as a tendentious approach.

A Shared Platform for Both Extremes: Metaphysical Interpretation Instead of Attentiveness to Reality

The text argues that the debate between Religious Zionism and extreme anti-Zionism rests on a broad shared platform of metaphysical interpretation that replaces paying attention to people’s motives and to what they actually say. It attributes to Rabbi Kook a view according to which an “inner point” in the pioneers drives them even though they themselves are not aware of it, and presents a continuation of this approach in circles that interpret the actions of the state as manifestations of the hand of God regardless of what the state “really wants to do.” It argues that the rupture following the disengagement stems from the fact that “the excuses ran out” for explaining the event within a paradigm of advancing redemption, and presents a double result: for some, abandonment of religious commitment, and for others, abandonment of Zionist commitment.

Examples of Fracture and Paradigm: Rabbi Tal, Rabbi Kellner, and Har Hamor

The text attributes Rabbi Tal’s move in a Haredi direction after the disengagement to a sense that the redemptive interpretation of the state’s actions had failed. It mentions a statement by Rabbi Kellner that if the State of Israel were to be destroyed, “he would take off his kippah,” and interprets this as deep dependence on a paradigm of metaphysical undercurrents behind history. It compares this interpretive mechanism to the communist insistence on explaining every reality in a way that fits the dialectic, including an example from the book Lenin and the New Physics by Omelyanitsky, which describes how whatever does not fit is “heresy,” while whatever does fit is something Lenin “foresaw in advance,” and it presents a direct similarity to Har Hamor.

“Messianist” Also in Peace Discourse and the Debate Over Historical Probability

The text identifies a “messianic detachment” also among “the peace camp,” who ignore what the Palestinians say and assume they know what lies behind the rhetoric, and presents this as an example of a general pattern of deep interpretation replacing attentiveness. It addresses the claim that the chain of events that led to the State of Israel had a “very low” probability, and agrees to discuss this for the sake of argument, but rejects the conclusion that practical decisions should therefore be drawn on the basis of such metaphysical analysis. It sharpens the point that the problem is not metaphysical interpretation in itself, but the use of it as a basis for policy and for public halakhic decisions.

Responsibility, Choice, and a Critique of the Homunculus: Evaluating Actions and the Status of a Commandment

The text argues that a person is judged on his decisions according to his conscious considerations, not according to internal “homunculi” or deep forces that drive him unconsciously, and presents this as connected to questions of free choice and the principle that “it is not in heaven.” It criticizes a conception that sees people as cogs in the machine of some great historical process, and compares this to communism, which speaks of a historical process without a divine being behind it. It says that the actions of the pioneers had national value and deserve gratitude for the establishment of a state, but rejects defining those actions as fulfillment of “the commandment of settling the Land of Israel” when there was no intent to fulfill a commandment, comparing it to someone who wears tzitzit without belief in God.

Extreme Exceptions: Halakhic Ruling During the Holocaust and Considerations Like “In Any Case We’ll All Die”

The text mentions an example from From the Depths by a rabbi in the Kovno Ghetto, who brings metaphysical considerations into halakhic ruling—for example, forbidding legumes on Passover despite starvation, out of the view that “in any case we’re all going to die” and perhaps by virtue of such extra stringency deliverance will come. It presents this as an extreme case in which realistic considerations are no longer “in our hands,” and so considerations of this kind appear, but emphasizes that in ordinary situations this is exceptional.

The Sanctity of State Symbols, Institutions, and the Concept of an “Object of Holiness”

The text describes an attitude toward state symbols and institutions as though they were “objects of holiness,” including descriptions such as IDF uniforms as “the garments of the High Priest” and ecstatic dancing around the chief of staff on Jerusalem Day. It gives as an example the affair of Rabbi Tau’s letter of support for President Katzav, and interprets this as being addressed to the institution and not the person, out of the assumption that the institution—the “throne of God”—cannot be tainted, and presents this as detachment from factual reality. It argues that in this approach, everything the Ministry of Education does is explained through “the New Israel Fund” and scheming forces, and the demons are more important than the data and the overt motives.

A Distortion of Value Priorities: El Al on the Sabbath, and Leibowitz as “Professor L.”

The text argues that there are situations in which it is more important that El Al not fly on the Sabbath than that private individuals not desecrate the Sabbath, because El Al is perceived as a symbol of the state, and a symbol “cannot desecrate the Sabbath.” It brings an editorial story in which Leibowitz’s name was replaced with “Professor L.” on the grounds that “we have a tradition from Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda not to say his name,” while “Ben-Gurion” remained written explicitly, and presents this as evidence of a scale of values in which heresy against the Religious Zionist outlook is perceived as more severe than Sabbath desecration or heresy in faith. It concludes that this pattern stems from relating to what a person “represents” and to the demons behind him, instead of relating to the person and his actions as they are in reality.

We’re basically getting to the end of this whole discussion of messianism, and at the end of last time I started talking a bit about the applications to Zionism, the situation we’re in, the period we’re living through. I spoke a little about characteristics of the Zionist movement in general, about the legends attached to Herzl’s name, about various features that may 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. They sometimes used messianic jargon because they needed to rally the crowd, the public, a large part of which was religious, but in practice this was part of the Springtime of Nations. In other words, it was basically a national liberation movement, liberation or resurgence, I don’t know what exactly to call it, national in character, that wanted to return the Jewish people to history—a goal entirely within history, not something eschatological, not something beyond history.

That of course brings me to the discussion of Religious Zionism. Meaning, Religious Zionism is really some kind of trailing wagon, I’d say. In my opinion it didn’t really have any significant influence—at least as far as I know, again I’m not an expert—on the Zionist process. It seems to me a bit like philosophers of science. You know, philosophers of science are always chasing after scientists. Scientists produce things, do research, discover things, and then the philosophers of science come and explain. They explain what they should have done, or rather what they actually did—not what they should have done; there’s never criticism, it’s not criticism, it’s always only explanation. Meaning, it always comes afterward, in short. It’s like the interpretation of science. Yes, exactly.

It’s like that criticism of the Bible codes. They always say that you always find Sadat’s murderer after Sadat has been murdered. In other words, nobody warned Sadat in advance on the basis of the 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 argument is weaker, we have to admit; it’s not so simple, because you don’t know whom you found, you don’t realize that 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 is a degree of ad hoc reasoning here, but it’s not completely ridiculous the way people present it. The picture is more complicated.

It would have been interesting to see if only that murder were encoded there, and not murders that never occurred. Then you could say, okay, we found one murder, let’s look for all the expected murders of all people. If it were mathematical, then you’d be right. But even they don’t claim it’s mathematics, meaning an equation with one solution. Rather, they do claim that you can see, say, a set of events from among which something will happen, and the probability is still a very low probability. The criterion there is a very elastic criterion. Meaning, this is over seventy percent of the text, that is eighty percent of the text, each time these are the kinds of criteria they build somewhat ad hoc. How many alephs do you write in “Sadat,” how many alephs do you write in “Sadat” in parts of the codes they add, and so on—lots of things. So in a certain sense I’m saying that this claim is not—I mean, it’s not quite as ridiculous as people make it out to be, even though there is still a lot of ad hoc reasoning here. I don’t know, I haven’t checked it in depth, I’m not on that level; very important mathematicians checked it seriously. I’m not convinced. I mean, I wasn’t convinced that there’s really something there.

Okay, back to our topic. So what I’m saying is that Religious Zionism poured a kind of religious-messianic content into a movement that was fundamentally a movement of national awakening. Now it’s true that the earliest heralds had already started talking a bit before this was actually realized and became a political movement. But in the end, fine, you can write such things many years in advance. The people who acted were mainly the secular activists, and the politics—or the religious political group—is really some kind of appendage. I don’t know the facts and details well enough, I haven’t examined this deeply, but I assume so.

It doesn’t seem likely to me at all—yes, we all learned in school that the immigration of the disciples of the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov was really the beginning of Zionism, and without Arie Morgenstern, of course there would have been no Zionism at all. Allow me to doubt that. The question is whether in practice the Land of Israel was empty of Jews who came for religious reasons altogether. Was it also empty of Jews even after the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov? How many were here? There was some small group in Jerusalem that in a certain sense did nothing to help the Zionist movement. The question is how much the quantitative side was not such a dominant factor compared to the very… On that I’m doubtful. Again, really this is more a question for historians, I haven’t looked into it deeply. I’m saying from my impression, I’m very doubtful.

Meaning, it was part of the Zionist movement. Herzl, in my opinion, wasn’t awakened by anything from the disciples of the Vilna Gaon. What stirred him were Beilis and Dreyfus and all those things, and in the end he set some movement in motion that I believe he would have tried to set in motion in any case. The First Aliyah already began before Herzl? What? Meaning the beginning… Fine. Still, I don’t think this thing was built on the basis of the immigration of the disciples of the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov. Doesn’t seem likely to me. Again, I’m speaking off the cuff. I also don’t know whether some historian could say more solid things, but at… They gave some lecture series at Academia in Amalia. Okay. He says they went up because of messianic considerations, they made calculations… No, but the question is whether without them the modern Zionist movement would not have arisen… Yes, clearly there was a messianic dimension there. The question is whether without them the modern Zionist movement would not have arisen—the newer one. I don’t know. Also what Arie Morgenstern says, you know, often there’s some dispute; he’s almost an ideologue of Religious Zionism beyond being a historian.

So now I want to focus more on this appendage, on the carriage. Because there are several characteristics there that really do start to come closer to the issue of a messianic movement, or come closer to it. Again, this needs discussion. I said I can’t come here to some clear conclusions. First of all, on the first plane, I’m once again going over the options I suggested for describing a messianic movement. The very fact that people see this process as some kind of process that is supposed to bring redemption—that itself is already the second plane, not the first, because I’m not talking about the first, which is simply that you believe in the coming of the Messiah. The second is that you do something for it. That in itself is already a certain element, and I talked about that a bit last time. That is certainly an element that exists here. And again, even if it’s a trailing wagon, they didn’t really initiate the thing, 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 is, I can’t judge that. I can’t say. I’ll map things out here; let everyone decide for himself what he thinks about this.

The next planes, the planes of the mode of conduct—there there is more room to hesitate. It’s subtle. I spoke about mode of conduct. I said there is a dimension of going against Jewish law, there is a dimension of going against accepted tradition even if it doesn’t violate Jewish law, there is a dimension of not taking realpolitik into account, meaning the accepted political planes. So as I said also last time regarding the general Zionist movement, I don’t think Religious Zionism was more delusional than it was. At least I don’t remember, and it doesn’t seem to me, that there were unrealistic proposals because of the religious dimensions of the matter. All in all they didn’t depart from the accepted policy of the Zionist movement in general. Even a bit the opposite, yes, with Uganda for example. Yes, Mizrachi, as is well known, supported Uganda, the Uganda Plan—a muted chapter in the history of Religious Zionism.

In any case, if we’re speaking of the Mizrachi leadership before the Six-Day War—this already enters the period after the state was established; during the first 19 years it was still a continuation of the same trailing wagon it had always been: give us our place and we won’t bother you, so to speak. No, I think it was a very positive trailing wagon, one that people today really look down on. It was a genuine bridge between secular and religious Jews in that period; that was the goal. Yes, I’m not sure, not sure I agree with that. I don’t think there was a real bridge there. In my opinion, no. Meaning, there was a kind of self-effacement there that precisely didn’t succeed in creating a bridge. In a certain sense, when two movements stand their ground and don’t grovel, a more proper bridge is created. True, it comes with tensions and so on, but you see that there’s a partner here. You can’t dismiss him, you can’t play games with him. That’s how it seems to me, but okay, that’s a matter of evaluation, of course. You can ask—I didn’t see a bridge there. They always said that this bridge was a one-way bridge, you know; that was always the joke. There wasn’t enough power in the National Religious Party. Doesn’t matter. Okay. But part of the reason they had no power was because of this lack of confidence and lack of backbone. Part of that is part of the story, that’s what I think.

Okay, it depends how one evaluates it. So I’m saying that in the sense of delusional activity, I don’t think there were such dimensions. But I said that regarding deviation from Jewish law there is a bit of room for hesitation. Even though, again, it’s hard to classify it quite like that, because yes—look, cooperation with a movement that openly embraces secular values, even to some degree militant ones, at least part of that movement—the Kulturkampf, maybe I mentioned it, I don’t remember anymore—the Kulturkampf in which they really wanted to enter, and in the end they reached some compromise with the religious and did not enter. Herzl moderated the Ben-Gurions and the more militant crowd, but there definitely is here a movement trying to create a renaissance that is not merely purely national as people present it. It’s clear that there was also—at least broad parts of it—an aim to refresh itself from religiosity, not only to raise the nation from the dust. And I don’t think that can be ignored.

True, many times in the discourse you don’t see it, because you have to speak to people, and yes, there’s always a difference between the discourse and the underlying tendencies. But “to be a free people in our land”—yes, free in the sense, yes, not in the sense people mean today; free in the sense of not being under foreign sovereignty. So to cooperate with such a thing—again, I’m not sure you can point to it as a halakhic prohibition, but let’s say it very much departs from what was accepted. It seems to me—I’m not sure to what extent this does not enter that category of deviating from Jewish law. I don’t know.

Not to mention establishing a legal system according to completely foreign standards or criteria, a legal system entirely alienated from Jewish law. And again, there are all kinds of ex post facto solutions, but on the basic level—certainly the very identity of the judges, and I’m not even talking about the legal system itself—which is an outright halakhic prohibition. This is “raising a hand against the Torah of Moses”; Maimonides talks about it, and idolatry, and “one who plants an Asherah tree beside the altar,” and all kinds of things of that sort. These are Talmudic passages, yes, not just Maimonides. So there are already some points of contact here. And again, I once spoke about this issue of the prohibition of gentile courts, the prohibition against litigating in civil court or resorting to civil court, and I said that both sides are locked in combat over whether it is forbidden or permitted—and I think both are mistaken, as in every argument. Why? The one who says it is forbidden is right, but his conclusion—that therefore one should not do it—is not right. And the one who says it is permitted is wrong, but his conclusion—that therefore one should do it—is right. Meaning, I think that in the end one has to say it is forbidden, but one has to do it. That is the correct conclusion, if we want to be honest and not smooth over corners just to reach the conclusion we want to reach. There is no permission in the sources; it’s nonsense, I don’t accept all those arguments. But on the other hand there is no other option. What are we supposed to do without a legal system? Society cannot function without a legal system. It’s simply not relevant. That’s the whole idea of the courts in Syria. There they appoint whoever can provide order.

The claim against this, against the analogy to the courts in Syria, is that here there are people who can judge, so why not appoint them as judges? Because they don’t want them, because society here does not really want halakhic law. That’s true, it’s a correct distinction. But when you get down to it, I still don’t think it’s enough. Because in the end, the value behind the courts in Syria is that a society cannot function without a legal system. True, there there was no option of Torah scholars serving as judges and instead taking other people. Here there is such an option in principle, but it’s a theoretical option. When most of society does not recognize Jewish law, it’s a theoretical option to appoint judges here who will adjudicate people according to the Shulchan Arukh. It’s absurd.

Now true, this is a certain expansion of the rule of the courts in Syria, and in my opinion a necessary expansion. Let’s say no one in the world would oppose this if it were not being imposed on him. Meaning, there are people doing the work for us—they impose it on us and don’t care that we disagree and that it’s a Torah-level prohibition and things like that. Nobody cares what you say. And when nobody cares what you say, 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 go to the courts. Minimal responsibility—what, everyone here should rob each other, kill each other, and there be nobody to judge? Invite him to your rabbi for a Torah trial? What? He’ll look at you like you’re insane. You can’t run a society like that. It’s simply not realistic.

So I’m saying our issue isn’t that. I remembered this because one could say it’s a deviation from Jewish law. But on the other hand, when you’re in this given situation, there is no way not to deviate from Jewish law. So what do you call that—deviation from Jewish law? The deviation from Jewish law here does not stem from messianism, in my view at least. I support this deviation from Jewish law not because the Messiah will come if I do it, but because I want to live here with my people, and it’s impossible to live otherwise; there is no other relevant legal system. That’s all. It has nothing to do with messianic aspirations—not that I make these halakhic compromises by virtue of that or in order to bring the Messiah, or anything like what Shabbetai Tzvi would do, committing transgressions because they are rituals that bring the Messiah. The resemblance is completely superficial. Therefore I think that the deviation from Jewish law—although one can point to certain points—is still far from really seeing here a messianic movement.

Can the prohibition of gentile courts exist until there is a king? The law of the king, basically? What, say again? The law of the king—then there is no prohibition of gentile courts. So I’m saying: according to the Rabbi’s claim, is that the only situation in which one can really engage in such courts? No. If there is an option of halakhic law, forget the king. If it’s halakhic law with exemption of an innocuous ox and half-damages and things like that, that’s not realistic either, no? No, why? Why would they exempt an innocuous ox from half-damages? He would be liable—what’s the problem? No, he’s exempt or pays only half-damages… That’s the law of halakhah, what’s the problem? Pay half-damages. Ordinary oxen are presumed to be guarded, that’s all. If you want, you can enact ordinances. Jewish law enacts ordinances. Ordinances were enacted even without great sovereignty. In every place where there were communities they could and did enact ordinances. That too can be fixed—that’s not the point. The point is: what is your point of departure? Where are you starting from? What is the basic infrastructure? Now, various things need repair, quite a few—I agree—but they can be repaired if one wants, that’s not the point. The point is not that Jewish law doesn’t fit reality—that’s another claim that I agree with, but that can be repaired. Rather, Jewish law is not realistic; nobody will accept it. Even if it adapted itself in one way or another, still nobody would accept the ordinances you make because they don’t recognize you. What—the Chief Rabbinate will enact ordinances? Who will enact ordinances?

But again, I remember you once said on some occasion that there’s no need to fear a halakhic state because a halakhic state cannot exist. Look, no—it can exist, only it would look the same as now. You can copy the law book of the halakhic state as-is from our current law book; it’ll be the same thing. There will be differences at the margins, but not… I came across—not that I’m really expert in it—that the Hatam Sofer says somewhere: “Had the matter come before us, we too would have enacted the same thing.” Meaning, someone came to him with a complaint that this was an ordinance enacted by the local ruler—what, impossible? If it had come to me, I too would have enacted it. The responsa of the Rashba and the responsa of the Rosh—these are things written by the greatest decisors, that’s obvious. On the contrary, they relied on the fact that we are not bound by strict halakhic law, because then anything is possible. You can accept women’s testimony, as the Rashba writes there, accept self-incrimination—“a person may not render himself wicked”—you can do anything. And what do you mean “you can”? Seemingly you should aspire not to do that. No, obviously not. If we had authority, we would enact that by virtue of the authority of the Sanhedrin. If there is no Sanhedrin, excellent—the king does the work for us. The Rashba expresses joy about that. Yes, Ari. I don’t remember. Sorry.

So therefore I say, even the blow to Jewish law is a bit difficult. Where do I nevertheless see a messianic dimension? It seems to me it is found on one fundamental plane that expresses itself in several forms. It starts with the fact that the messianic consideration takes part in decision-making. That itself—you have to note this—is itself a messianic characteristic that I didn’t sharpen because it seems to me it appears here, mainly in the Zionist movement—I mean Religious Zionism. That’s the first, isn’t it? What? That’s really exactly what Rabbi Kook said as the primary consideration, that one does something in order to bring the Messiah. Yes, but no, what I’m saying now is more than that. My claim is: true, you’re doing something, but it’s not exactly the same thing.

You can do something to bring the Messiah if that something is also justified in itself and you have the option to do it or not do it, and in your estimation this will bring the Messiah and that won’t bring the Messiah—then do it. But there are places where you take actions that, were it not for bringing the Messiah, you would not do them, and you do them in order to bring the Messiah. But if you would do them even without bringing the Messiah, then it’s not an action for bringing the Messiah? No. You have two options for action. You can choose to go here or go there. Now, this will bring the Messiah, and both actions are reasonable; both are fine according to the normal considerations, and here, this will bring the Messiah, so let’s do it. I’m of course drawing this in a very moderate way, as though it were totally symmetrical. It’s all a matter of degrees and proportions.

Now here there are situations where the feeling is that you are not reaching the level of delusion, but you are doing things you would not do if you didn’t think the Messiah would come. Such as what I said earlier: there are people for whom the prohibition of gentile courts is indeed a prohibition, unlike what I said before, and they are prepared to waive it because it will bring the Messiah. I’m saying: that is an argument that reaches the same bottom-line conclusion I reach, but from a different place. Because they are basically making the coming of the Messiah… I brought this story about the rabbi of Brisk and Rabbi Herzog, right? I think I mentioned it. A sort of mythological story that is always cited in these contexts. During the War of Independence there were rumors that the rabbi of Brisk was going to flee the city. It was dangerous, they were shooting there and all sorts of things. Rabbi Herzog feared there would be demoralization, so he went to him and tried to persuade him to stay.

So the story says that Rabbi Herzog said to 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, meaning everything. “It won’t be destroyed”—fine, but you could still die and Jerusalem could fall; it doesn’t follow. Fine, but that’s what 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 everyone sees that story as a joke. To me it is a truly foundational story, because it so perfectly reflects the two forms of attitude, even if perhaps one shouldn’t believe that this is really how that exchange should have gone. This practical approach of the rabbi of Brisk—he doesn’t even conduct a discussion with him whether this will bring the Messiah or not, or whether that promise is indeed 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 is something here saying: I do not take metaphysical arguments into account—not because they are untrue, at least that’s how I understand it, not because I’m arguing with you about that promise. At least it isn’t reported there that he argued about that 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 within the realistic considerations—again, one could have been brave and stayed, one can argue with his realistic judgment—but I’m only trying to show his reasoning. His reasoning was that promises don’t interest me. And this is not a dispute over whether there really is such a promise or not.

I don’t think that the rabbi of Brisk, for example—I’m not sure at least—that the rabbi of Brisk thought the Third Temple really could be destroyed. It could be that he too agreed with that conception. The question is, again, at what stage in the process we are. One can say we are in the initial stage, the footsteps of redemption, the beginning of messianic times, I don’t know exactly what, but it is on the way, and the process is irreversible. People can hold that even if they oppose Zionism. But then what? They say fine, if it’s on the way, wonderful—but I do not make my decisions according to the question of what stage of redemption I’m in. Rather, I make my decisions according to the question by which I should make decisions: first, realpolitik, and second, Jewish law and my Torah worldview. And that’s all. And I don’t care whether the Messiah will come in the end from this process or not.

Again, this is not a dispute over whether in fact it will happen in the end. Just as I judged the messianic movements and said that the criterion is not always the result-oriented criterion, meaning that whoever failed was false messianism—here too you see a reflection of that. The reflection is that some will argue and tell you: the Messiah will not come from this because secular people cannot bring the Messiah, as we saw in some passage from Rabbi Shach. I don’t think that’s the point. I said last time too: in my opinion that comes after the opposition, it’s not the reason. 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 afterward—yes, and also the Messiah won’t come, and so on—that’s not the point, that’s not the argument. If the Messiah really would come, would he cooperate with it? No. Because he does not take the Messiah into account as a criterion that determines how he should act. Okay? Or on the plane of power-delusions, which generally was not the case here—maybe with Rabbi Herzog a little bit it was, where ostensibly you should flee danger, but even there, fine, you can also fight. It’s not something delusional.

So it’s not on the plane of delusions, but it is on the plane where you take steps that are not justified according to normal considerations, and you nevertheless do them because you think it will bring the Messiah. That is an essential worldview of Religious Zionism, and in that sense there is indeed a scent of messianism here. Because it seems to me this was not done. In our accepted tradition, such considerations were not used. I’m not talking about the period of the prophets. I’m talking now about the period when we no longer have prophecy and have no access beyond what the Torah or Jewish law tells us and what our common sense tells us. Generally speaking, Jewish leadership, and certainly rabbinic leadership, was very, very realistic and pragmatic. It more or less conducted itself as one ought to conduct oneself, and of course to keep Jewish law. I’m not talking only about political considerations—Jewish law and politics, no metaphysics. Meaning, almost nobody made calculations about what would bring the Messiah and what would not bring the Messiah. Almost nobody made 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 great innovation in the movement, in Zionist thought. Now again, I am not inclined to agree with this innovation, but I’m not saying that this automatically disqualifies that conception. There are people who really put it on the table and say: correct, and I think that’s legitimate. And I can’t really tell him anything. Meaning, I tend to think that it’s not right to act that way, that’s my personal opinion. I see it as a legitimate dispute, meaning 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 a certain disconnection from realpolitik—not in the sense that you do delusional things, but even in the sense that you do things that are not correct in Torah terms or certainly in halakhic terms, things that you too would not do if not for the messianic consideration. Meaning, the messianic consideration becomes part of your package of decisions, even if you’re not delusional. That itself is an unusual characteristic. One should know: you can accept it, you can say it’s legitimate or illegitimate, but that’s not what happened throughout the generations. That is, that was not how things were done.

Maybe it’s a halakhic consideration? After all, “Did you conduct business faithfully? Did you look forward to salvation?”—they’ll ask. I looked forward to salvation—but who said I also had to do things, certainly things that are borderline forbidden or things that I ought not have done if not for that? I said: if there are two equally balanced possibilities, and this will bring the Messiah and that won’t, then yes, all right, do the thing that brings the Messiah. The basic assumption says that when they ask “Did you look forward to salvation?” it doesn’t mean, “I said ‘May our eyes behold.’” What? That’s the argument; you’re taking sides in the argument. Fine, I’m not saying—it’s a possible side. I didn’t say—it’s hard for me here to be judgmental. I’m expressing a position, my personal position, but I’m saying clearly there are others who think differently and they are not disqualified. It’s a completely legitimate position. I don’t agree with it, but yes.

Isn’t there perhaps a sense in which Rabbi Herzog’s request to the Brisker Rav was based not on a messianic consideration, but on a more national one? No, clearly—he wanted there not to be demoralization. Obviously, that’s a realistic consideration. But how did the discussion proceed? He doesn’t say to him: listen, you’re going to cause demoralization. He says: don’t worry, the Third Temple will not be destroyed, we have a tradition. And the rabbi of Brisk says to him: they’re shooting here. Maybe he just used… Fine, I’m speaking only about the discourse; I’m not entering into his psychology. He made a metaphysical argument. He says: look, they’re shooting here, it’s dangerous, true—but the Holy One, blessed be He, promised. God promised, so I don’t know what He’ll do; He’ll do what He does. I need to act as I understand from realpolitik considerations. I’m more inclined to agree—it’s plausible—that Rabbi Herzog, as I said also, didn’t come only because of the promises; he came because he feared demoralization. Therefore I’m speaking only about the discussion that took place between them and not about each one’s motivations. Rabbi Herzog was a realistic Jew, far from a delusional one. But I’m saying that this discourse does indeed reflect a Religious Zionist conception—not in the delusional sense, but in the sense that you take messianism as a consideration in your decision-making. And that is an innovation—you should know that.

Now the same thing, by the way, exists on the other side of the barricade, on the anti-Zionist side. Satmar, or the extreme opposition to Zionism—not ordinary Haredi non-Zionism, but anti-Zionism, the extremist movements—suffers from the same flaw. Read Vayoel Moshe and he explains that everything is the sitra achra and demons and plots. It’s really a postmodern text, that Vayoel Moshe. Behind everything that happens he sees demons and hidden conspiracies, like what you see a bit today in Har HaMor; we’ll get to that in a moment. They too see things in a very similar way, by the way. The resemblance between them—doing a study on it would make a wonderful doctoral dissertation. It’s the same thing.

And in the end in Jerusalem—what? Did the rabbi of Brisk leave Jerusalem? I don’t know. I don’t know. He died in Jerusalem. What happened in ’48, I don’t know. But he died in Jerusalem. I don’t know. No. I’m not even sure the story happened at all. It’s a story people tell. I don’t know exactly how reliable it is; I didn’t check. But people repeat it a lot. In any case, to me it’s a wonderful story regardless of whether it happened or not, because it really reflects in a very fundamental way the difference.

Now I want to claim that the whole religious ideological meta-Torah argument, I don’t know what to call it, between Religious Zionism and Haredi anti-Zionism—not non-Zionism but anti-Zionism, the extreme movements—has a very broad common platform on both sides. Both sides mix metaphysical considerations into their attitude toward reality. Meaning, in Satmar for example the picture is the complete reverse of what I described earlier. In Satmar they say the Zionist movement came to make Israel abandon their religion. And again, that doesn’t 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 it can be dismissed.

But in my opinion that is actually not the fundamental argument there. The fundamental argument is that this is an indication—meaning, the fact that secular people are doing this means that it is an act of Satan. And therefore it is forbidden to cooperate with it. As part of the struggle against the matter he says: look, they are leading the children of Israel into apostasy, and things of that sort. Meaning, in many cases the argument works in the opposite direction. For example, what I said about mainstream Haredi Judaism many times is exactly the opposite. You don’t cooperate with this movement because of practical concerns—completely practical arguments. And the metaphysics is recruited afterward—that it cannot be, as Rabbi Shach said, that redemption should come through secular people. It doesn’t start there.

In a certain sense these two Haredi camps make totally opposite moves. They make the same arguments, but my feeling—and I think it’s a well-based feeling here, not just a feeling—is that the order is reversed. The Satmar people start from metaphysics, and the practical considerations—again, “practical” from my perspective includes halakhic ones; if you’re paying a halakhic price because the children of Israel are being led into apostasy, I call that a practical consideration. I’m not speaking only about politics. Jewish law and politics and so on. For them that is only their weapon in the battle; it is not the point. And for Rabbi Shach it is the opposite. For Rabbi Shach, the problem with the Zionist movement was that the children of Israel are being led into apostasy. With messianism and all the metaphysical issues he could, in my opinion, have managed. That is not the point.

You can see that he writes a eulogy for the Rebbe of Satmar, Rabbi Shach does, and there he writes that he was like an angel at the head of the camp, speaking 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 do not go against political operators and don’t say things they fear to say, Rabbi Shach, in my opinion, was not like that. I knew him a bit, so I can testify to that a little even from some knowledge. And he didn’t say what Rabbi Yoelish said—not because he agreed with him. He did not agree with him. Rather, he used Rabbi Yoelish’s opposition as an ideological anchor for his own practical opposition. And the Haredi mainstream is entirely pragmatic. Therefore today you see that it becomes a minister when necessary. I spoke about this once, when Litzman became a minister. Since then it already changed further, but when Litzman became a minister, that was an ideological revolution in Agudat Israel. It had been a principle 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 are scandalous from your point of view. Fine? So there was such a principle. Now there isn’t. At some stage they came to the conclusion: no, you can’t be a deputy minister under the prime minister in the Health Ministry—because of the High Court. The High Court ruled that you couldn’t, and suddenly he became a minister. Where are the prohibitions? Where are the bans? Where is the ideology? We’re talking about practice. It’s all practice. Among Haredim the ideologies come after the practice.

And by the way, I’m not saying this contemptuously. I actually have appreciation for this approach. But on the other hand I have much less appreciation for the ideological arguments. Their ideological arguments are meaningless. It doesn’t start from ideology at all, and therefore there is no point in relating to the ideological claims. They interest nobody. The claim that Torah protects and saves and therefore yeshiva students don’t enlist—nonsense. Nobody there imagines that that’s really so. Yeshiva students don’t enlist because they’re afraid they’ll be spoiled. That’s all. And now, yes, “Torah protects and saves,” and everything is fine. The whole business is the reverse. In other words, sometimes they resort to ideological, metaphysical rhetoric—the army, Zionism, idolatry, I don’t know, all sorts of expressions of that kind. Nonsense. Nobody really believes it. Whoever does believe it—it doesn’t come from there. It doesn’t come from there. For Satmar it comes from there—that’s the difference. Satmar’s central point is not the secular issue but the issue of the Three Oaths. Yes, correct—that’s what I’m saying, that’s the root. And for them, the fact that secular people cannot bring the Messiah is an essential argument, not because they are leading Israel’s children into apostasy. That too is true, but it is also a weapon of war, and it doesn’t start there.

Many years ago I asked a Satmar yeshiva head a difficulty on Vayoel Moshe. He writes there that speaking Hebrew is forbidden by a kal va-homer. If a Torah scroll written by a heretic is forbidden, then Hebrew, which was invented by the Zionists, who are much worse than heretics—and he elaborates on this—then all the more so it is forbidden to speak it. Against this kal va-homer one can raise several refutations, several refutations: this is sacred and that is ordinary usage, and that concerns learned discourse, and nobody said to write a Torah scroll—you’re only speaking, and if you examine the kal va-homer of Vayoel Moshe you won’t get far. Yes, it’s a lot.

And the head of the Satmar kollel in London answered me like this: from a scholarly point of view, you’re right. But Rabbi Yoelish was “oysgekhapt, tsamgeshtelt,” exalted and so on and so on—he knew, he knew better. He had some sort of higher insight as to why this kal va-homer nevertheless holds water. No, so I’m saying—that’s really it. First of all, he gave away the whole point. Yes, exactly, it’s on the table, it’s obvious. The whole book—never in my life have I seen such a tendentious book. Once I did see another very tendentious book, and it was very amusing. It came from Chabad actually, from some Rabbi Wolpo from Kiryat Gat.

He wrote—I was somewhere and opened a book and saw some novellae on the laws of “a burglar in the tunnel” and theft, I no longer remember exactly what it was. There were two or three Talmudic passages he dealt with there, super-scholarly. I’m reading the book, turning pages through this repetition of the Amidah—whatever it was, I don’t remember exactly—and he keeps discussing the position of the Avi Ezri. Now Avi Ezri is a relatively rare medieval authority. How much can you already discuss what the Avi Ezri says? I didn’t understand how there could be so much Avi Ezri on these passages, until I realized he was talking about Rabbi Shach’s Avi Ezri, not the medieval Avi Ezri. And the whole book was really intended only to show that Rabbi Shach doesn’t know how to learn. There wasn’t even a hint of that. A book dealing with a halakhic topic—you read it, fine. So it was a super-tendentious book, very amusing. Some of the arguments one could discuss, fine, there were some arguments, yes, but there were many arguments that really didn’t hold water.

By the way, I have great regard for Rabbi Shach in the analytical sense. I think he was a very great innovator, not enslaved to classical Briskerism because he was too old for that, and there are many gems there in Avi Ezri, in my opinion, on the analytical level. Is it Avi HaEzri and Avi Ezri? Usually the medieval one is Avi HaEzri with a heh. Ah, okay, fine. It may be that the heh was there and I didn’t even notice, but it was clear to me that the entire book was discussing Rabbi Shach’s words. It wasn’t logical, not proportional. I was sure he was talking about the medieval one, but at some stage it didn’t add up to me how much Avi Ezri there could be on this passage. We have one for every few pages, some medieval authority quotes him—but who knows who he is there, maybe the Raavyah. But anyway.

So that too was a tendentious book, and again, a tendentious book can contain good arguments. The fact that you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you, as I’ve already said. Meaning, a tendentious book can also have good arguments, but usually it’s—I don’t know—it’s something that there isn’t much point in reading. But for our purposes, what I’m saying is that there is something common here not only to Zionism but also to opposition to Zionism. And in that sense I think both are messianic movements, although of course the second movement is fighting against it—but it fights against it because it thinks that this is not how you bring the Messiah. That is why it fights against it. In that sense it is a messianic movement. It is a messianic movement and… again, it has that characteristic of a messianic movement, I need to be careful. Meaning, the characteristic I identified in Religious Zionism also exists in Satmar. Namely, the mixing of the consideration of what will bring the Messiah into your practical reckoning, into what you actually do, into your decision-making, into what you join and what you fight against. Okay? Therefore in this respect this doesn’t uniquely characterize Zionism; rather it characterizes… so today we already have the messianists on both sides. Okay?

Now Rabbi Kook really talks about this in several places, about the point that awakens within the pioneers, the inner point that awakens within the pioneers that is really what drives them even though they themselves don’t know it. Once again, that is some kind of relation to a metaphysical demon standing behind the deed or behind the doer, and not to the doer himself. And in that sense it continues like this to this day. Meaning, we see that in various circles of the messianic metaphysics of Religious Zionism, they analyze the actions of the state while ignoring what the state actually wants to do. Instead they are constantly explaining what stands behind it, and how the hand of God appears in one way or another, in a way completely detached from what the people involved actually think and from their real motivations. It’s the same detachment that Rabbi Kook basically began.

And I think part of the break, for example following the disengagement—the matter becomes very current there—but I really think you can see it there. For example, Rabbi Tal, with the break that led him to become Haredi after the disengagement, in his split—that break stemmed from the fact that he had run out of excuses. Meaning, he couldn’t explain this event in a way that fit the paradigm of Religious Zionism. Meaning, how does this advance redemption? Here the excuses ran out. Now, it didn’t bother him that from 1948—actually not from 1948, from the very first Zionist Congress—nobody wanted to bring the Messiah, nobody wanted to advance halakhic or religious ideas, nothing. But the disengagement broke him. Why? Not because it was more severe than many other things that were done, but because here the excuses ended. Meaning, he could no longer explain why in fact the deep inner point of those secularists or leftists or whatever you want to call them who did this was really bringing redemption, and what they say isn’t really what they mean. Meaning, it’s only… He joined Satmar to some extent. Suddenly he understands that there is a sitra achra behind this.

Whereas the more sensible option in my view, even if you can’t deal with such a thing, is simply to give up this connection you make to metaphysics. Not to Zionist metaphysics, not to anti-Zionist metaphysics. Take things as they are. They are not an expression of the sitra achra, and they are not an expression of the footsteps of the Messiah, and not anything of that sort. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I have no idea and it doesn’t interest me. Rather, they are an expression of what people do. 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 depth-levels that stand behind it. And again, it’s the same thing as Satmar on the one hand and Religious Zionism on the other; this break was born there.

As I mentioned last time, Kellner—Rabbi Kellner, also from Har HaMor circles—said that if the State of Israel were destroyed, he would take off his kippah. And it’s the same kind of expression. Again, thank God the State of Israel was not destroyed in the disengagement, even according to the most disappointed people. But still there was there a certain destruction that caused them perhaps not literally to take off their kippah, but metaphorically to take off the knitted kippah. Meaning, maybe he still walks around with a knitted kippah, I don’t know, but metaphorically to take off the knitted kippah. Because they are truly unwilling to abandon the paradigm that these processes are supposed to express depth-processes. And if I don’t have an explanation, then something here… then apparently it’s the sitra achra. So it can’t be that it’s neither the sitra achra nor the side of holiness, but just plain Ben-Gurion. So what? Leave the demons aside. There’s Ben-Gurion, and there’s Bibi, and I don’t know who else, and they act as they understand with their politics and their interests. You can argue with them, you can agree with them, but it’s all clear. Don’t go looking for depth-levels and how they want to screw us all or save us all or promote this agenda or that agenda—I mean metaphysical agendas, not the agendas they openly talk about. Okay?

In that sense this is a kind of disconnection from reality that I think—let’s say I wouldn’t dismiss its connection to the concept of a messianic movement. There is something to it. And this break following the disengagement was a break that in part also caused people to leave religious commitment altogether—some people, I don’t know the scope of the phenomenon, but there was such a phenomenon—and for another part of people it caused them to abandon Zionist commitment. And I think that is an expression of those same crises I talked about when I described the messianic movements. 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 helps me, I think, to tie this disconnection from reality under the heading of a messianic movement. Because this disconnection from reality, in terms of its results too, brings the same results. Because this disconnection 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 a few beloved books at home that I found from the Workers’ Press in the 1950s, from the “Red Line” series and all these things of the last communists in the world and here in Israel. And there, for example, there was “Lenin and the New Physics,” by someone named Omelyanitsky—I still remember to this day—something like that, Omelyanitsky. I still have the book. A wonderful book. It’s just such marvelous satire. They explain how there are parts of modern physics that are heresy and therefore clearly incorrect, and other parts of physics that Lenin had already foreseen long ago, long before the experiments were done. Meaning, everything fits the dialectical materialism and all the communist ideas. Of course. Pilpul, you have no idea what goes on there. They explain how everything fits the ideas. It’s one-to-one Har HaMor. One-to-one Har HaMor.

Meaning, 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 taking you for a ride and you explain that it’s raining. Meaning, everything fits. That’s basically the move. And Lenin really foresaw it already. It’s the same thing. You refuse—wait a second—you refuse to detach yourself from the metaphysical platform standing behind the events. And no blow will help. And even if the blow does help, you only adopt the opposite metaphysics the moment you become anti-Zionist. Because you don’t take into account the possibility that maybe there is no metaphysics. Exactly. Now if this metaphysics doesn’t work, then apparently there is another metaphysics. It can’t be that this is something not conducted on a metaphysical basis, but simply that there are people who run things and argue and have their views and say them.

By the way, part of this is the same messianism of the peace camp and the like, who do not listen to what the Palestinians say; they only know what lies behind what they say. Very often that’s the case. Now I don’t care, I’m not expressing a political stance for or against right now; that’s not important. I’m just saying this detachment from reality is completely messianic. When Bogie said about Kerry that he’s messianic, he meant—it’s a factual description. That’s exactly so. Meaning, you choose not to listen to what people are telling you to your face because it’s clear to you what stands behind what they’re saying. Behind what they’re saying they deeply want peace, they just use rhetoric because they need to satisfy this side, and actually their jihad is an intellectual jihad, not a jihad with rifles. And all kinds of interpretations that are really the same interpretations as Lenin. And therefore we see: this is a characteristic. It’s like Har HaMor. And it characterizes messianic movements in the sense that when you cling to a metaphysical paradigm standing behind reality, rather than to what you actually see in reality itself, you refuse to relate to reality. Meaning, anything will fit if you’re sufficiently creative. And if you’re very honest, at some point you realize that the creativity now requires you to break the paradigm—in Thomas Kuhn’s terms, to break the paradigm and adopt the opposite metaphysics. But you still remain committed to the paradigm that there has to be metaphysics behind things. That you are unwilling to give up under any circumstances. Because giving that up would mean taking off the kippah altogether. That’s what Rabbi Kellner said there.

Meaning, this basically says: if there is no metaphysics behind events, then I’m not religious. It’s built into my religious conception that things happen only out of metaphysical undercurrents and not because of realpolitik. And in that sense there is indeed a departure from realpolitik. Not in the sense that you do delusional acts, but in the sense that your considerations are not the realistic considerations alone; other things are mixed in here. Yes.

The reality here is that what happened in the State of Israel, in the Land of Israel, is a reality that from the standpoint of statistics—the occurrence of such a sequence of events or another sequence leading to a similar result—is, let’s say for the sake of argument, low. Okay. Yes. Very low, extremely low. Meaning, we can supposedly take a sequence of, say, twelve events here, the probability of each of which is zero. Fine, I accept the assumption for the sake of discussion. So what? Ten to the minus ten. And therefore? Therefore, a chain of improbable events. Yes. It doesn’t matter—I’m not inclined to agree, but let’s say yes for the sake of discussion. So what?

Both sides, both ours and the opponents’, can be reduced to this: okay, things happened here that we have trouble viewing in a straightforward way. Each side can agree on that. But then they do something further: they draw conclusions now—and that I don’t agree with. When you give an interpretation of history—I said, the rabbi of Brisk did not argue with Rabbi Herzog about whether the Third Temple would or would not be destroyed. It may be that it won’t be destroyed. The question now is what do I do. If I make decisions, I say: if you offer me an interpretation—because it’s very improbable—I said I’m not sure that’s true, but let’s assume it for the sake of discussion, because that’s not the point. And you arrive at an interpretation: here was the hand of God, this is redemption, or on the contrary this is sitra achra and destruction—all fine. 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 when Ben-Gurion established the state and brought redemption, according to one side, or destruction, according to the other, he did not do it because he took metaphysical considerations into account. He acted as he thought one should act. So I’m saying it can continue that way. Therefore I say that the analysis—even if I accept your metaphysical analysis—that’s not the point. Doing a metaphysical analysis is not a messianic movement. A messianic movement is when you take that metaphysical analysis and use it in your decision-making, and that doesn’t follow from the analysis.

Yes. I don’t really understand—if the analysis is correct, why not use it in decision-making? I’m saying no, you can say that it’s legitimate. I just think it’s not right to do it. I’m only saying that it is characteristic of messianic movements. Messianic movements do a metaphysical analysis and infer conclusions from it. And I’m saying that it is not right to infer practical conclusions from metaphysical analyses. Why, what’s the problem with the conclusions? Because who knows what the metaphysical process is? I don’t know. Maybe it sounds plausible to you and maybe not. We need to behave according to realistic considerations and not according to metaphysical ones. The metaphysical proof now goes this way, and there’s something to that—it will… I don’t understand metaphysics; you do. The laws of physics I more or less know; the laws of metaphysics I don’t know. Therefore I say—even if this were true—I would phrase it even more sharply: even if you are right, and this will continue this way, who says that permits cooperating with secular people? So what if this is the beginning of redemption? You see—even that can be said. But first of all, who says this is the beginning of redemption? It’s an event. Who says metaphysics follows some kind of—I don’t know—first law of Newton that applies in metaphysics and not only in physics, that if something has begun then it keeps going unless a force acts upon it? Who says it will continue? I don’t know.

What is the discussion about “The Generation”? That’s Rabbi Kook, it’s not… Rabbi Kook began this process of detachment from reality. Okay. Fine, so what you said against Maimonides also comes out against Rabbi Kook? Oh yes. Rabbi Kook began 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 do not sufficiently take into account, what you see before your eyes, in favor of what stands behind what you see before your eyes. Some sort of metaphysical motives, motives of spiritual depth residing within people that they themselves are not at all aware of.

Part of this we discussed when we talked a little—I don’t remember in what topic it was—about the question whether there is value in a person’s act when it is done out of a motive he is not aware of. Meaning, suppose the pioneers really acted out of the deep Jewish point within them, as Rabbi Kook claims. I have no idea whether that’s true. I don’t know how one checks such a thing. Therefore I’m also not inclined to think it’s true. But fine, maybe he’s right. The question is whether that now has value. How do you judge that person? Did that person perform a commandment? The commandment of settling the Land of Israel? I claim not, even if Rabbi Kook is right. Again, therefore my argument is not about how you assess reality, but what you do with that assessment of reality. Exactly. You judge a person’s decisions according to the considerations he himself makes, not according to some little homunculi inside him who lead him and make him do various things. So judge the homunculus, not him.

Is this not connected to the principle that “it is not in heaven,” only on the extra-halakhic plane? You could say that, yes. And with respect to this accumulation on metaphysics—does that mean you deny free choice at the collective level or even the individual level? Because if you say there is a metaphysical consideration, that means people can’t act against it. No, not necessarily. The claim could be “whoever acts with God, let him come and receive his reward.” Meaning, you could say that since the metaphysical analysis is that now the Messiah is about to come, we have to help him because otherwise he won’t come. That is, if we don’t help him maybe he won’t come, but the Holy One, blessed be He, is knocking on the door—“Open for me, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one,” in Rabbi Soloveitchik’s essay.

I’m saying regarding, for example, all sorts of references to Zionists as acting out of some good metaphysical point—it may be that they do indeed have some metaphysical point, but they simply choose not to cooperate with it, or choose to act against it or something like that. Meaning, you can’t know if… They’re not aware of it at all. Rabbi Kook claims they are not aware of it at all. It’s not a matter of whether they go with it or against it. Yes, but you’re saying it guides their actions in an unconscious way. It takes over their brain, yes. So I’m saying: does that negate their free choice in a certain sense? Yes, correct. On the global level, I think that’s what lies behind Rabbi Kook’s statements. Obviously they had choice in the day-to-day and in what they consciously did; there they had choice like anyone else. But in the global process there was some sort of thing that God was driving, and people were just… Exactly, people are basically just pawns or oil on the wheels of the revolution.

The resemblance to communism is very interesting in many respects. Meaning, people are basically driven by some large process. In communism there was no entity behind the large process; it was the world proletariat, but there was no actual being. And among the religious it is the Holy One, blessed be He. But still, people are seen as cogs in a machine, not as people who are truly acting. In my opinion this is a very non-humanistic conception. Humanism not in the secular-humanist sense—I’m in favor of humanism. I think both of 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, whatever the case may be. But people are responsible for what they do, because what they do is the effect of their own judgment, not because the Holy One hardened their heart or awakened their heart, like people say about Pharaoh.

No, but maybe the prominent point in Rabbi Kook isn’t the metaphysics, but rather the very fact that the pioneers were idealists and acted from an ideology of raising the Jewish people from the ash heap and establishing the state. That itself gives them positive merit. Now those who today project “The Generation” onto today’s secular people, who act, let’s say, not out of a Zionist ideology… Also “The Generation of Our Generation”—that’s already phase two of “The Generation,” you know. That’s already a new trend, “The Generation of Our Generation.” There are all kinds of articles now on this issue. No, it’s about translating it to the postmodern, pleasure-seeking, nihilistic generation. Yet still there is something tremendously great here, and that’s Rabbi Shagar with postmodernism, seeing in it some enormous message. That’s the translation of “The Generation” to this generation.

I’m saying that actually Rabbi Kook can be understood. No, those who apply it—no, I’m saying: but I see in it value not religiously but nationally. Obviously! The fact that the pioneers drained swamps here and gave their lives for the establishment of… I am grateful to them. I never claimed there is no value in their deeds. Of course there is value in their deeds. I only claim that it’s not a commandment-act. Meaning, you do it because of its national value, and I owe you gratitude: you established a state for me, you gave your life for it, of course gratitude is owed to them. But that’s not… one cannot see this as the basic value of fulfilling a commandment. They weren’t aware of that, and it wasn’t their motivation. And Rabbi Kook saw them as those fulfilling the commandment of settling the Land of Israel, not merely as people who established a state for us and we owe them gratitude—like whoever established Belgium owes the Belgians, or whatever, everyone else.

If you turned this into halakhic definitions, isn’t it what is called misasek, someone who… Because there was intent here. There was intent to establish a state. Not for a commandment. There was for something else. Like someone who intends to wear tzitzit but doesn’t believe in the Holy One, blessed be He—did he fulfill the commandment of tzitzit? No. He fully intended to wear tzitzit; it’s not that he didn’t intend it. Yes, Chabad putting on tefillin—we talked about that. But that’s already another dispute, not specifically connected to Rabbi Kook, but a different standard in today’s Israeli rabbinic world. True. I don’t understand how we got into this date and it got complicated. Right. I think it’s definitely much more widespread than just Rabbi Kook’s opinion. I think it’s very widespread also in the Zionist context. Maybe also among people who are not… more marginal than Rabbi Kook. In the end, many, many of them resorted to such metaphysical analyses, for or against. I’m not claiming it’s only Rabbi Kook—on the contrary, it’s most approaches in that period. And it is also connected specifically with messianism. Correct, correct. I’m saying that resorting to some sort of 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 is messianic. A certain kind of this phenomenon is a messianic movement. I oppose it because I do not think metaphysics should play a role in judging a situation or in evaluating decisions about the situation. A messianic movement is a private case of that conception. Completely right, I agree.

Additional aspects—about this… yes, I wanted to say something. Again, to say as I said before: in this very fact that people act for the bringing of the Messiah—or more correctly, not that they act for the bringing of the Messiah, but that they make decisions according to metaphysical considerations in a way that departs a bit from reality—there is a departure from the accepted Jewish mode of conduct over the generations. I’m not sure whether I can find examples to know to what extent this affected decisions, but on the face of it it seems that at least in many places there were considerations—at least in the way people explained reality—and this at least served as ammunition for other things, of metaphysical considerations.

For example there are descriptions like… okay, maybe the Rabbi won’t like it—say Hasidic stories describing Napoleon. Fine, Hasidim don’t count, but what? No, that’s exactly what I meant. I’m talking about the question of who made decisions. Who made decisions and how they made them. I’m not talking about the person in the street telling little folk tales. I’m talking about people who made decisions based on other considerations.

There is, by the way, Rabbi Menachem Zemba. The very immigration of the disciples of the Vilna Gaon to the Land of Israel in their time—the commandment of settling the Land of Israel—is that not an action they wouldn’t have done without the desire, or is it not right to do it without the desire, to bring the Messiah? The fact that the Messiah is the motivation is fine, but the action itself is fulfillment of the commandment of settling the Land of Israel. So from that standpoint Jewish law and politics are the same thing in this context. It’s reality. Of course one must fulfill Jewish law, that’s obvious. I’m asking beyond Jewish law: ideas, this whole thing. The famous Nachmanides—I think I mentioned him—the famous Nachmanides on Joseph: why didn’t he tell his father that he was alive? One of Nachmanides’ answers is that he wanted to promote the realization of the dreams he had dreamed, that his father and mother and eleven brothers would come bow down before him. So they criticize Nachmanides: what is your role in realizing dreams? You’re supposed to tell your father you’re alive because your father is sitting there crying. What are you doing here, realizing dreams? In other words, your father is sitting there crying—that’s exactly like the rabbi of Brisk. Do you hear the rabbi of Brisk? They’re shooting here. What do you mean, realizing dreams? Your father is crying—tell him you’re alive. As for the dreams, leave them alone; the Holy One, blessed be He, will take care of that.

In a certain sense this is very similar to this position because it says that you need to make your calculations according to what you see before your eyes. I don’t know. It may be that the metaphysics is correct. If God sent that dream, then apparently it will also be fulfilled. That is, if Joseph was a prophet, then he presumably knew it would indeed be fulfilled. That still doesn’t mean that he is the one who should act according to that dream. You should act according to the relevant considerations for you, namely Jewish law and realistic considerations. In other words, how we realize things in life. That’s all. It is not your job to promote divine trends. That is really the root of my argument here.

Another point, yes. I just wanted to say: it seems to me that at least part of the considerations in Hasidic stories—not in the sense that I meant miracle stories—maybe part of them at least, for example regarding Napoleon, there are all kinds of descriptions, and I think that to some extent at least they reflect reality. When Napoleon tried to conquer Russia there was a great dispute among the rebbes whether this was good or bad. The rabbi from Liadi was imprisoned over this matter, wasn’t he? There you go. So the rabbi from Liadi sent Hasidim to spy—well, at least they accused him of that. No, he died in the middle of the war over this business; he died before. Yes. But they accused him of treason, of spying in favor of… No, no, that was earlier when he sent money to the Land of Israel, because at that time the Land of Israel was under Turkish rule and Turkey was in some war. No, it was over the war with Turkey. With Turkey, okay. Okay. He died in the middle of the war. Yes. Fine. Okay, in any case, this whole business… tack… sorry, ticka… okay, not important. That’s 1812. Okay. Napoleon was finished in 1815. Waterloo was in 1815. 1812–13 was the winter in which he basically suffered defeat from the winter, from General Winter.

Anyway, for our purposes—what I started talking about earlier—it’s not Rabbi Menachem Zemba, it’s about the responsa from “From the Depths”… no, “Devar Avraham.” Devar Avraham in Kovno, yes. He was the rabbi of Kovno already during the Holocaust. He died in the ghetto in the end; they didn’t murder him, but he died in the ghetto. There are amazing things there, truly. Apparently he was an extraordinary personality. The way he led the ghetto there—there are really amazing things. But the halakhic responsa that he gave there and the leadership he set there, these are things…

Now in his responsa you can find many metaphysical considerations. In the responsa from that period, I mean. In Devar Avraham you won’t find that. But in his responsa—the halakhic responsa from the Holocaust period—you will often find such things, and there he admits it, puts it right on the table. So for example, he forbade yeshiva students to eat legumes on Passover when they had nothing to eat. Meaning, he said: in any case we are all going to die, so we need to do something here that goes beyond the ordinary issue; maybe by virtue of that the Holy One, blessed be He, will save us. And on that basis he ruled Jewish law for them. All sorts of considerations like: since in any event we’re going to die, let’s keep this commandment to the fullest. Exactly. But that really is such an extreme situation that says: look, in terms of realpolitik, whether you eat legumes or don’t eat legumes, we’re all going to die here anyway. That’s not the point. So there are extreme situations where I can indeed bring examples of Torah spiritual leaders who do take metaphysical considerations into account, but that is really only in cases where realistic considerations are no longer in our hands at all. So maybe there, yes, exactly—there maybe one can bring examples. But here, in these cases, I think this is still exceptional.

Now another 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 they are seen as if they were objects of holiness. If the military uniforms are like the vestments of the High Priest, in Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda’s phrase, or the ecstatic dancing when the chief of staff arrives on Jerusalem Day at Merkaz, or all sorts of state symbols and all sorts of things like the bizarre outbursts of Rabbi Tau regarding Katsav—he was accused of rape and Tau sent him a letter of support. What was that? It was completely bizarre. Clearly the man entirely lost his sound judgment in this context. In this context, clearly—what I mean is not that he lost his sanity, but that he lost his judgment. Because what—the President of the State can’t possibly have committed rape? Clearly he’s being persecuted by all kinds of haters of Israel who are attacking the very foundation of God’s throne in the world; otherwise this can’t be. And therefore obviously he also didn’t rape, and therefore obviously one has to send him a letter of support. Now that’s bizarre.

It’s bizarre. Again, I don’t know what happened there, and maybe he really believed they were framing him and so on, but are you so certain that you send a letter of support when there had already been several judicial tribunals that sat over the matter and reached the conclusion that yes? Fine, I also don’t have full trust in the legal system—it can err, and sometimes it also has tendencies and agendas, I accept that. But this is bizarre. It’s bizarre, and again an expression of this detachment, because he didn’t really write a letter of support to Katsav. It’s a mistake to read it that way. He wrote a letter of support to the President of the State, who happened in this case to be Katsav. He did not see Katsav before his eyes at all. The institution to which he wrote this letter was not a human being with two hands and two legs and a few other organs, but rather—he wrote the letter to an institution, not to a person, to a demon, to an idea, not to a human being, not to human beings at all.

Now you can see this a lot with Rabbi Tau. Meaning, everything the Ministry of Education does—and perhaps we’ll get to this later—everything the Ministry of Education does is really the New Israel Fund and all sorts of scheming actors. Again, the New Israel Fund does do various things, but there’s something there that is already a little bizarre. Behind everything that happens you see demons. You simply do not see what is really happening. You shut your eyes to reality because it is clear to you that all this merely reflects various metaphysics standing behind it. And of course this is a very extreme expression, not typical, but it is an extreme expression of an approach that is typical: the approach that says I analyze things that happen in light of the demons standing behind them, not in light of what they are. Okay?

And therefore I brought this as an example when I spoke about “religious-Zionism without a hyphen” in the article. There too I talked about how it is more important to people that El Al not fly on the Sabbath than that people not violate the Sabbath, because El Al is a symbol of the state, and a symbol of the state cannot violate the Sabbath. Now one can translate this into desecration of God’s name, and after all the state reflects something Jewish. One can translate it there—I’m not saying that isn’t part of it—but clearly there is something more here. There is something that says the State of Israel is the Divine Presence. It cannot possibly desecrate the Sabbath. That all the people desecrate the Sabbath doesn’t matter, but the institution must be pure, refined, pure and refined.

There’s one more example, and with this I’ll finish. There is the parable of the egg business—yes, I said it—it’s the consideration I mentioned earlier, yes, the parable of the egg, which is also a consideration of partnership, partnership in what the state does. Yes, if I as a citizen pay taxes, then on some level I’m a kind of partner with the state. Fine, maybe. But the additional example I want to bring is this: once I wrote an article—maybe it was that very article about “religious-Zionism without a hyphen”—and in that article I brought things from Leibowitz, of course. When the article came back to me after editing, I saw that it said there “Professor L.” I had written “Leibowitz,” and I didn’t write “Professor”; I think I just wrote “Leibowitz.” Yes—“Professor L.” So I asked the editor: tell me, what is this? I wrote “Leibowitz.” What’s this “L.”? And he said to me: we have a tradition from Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda that one does not say his name. Meaning, he’s wicked.

I said to him: listen, I also wrote “Ben-Gurion” there, and you didn’t change it to “B.G.” Ben-Gurion was more righteous than…? Certainly. Ben-Gurion was certainly more righteous. Now Leibowitz, after all, was a Jew who observed commandments. You can agree with his views, disagree with his views—he was a commandment-observant Jew. Ben-Gurion was, let’s say, a Jew with serious issues regarding religious conceptions. With all his merits—and I do not deny his merits—what kind of warped scale of values is this? Compulsion and stubbornness—that’s what it was in the end. Ben-Gurion remained with his full name, and Professor… I only wrote there at the bottom that I demand they place a clarifying footnote below: this was the editorial decision. I wrote “Leibowitz.” In other words, it was the editorial decision to change it to “Professor L.” Fine? I don’t remember whether they then wrote Leibowitz in full in that sentence, I don’t remember. But again, what does that mean? It means that from their perspective, someone who denies their Zionist conception of the state is a greater denier than someone who denies the Holy One, blessed be He.

But why? He didn’t deny the Zionist conception, he… But did he deny less than Ben-Gurion? No. The descriptions—he called the soldiers “Judeo-Nazis.” So what? So what? Is that a greater heresy than Ben-Gurion’s? It’s a worldview you disagree with, fine. What does that have to do with it? What is the religious aspect here? What is the religious aspect here? Public Sabbath desecration, eating carcasses and non-kosher food on television… what comparison is there at all? It’s a warped world of values. It’s a warped world of values that stems from the fact that you don’t relate to the person at all—you relate to what he represents. You relate to the demons behind him. You completely ignore reality itself. That is an expression of this issue.

Okay, we’ll stop here. We’ll continue.