Q&A: State, Sanhedrin, Exile, and Redemption
State, Sanhedrin, Exile, and Redemption
Question
With Israel Independence Day approaching, from your perspective is it valid to say that today we are in a state of national redemption and religious exile?
National redemption, because we are a people with an army, independence, a democratic state of the Jewish people, a thriving economy, etc.
Religious exile (or lack of religious freedom), in the sense that there is no Sanhedrin and there is fundamentalist petrification.
That is, there is a perspective on nationhood, a perspective on religion, and also a connection between the two.
Answer
Obviously you can say that — here, you said it. By your definitions, that is indeed the situation. But these are semantic definitions, and I do not see much significance in them. The more relevant question is what our attitude toward these processes ought to be, not what we call them.