Q&A: Religious Zionism Without a Hyphen
Religious Zionism Without a Hyphen
Question
I understood that you define yourself as a secular Zionist and also as a religious person; that is, your Zionism does not have a religious dimension. My question is: is that because you are simply convinced that there is no religious dimension at all in Zionism, or do you agree that there is one, but you just don’t want to define your identity according to a particular interpretation of Zionism and prefer a broader Zionism?
Answer
I have no idea—just like nobody else has any idea—what the connection is between Zionism and redemption, or between redemption and any obligations. I want to live among my people, exactly the way the Belgians want that. We’re tired of exile, and that is my Zionism, just like Ben-Gurion’s Zionism and that of the Rabbi of Ponevezh. If I saw an actual debate, I would say what my position on it is and whether I am convinced by it. In my opinion, there is no debate. It’s empty words and nothing more.
“Just like nobody else.” Forgive me, but with all due respect (seriously, with all due respect, as the Rabbi knows), the fact that the Rabbi doesn’t know what the connection is doesn’t say anything about other people. (Rabbi Kook, for example, definitely knew what the connection was between Zionism and redemption—the whole idea of Messiah son of Joseph and so on.)