Q&A: The Podcast with Daniel Shoshi
The Podcast with Daniel Shoshi
Question
Rabbi, I heard your conversation with Daniel Dushi, and I was surprised by your view on the issue of the Land. I know a bit of your line of thought and the way you proceed from assumptions, like in the discussion about whether the Torah is true—so then you prove that God exists, and then you assume that the Torah is correct by force of reasoning. But דווקא on the issue of the Land, you fall into pettiness like: where is it written? Why is it binding? If God commanded Moses to lead us specifically to this Land—and not because the land was ownerless or abandoned, but to fight for it in a difficult way (so I reject the assumption that the Land was simply a lifeboat for a people coming out of slavery)—and many commandments are anchored in the Land, then apparently God specifically wants us to be here in the Land, and there is no greater command than a whole story that moves in a certain direction. It’s like in a story about a prince trying to win the girl, and the whole story is that he fights for her, and during the story the prince explicitly says that “you have to wear a suit,” and then years later they’ll come and say that the shoes (the explicit command) have the same value as the woman, because the woman is not written explicitly. I’d be happy if I somehow managed to open your eyes and maybe show you that it’s possible that in your subconscious you’re a little afraid of coming off like some crazy Zionist who fights over land like a sick barbarian. That’s just a stereotype.
In general I like listening to you, thank you.
Answer
I debated whether to delete this collection of foolish remarks. I’ll leave them for the designer. If you want to discuss something, formulate what I said and what you are claiming against me. I assume you’ll see for yourself that you’re not saying anything.
Simple. Daniel asks you what importance the Land of Israel has in our culture, and you answer—and I quote—“It’s apparently a commandment… okay, there are lots of commandments.” And what I’m saying is that it seems illogical to talk about the Land of Israel—which is one of the Torah’s central goals and has the greatest number of mentions—as something of which one says, “Okay, there are lots of commandments.”
And you downplay what Nachmanides says as though he’s the only one who gives such great importance to the Land: “People say lots of things in commentaries on the Torah.” I allow myself to raise these questions to you on the assumption that your views really do come from a place of thought. But from my perspective, to reduce the value of the Land without real arguments—and not just a quotation from one rabbi who says that the Land was basically just a lifeboat, and that’s why he didn’t immigrate from the Diaspora—just feels like pretending to identify with secularity and insisting on saying: I’m like you, the Torah doesn’t command me to be a Zionist; I’m a Zionist because I feel like it. That strips the whole purpose of the Land out of its context. Secular people have a Zionism whose essence is the search for a home. And religious people have a Zionism whose essence is the search specifically for the Land of Israel. Yes, the secular people awakened in the religious people this impulse to finally look for a home and move toward establishing a state, but not, as your words imply, in a way that removes all the value of Zionism from religion. If you want, respond; if not, thank you very much.