Israel Independence - How are We Doing?

בס"ד

There is an ongoing debate, often angry, among orthodox Jews concerning the legitimacy of the modern state of Israel. The source is a story in the Babylonian Talmud in Gemara Ketubot page 111b. It takes place around 4130 of the Jewish calendar which corresponds to 370 of the modern calendar. This would be around 300 years after the destruction of the second Temple, 700 years after the prophet Ezra led the Jews back to Judea, and slightly before the fall of Rome. While there was a major community in the land of Israel, the one in Babylon was larger with major yeshivos. 

The story is part of a larger discussion with many flowery praises about living in Israel, although there are opinions that it is better to live in Bavel because of its excellence in religious scholarship. In it Rabbi Zeira, a Talmudic sage living in Babylon, decides to move to the land of Israel. Because of this, he avoided his teacher, Rav Yehuda, who held that Jews should not move to Israel. The Gemara then cites a homily that the Jews were adjured not to come to Israel like a “wall”, meaning they should not try to militarily conquer it. Its source is the verse in the Song of Songs, “I adjure you, maidens of Jerusalem, By the deer or antelope of the field: Do not wake or rouse the love until it is desired”. The idea is that moving to the land of Israel arouses G-d’s love, but if G-d is not in the mood for love, it will instead arouse anger.

This is part of a discussion called the Shalosh Shavuot (שלוש שבועות - The Three Oaths). The another one is for the Jews not to rebel against the nations in which they have been exiled and the final is for the nations not to greatly persecute the Jews. There is a second opinion which adds another three oaths: 1) not to reveal when the messiah will arrive, 2) not to delay the arrival of the messiah by sinning, but some say that they should not pray excessively for the redemption, and 3) not to calculate the date when the messiah will arrive. 

The unified meaning of this passage tends to be nebulous with the issue of force and the coming of the messiah particularly being controversial. There are two opposing positions. One is that of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook who was the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine. He is considered to be one of the fathers of religious Zionism, and is known for founding the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva. The opposing point of view was enunciated by the Satmar Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum in his book Vayoel Moshe (Moses consented - ויואל משה). In it he said that only the messiah could set up a Jewish state, that any military force was forbidden, and this specifically applied to the modern state of Israel. The position of Rav Kook evolved into a school of thought called Atchalta De'Geulah (Aramaic: אתחלתא דגאולה - the beginning of the redemption). It took the position that force was indeed justified as a response to the Holocaust and that through the United Nations the nations had given the land of Israel to the Jewish people. More generally it held that the coming of the messiah was a process that would involve war. There were also claims that the crypto position of Satmar was an objection to a secular state and that the crypto position of the Zionists, both secular and religious, was in fact militarism. A subtle underlying issue was a debate if there was a mitzvah to live in Israel. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein took the position that while there was no obligation to live in Israel nevertheless a Jew who does so is credited with a mitzvah. 

There is a miracle story of Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky, who was the Chief Rabbi of the Edah HaChareidis religious court of Jerusalem during the war of independence. In it the Zionist militia battling for Jerusalem was down to its last day of food. Ben Gurion, its commander, not wanting to be the one to abandon the city, asked Rabbi Dushinsky what to do. To his surprise the response was to eat three quarters of the food that day and save one quarter for the next. The Hasidim laughed at him saying what difference would one day make? Unexpectedly on that day an armistice was agreed to conceding the Old City to Jordan and putting the religious neighborhood, Meah Sharim, into the State of Israel.

So where does this leave us today? Economically the state has been successful. Socially there are many problems. The role of religion and perhaps even what is religion remains to be resolved.   

לע"נ  האמא מלכה בת חיים ז"ל נלב"ע טז ניסן תשנ"ח

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