A Chanukah Message
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party attract voters by parading as “Zionists.” But what do they know of Zion? From Zion, from Jerusalem, the word of God—the Truth—shall come forth. What does Netanyahu or the Likud Party know about Zion? Would anyone dare say that the Likud comes anywhere close to this understanding of Zion?
The idea of Zion, more precisely, the idea of a Torah Commonwealth, was never on the Likud’s agenda—not Menachem Begin’s nor that of his mentor, Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Their Zionism was, at most, cultural Zionism. But as Leo Strauss has pointed out, the Jewish heritage is not a culture—a product of a national mind. The Jewish heritage presents itself as a divine gift, as a divine revelation. It completely distorts the meaning of the Jewish heritage, to which one claimed to be loyal, by interpreting it as a culture like any other high culture.
The Zionism of the Likud was based on European nationalism. It reduced Judaism to a religion, a matter of individual, not of national, well-being and happiness. The frame of reference in which such terms as “religion” and “nation” appear is derived from the history of the Western world—which is foreign to Judaism. The term “Jewish” is neither a religious nor a national concept. “Our people,” said the tenth-century sage Saadia Gaon, “is a people only through the Torah.” Judaism is a nation-creating religion, and Israel is a people created by this kind of religion.
Eliezer Berkovits writes that religions, as rule, do not make nations. Nations and peoples are biological, racial, political units. They may accept a religion, but the religion they accept is accidental to the national group. Christianity, for example, created no people, and neither did Islam. They were imposed on pre-existing peoples.
An Englishman may accept Hinduism in London, but this does not make him Indian. A Chinese converting to Christianity in China does not become a European or Frenchman. But if they accept Judaism and practice it, they will not only become adherents of a religion, but will belong to the Jewish people and thus become a member of the Jewish people’s Covenant with God.
This Covenant is not merely between the individual and God—as may be the case in other religions. Judaism is a national covenant with God. This is what makes Judaism and the Jewish people unique—and this was never part of the Likud ideology. The Likud separated Zion and the Land of Israel from the Torah, which is why the Jews are losing both.
The Likud has a galut or exilic mentality. Jews were more faithful to the Bible in the Ghetto than they are in Israel! Why? Because in the Ghetto Judaism was a living, practical faith which shaped the economic and social life of the entire Ghetto community. And by the way, Max Nordau—a leading “Zionist”—admitted that the Ghetto Jew was more proud and independent than the “enlightened” and assimilated Jew (such as Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres).
However, as the Ghetto walls fell, Judaism became a religion relegated to the home and the synagogue. This truncated Judaism prevails in Israel. Judaism is supposed to be an all-embracing way of life. Judaism in Israel does not walk through and elevate the marketplace or the shopping malls. It does not permeate the deliberations and policies or even the structure of the government. It has ceased to be a creator of history. No wonder Israel limps along without any clear purpose or sense of identity—and no Likud leader addresses this dilemma, this malaise.
Secular Jews are lost in modernity, and so are religious Jews, who have yet to endow modernity with Jewish meaning. Recall the first prophecy: Yafet—Yavan, meaning Greek philosophy—shall dwell in the tents of Shem. Yeshivas in Israel, despite all the good they do, might as well be Boro Park: they do not train students in statecraft! Jews must be faithful to the Bible without rejecting secular wisdom and the blessings of modernity.
Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, calls for a rejuvenated Judaism, a Judaism that transcends the black hole of politics. We need a new kind of Jewish leader. He must be learned not only in the Torah but in the rigorous sciences, such as physics.
Israel, in its essence, synthesizes universalism and particularism: it is the only nation created to exalt the ways of God in everyday life. Only a nation so dedicated can inspire and elevate mankind. This must be taught to every child, in every classroom, so that from Zion, the word of God—the Truth—shall come forth again in all its glory.
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