A Dialogue on the Logic of Tomorrow’s Miracles*
Paul Eidelberg
Today I am going to construct a dialogue between Pat and Josh, the presentation of which may be awkward but nonetheless informative.
Pat begins by saying, “I can’t understand you Israeli Jews! Impending doom hangs over you and you do nothing, despite a still formidable military establishment.”
“What would you have us do”? Josh responds: “bomb Iran, expel the Arabs from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza and tell the rest of the world to go to hell?”
“Why not?” says Pat” “I’d rather go out with a bang than a whimper. Instead, you engage in a demeaning charade with a villain like Abbas. You pretend he’s serious about peace, that he’s compelled to make bellicose statements for domestic Arab consumption. That’s escapism.”
“Of course you’re right Josh. Abbas is a bloody liar, and only idiots take him seriously.”
“Well Josh, you seem have an awful lot of such idiots in Israel. A psychologist would say Jews suffer from a self-victimization syndrome. Jews seem to feel morally superior by being victims rather than victors. I remember Golda Meir saying: "When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons." To me this is sickness unto death.
“True, but as you know Pat, Golda was a secular humanist, equivalent to Christianity without the Christian god. Nietzsche said this humanism is based on a slave mentality, the mentality of those who derive their moral superiority from meekness and passivity. But this mentality is not at all Jewish, even though it infects many Jews.”
Yes Josh, but many religious Jews seem to be suffering from the same malaise. Look, it was no secret before Ahmadinejad that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program with the obvious intention of annihilating you. So what does your government do but attack Hamas, Iran’s client in Gaza, and doesn’t finish the job. So you get Goldstoned. Meanwhile, many of your academics behave as if they came from Sweden. As for your rabbis, they’re more concerned about Jewish conversion than about Jewish survival.” Sorry Josh, I’m just a Christian Zionist.
“You’re right Pat about the politicians and intellectuals, but I don’t think you understand serious religious Jews—although many of them are not really serious. Let me explain with the help of our first chief rabbi, the philosopher Avraham Kook. Although he abhorred war, he recognized that wars have positive as well as negative consequences. The Napoleonic wars following the French Revolution hastened the growth of nationalism, which not only liberated Europe from the thralldom of politicized Christianity, but also made Jewish nationalism or Zionism acceptable. And remember, World War I produced the Balfour Declaration as well as the end of Turkish control of Palestine.
Wait a second, Josh, “Are you going to say the Holocaust of World War II produced the State of Israel?”
“Not quite, dear Pat, but it’s one horrible chapter in the story of Israel. The abysmal ignorance of Barack Obama aside, no one aware of Biblical prophecy and Jewish history casually links, with no further ado, the murder of six million Jews and the re-establishment of the State of Israel, the in-gathering of the Jews, which has produced a renascence of Torah studies pointing to a restoration of Hebraic civilization. Nevertheless, Rabbi Kook said in all humility that “the death of the righteous granted the Jewish people new life” by virtue of Israel’s rebirth. And remember, ‘When we have shuffled off this mortal coil’ is not the last word for religious Jews.”
“Dear Josh, is this why you appear stoical in the face of impending war in this era of nuclear as well as biological and chemical weapons?
“Stoicism is not the right word,” Pat. Since we Jews believe that God is the master of history and therefore of war, we believe that all history is a process whose ultimate end will be the perfection of the Jewish People. And contrary to your righteous fears, dear Pat, there is reason to believe that the weapons of mass destruction available to our enemies may actually hasten Israel’s and mankind’s spiritual redemption!”
“Josh, you can’t be serious! Please explain yourself.”
“Look Pat, I’m merely speculating on the basis of Jewish history and even on recent events. Consider the plagues of the Exodus. These plagues occurred in a country most advanced in science and technology. The plagues violated the laws nature, but the Pharaoh and his wise men, up to a point, thought they could control nature. Now, contrary to modern science, Torah Jews reject the idea that nature is autonomous. We hold that God is the master of nature. Hence nature, like history, must somehow serve the ultimate redemption of the Jewish People.
“But Josh, what has all this to do with the war of annihilation now threatening Israel?”
“That’s exactly the point, dear Pat! You see, the miracles that occurred during the Exodus were reported throughout much of the world. These miracles revealed that God is the God of nature. By the way, the numerical value or Gematria of the term nature is 86—same as the numerical value of Elokim, one of the names of God. But please don’t press me on this, Pat. I mention this only to suggest that Biblical Hebrew is a designed language—the only designed language—and God is not a man that does not keep his promise.”
“Anyway, according to the Talmud, dear Pat, the miracles that will take place at Israel’s final redemption will exceed those that occurred during the Exodus. I just wonder what kind of miracles would be appropriate for our time? Perhaps the miracles will demonstrate—as they did in Egypt, that nature, contrary to contemporary science, is not governed by unalterable laws, but by Almighty God?”
“Have you any idea Josh how these miracles will be manifested?”
“Well Pat, recall the Scud missile attack on Israel during the first Persian Gulf War. Only one person was killed by the 39 missiles that struck Israel. Even non-religious generals who studied the great destruction wrought by those missiles concluded that the death of only one person had to be the result of many miracles.”
“But Josh, surely these so-called miracles pale in significance to those associated with the Exodus.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Pat, but whereas few people witnessed those Scud-related miracles, Israel is now threatened by nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction. Notice these weapons correspond to three distinct sciences of nature. Suppose such weapons were launched against Israel. What miracles would we need to save us? I spoke of three: (1) about nature, (2) about the pagan belief Egypt could control nature, and (3) about Israel’s miraculous Exodus. Now ponder the impact on mankind if nuclear missiles aimed at Israel killed not a single a Jew but annihilated Israel’s enemies, as occurred in the parting of the Red Sea.”
“Wait a second Josh. You can speculate all you want, but shouldn’t you offer some tangible evidence to indicate at least the possibility of your Alice-in-Wonderland scenario?”
“Perhaps you’re right Pat, but no one at the time of the Exodus could have foreseen its miracles, and probably no one would have believed in their possibility. That’s why miracles are miracles.”
“Okay Josh, but give me a clue as to what may happen miraculously in the present juncture of human affairs.”
“My dear Pat, I’m not a prophet, but I’ll say this. Whatever Israel does for its salvation involves the cooperation of God. On the other hand, to say man was created in the image of God means we are partners with God. Remember, the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea required Moses to extend his hand over the Sea.
“Now, as you know, Pat, Israel today is far advanced in nanotechnology—surpassing even the United States. You know that the Allies in World War II could not have been victorious were in not for science, in which Jews excelled. I’m thinking not only of Einstein. Jews were preeminent in the Manhattan Project, for example, Robert Oppenheimer, Otto Frisch, Felix Block, Max Borne, and by the way, the great Enrico Fermi was married to a Jewess.”
“Hold on, Josh. With due respect to the scientists you have in Israel today, they don’t compare to the giants of yesterday.”
“They don’t have to, dear Pat! All they need do is create the technology required to reverse the paths of missiles aimed at Israel and return them to their point of origin; and if you consider the rapidity with which Israel is developing nanotechnology, who knows? In Israel, only those who believe in miracles are realists. Miracles, dear Pat, may be approaching, and will rightly be seen as such by mankind. Of course, I am only speculating, constructing a scenario conceptually consistent with the miracles of the Exodus, or with what has been said of them by the Sages. Stay tuned.*Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, February 8, 2010.
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