This article has been written by Rav Ari Shvat (Chwat), Rosh Midreshet Tal Orot in Michlelet Orot, Elkana. He has graciously offered to share his wisdom with the readers of Tzipiyah.com, and given me a few, very powerful and all very relevant, articles to share with you. This is the second part of the first article. Enjoy!Last time, we ended by saying that: Rav Kook points out that as opposed to the rebel in biblical and midieval times, the chalutzim ran from Torah not because it was too difficult or “high” for them but the opposite, because it was too “low” for them. They wanted ideals and were answered with negatives.
The chalutzim were not lazy people! For the ideals that they believed in, they were willing to move to a far and deserted Land, to struggle and often die fighting malaria and Arab marauders. They simply did not find Judaism as an ideology but as empty ritual.
The chidush of Rav Kook was that he explained to the fathers and sons alike, that the youthful rebellion was not against Torah but against galut!
An objective examination of the “original” Torah (as opposed to the galuti one) finds that those very ideals of the chalutzim not only did not contradict Judaism, but in those respects, the rebellious sons were even more “religious” than their elders!
An objective reading of the Jewish sources finds that Am Yisrael has a nationalist aspect which is actually embedded within the religious one. Moshe, Yehoshua, Shaul, David and all of our biblical heroes were all religious-nationalists! They spoke Hebrew, led the national army, worked the land as farmers or shepherds, and saw their national and their religious roles as one-and-the-same.
• The conquering of Eretz Yisrael and running the Jewish State cannot but be called nationalism. This is exactly the mitzva to conquer, rule and settle the Holy Land called mitzvat yishuv haAretz, "והורשתם את הארץ וישבתם בה".
• Even though it’s not always possible, Aliya is always a Jewish ideal.
• How much more so when associated with the national revival stressed so often in the tanach as the ultimate Jewish dream!
• Our forefathers were preoccupied with physical labor and working the Holy Land of Israel, as part of the aforementioned mitzva of settling the Land. Just as we shouldn’t be embarrassed to don our holy tfilin, if necessary, even publicly before the eyes of gentiles, how much more so, there is no shame to be a farmer and cultivate the holy fruits of the Holy Land, for the sake of the holy People!
• It is a mitzva to speak even about secular topics in Hebrew, Lashon haKodesh, as did our forefathers in the Tanach. Moshe spoke with Yehosua in Hebrew, not yiddish, and was called Rabbenu, not Rabinowitz!
• Our forefathers and national heroes were not warmongers, but when oppressed or mocked, Avraham, Moshe, Yehoshua, Gidon, Yiftach, Samson, Shaul, David, the Maccabees were far from being pushovers! They all served in the Israelite (sounds more frum than “Israeli”, but it means the same thing!) army and stood up for Jewish pride. “Turning the other cheek” is a Christian, not a Jewish, concept.
• The ideals of equality and social justice were not invented by modern socialist but are the very backbone of Judaism. Especially in Eretz Yisrael, we give about 2% of our produce for truma, 10% for ma’aser and trumat ma’aser, 10% for tzedaka or ma’aser ani, every seventh year (=14%) our produce is left for the poor, in addition to the year of yovel (=2%), not to mention 22 (!) other matnot kehuna, and other significant percentages for the poor (leket, shikcha,pe’ah, peret, olilot, etc.). All this amounts to about half (!) of what we earn, we share with the less fortunate! The most common mitzva in the Torah (35 times) is to love and take care of the ger, the foreigner, that he shouldn’t be exploited.
• Being that complete Judaism is not only a religion but a nationality as well, when living our natural national life in Erets Yisrael, there obviously always was an Israelite (sounds more frum than “Israeli”) culture.
• Inevitably, in the modern world, that Jewish State must have not only farmers but also universities, trade schools, think-tanks, institutions for research and development, plumbers, etc. etc.
In fact, suggests Rav Kook, not only do these modern ideals not contradict the eternal Torah, but their actual source is in the Torah itself.
Why Israel and not Uganda? Why Hebrew and not Yiddish? Who brought morality, social justice, and Jewish pride to the world, if not the Torah! Simply put, it’s not the zionists who are reforming or changing Judaism (a common anti-zionist complaint), but davka the galut is guilty of that offense. On the contrary, Zionism is calling for the return to the original! חדש ימינו כקדם. It even borders on the heretical to see the eternal Torah as something ancient, outdated or anachronistic, not applicable to today’s modern world.
The problem is that in the meantime, an interesting but unfortunate coilition was formed between the zionist anti-religious sons and their religious anti-zionist elders, that stands until this very day. The chilonim and the charedim, ironically, agree that zionism and religion exclusively contradict.
Rav Kook tells us that instead of division, the fathers and the sons should learn from eachother. Not only should the young learn from their elders, but as the navi Malachi directs us, in the generation of ge’ula, the converse is true , as well. והשיב לב אבות .על.בנים ולב בנים על אבותם The fathers should learn nationalism from their children, and the rebellious sons should return to the religion of their fathers. They should both realize that their common rebellion should be against the galut who’s time is up (as the sho’ah and rampant assimilation subsequently proved) , and that their common goal is to return to the days of yore. The artificial mechitza that they commonly erected between nationalism and religion should be removed, and the original religious –zionism should be restored.
