Sunday, August 26, 2007

What Are You?

By Moshe Feiglin

11 Cheshvan, 5764
November 6, 2003


Translated from Moshe Feiglin's book, "The War of Dreams."

question markI once went into a synagogue in the U.S. to pray the afternoon prayers.

"Where are you from?" the rabbi asked me.

"From Israel, of course," I answered.

"Why 'of course'?" the rabbi asked.

"Because I am a Jew," I answered nonchalantly.

I am not from Israel because I am religious and not because I am a Zionist. I am from Israel like a Frenchman is from France. I am from Israel simply because I am a Jew.

"As a Religious Zionist, how can you work in the Likud?" an Arutz 7 listener once asked me.

"I am not a Zionist and I am not religious," I answered.

"So what are you?" the listener asked.

"A Jew," I answered.

"Fine." the listener said. "That's clear. We are all Jews. But after all, you are not secular and you are also not ultra-Orthodox!"

"Certainly not," I answered.

"Nu? So what is left?"

"I have a question for you," I said to him. Was King David a Zionist? Was he religious? Secular? Or perhaps ultra-Orthodox? What was he?"

The listener thought that I was trying to evade his question. He was not capable of thinking out of his label-covered box. I look like an observant Jew. I have a skullcap on my head, so to him, I am religious.

But in truth, the concept "religious" is borrowed from other cultures -- particularly Christian culture. It does not fit Jewish culture at all. The first person to use this concept was the wicked Haman. "And they do not abide by the religious precepts of the king," Haman said to King Achashverosh in order to justify his "final solution." It was Christianity that separated religion from life. It created the concept "religious" with the Western significance with which we are familiar.

But Judaism is not a religion. Judaism is a culture. It is a nation, a land, the Torah of Israel -- the entire spectrum of life in which observance of commandments is an essential part.

It is difficult for a person born into the concepts of "religious" and "secular" to think in other terms. But to better understand that other options exist, we can just look at cultures that do not rely on the Western/Christian thought pattern. For Sephardi Jews (Jews from Eastern countries) for example, the concepts "religious" and "secular" are not as unequivocal as for their Ashkenazi (Jews from Western countries) counterparts. There are those Jews who observe more commandments, there are those who observe less and it is not always clear who is "religious" and who is "secular." These definitions just don't easily apply to them.

So what are these Jews? Religious or secular? And maybe it is not really fair to ask that question? Maybe it is like asking a person if he is a cat or a rooster.

Israeli society will be forced to march toward a new/old consciousness. Two hundred years of secularization on the one hand and two thousand years of seclusion behind the walls of religion, on the other hand, must come to an end. In the reality being woven before our very eyes, these concepts are already becoming irrelevant.

The Rabbinical Courts should be part of the Justice Ministry, while a self-hating Jew like Tommy Lapid should not be in the Justice Ministry or in any other position of power. The Rabbinical Courts do not have to be "Rabbinical." But they do have to be Jewish. Those people who insist on being religious in some sort of Ministry of Religion -- religious outside of reality and outside of our familiar history -- will eventually disappear. Those people who insist on being secular and forcing lack of significance, lack of rationality and their dreams of assimilation onto Israel's history will also become irrelevant and disappear.

In order to survive, we must establish a Jewish State. To do that, we must go back to being simply Jews. When that happens, the concept of "Israeli-ness" will be redeemed from its current neuter state. Then we will be able to once again be the children of Israel -- authentic Israelis.



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1 comment:

Mark said...

The concept of a Jewish State begins with failure. It is a failure to recognize that politics and spirituality were never meant to be a part of the same thing. Ever since Jethro induced Moshe to invent the priesthood there have been politics mixed with spirituality always with the same results. Corruption, wars, Jew fighting Jew, temples destroyed and hypocrisy of the most base form. Spirituality by definition concerns a mans communion with his Creator. That communion needs neither legislative action nor any outside overseer. A Jewish State would only try and impose the laws of Torah upon all of Israel in such a way that only those in power would benefit. While there would be the illusion of a return to the "good old days" of Jerusalem the fact is that those good old days were fraught with corruption and inconsistency and an almost tyrannical rule by the priesthood.

Why would you want to return to something that didn't by definition work the first time. How are you any better than those men who failed to keep Israel together way back when? Isn't it hubris to think that you will succeed because of a religion; which has already failed to bring about peace even between Jews.

It is the political agendas that divide us and take us away from the true meanings of Torah that have been suppressed all this time simply because it did not suit the politics of those scholars and rulers under whose aegis the Torah was safeguarded.

The bottom line is that a Jewish State cannot offer any guarantee that it will be any better than what we have now.

In fact imposing this kind of a state upon a free Jewish people would be akin to living under Muslim rule where the Immans decree everything and the willing subjects obey.

Hashem forbid this from ever coming to light.

May he who waits on high always be there for us in our freedom and never cause us to be ruled over by priests, or magicians or corrupt politicians.

May he waits for his people to come home to him show the way with freedom and love so that those who seek power will be no more.

That is the crux here.

Power seeking individuals will do anything in the pursuit of their goals which are to rule over others. How sad that equality amongst men, amongst Jews is being cast aside here for simply another form of slavery, a slavery of the mind.

In the final analysis a Jewish State cannot offer a guarantee because the motive of those in power will always be more important than the ones who are its subjects.

Freedom will always triumph as history records. There is no going back. A return to Priesthood rule would be catastrophic for all of Israel and the world, that is why it will never happen despite the efforts of the power hungry to feed upon the weakness of others.

No not this time. Not ever!