Towards a Religious Zionism RH2: 5771

Allow me to begin this morning with a quote taken from an article I was reading just the other day:

“There is a story told of a German Jew of the older generation that when his friends came to him . . . and asked what he thought of the new attacks on the Jews, he looked rather astonished, and said, “They are not new; they are the [same] as the old ones.”

The author of this article then continues:

“I must say with equal justice that the attacks on Zionism which have come lately from press and pulpit are not new. They have been refuted ever so many times, and have been as often repeated. Lest, however, my ignoring direct challenges . . . be taken as proof that I have at last become converted by the arguments of our opponents, I will state here clearly the reasons for my allegiance to Zionism.”

He makes a good point you know. These arguments which attempt to impinge the legitimacy of the Modern State of Israel, the manifestation of the Zionist endeavor are not new. Indeed they have been around for quite some time. In fact, the article I just quoted was written by one Solomon Schechter, that’s right the Solomon Schechter, in a piece entitled Zionism: A Statement, published in 1906.

Yet, here we stand 104 years later and it is as if his words were ripped from this morning’s newspaper, Time Magazine to be precise, whose cover this week outrageously and irresponsibly claimed to answer: “Why Israelis Don’t Care About Peace.” But these are not the new attacks; they are the same as the old ones.

Let’s be honest, the year 5770, was not an easy one for Israel. With last October came the release of the Goldstone Report, the United Nations sponsored document which levied allegations of war crimes against both the terrorist organization Hamas and the Israeli Army during the Gaza War of 2009.

Then, in March of this past year Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Israel, and was greeted with the announcement of new construction underway in a disputed neighborhood beyond the Green Line in East Jerusalem. Vice President Biden and the Obama administration made their insult extremely plain, prompting several commentators to wonder if we had reached an unprecedented nadir point in Israeli-American relations.

Then of course there were the events of May 31st of this past year, in an incident which has become known to many of us by one infamous word: Flotilla. A Turkish ship bound for the shores of the Gaza Strip in an effort to break Israel’s naval blockade ended in deadly violence, as nine passengers were killed when activists on the ship attacked Israeli combat troops.

In the political realm there was the ill-conceived Conversion bill put forth by Member of Kenneset David Rotem. Not only would this bill have officially handed over conversions to the ultra-orthodox rabbinate, making it nearly impossible for some 300,00 Russian immigrants to convert; it also would have estranged non-Orthodox converts living in the Diaspora, thus imperiling the tenuous bond of Klal Yisrael, the notion that all Jews are part of the same family.

Oh, and all this while Iran, a country whose population seems held hostage by a theocracy of radical extremists, builds a nuclear bomb aimed directly at Tel Aviv.

Like I said, the year 5770 was not an easy one for Israel.

Now many would call me crazy for even talking about Israeli politics from the pulpit given the current climate. Usually it’s a lose-lose situation: you are bound to offend someone no matter what you say.

Well you’re right, so I will not be talking about politics on this Rosh HaShanah. Because one of the most important lessons you can learn in life is to always know who you are, and who you aren’t: so let me start by telling you who I am not.

I am not a political scientist. I am not a politician. I am not a diplomat. I am not an Israeli. And perhaps most importantly I am not a miracle worker, so I will not be able to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before Musaf.

And simply because I am committed to Israel, have been there numerous times, lived there for a year, studied its history, and I keep the Israeli newspaper HaAretz as my internet homepage, doesn’t mean I am any greater of an expert in the intricacies of the modern social and political landscape of the State of Israel as anyone else in this room.

But let me tell you who I am. I am a Jew and I am a rabbi. This is something I take very seriously, a commitment to inspiring my community to consider their Jewish tradition as an integral and meaningful part of their lives, directing them through the modern thicket of life. I am in the business of doing mitzvot, perfecting the world through the observance of God’s commandments, and I am interested in having you join me on this journey. The time has come to re-affirm our support of the State of Israel, regardless of our political perspective; a support that should be born from our religious commitments. So, as I stand here today, 104 years after Solomon Schechter first penned his words, allow me an attempt at delivering my own statement: a statement on my religious commitment to Zionism.

For me it is a simple equation; my connection to the modern political State of Israel is born from my spiritual attachment to the Jewish religion and its teachings. In short: I am a Zionist because I am a Jew, I am commanded to love Israel, because I am commanded to love my fellow human being, and certainly those who share the destiny of the Jewish people. But now the salient question to explore, is from where exactly in our rich tradition flows our commitment to a specific land, to a specific city, to a specific mountain?

For me the answer is clear: It does not come from our Bible. Yes, you heard me correctly. I believe that our truest attachment to the Holy Land must not be derived from the text of our Torah, or the visions of our Prophets, or the writings found in our scrolls. For certain, there are a myriad of references in our Tanakh, to the Holy Land, the Promised Land, the Land of Canaan, the Judean hills, the Holy City of Jerusalem, or in this morning’s Torah reading: the peak of Mt. Moriah, the bedrock of the Beit HaMikdash. Sure, thumb through the pages of your Bible and the references are all there. But nonetheless it is important for us to recognize that the Bible is not a land deed. You cannot present the text, no matter how sacred, and claim that it contains sufficient historicity to justify modern facts on the ground.

Moreover I believe to read the Bible this way as a modern Conservative Jew is intellectually inconsistent. I was trained very well by my Seminary, the cornerstone of the Conservative movement, that the Bible is not meant to be read literally. And lest you think me a radical, I will remind you that the rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud, Hazal, Hachamim Zichronam Livracha also choose the path away from literalism towards a refined interpretation of our Holy Torah. To read the Torah literally is to be a Karaite, a heretic according to the Rabbis; but to read it through the lens of midrashic, interpretive understanding is to be a dutiful Jew.

Finally, the last danger we encounter when we use the Torah as a land deed for the State of Israel is we open the door to the dangers of Bible thumping. You know what I mean, I quote Genesis 15 when God promises the Land to Abram and his ancestors, and you may return fire with Isaiah 1, God’s promise to lay waste to the Holy Land and to exile her children to the corners of the earth. In other words, of course my Torah matters to me, and of course I am inspired by thoughts of our biblical forefathers and mothers roaming the very same hills I have come to know and love in the Land of Israel, but I do not want to bring my Tanakh with me into peace negotiations. For, as Baruch Spinoza once warned:
Every heretic has his prooftext.

No, for me my religious connection to the modern experiment of Zionism does not stem from my reading of the Bible; but it most certainly is born between the pages of my siddur. Next time you are in shul, count the number of times our prayer books mention the words Yerushalayim, (a dozen in Shacharit alone), Tzion, (seventeen times), or Yisrael (I lost count). In the Western Hemisphere, when we pray, and when the sanctuary space allows for it, we face east towards Jerusalem; in the East they face west, directing the entirety of our national prayers towards Eretz Yisrael, Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh.

The truth is that the Bible is not a historical document but the siddur is. It reflects the poetic history of a people yearning for a return to their homeland. It demonstrates how the land has always been in our thoughts and our prayers, indeed, for generations it has brought tangibility to the ethereal act of prayer itself.
Allow me to tell you a story which illustrates this connection between our kevah, the consistency of our daily prayers, and the kavanah the connection to the land which lies behind them.

Shortly after Eliana and I were married in May of 2005, we decided to go on a year long honeymoon. A week in Montreal, followed by two months at Camp Ramah, capped off with ten heavenly months living in a sun-blessed apartment in Jerusalem. Eliana was studying at Pardes, with classes beginning in early September, but I was studying at the Schechter Institute, whose semester did not begin until after the Jewish holidays, which in that year meant the end of October. Not bad huh? So I spent much of our first two months in Israel, reading stories by S.Y. Agnon, going to the local florist to by herbs and flowers for our garden and exploring the streets of Jerusalem. It also meant that I got to sleep in each morning.

One such morning, excited by the possibility of getting a luxuriously late start on the day, my blissful dreams were interrupted by the obnoxious sounds of Shiputzim, of construction on the Apartment next door. There must have been a thousand workers simultaneously pulling up tile, hammering in nails and using sledgehammers on the opposite wall of our bedroom. Needless to say, I awoke in an ornery mood, put up a pot of coffee and grabbed my tallis and tefillin for what was bound to be a spiritually heartless davening.

I was praying by rote, eyes barely open, mind wandering to far-away places. That is until I reached a certain paragraph of the Amidah, the central prayer of the morning service:

וְלִירוּשָׁלַֽיִם עִירְךָ בְּרַחֲמִים תָּשׁוּב,
In Your mercy God, return to Your city, Jerusalem.

וְתִשְׁכּוֹן בְּתוֹכָהּ כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבַּֽרְתָּ,
And dwell there as You have promised,

וּבְנֵה אוֹתָהּ בְּקָרוֹב בְּיָמֵֽינוּ בִּנְיַן עוֹלָם,
Rebuild it permanently, speedily, in our day,

וְכִסֵּא דָוִד מְהֵרָה לְתוֹכָהּ תָּכִין.
And establish the throne of David in its midst.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, בּוֹנֵה יְרוּשָׁלָֽיִם.
Praised are You Adonai, who rebuilds Jerusalem.


In that singular moment, cradled by the cool Jerusalem stones, prayer became real for me.

This is my definition of Religious Zionism. The recognition that my Judaism is so many things: it is a religion, an ethical standard, a way of thinking, a culture and a passion, but in each of its definitions there is a solid, unshakable core: the poetic love between a people and a land.

So now, as a rabbi, it is my duty to explain what this mitzvah of experiencing the love for the State of Israel means in our day, how can we learn to embrace the religious aspects of our Zionism despite the political maelstrom which roars around us.

Firstly, we must go to Israel. If you have not ever been, I want you to seriously explore the possibility that this is the year for you to experience Israel first hand, see its beauty, taste its complexity and make your prayers reality in her embrace. If you have been to Israel before, I want you to go back. I want to go back. It has been far too long since that honeymoon and I want to make excuses no more. Let this be the year we go back to Israel. And most importantly, if you have the ability to send your child on a trip to Israel this year, I urge you to do so. I have seen it with my own eyes: our fabulous teenagers who go to Israel on programs like Ramah Seminar, Alexander Muss High School in Israel, or The March of the Living; they return as changed people. Their maturity strengthened, the connection to Judaism strengthened and their commitment to the Land of our prayers is deepened. There is no greater expression of your willingness to fulfill the mitzvah of v’shinnantam l’vanecha, of teaching your children, then by giving them an Israel experience in their youth.

Secondly, if we want to fulfill our religious obligation of loving Israel, we must commit ourselves to loving its language. We must embrace Hebrew as the national language of the Jewish people, as a link in the chain of the generations and not simply the language of the Bar Mitzvah, or the arcane sounds of the siddur. Ours are the luckiest Jewish generation in history, seeing as we have the ability not only to study our ancient texts, but also to read a newspaper, to write poetry, to philosophize, to invent cures for diseases in a modern Hebrew which is thriving and vibrant. This is precisely why we have added a Modern Hebrew requirement to our religious school at Temple Emanu-El, to instill the love of our national language in each of our wonderful students. Furthermore, I think that when our children go off to college, we should encourage them to study Hebrew, knowing that to learn Mandarin, or Arabic are worthy endeavors for certain, but studying Hebrew and connecting to our fellow Jews who speak it, this is our religious obligation.

Lastly, to love Israel does not mean that we must agree with her every political move. It must not mean that we are to be silent with our critique, uttering not a word of concern. No, this too is love. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in his masterpiece Israel: An Echo of Eternity, “In this world there is no gem which is not in need of refinement, no wheat without chaff, no vineyard without weeds, no roses without thorns. Light and shadow are mingled. There is need of refining, rethinking.” Indeed loving Israel means believing that she loves us in return. That like America, Israel is in need of our love, our support, and yes, our thoughtful challenges as well.

And so I close this statement on my religious commitment to Zionism with one final plea. The time to re-affirm our religious commitment to Israel is now, lest as Schecther said ‘our ignoring direct challenges . . . be taken as proof that we have at last become converted by the arguments of our opponents,’

We should feel free to argue about the details: the value of settlers vs. pioneers, AIPAC or JStreet, Likkud or Labor, or how many states our solution ought to have. But let us not argue with the larger picture which reveals to us that this land and our people are inexorably linked throughout generations of thoughts and prayer, and the Jewish people, the Hebrew Language and the love of the land are our religious heritage, a legacy we now, more than ever, must see ourselves as obligated to maintain.

Shanah Tovah, and B’Shanah HaBa’ah Biy’rushalayim