Tora of Israel, Tora of Exile

By Yoav Sorek

Judaism seems to have become irrelevant to reality. The first step to bringing it back.

An example of the otherworldly tendencies of the Tora of Exile appears in the later rabbinic treatment of the Sabbath “third meal.” The rabbis of the Talmud obligated Jews to eat three meals on the Sabbath. By honoring the Sabbath with an additional festive meal (the ancients normally ate two meals per day), despite the difficulties which might be involved, they made the Sabbath a day of pleasure different from the rest of the week, as is suggested in Scripture. The later Jewish law, however, was incapable of regarding satiation and pleasure as the main purpose of this meal. The accent was therefore shifted to the abstract value of conducting three meals, as opposed to any other number: The three meals were interpreted as corresponding to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or else to the three kabalistic aspects of the manifestation of the Divine Presence—attributes totally unconnected to the material or esthetic feelings of a person engaged in a repast. Consequently, the traditional view came to insist on the third meal as an absolute obligation. Even when partaking of this meal became unpleasurable, as a result of overeating or because short days brought the second and third meals too close together, the idea that such considerations might affect the obligation was rarely entertained—for the “third meal” had become a technical act which required a certain standard to be met, not an act of eating, with all its psychophysical meanings. Thus emphasis is still placed on the act—but the act is emptied of its true significance and linked instead to ethereal meanings and abstract definitions.

It should be emphasized that despite these developments, the Bible, Mishna and Talmud all retained their canonic standing in the Tora of Israel, joined by the writings of Maimonides and other medieval authorities. Moreover, a large portion of the material written in this period of exilic Tora does not contradict the important principles of the original Jewish faith, the Tora of the Land. The characteristics of the Tora of Exile came to dominate Jewish popular thought not through the rewriting or negation of the classical texts, but through a change in the attitudes most traditional Jews exhibited toward them. Laws were neither erased nor rewritten, but the new set of priorities, the degree of involvement in certain areas and the underlying assumptions governing these decisions transformed the later Jewish law into the Tora of Exile.

The modern picture of the exilic Tora was fashioned mainly in the centuries after the expulsion from Spain, when the cultural and physical trials in the lands of the dispersion almost completely overpowered the Jewish tradition. However, this was also the period in which the hardships and hopelessness of the exile built up expectations for a change of circumstances. This was the height of the crisis, the darkest moment of the night of exile, but it was also the moment in which the glimmering of redemption was perceived most powerfully.²³ A well-known kabalistic depiction compares the end of the exile to the last hours of the night: The darkness deepens as the hour of sunrise draws closer. The intent of the metaphor is clear: At the apex of the development of the Tora of Exile, a change occurs—more and more Jews refuse to accept the exile and seek to bring it to an end. The spreading of kabalistic wisdom which characterized this period contributed to this, teaching many that it was their duty to bring redemption to the world—mainly through the force of their desire for it—and that they could use the power of special corrective prayers, or tikunim, to “correct” the exile of the Divine Presence. The widespread belief in the need to act in order to bring about the end of the dispersion, and the sense that the Jewish people possessed the ability to do so, eventually came to fruition in practical Zionism.

VIII

The Tora of Exile bore impressive fruit for many generations: It strength ened Jewish identity and gave the Jews a reason for their lives, even under the most difficult conditions. However, once the Jews returned to the land of Israel and the people of Israel rejoined world history, the Tora of Exile became deficient in ways with which we are all too familiar. The majority of the people of today’s Israel are, at best, connected to tradition only in a partial and troubled manner. On the other hand, despite many disappointments and no small number of problems, the State of Israel still stands as the most important feature on the Jewish landscape in the eyes of her supporters and opponents alike. The road back to an identity preserved only by the Tora no longer exists.

The aims of secular Zionism in many respects paralleled those dictated by the idea of returning to the Tora of the Land. In the minds of many Jews, Zionism restored honor to reality; it returned the Jewish people to the fundamental principle of derech eretz—occupation with this world—as well as to an awareness of the spiritual significance of the material world in the land of Israel. But this trend never developed to maturity. Zionism, as it evolved, lacked a sense of continuity with and commitment to the traditions of Israel, due to its inherent critique of traditional Jewish life in exile. Perhaps if it were not for the confusion of the exilic Tora with the Tora of the Land, secular Zionism would not have felt compelled to lash out at tradition: It would have sufficed to proclaim that the time had come to return to the Tora of the Land.

The Jews, as a people, have lost much in the transition from the Tora of Exile to secular Zionism. A state has been built which preserves but little of the most profound qualities of the Jewish people. Tradition and faith exist, for the most part, in a repressed manner. Meanwhile, the nobility of life, the cultural profundity, the Jewish genius—these have all but disappeared. No impressive spiritual or intellectual developments have taken the place of the abandoned exilic Tora. In the heady days of Zionist activism surrounding the birth of the Jewish state, the movement managed to produce poetry and philosophy. But today, the Israeli public lacks the intellectual vitality needed to face the challenges of the next century.

Where has the Jewish genius gone? Why does the State of Israel not have an excellent government, a flourishing economy or a society of high moral norms—in short, a great civilization?

The answer is that as members of the Jewish people, the nation that first raised the banner of life in world thought, we cannot make do with a simple, technical national life. We are incapable of establishing a tolerant and tranquil Western democracy in Israel. We are not good at copying, and we do not have the inclination for a “normal” national existence. For us, building a meaningful life can no longer be postponed to the future, to the “Messianic era” or the “world to come”; we have already returned to the world and are once again within it. The challenge facing us therefore is to encounter the essence of life once again. The search for meaning in the here and now does not discriminate between “secular” and “religious” Jews. Many among the “secular” are searching for values and meaning, despite the somewhat ludicrous attempts by members of the secular Israeli elite to establish a Levantine-European dolce vita, a culture of wine connoisseurs and alternative theater, in the belief that one can always count on the masses to remain enthralled by mind-numbing television programs and the state lottery.

The “religious,” in contrast, tend to deride the emptiness of secular life, proposing in its stead the framework offered by Orthodoxy. But this life, too, is built on the assumption of an insignificant present: The here and now is still only a means of attaining a better life in the distant future. The fact that the majority of Jews in Israel call themselves secular enables the religious public to exempt itself from the attempt to rediscover the purpose of life in the present. The avowed goal of the religious public is for everyone to become Orthodox, after which, it is supposed, everything will be fine.

This habit of postponing the issue to a later date is conspicuous even in the national-religious school system:²⁴ The task of building a child’s loyalty to the religious world, with all its inherent difficulties, is left by the elementary schools to the yeshiva high schools. The latter, in turn, concern themselves with what they understand to be the most important task of all—ensuring that their young men continue on to the ultimate institution, the “hesder” yeshiva (which combines religious studies with military service), or else to a non-military, higher-level yeshiva.

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