Tora of Israel, Tora of Exile

By Yoav Sorek

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

But what happens there? Nothing. The young Jew continues to be educated about the need to preserve the religious framework, but he is not given the tools for projecting his faith onto his life, in all its aspects, and thereby transforming his beliefs into a source of life for him and his surroundings. And the higher-level yeshiva, despite its pretensions, does nothing to shatter the dichotomy between Tora and life.

The situation in the religious-Zionist community at large is even more complex. The religious-Zionist public, which adheres to the Tora on one hand, but participates in the different lifestyles of the workplace, the army or the government on the other, has plunged into the confusion of internal contradiction. The community no longer declares that the world is unimportant, since Zionism has taken it upon itself to return the Jewish people to the historical arena; however, the tradition to whose frameworks the religious public is committed continues to regard the present world as of marginal importance.

As a result, all values connected to this world—from the proper functioning of the government to the effectiveness of the army to the public’s intellectual achievements—come to be regarded as part of the secular side of life, with religion restricted to those spheres which are its exclusive domain: The synagogue, the rituals, the prohibitions. It becomes easier to be observant if religion takes no substantial part in any value-oriented action in the “secular” realm. A scientist, political leader or army officer finds himself torn between two sources of moral authority, the secular and the religious, both vying for his loyalty.

But even someone uninvolved in value-laden pursuits in his secular life becomes accustomed to a life of inner contradiction. Since it is in the nature of the Tora of Exile to distance itself from life, the weights and measures employed in determining Jewish law sometimes fail the test of common sense. The juxtaposition of the overtly comprehensible reasoning that drives business or family decisions with the frequently unfathomable calculations that determine religious life only widens the split in the soul of the religious individual.

The issue of the territories captured by Israel in the Six Day War provides an example of this duality. While the religious Zionism of 1948 accepted the secular decisions of the state’s leadership on every issue not clearly of a religious nature, the generation of religious Zionists who grew up after 1967 redefined the political sphere as a religious realm. The problem, however, is that instead of returning to the Tora of the Land—that is, to a conception of the Tora as relevant to mundane reality—the new religious Zionism adopted the opposite line of thought. It transferred the question of the land of Israel to the list of “religious” subjects—those topics dealt with in a legalistic, technical, almost ritual matter.²⁵

This move by elements in the religious community greatly strengthened the community’s ability to fight for nationalist ideas, by mobilizing the force of tradition on behalf of the struggle for the land. However, it also created a serious problem: Discussion of this issue in religious quarters has ceased to be realistic. To this day, no attempt has been made by the settlers, and certainly not by Tora scholars, to present a comprehensive strategic conception of the State of Israel in opposition to that offered by the left. An understanding of the forces at work in the Middle East, the ability to maneuver between the superpowers, the structure of the IDF and the conditions conducive to waging a military struggle—all these vital topics are considered unimportant precisely because land has become a “religious” issue—that is, one not pertaining to this world.

We may summarize the current crisis of values by pointing to an unspoken symbiosis between religious and secular societies. Religious society draws all its worldly culture from secular society: Poetry, literature, public norms, patterns of thinking and a worldview built on science and Western thought. Traditional Judaism in Israel today plays on a secular field, on which it is understood to be the “religious” player. Notwithstanding all the complaints religious Jews raise against the content of secular culture, it has not until now presented a meaningful alternative; such an alternative could come into being only if the Tora were to extend its purview beyond the “four cubits” of the exilic Jewish legal system. Secular society, for its part, also benefits from the present division of labor. The question of who we are and the significance of our Jewish identity troubles many secular Jews, but for the most part, it is not an issue of burning personal relevance. Secular Israelis feel themselves free to lift high their various universalistic banners, since they know they can rely on the religious to carry the standard of national culture, a standard they realize must be borne by someone.

This symbiosis, however, cannot be maintained forever. Secular Israelis have begun to resent the religious for carrying the flag of Judaism, and themselves for ignoring it. Similarly, many among the religious are revolted by the manner in which the secular reserve the worldly sphere for themselves, in particular Zionism and the rules of the cultural-political game. And to an increasing degree, the religious understand that they have no alternative of their own.

The Tora of the Land can constitute the common ground between the religious and the secular, the point of encounter between Tora and life, between the ancient Jewish faith and man’s creative ability in the postmodern era. The Oral Law, the vital force connecting heaven and earth, can be resurrected by the secular and the religious working as one. They can use it to bring truth to earth and nurture it, and together build a Jewish civilization in the land of their forefathers, reestablish the ancient covenant between Israel and God and restore the world’s admiration to the worldly Jerusalem.

Yoav Sorek is a Graduate Fellow at The Shalem Center in Jerusalem.

Notes

1. The Babylonian Talmud was completed in the fifth century c.e. Maimonides writes: “Ravina and R. Ashi [the concluders of the Talmud] were the last of the great sages of Israel who transmitted the Oral Law, made decrees, issued regulations and introduced customs in all Israel, in all their habitations. After the court of R. Ashi, who composed the Talmud—which was completed in his son’s time—Israel was widely dispersed throughout all the lands ... and Tora study diminished ... and every court which existed after the Gemara ... its jurisdiction did not extend through all Israel ... but all Israel is obligated to follow everything in the Babylonian Talmud....” Maimonides, Mishneh Tora, Introduction.

The chain of smicha in the land of Israel was broken, most likely, in the early fourth century c.e. See Nahmanides’ comments on Maimonides, Sefer Hamitzvot, commandment 153. The tradition of smicha existed in a limited way in Babylonia as well, though it most likely declined and ceased in this same period.

2. Mishneh Tora, Laws of Idolatry 1:1.

3. This resembles the “basic conceptual error” of Adlerian psychology. There the term refers to the concretizing of a person’s outlook during the first years of life which makes his sense of self dependent on specific situations—success, parental support, integrity, usefulness, etc. The “fixated” person directs all his resources to the attainment of that situation in which he feels self-worth; as long as he is trapped within his basic error, he can never realize his capabilities in other ways.

4. The phrase “other gods” (elohim aherim), which frequently appears in the Bible in reference to idolatry, was interpreted by the Jewish sages in the following alternative manner: “‘Other gods’—in that they are ‘other’ to those who worship them. Similarly, it says [Isaiah 46:7], ‘If they cry out to [the idol], it does not answer; it cannot save them from their distress.’” Sifrei Deuteronomy, 43; Mechilta, Yitro 6.

This idea has been developed at length in relation to the accepted notion of the divine in Western civilization according to both Christianity and Spinoza. See R. A.Y. Kook, “The Knowledge of God” (Da’at Elohim), in Eder Hayakar V’ikvei Hatzon (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1967).

5. Deuteronomy 13:15 and 17:4; Deuteronomy 17:13 and 21:21.

6. This is based on the rabbinic teachings on I Kings 6:4 in Menahot 86b (according to the emended version therein) and Rashi ad locum, s.v. “Shkufim.”

7. For the “world to come” in the Bible, see the excellent essay of Yisrael Rosenson, “On the Question of Scriptural Mention of the ‘World to Come,’” in Derech Efrata 2 (1992), pp. 13-30.

8. Jeremiah 2:13.

9. Hagiga 5b.

10. “This era” (hazman hazeh) and “this world” (ha’olam hazeh) are common phrases in the written and spoken languages of the tradition. The latter is extremely prevalent throughout the homiletic and ethical literature (and has been adopted with the same meaning in modern Hebrew), in contrast with the “world to come.” Only rarely does it appear in contrast to the redemption. The phrase “this era” is accepted in all types of halachic literature and expresses the rabbinic attitude toward the fact that in contradistinction to the basic axioms upon which the commandment system is based, we no longer live in the land of Israel, nor do we have a Sanhedrin, a Temple, the opportunity to apply the laws of sacrifices and ritual purity, judicial authority in capital cases or pilgrimages to the Temple. The works of applied halacha always concern themselves with “this world.”

11. Sifrei Deuteronomy, 43.

12. It should be noted that the use of the phrase “the world to come” to denote life after death is not considered self-evident in Jewish religious literature. The early Sages understood the phrase in at least three ways: The world as it will be after the resurrection of the dead; the world as it will be after the conclusion of the exile (prior to the resurrection of the dead); and the world in which the individual arrives after he dies. The debate also relates to the meaning of the rabbinic dictum: “All Israel has a share in the world to come.” This and similar teachings present the world to come as the place in which recompense for actions in this world will be received. It is not coincidental that the further we distance ourselves from our national life and the more profound the exile becomes, the more firmly the meaning of the “world to come” becomes entrenched in popular consciousness as the “world of souls.” From a certain perspective the “world of souls” is more easily attainable, as it is available to man on the basis of his personal actions and good intentions, rather than being dependent upon the society in which he lives.

It should also be noted that this personal “world of souls” is perceived, in most instances, as a tangible location where all the righteous meet on one side and all the wicked meet on the other.

13. R. Hiya bar Ami in the name of Ula, Brachot 8a.

14. Sifrei Deuteronomy, 43.

15. Mishna Avot 4:16.

16. R. Yitzhak, Menahot 110a. In the same passage, Rava adopts a more extreme position, declaring that “whoever occupies himself with Tora [study] does not need” the sacrifices. See also the dictum of Resh Lakish there.

17. Leviticus 26:3; Sifra, ad locum; Rashi, ad locum.

18. II Samuel 23:20.

19. Regarding Benaya ben Yehoyada, see Brachot 18a-b.

20. R. Shmuel bar Nahmani in the name of R. Yonatan, Yevamot 109b; Sanhedrin 7b. The passage quoted is Song of Songs 3:7-8.

21. The Shulhan Aruch is believed to be the first composition in the Jewish tradition never to have been transcribed by hand: It was sent directly to the printer. To many, this fact marks the beginning of the period of the Aharonim.

22. The expulsion from Spain was perceived by the Jews of the exile as a cataclysmic upheaval of their world, and consequently as a call for redemption. An important result of this shock was the spiritual center established in Safed in the wake of the expulsion. The center regarded itself as the first generation of the period of the redemption, and for a time even renewed the institution of smicha (an innovation which proved transitory). The contemporaneous activity of R. Isaac Luria in Safed also fits into this context. His activity was to be of tremendous importance in Jewish history due to the influence of his teachings and personality. His lifetime marked the start of an accelerated spread of the study of Kabala through the Jewish diaspora, which gave birth to all succeeding Jewish movements of importance, both positive and negative: Sabbateanism, Hasidism, the disciples of the Vilna Gaon and, indirectly, Zionism.

The rise of the influence of Kabala and its study may illustrate, more than anything else, the paradoxical connection in the period of the Aharonim between the withdrawal from the world, on one hand, and the increased interest in bringing about the redemption, on the other. This is pronounced in the practice of tikun hatzot, which is described extensively in the Zohar and is common in both the East and the West. This custom involves rising in the middle of the night to recite supplicatory prayers and lamentations over the destruction of the Temple and then studying Tora until daybreak. In contrast with the regular prayers, this midnight practice was intended to effect a concrete historical change—to bring forth the Divine Presence from exile and thereby awaken the redemption. Arising at an unusual hour in the night symbolizes the initiative taken by the Jew in order to bring about the redemption on the one hand, and on the other, the negation of the importance of ordinary life, which requires uninterrupted rest at night.

23. Cf. R. Yermia, Sanhedrin 24a.

24. This refers to that part of the religious (dati) public which is not haredi (“ultra-Orthodox”). The community is known in Israel as “national-religious” because it contends with the confrontation between the sacred and modern life. The majority of the haredi public attempts to avoid any encounter with “secular life,” and even more so to avoid legitimization of the current reality and the idea that we are no longer in the exile. For example, the expression “Since the day the Temple was destroyed, the Holy One has nothing in his world except the four cubits of halacha” is better known among the haredi public as “The Holy One has nothing in his world except the four cubits of halacha.” It is understood by the haredim as a positive statement. A more extensive discussion of this matter would, however, exceed the scope of the present essay.

25. See the commentary of Vered Noam in Nekuda 198 (Tishrei 5757 [1996]), pp. 69-71.

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