Act and Comprehend

By Ofir Haivry

Both Judaism and Zionism were predicated on the idea that human fulfillment can only come of correct action. Today’s confusion is the result of the exaltation of principle over deed.

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This is not merely the answer to a current, pressing problem. Its central importance is as a moral solution to the question raised at the beginning of this essay regarding the nature of the connection between content and form: There is an essential and crucial link between the form of things and their content, and not every conceivable version of things is possible. Rather, one must find the correct proportion between deed and intention; and the order and measure of things are important as well. Form precedes content, and the weight of the deed is greater than that of the intention. The right way ties together intention and act, but always ascribes first importance to the political and the material before the spiritual. As Shamai used to say: “Say little and do much.”³⁸

Thus, just as the second, forgotten, peace agreement that the State of Israel signed with an Arab country—that with Lebanon in 1982—was not worth the paper it was written on since it lacked all connection with reality, so too in that same year the attempt to stop the dismantling of the Jewish communities of Sinai failed because those settlements had remained on the periphery of Israeli experience. Due to the reality of few settlements and few settlers, Sinai remained a peripheral place in the Israeli consciousness—a vacation site, otherwise out of sight, out of mind. And because of the marginality of the experience of this place, it was impossible to save it from the bulldozers. As one of the leading political opponents of the withdrawal from Sinai, MK Hanan Porat, pronounced shortly after the destruction of the Yamit area: “There are no shortcuts.”³⁹

The future of Israel therefore lies in the practical response that our generation will give to two interconnected questions: What is the land of Israel? And what is the Jewish people? We are not here speaking of absolute, moral answers to these questions, which were decided long ago; but rather of the practical garb those answers will assume in our day. Will Israelis settle only in the coastal plain between Tel Aviv and Haifa, or in other parts of the land as well? What part of the Jewish people will reside in its land?

The way in which we confront these two questions will determine our experience of the reality of Israel for generations to come. It is easy to understand that the geographical settlement of the Jewish people in the land will influence their outlook. Already, cities founded by the Romans and Philistines, such as Caesarea and Ashkelon, are closer to the Israeli psyche than traditional Jewish capitals such as Hebron or Shiloh, and a rupture has been created in this psyche between the land and its own past. If Hebron and Shiloh become far-away regions on a permanent basis, and the centers of Jewish existence remain Caesarea and Ashkelon, there will eventually be a complete divorce of the consciousness of modern Israel from Jewish history. Even graver, there will be a consequent reconciliation with the lack of significant Jewish immigration, because there will no longer be any land in urgent need of being filled with those immigrants. In other words, the Jewish people will become reconciled with a reality in which assimilation will, within one generation, shrink the numbers of world Jewry by more than half.

In contrast to this, a concerted effort on behalf of settlement and immigration would create a reality in the land which could not but establish a different awareness from that which exists today. A truncated land of Israel alongside a huge and assimilating diaspora will create a radically different outlook from a whole country in which the majority of the Jewish people dwells.

In other words, the ideological and conceptual straying of contemporary Israel is not the source of our problems, but rather the result of our experience of a stunted reality. Any attempt to establish a new ideological and conceptual consciousness will fail if its content does not match the form that the land and the people have taken on. Only when basic deeds precede intentions can the form of our lives fill itself with meaning, which in turn is the beginning of the formation of a new consciousness. There is, then, no alternative but to postpone for now the preoccupation with meanings in favor of progress on houses, and to precede the attempt to consolidate a new consciousness with a change in the face of the country. As was said: “The ways of the world preceded the Tora.”⁴⁰

Ofir Haivry is Director of The Shalem Center Institute for Social Thought and Editor-in-Chief of AZURE.

Notes

1. Hayden White, The Content of the Form (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).

2. Yehuda b. Shmuel Halevi, The Kuzari, c. 1140.

3. The difficulty in defining these religions, philosophies or ways of life in an encompassing fashion is one of their essential characteristics, being a consequence of their lack of an ultimate general principle and of the eclectic nature of their various incarnations. It is important to note that the emphasis on the ceremonial and ritualistic side of faith in the East does not point to a lack of spirituality, but rather to a search for the truth in which ritual acts have a transcendent value.

Buddhism holds that about 2,500 years ago there lived in northern India a man who attained enlightenment and discovered the eternal truth (and became Buddha—”the Enlightened”). He formulated a message whose aim was to combat the three evils from which he perceived mankind to be suffering: Violence, consciousness of the self, and death. It is important to remember that Buddha did not promulgate a doctrine, religion or defined faith; rather, his intention was to devise practical ways to overcome these evils by such means as overcoming one’s inclinations, meditation, and philosophical cogitation.

Confucianism is a collection of traditions, concepts and beliefs whose source is the thought of Kung-kiu, known as “the Teacher” (Fu-zhi), or Confucius in the West, who lived in China about 2,500 years ago. Kung-Kiu’s students promulgated a philosophy of behavior, involving the social order, in which everyone has a defined role which he must perform with fidelity and obedience. This outlook formed (and, indeed, still forms) the basis of Chinese society’s values.

Taoism is composed of a plethora of traditions, beliefs and concepts which crystallized in China from various sources, and which show the path (tao) to proper behavior. The basis of the different Taoist approaches is that the natural state is the ideal order of things and that human culture represents an aberration from it; therefore accepted viewpoints, both in morals and science, are relative and lacking. The tao is supposed to lead to the discovery of the original harmonious equilibrium described frequently by means of the symbol of the interlocking yin and yang, the two sides of everything. One of the important Taoist books, the I Ching, describes this ideal state as follows: “One time yin, next time yang—that is tao.”

4. “The essence”—in Christianity “the Holy Spirit”; in Islam Allah and in philosophy Logos. On salvation through faith in Christianity see for example: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16:16.

“The True Path”—in Buddhism, dharma; in Confucianism, ran and in Taoism, tao. On salvation in Lamaistic Buddhism, by means of repetition of the miraculous mantra om mani padme hum (om: the ornament that is in the Lotus, hum), see, for example Edward Conze, A Brief History of Buddhism (Milan, Rusconi, 1985), p. 191. [Italian]

5. See, for example, JerusalemHagiga 1:1.

6. It is interesting to note the ideological similarity between the terms halacha, ran and tao.

7. Exodus 24:7; Exodus 19:8, 24:3.

8. An excellent example is the Code of Hammurabi, a collection of the laws of the powerful Babylonian king who ruled in the Eighteenth Century b.c.e. This is a collection of injunctions and prohibitions, many of which have similar counterparts in the laws of the Tora; yet the difference between the two codes is fundamental: The Code of Hammurabi is a collection of traditional and technical laws, containing no attempt to present any values, justice or moral consistency. The laws of the Tora, on the contrary, are characterized by a consistency stemming from a comprehensive, principled outlook of uniform justice and order under divine inspiration.

The eclectic style, such as that of the classical cultures of the ancient Middle East, was preserved for a much longer time in the cultures of India and China, whose late exposure to generalization caused the continuation up to the present of the tradition according to which deeds and customs are superior to general and absolute principles, which often do not even exist.

9. Thales of Miletus (c. 625-545 b.c.e.), quoted in Aristotle’s Metaphysics,11, 17-27. See also, Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (London: Penguin, 1987), pp. 61-70. It is interesting to note that Thales’ family came to Miletus from Phoenicia, the coastal strip of ancient Israel.

10. Hagiga 14b. The Hebrew word for orchard, pardes, is laden with additional meaning, as symbol for a garden-place of superior consciousness and knowledge. Originally describing the exotic and magical palace gardens of the great Persian kings, pardes became identified with that other place of knowledge and mystery, the Garden of Eden, and the meaning was carried over into various terms in other languages and cultures, including the English “paradise.”

11. For example, “No man shall see me and live.” Exodus 33:21.

12. Even in Islam there is ample acknowledgment of the exclusive relationship between Israel and its land. For example, the only two places in the Koran to specifically mention the holy land do so in the context of the divine promise of the land to the Israelites, and of the return to Zion: “Bear in mind the words of Moses to his people. He said: ‘Remember, my people, the favor which God has bestowed upon you. He has raised prophets among you, made you kings, and given you that which he has given to no other nation. Enter, my people, the holy land which God has assigned for you. Do not turn back, or you shall be ruined.’” Koran V:20-21.

“Then we said to the Israelites: ‘Dwell in the land. When the promise of the hereafter comes to be fulfilled, we shall assemble you all together.’” Koran XVII:104.

And from a much later period, for example: “Who can deny the rights of the Jews regarding the Land of Israel? My God in heaven, certainly from a historical point of view it is your land.” From an 1899 letter to Herzl from Yusuf Zia al-Halidi, Mayor of Jerusalem and afterwards Jerusalem’s representative in the Ottoman parliament, where he nevertheless opposed Zionism. In Amos Ayalon, Herzl (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1979) pp. 342-343. [Hebrew]

13. Genesis 12:1 and 16:7-11, respectively.

14. Shabbat 31a.

15. See Israel Ben-Shalom, The School of Shamai and the Struggle of the Zealots Against Rome (Jerusalem: Yad Itzchak Ben-Zvi, 1993), pp. 84, 97-98, 185-188. [Hebrew]

16. Mark 12:28-33.

17. Cornelius Tacitus, The Histories (c. 120 c.e.), book 5, ch. 5.

18. E.g., “I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:26. Or: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35.

And yet, even Christianity could not long tolerate the internal threat posed by this principle, and was gradually forced to build practical rules and ritual around it—and furthermore, to place limitations on the unlimited “love” which stood at its heart. In the end, Christianity grew distant from this ideal, often to the point of total discrepancy from the original message. Concerning the containment of monotheism in Catholicism, see for instance Michael Sutton, Nationalism, Positivism and Catholicism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 20-21, 30.

19. E.g.: “You must never suppose that I have come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I did not come to destroy them; I came to fulfill them. This is the truth I tell you, so long as heaven and earth shall last not the smallest letter, not the smallest part of a letter of the Law, will cease to be valid, it will remain until history comes to an end.” Matthew 5:17-18.

20. “…the lamb” in Isaiah 11:6; “this is the time….” in Yediot Aharonot, November 6, 1995, p. 18.

21. Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (Bnai Brak: Steimazky, 1993), pp. 37, 78. [Hebrew]

22. Yig’al Yadin, Bar-Kochva (Tel-Aviv: Masada, 1976), p. 129. [Hebrew]

23. Leviticus Rabba 13:5. It is interesting to note the disdain displayed by some of the rabbis for rabbinic teachings emanating from Babylonia. For example: “What is ‘Babylon’? Rabbi Yohanan said: ‘Mixed up [Hebrew: blula] with the Bible, mixed up with the Mishna, mixed up with the Talmud.”Sanhedrin 24a. “Rabbi Jeremiah said: ‘Stupid Babylonians! Because they sit in a place of darkness they formulate unenlightened opinions.’” Menahot 52a. “Rabbi Zeira, when he went up to the land of Israel, fasted one hundred fasts in order that he might forget the Babylonian learning, so that it would not bother him.” Bava Metzia 85a.

24. E.g., Ezra 3:1, Nehemia 9:1.

25. Mishna Shkalim 5:1.

26. On the emphasis of Herzl, Nordau, Weizmann and other early Zionist leaders on practical questions and anti-messianism, see Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),pp. 341-344. Concerning Jabotinsky, see Samuel Katz, Lone Wolf (New York: Barricade, 1996), vol. I, p. 170. Also of interest in this context is the comment of five rabbis who left a meeting with Herzl during the First Zionist Congress with beaming faces. They were asked if this joy was due to Herzl’s having promised to keep the Shabbat and Jewish dietary laws. They answered: “On the contrary. That would have worried us tremendously. If he had suddenly become devout and religiously observant, we would not be able to join the movement, for fear that we would have to accept him as the Messiah. It is preferable this way.” Ayalon, p. 263.

27. It is noteworthy in this connection that an entire stream of anti-Zionist Jewish thought exists, both religious and non-religious, which views as evil precisely this attempt to remove the Jewish people from the exile and return them to the land. These anti-Zionists see Zionism as opposed to Judaism because, in their opinion, Judaism has already long since become a metahistorical factor, whose power lies in its detachment from any land, its being rootless and “foreign” everywhere. Among the thinkers who embraced such views are Franz Rosenzweig, Hermann Cohen and George Steiner. Funkenstein, pp. 248, 264, 291.Regarding the efforts of the reform movement to erase all mention of Jewish nationality and territoriality from the prayer books, seeFunkenstein, pp. 222, 254-256.

28. Ayalon, pp. 385-386; Funkenstein, pp. 342-343.

29. For example, Ze’ev Sternhal, “Dear Friends, the Time Has Come to Grow Up,” in Musaf Ha’aretz, July 7, 1995; and Ze’ev Sternhal, The Building of a Nation or the Reform of Society? (Jerusalem: Am Oved, 1995), passim. [Hebrew] A telling example from the opposite, pro-Zionist orientation, revealing the centrality of Jewish identity to the “socialist” leaders of the yishuv, can be learned from a story from the 1940s told of Enzo Sireni, founder of Kibbutz Givat Brenner and a prominent Socialist-Zionist leader. One day Sireni met the author Shlomo Gruzhinski and asked him, “What will you do if Zionism fails? Will you turn to Agudat Yisrael or to communism?” The author replied, without any hesitation, “I would of course turn to Agudat Yisrael.” Sireni (whose brother was one of the leaders of Italian communism) patted Gruzhinski on the back and said, “Now I know that you are a Zionist!” Shmuel Dotan, Adumim (Kfar Saba: Shabna Hasofer, 1991), p. 348. [Hebrew]

30. Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, trans. C.S. Singleton, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), p. 3, Canto I, Lines 1-3.

31. “Man is nothing if not the image of his native landscape,” in Shaul Tchernikhovsky Selection, (Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1965), p. 28 [Hebrew]. Tchernikhovsky is regarded by many as having been a “Hellenistic” poet, because of some of his negative remarks concerning the rabbinical world, the most notorious of them being: “…and they bound him with tefillin straps….” in his poem “Before the Statue of Apollo.” But a truer understanding of his work regards such comments within the context of his search for the old-new Jewish people—which has had its fill of the “generations of death throes” of the Diaspora, and looks for renewing the aesthetics and character of the biblical Jewish nation, of “the God of Canaan’s storming conquerors,” and of love for the land. All the while, he clearly retains his attachment to the world of traditional Judaism and its symbols, as can be seen in poems such as “The Wolf’s Ballad” and “Three Mules” (also from the above selection).

32. Consider, for example, the contempt of former Culture Minister Shulamit Aloni for Jericho as “the city of Rahav the whore.” cf. Aharon Meged on the growing self-hatred among Israeli writers and historians, in “The Israeli Urge to Suicide,” Musaf Ha’aretz, June 10, 1994.

33. Yediot Aharonot, July 31, 1995; cf. Shimon Peres, in his article, “Even Without the Shortcut, It’s Good Enough,” in Ha’aretz, April 3, 1996, p. 2b.

34. Pesahim 66a.

35. Acts 9:1-6; cf. “like every convert that has witnessed grace, so Rabin has alighted to a doctrine that he had formerly rejected with all his being.” Ha’aretz August 18, 1995.

36. Peres in the weekly program Hatur Hashvu’i, Israel Television, Channel 3, April 28, 1995.

37. Confucius, Analects (5th Century b.c.e.) Book VI, 15.

38. Mishna Avot 1:15.

39. Nekuda, May 21, 1982, p. 23.

40. Leviticus Rabba 9:3.

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