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(from Sh'ma 13/243, December 10, 1982)

Statehood: Judaism's Ultimate Test

By Daniel J. Elazar

Let matters be clear from the outset. I speak as one who had grave doubts about the wisdom of Israel's entering Lebanon in the first place, although I was able to support the government once our forces were committed because that position was an issue about which reasonable people could have different assessments. As far as the Christian massacre of Palestinians in Beirut is concerned, I, like the vast majority of Israelis, religious and secular, government and opposition, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, was shocked and horrified by Israel's involvement in the affair and the possibility that some Israelis may be implicated in allowing it to happen (although clearly none took part in it - it was an affair of Christians). Indeed, I do not have to point out that the people of Israel made their views known very strongly to a prime minister who sought to stonewall a full investigation- and we made our views prevail.

I do not believe that anyone has ever claimed that "good guys" do not make mistakes; what is important is that they have the fortitude and the ability to correct them, whatever it takes. Israel, as a "good guy" state, is in the process of demonstrating that it, too, can make mistakes but also has the capability of correcting them.

That leads me to the reason for my intervention. As usual, too many of the responses in the American Jewish community are either apocalyptic or apologetic. Neither Israel nor the Jewish people deserve either.

Let me dismiss the apologetics out of hand. There is no apology for what happened, and none of the usual excuses that are given make up for the event. Granted, the world is hypocritical. We Jews have our own standards and must judge ourselves accordingly, which is exactly what we are doing in Israel.

The apocalyptic are equally troubling. One senses an attempt on the part of certain people to back away from Israel instead of confronting the real question, which is how do we .apply Jewish moral sensibilities to political realities. They react in such a way as to suggest that because political reality is unpleasant or worse, the only way to maintain our moral sensibilities is to withdraw from the political arena.

Judaism is a Political Tradition

With all the pleasure they have taken in having a restored Jewish commonwealth, I fear that American, indeed, all Diaspora Jewry, still sees that Judaism is essentially spiritual, that statehood is a necessity for Jews but not integral to Judaism. Given this view, Israel has been a large summer camp for Diaspora Jews, a nice place to visit to get one's Jewish juices flowing, but not part of real life. Well, folks, Israel is not a summer camp. Nor is it merely a necessity for Jews. It is as much a necessity for Judaism, since it is the real test of Jewish belief and practice. The Torah was given to help Jews build a holy commonwealth, not for the salvation of individuals detached from the realities of political society. In that sense Jewish tradition is a political tradition par excellence; the ancient Greek philosophers understood this as did all pre-modern Jews.

In short, without the trials and traumas of statehood, Judaism itself is untested. It is easy for Diaspora Jews to protest the mistakes of the government of the Gentiles. That is the kind of cop-out which the Jews of Israel cannot and for the most part choose not to take. So be it. But when that instinct to cop lout of confronting the realities of politics is then extended to Israel, because it is no longer a summer camp, because a basically good polity has made a serious, even tragic mistake, then one wonders what is the substance of their Judaism. Is it merely a self satisfying crutch that enables people who do not take responsibility to feel morally superior to those who enter the arena? If so, there is little in that Judaism for me.

I, for one, am in Israel not because I am at ease in Zion, but because, in my opinion, it is the only real test of that upon which I have staked my life, namely, the Jewish people and its religion. It is true, there is no a priori guarantee that we will pass that test, any more than the outcome of the American experiment is guaranteed. We are far from the messianic era and it is not likely that we will get there in the foreseeable future. But woe betide us if we do not take up the gauntlet of the challenge.

On Schwartzschild, Neudel & Borowitz

If Judaism is not worth this testing, then we are all fooling ourselves and the goyim have a right to be angry at our double standards. Henry Schwartzschild (12/236) at least has the courage of his erroneous and dangerous convictions, although his sense of what Judaism is about misses the mark entirely. Marian Henriquez Neudel (12/239) was correct enough in her analysis of the contradictions which confront Israel's unthinking apologists and in the possibility of the third commonwealth not being for ever, but one detects a self-satisfied tone in her piece that seeks the same comfortably untested Judaism for which Schwartzschild has opted. Eugene Borowitz's (12/239) initial rage is understandable, but his response is surprising in that he printed his essay after re-reading it. Let us indeed press on the communal establishment, including- and perhaps especially- the Zionist organizations when they act in so self-serving a way, but let us not lose our sense of perspective.

If anything, this is the time to look to the political dimension of Jewish teachings and tradition and seek ways of applying what we can learn to the contemporary Jewish Israeli political situation. We have a very rich political tradition indeed, if we would only look carefully beyond either apologetics or apocalyptics.