Robert B. Sklaroff, M.D.
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Part III – Discussion

“Eretz Yisrael” Within Judaism’s Major Movements

This conceptualization of Eretz Yisrael is incompatible with Humanistic Judaism for the Torah is not viewed as necessarily carrying contemporary significance [Wine, page 32]:

A proper understanding and appreciation of the Bible is not possible until one is able to divorce it from Jewish ego needs and view it as a historical document that need not reflect our own beliefs and attitudes but did express the collective and often opposed viewed of our ancestors in the days of the First and Second Temples.  In order to understand what we Jews are in the twentieth–century, we ought to thoroughly study our origins and so be aware of the early experiences that helped to mold the character traits of our social personality.  But no objective study of these Biblical origins is possible if we feel compelled to defend the Bible or to prove that the writers really meant to say is what we believe today.

In legalistic terms, one cannot even “reach” the importance of the Promised Land, here, because the Torah is not perceived as anything more than a reflection of possible history.  It is not possible, therefore, to discuss any manifestations of a distillation of the Parashot if the Bible is not viewed in any definitive fashion[1] (in 1978, and for decades thereafter).

Reform Judaism teaches that the Bible’s composition was “divinely inspired” and, thus, that it was “an imperfect creation” due to its “human factor” [Borowitz, pages 103-104]. Recognized, therefore, is “Reform Judaism’s Changing Relationship to Israel,” noting (without citing the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform) “many Reform Jews were anti-Zionist.”  Ultimately, it is noted that Israel offers “unique opportunities…for being a Jew” and that Reform Jewry’s “Duties to the State of Israel” are to “care,” to provide fiscal support, and to ensure that politicians recognize the importance of Israel to America’s future goals.  Recognized is neither core theological import, nor Moral Ecology [ibid, pages 145-150].

Reconstructionism recognizes “the civilizational character of Judaism [and] predictably has led us to Zionist conclusions from the very onset” [Alpert, page 47].  Emphasized, however, is the Diaspora’s importance [ibid, page 48], within this context [ibid, page 50]:

Reconstructionists, for all of our devotion to Israel, stand adamantly opposed to this fundamentalist, pseudo-messianic revival.  We believe that the reestablishment of the State of Israel resulted not from the supernatural intervention of G-d into history, but rather from the tireless and idealistic efforts of Zionist pioneers.  We remain committed to a vision of an Israeli society that, applying ancient Jewish values to new circumstances, treats all of its citizens justly and seeks peace with its neighbors whenever possible.  We turn to Kaplan’s formulation of Judaism as a religion of ethical nationhood, as we support those Israelis who are devoted to these traditional Jewish values that have preserved us through the centuries.

The key term supra is “reestablishment,” for this denotes the existence of a continuum between Ancient/Modern Israel.  Thus, juxtaposed with the phrase “ethical nationhood,” the concept of Moral Ecology is not inconsistent with how the State of Israel functions.  The centrality of Israel in Reconstructionist theology is emphasized [ibid, page 47]:

Kaplan was aware that Jewish civilization could flourish completely only in a society in which it is primary.  He was convinced that Zionist efforts to reestablish a Jewish presence in the land of Israel were central to Jewish renewal.

The literal definitional information distilled from the Torah related to the boundaries of the Promised Land are, assuredly, not co-adopted within the aforementioned context but, again, these are not incompatible concepts.  A phrase that is often applied to such issues [“The past has a vote, not a veto”] renders the empowerment of modern Jewry to assess the past within current-day considerations to be controlling, however, but this allows for the individual to determine the degree to which such concepts as Moral Ecology apply.

Kaplan’s profound, well-referenced, philosophical, practical, integrated type of Zionism is explicitly articulated in his classic tome [Judaism as a Civilization, 1934]; it is unfair, to a degree, to attempt to excerpt key-quotations but—recognizing that each reflects a line of reasoning—some of those that focus on the Land of Israel follow  [pages 234, 236, 240-241, 264-267, 269-271, 273]:

If the Jews as a collective entity are to play any part in releasing the tremendous energies for good latent in the national idea, they must be permitted to foster their own nationhood.  That means that they should be permitted to regard Palestine as the source and inspiration of that cluster of institutions, language, literature, art, law and religion which constitutes the Jewish civilization.  They must further be permitted to foster that civilization wherever they happen to live and retain the sense of Jewish nationhood that derives from it.  [After discussion of legal basis for Israel.] 

The restoration of the Jews to national status will contribute to, rather than detract from, international mindedness.

The notion that allegiance to a state precludes identification with more than one nation will therefore have to be scrapped.

It is just as possible to eliminate chauvinism from nationalism as it was possible to eliminate human sacrifice and phallic worship from religion.

Any doubt as to the potentialities for good inherent in the national idea should be dissipated by the realization of the part it has played in the overthrow of tyranny.

The interpretation of Israel’s destiny always in terms of Eretz Yisrael—The unquenchable yearning for Eretz Yisrael motivated b the Jews’ well-to-live as a nation—the Jewish emancipation based on a misunderstanding—Jewish emancipation must include the right to land and nationhood—Right of the Jews to Eretz Yisrael compatible with interests of natives—The meaning of the mandate for Palestine—The upbuilding of a Jewish national home an incentive to Jewish revival in diaspora.  [Bullet-points summarizing Chapter XX, “The Land of Israel”]

When Joseph adjured the children of Israel to take his remains to Canaan, he said, “G-d will surely remember you, and bring you up out of this land unto the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.”  According to the biblical narrative, it was in the spirit of waiting to be called to their land that the Israelites lived in Egypt.

On their way to the land where they were to live as a nation, they received the laws which were to govern them.  Those laws, except for the directions concerning the Tabernacle, contemplate the Israelites in possession of the land.

According to the Torah, their one unpardonable sin in the wilderness was that of rejecting their national destiny with regard to the land.

Just as Genesis unfolds the epic of the adventure of Israel’s forebears to win the land, so Deuteronomy plays variations on the theme of what their descendants must do to hold the land. 

From the beginning of Deuteronomy to the end, the one great concern is that Israel shall not forfeit its right to the land.  It is as though Moses were bringing to focus the significance of Israel’s experiences in the wilderness by pointing out the relation of those experiences to Israel’s destiny as a nation in the land.

The first oration in Deuteronomy opens not, as one might expect, with a description of the exodus, but with a reference to the divine command to the Israelites to start on the last stage of the march to their destination.       In chapter after chapter, Israel is reminded that the purpose of all its experiences was to train it to attain its goal as a people in the land. 

The aim and reward of its obedience to the laws of G-d were to be continued possession of the land and the enjoyment of the wealth of its blessings, which excelled even the watered shores of the Nile. 

In case of disobedience, on the other hand, the land would be forfeited and every conceivable disaster would befall Israel.  Thus, in one uniform strain does Deuteronomy interpret Israel’s fortunes and failures in terms of the part that Israel is to play in the land.

If we were to take a survey of the other books of the Bible, we would invariably meet with the same tendency to define Israel’s experiences and backslidings, its failures and its hopes, in terms of its relationship to the land….No value is so uniformly interpreted and emphasized as the value of the land in its relation to Israel.  The Torah, which embodies the teachings of the earlier Prophets and enjoys pre-eminence among the sacred writings of the Jewish people, must be regarded as a most decisive influence in the shaping of Judaism.  Since the Torah makes Israel’s relationship to the land its principal motif, it is hard to conceive of how the Jews could contemplate their functioning as a group apart from the land.

We have seen how far the Torah goes in reading all of Israel’s life and fortunes in terms of Israel’s tenure of the land.

Messianism, as a series of movements to regain the land, should be appraised by the vast activities of those Jews who devoted themselves to mystic lore in all its forms.  Mystic lore formed a part of Jewish civilization, as it was part of all other ancient civilizations, because, in its essence, mystic lore develops from man’s necessity to adapt his environment to his desires, to render the physical and spiritual forces subservient to his wants.  Impelled by the need of transforming their environment, the Jews resorted to mystic lore in the hope of discovering the theurgic formulas and practices that would help to bring about the forcing, as it were, of the hand of G-d to redeem his people, by sending the Messiah and restoring them to their land….In the tense spiritual struggle that centered around the Kabbalah, the yearning for the return to Eretz Yisrael and the resumption of national life constituted the most meaningful part of Jewish life during the centuries of exile.

For the Jews, no progressive corporate life anywhere is possible without the establishment of a national home in Palestine.

A careful reading of Kaplan (with his eloquent citations of Zionistic exhortations omitted herefrom only because of their length, certainly not because of their lack of relevance) yields a strong sense of the need for Jews to recognize the greatest purpose of the Torah was to ensure Israelites attempting to act-out their Judaism resided in Eretz Yisrael.  Tangential reference is made to environment, none is made to borders, and none is made to any manifestation of Moral Ecology.  Yet, by appropriating Jewish Mysticism under the aegis of myriad manifestations of “Civilization”-related incarnations of Judaism, Kaplan necessary “adopts by reference” that perceiving the Land as an active life-force was at least one way the acknowledged “relationship” between Jews and Eretz Yisrael was experienced.  Thus, this 75 year-old blueprint for the Reconstructionist Movement integrated the “Summary of Summaries” of the Parashot [vide supra, page 63].

The underpinnings of Reconstructionism (as they relate to Eretz Yisrael) have been given extensive space herein because these articulations are on-point relative to the Parashot[2].  Assuredly, Israel-based compositions during subsequent have also waxed eloquent, but numerous characterizations of how Torah is dominated by land-references corroborate independently-drawn conclusions following review of each Parashot.

Conservative Judaism, as well as the myriad versions of Orthodox Judaism, are rooted in Halachic mandates and, as such, necessarily have prioritized life in the Promised Land.  For example, this candid discussion of the leaders of the Jewish Theological Seminary—including Mordechai Kaplan prior to his departure in 1953 to establish Reconstructionism —presupposes the existence of Eretz Yisrael, while detailing a range of opinions about its theological import [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_n2_v47/ai_21042667]:

The attitude of leadership toward Zionism was equivocal, to say the least. Cyrus Adler and Louis Finkelstein were hardly in favor of political Zionism, though both learned something from the rational Jewishness of Asher Ginsberg. What strikingly emerges here are the distinctly critical views of such enthusiastic Zionists as Mordecai Kaplan, who were early concerned about the Arab question and about the increasingly secular spirit of the yishuv. The ethical and Biblically prophetic Judaism that co-existed in these thinkers along with a more compromising rabbinic approach, was not always comfortable with pre-state yishuv or, later, Israeli behavior, and that goes far to explain why the alumni were always more vigorously Zionist than nearly all of their mentors. Even the Holocaust hardly moved the school to re-think its theology or to act vigorously in response to Hitlerism. While HUC was welcoming a number of professors and students, JTS was intent on strictly maintaining admissions standards, inviting hardly a single teacher from Hitler's Europe. The closeted academicism of the school was never so powerfully underlined as in its unwillingness to change much of anything because of the Shoah or following the creation of the State.

There is some degree of heterogeneity within what is termed the “Orthodox” movement, but its strict adherence to Halachic conduct necessitates a strong Zionistic theology (except for those who reject re-establishment of the State of Israel absent the Messiah).  Those who have written of Jewish Mysticism (with or without non-“mystical” elements) include Buber (before and after 1948) and Kook (only before 1948, for he died in 1935). Both prioritize the Promised Land, although neither explicitly articulates Moral Ecology.

In 1942 (six years before the re-establishment of the State of Israel), Martin Buber wrote:

Now that we have once again achieved, though only for a section of our people, a chance to live in our country and an authority of our own, what have we done?  Important social experiments, to be sure, have been made.  Independent forms of social association have been born, particularly different varieties of communal settlements which will yet prove of the utmost importance in the development of the new human society….

Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook, Israel’s first Chief Rabbi, wrote obliquely about many of the key-considerations regarding, specifically, the holiness of Eretz Yisrael.  Exemplifying this mindset is an excerpt that assumes the special status of Zion:

Rav Kook wrote that the Jewish people possess two aspects of holiness.  The first is an inner force that resides naturally in the soul.  This trait is a spiritual inheritance passed down from the patriarchs….The second aspect of holiness is based on our efforts and choices, as it is acquired consciously, through our actions and Torah study….

Each of the two eras in Jewish history, the First and Second Temple periods, exemplified a different type of holiness….

Rav Kook responded to [criticism of his congenial relations with the non-religious (and often anti-religious) pioneers who were settling the Land of Israel] by noting the distinction between different forms of holiness….

Therefore, it has been concluded that the five major Jewish Movements harbor varying perceptions of Zionism.  These range from failure to recognize any importance of Israel (Humanism), to an evolution towards growth of pride in Eretz Yisrael (Reform), to strong emphasis on the civilizational theology of the Promised Land that could accommodate Moral Ecology (Reconstructionism), to adherence to Israel-related Halachic mandates (Conservatism), to strict adherence to Halachic prioritization of the State of Israel accompanied by varying levels of mysticism (Orthodoxy).  None emphasizes views regarding particular borders and holy-sites; none specifically identifies Moral Ecology. 

But all address, on some level, the multilevel import of the Promised Land to today’s Jew and—not withstanding political controversy—all (except Humanism, which may be best construed as a Secular-Progressive conceptualization of Jewish-Religious philosophy noting, for example, its having stripped away even the potential sacredness of the Torah) necessarily convey some degree of fealty to the idea and embodiment of Modern Israel.

The Implications of the Covenant

Weinfeld not only painstakingly reconstructed potential borders of Eretz Yisrael [supra], but he also analyzed the structure of “contract law” contemporaneous with the Ancients.  His conclusion is instructive when formulating the “interactive” imagery of the Land:

The grants to Abraham, Caleb, David, Aaron and the Levites have much in common with the grants from Alalah, Nuzi, the Hittites, Ugarit, and middle-babylonian kudurru’s (i.e., in documents from the second half of the second millennium B.C.E.).  This fact, and the possible link of the mentioned Israelite grants to Hebron, the first capital of David’s kingdom, may lead us to the contention that it was Davidic scribes who stood behind the formulation of the covenant of grant in Israel.

This serves to elevate the importance of Hebron as one of the triad of key-cities located in the Holy Land but, perhaps more importantly, it provides a dispassionate perspective regarding how the redactors might have chosen to conjure and codify religious thought.  Specifically, it may be possible to conclude that their collective memory of what occurred was amplified to entail how “ethical monotheism” was to be practiced on borrowed-land.

Intellectual Nationalism

Ehrlich introduced discussion of Ancient Zionism by defining the Covenant [pages 3-19]:

Monotheism was ancient Israel’s first achievement, three and a half millennia ago.  The second achievement, following immediately, was Abraham’s invention of the Land, a place that was both a territory and a literary construct, a landscape meant to be read for the monotheistic civili-zation it would come to represent.  The ancient Hebrews took this second idea as the only possible justification for their seizure of lands that had formerly belonged to the Canaanite tribes.  Yes, they believed G-d gave them the lands of Canaan, but only on condition that these lands be used to represent a set of ideas.  The Hebrews also told themselves that G-d explicitly forbade them other lands—so there could be no empire—and they told themselves that if they failed to use the lands of Canaan to represent monotheism, they would lose both the signifying Land and the civilization for which it stood.  The Canaanites, or their like, would get these lands back.

The ancient Hebrews may be the only people who preserved stories that present ancestors as intruders in their own land….This insistence that the Land was not a natural possession but an emblem that had to be self-consciously acquired was necessary to the Hebrew view that nationalism required diligence, with the intensity of physical combat providing some measure of the intellectual effort that was also demanded….

The Land was not to be taken for granted.  Its terms were rigorous:  the ancient Hebrew had to apprehend the Land in order to conquer and hold it.  [Modern Zionists of the militaristic school, such as Vladimir Jabotinsky, who led Jewish brigades in Palestine during both world wars and in between, could be forthright or cagey about the enterprise of reconquering the Land, but they were understandably reluctant to employ the old terms of conquest.  In a secular age that shows little patience for the expression of a thoughtful nationalism from which civilized people can, in fact, draw their being, ancient Zionism would appear fanatical and imperialistic,  even when its enemies were fanatics and imperialists.]

The Hebrews at their best read into the Land a higher G-d, a living G-d who had created the entire universe….Created in this G-d’s image, the Hebrews would read from the Land the possibility of elevating the human mind above bloody fantasy….In Israel,…the Land recalled the radical distinction between the everlasting Creator and the mortals of His creation….This use of the Land created the foundations of Israel’s intellectual nationalism and led to our modern expectation that nations will represent ideas and values, not merely powers and interests.  The Hebrew Land became the object of imagination and poetry, and from this experience a rich national literature emerged.  Its chief purpose was to charge the Land’s people with lively thought, about monotheism particularly but also about the intellectual life in general.  Since…             a cultivated mind was necessary to grasp the unseen G-d of monotheism, the cultivation of the Land came to signify the need to cultivate intellect.  Conversely, the failure to use the Land to stimulate intellect would remove the justification for having evicted the original idolators….Only the Hebrews saw these lands as unifiable, because only the Hebrews possessed a unifying idea that made a Land out of disparate territories.

That the Land must be read as a preoccupation of a major portion of Tanach….We can recognize the biblical redactors’ demands on their readers, because these demands form the basis of our own literary sensibility….If the text insists on divine authorship, however ambigu-ously, it also emphasizes mortal telling, human reading and misreading…. Reading and misreading are crucial ideas in Hebrew civilization.  Leaving literacy to G-d does not suffice….

Idolatry is to be despised not only because it is blasphemous, but because it senselessly undermines both the clear mind and the national soul.  The idolatrous mind mires itself in the local field, reducing thought and life itself to physical fertility.  Thus, the idolatrous mind can have no national culture, no idea larger than the fertile plot of ground….In the idolator’s world, the appeasement of the local gods becomes the supreme cultural value but, in the Land, every valley and every high place unite as a reminder of the living Creator.

Abraham, whom Moses invokes on Sinai, wished to separate himself from the idolators of Samaria, but the real problem for the Hebrews was to eradicate the idolatry from their own breasts, to maintain instead the culture of literacy….

I try to read the Bible as it begs to be read:  a sophisticated, self-referential literary narrative about the Hebrew mind and the relationship to the Land.  The Bible demands a literary response now, just as it demanded a literary consciousness of the Hebrews in the past.  Literacy was mandatory in Hebrew civilization, for without it, their culture could not survive and they could have no G-d.  We are able to see this because Hebrew literacy in fact has shaped our own literary culture.  Those who see a pietist’s view in this book will be disappointed, as will those who believe that the Bible, while charming, hardly counts as a source of ideas.  On the contrary, the Bible treats nationalism as a literary idea that is able to serve as a summation of the intellectual life….The Hebrews and their literary Bible see intellectual nationalism as the antidote to self-preoccupation because, like poetry itself, the Land can be made to stand for the reach of human consciousness. 

I view the Bible as an artfully edited compendium of ancestral texts, compiled by unknown redactors in the period of the Babylonian captivity.  These exiled Jewish editors took as their chief theme the grand narrative of the invention, establishment, loss and restoration of Zion.  By focusing on the idea of intellectual nationalism, and demonstrating how the Land of Canaan came to symbolize the culture of monotheism, the redactors of the Bible achieved a powerful imaginative unity.  In my reading, then, Tanach is not a loosely organized “canon” of divinely authored texts, but a book with a specific human purpose.  It is the Bible’s redactors and not the voice of G-d in Moses’ ear that allows the great lawgiver to foretell the exile of the Hebrews, when G-d “would scatter them into corners” and “make the remembrance of them to cease from among men” [Deutero-nomy 32:26]….Like all great literary works, the Bible everywhere alludes to itself—sometimes indeed with more than human artfulness.  This is so because it was made that way by skillful hands in Babylon, where the literary output of the Jews undoubtedly exceeded their weeping.

Of course, this view does not exclude the fact that the Hebrew redactors in Babylonia were working with texts that were already ancient, nor does it exclude the likelihood that the redactors believed these materials to be divinely influenced, if not divinely composed.  They may very well have accepted the Five Books of Moses as revelation, but this did not stop them from supplying emphasis and perspective.  Indeed, it seems that the Bible we have contains texts that were as much as a thousand years old at the time of the Babylonian exile, yet we see the old texts through the redactors’ concerns….

The Hebrew synthesis...demonstrates that a national civilization and its literary culture can, in fact, be one….The Bible both adopts Zionism as its overarching theme and engages in infinitely varied play, which rarely departs from the biblical writers’ grasp of the national picture….The biblical fusion of nationalism and literacy is part of the air all educated peoples of the West have breathed for two millennia, perhaps once not discussed because so thoroughly taken for granted; perhaps now not taken for granted because we have forgotten that the fusion is possible.

During fourteen hundred years in the Land, monotheistic culture grew so rooted that not even two thousand yours of subsequent Diaspora could uproot the culture of Israel from the Land of Israel.  Zion is the name David gave to the fusion between the Land and the culture of the Land; it is the name used by Israel’s prophets to inspire a return to that synthesis.  Zionism is thus the use of the Land of Israel to represent the civilization of Israel.  Had Zionism not been complete and intellectually satisfying in ancient times, and had the ancient Hebrews not bequeathed the idea, modern Israel would never have reemerged, no matter what later Zionists thought or did.  In any case, Zionism is not a modern invention, nor is it an idea still trying to define itself, as some of Israel’s friends and enemies imagine.  Notions about Israel becoming a nonspecific moral beacon to the world and venomous barbs equating Zionism and racism both fail to recognize the introspective culture that laid the foundations on which en-lightened nations now use land to build civilizations rather than empires. …Though the term Zionism may seem at first a somewhat shocking anachronism thrown back on the Bible, it accurately summarizes the intellectual relationship between Zion and the civilization it signified.

The Bible’s self-conscious development of Zionism as a literary and national theme has not won the exposition it deserves.  Martin Buber recognized that a “unique relationship between a people and a land” arose in ancient Israel, and he saw the grandeur of naming that “national concept” not after the people themselves or their country, but after a real and idealized mountain that is at once David’s fortress and the repository for the poetry that makes life worth living.  But Buber’s On Zion does not focus on ancient Zionism, following instead its subtitle, The History of an Idea, into centuries less rigorously poetic and more mystical.  This obscures the initial Hebrew achievement, the invention of the very idea of a “national concept.”   Other Jewish historians have also refrained from detailed analysis of the ancient Hebrew invention of using Land to represent culture….

Three bright distractions blind us to the idea of ancient Zionism.  Herzl’s modern Zionism, the romantic and messianic Zionism of the centuries before Herzl, and the legal culture of the Talmud obscure the Hebrews’ ancient achievement….

Biblical Zionism lights Herzl’s torch, whose lesser light, standing in the foreground, outshines the brighter beam….The culture of landless longing, founded on unrealistic expectations, also stands closer to us than does the Bible, so its dimmer light joins that of Herzl to obscure the original brilliance….With its enlightened emphasis on law and ritual, the Talmud draws attention away from the Bible’s poetic achievement; since the compilation of the Talmud, the light of law gleams so brightly in the traditional Jewish scholar’s eye that he hardly can see the older flame, from which law and national song shine as one.

…The poetry of the lamb and the ox links the ethical activity required to identify and return lost objects with the similarly vigorous intellectual activity required to read the Land and to grasp an abstract G-d….Moses would not be interested in the clippings of an ox’s tail unless these would help represent the culture of the Land (it is unlikely tht they would), but he was interested in the way the poetic overtones of the Law and the abstract attributes of the Land might nourish each other in the literate mind of the monotheistic Hebrew, “that thy land be not defiled.”

…Biblical Zionism [constitutes] the links between Land and culture that constitute the intellectual heritage of modern Israel….Though the Hebrews helped invent history, the Bible treats Zionism as a literary ideal, a structure that was complete from the beginning….[3]

Each paragraph in this essay illustrates a profound component of how the Land informed Jewish philosophy.  The Land (an active force) had to be read.  Hebrews were “strangers in a strange land.”  The Land was so alive that it had “terms” that were rigorous.  Indeed, cultivation of the Land came to signify the need to cultivate intellect.  This is why the Land was a preoccupation of the Torah.  Expunging idolatry from Canaan was vital because the idolatrous mind can have no national culture, no idea larger than the fertile plot of ground.  Instead, the real problem for the Hebrews was to eradicate the idolatry from their own breasts, to maintain instead the culture of literacy.  That is why the Hebrews felt the Land can be made to stand for the reach of human consciousness.  And this is why the Babylonian redactors set upon the profoundly unique task of demonstrating how the Land of Canaan came to symbolize the culture of monotheism.  In a clear-headed disinterested fashion, uncertainty is recognized; the Bible is perceived, throughout this laborious process, as divinely influenced, if not divinely composed, embodying a fusion of nationalism and literacy.  Zionism, therefore, constitutes fusion between the Land and the culture of the Land, manifesting the recognition of literacy that, in turn, makes life worth living.  In the process, confounding variables must not be permitted to blind us from recognizing the trenchant importance of Biblical Zionism. And the Land’s ability to “read” those trodding thereupon affords the Israelites needed links between Land and culture, all concepts that can become manifest in Modern Israel.

Demographic Analysis

In 1979, the U.S. State Department published (under the auspices of William Evans-Smith, Director of Foreign Area Studies at the American University) a “dynamic” analysis of Israeli society, comprised of a multidisciplinary review of the inter-relationships among its economic, military, political and social systems and institutions[4]. 

Although it is tempting to “linger” within the 55-page “Historical Setting” chapter (identifying curious ways events were depicted…or ignored, as was the massacre of Jews by the Crusaders), only Land-related citations (with commentary) are provided herein:

The ethno-history set forth in the [Bible] begins with myths and legends.  The stories of creation, the temptation of and sin by the first humans, their expulsion from an idyllic sanctuary, the flood, and other folkloric events are common in Middle Eastern and other early societies.  With the appearance of Abraham, however, the biblical stories introduce a new idea—that of a single tribal god.  Over the course of several centuries,   this notion evolved into mankind’s first complete concept of monotheism. Abraham looms large in the traditions of the people and the foundations of their religion.  Whether Jews by birth or by conversion, each male Jew is viewed as “a son of Abraham.”

[Not withstanding the elision over the Land-related “folkloric events,” elision through the Book of Genesis omits any citation of ethical precepts.]

It is with Abraham that G-d…made his first covenant or treaty. In essence, G-d promised to protect Abraham and his descendants, to wage wars in their behalf, and to secure for them the Land of Canaan, an area roughly approximate to modern Israel plus the occupied West Bank.  The texts make it clear that other people also had gods, sometimes several gods, but that G-d was the unique deity of Abraham and his descendants, and that G-d’s power extended only to them.  Moreover, as Roland de Vaux has observed, in the subsequent wars of conquest and defense, “It was G-d who fought for Israel, not Israel which fought for G-d.  G-d was fighting for the life of his people, and the people associated themselves with this action by an act of faith and by conforming to a definite ritual.”

[It is unclear why this notion of “G-d fighting the Israelites’ wars” was not offset by citing at least one author who would conceptualized the Torah as might a Deist (rather than a Theist), namely, perceiving the activities of humanity as not controlled by an omnipotent deity).  Further, it is unclear why the Israelites’ contribution to the military accomplishments was only to have had faith and to have abided by rituals; again, “ethics” is ignored.]

…

During this period occurred the single most important event in their history:  the receipt of Yahweh’s Law.  Most prominent were the Ten Commandments—which in the first commandment noted the existence of other gods—and the related all-encompassing admonition:  “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: Leviticus 19:18].  The five books of the Torah were unquestionably composed and redacted centuries later, but the Halakhah began to take shape during this nomadic sojourn in the desert.

[It is unclear how the admonition in the First Commandment against having any other gods “translates” into confirming their existence; also, why it is “unquestionable” that the Torah was composed centuries later (contradicting the possibility, for example, that its delivery conformed with myriad possible explanations…including at the instant Moses died) raises the larger issue as to why this document even tread on such a topic.]

….In the words of the biblical scholar Ernest Renan, the Halachah forms “the tightest garment into which life was ever laced.”

[Again, to the reader who is predictably unfamiliar with the compilation of the 613 commandments, such a nakedly-pejorative commentary mars the potential for the rest of this monograph to be perceived as “disinterested.”]

…The biblical accounts [of the conquest of Canaan] depict a primitive, outnumbered confederation  of tribes slowly conquering bits and pieces of territory from a sedentary, relatively advanced people who lived in walled cities and towns….Historian Will Durant describes David as “the heroic slayer of Goliath, tender lover of Jonathan and many tender maidens, half-naked dancer of wild dances, seductive player of the harp, and able king of the Jews for almost forty years….an authentic man, bearing within him all the vestiges of barbarism and all the promise of civilization.”

[Although this final ‘graph covers historical information contained in the other 31 books of the Bible, it combines skewed narrative (“primitive” Hebrews defeating “advanced” peoples) with selective quotation-sources (portraying David as an ancient incarnation of a “James Bond” figure).]

…On May 14, 1948,…38 people signed and proclaimed the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.  The introductory paragraph affirmed that, “Eretz Yisrael was the birthplace of the Jewish people.   Here they first attained statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance, and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.” 

Among the signers were many who believed that the Book of Books contains—in the most literal sense—the revealed word of God.  These individuals asserted that the covenant between the Divine Presence and Abraham was meant to endure to the last days and that, according to that covenant, Abraham’s descendants were the chosen people, fully and unequivocably entitled to the Land of Israel as it was in the times of David and Solomon.  The insistence of many Israelis that the area generally known as the West Bank be referred to as Judea and Samaria affirms that belief.  The several religious groups and political parties—a decided minority—that in the late 1970s continued to claim the right for Jews to settle and occupy any part of the ancient kingdoms also based their acts and beliefs on biblical texts.

[The tacit assumption, here, is that most Israelis opposed the right for Jews to live wherever they wanted to live, recalling the tragic decision—and its ongoing aftermath—to  allow the Gaza Strip to be rendered Judenfrei.  Although the two-state solution is hotly debated contemporaneously, few Israelis accept the assumption that a durable peace (presumably, for their “protection”) will follow a forced, complete evacuation of Judea/Samaria.] 

Many more signers, however, regarded the biblical stories as vitally important ethno-history, but they rejected the notion of the Jews as a chosen people….The secular modernists among the founders of modern Israel rejected genetic or religious claims of superiority of the Jewish people, but they were nonetheless proud of their cultural heritage…. Legally, the establishment of Israel resulted from a United Nations resolution that provided for the partitioning of the area known as Palestine —from 1920 until 1947 a British Mandate territory—into an Arab State, a Jewish state, and a small region that included Jerusalem that would be under the control of the UN….In the late 1930s, the land purchases of the Jewish immigrants and their general prosperity and expansionist policies provoked several Arab riots in which a few hundred Jews and several thousand Arabs were killed….The attempts by Nazi Germany before and during World War II to “solve the Jewish problem” by killing all Jews increased the flow of Jewish immigrants to Palestine and exacerbated Arab fears of the loss of their homeland to the Jews.  Even those Arab governments and spokesmen who shared the revulsion of most of the world for Hitler’s crimes charged that, by creating a home for the Jews on Arab territory, European countries and the United States were assuaging their feelings of guilt for failing to rescue the Jews….The establishment of Israel caused for Arab-Israeli wars….The six-day war brought under Israeli occupation the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.  The 1973 war prompted negotiations between Egypt and Israel, by which part of the Sinai was returned to Egypt, and UN Buffer Zones were established in the Sinai between Egyptian and Israeli forces….

[Pervasive errors in this excerpted rendition of Israel’s history during the three decades subsequent to its establishment include the characterization of “many more signers” as secular-progressives, the absence of citation of the League of Nations mandate corroborating the Balfour Declaration, the accusation that Jewish land purchases provoked riots that tabulated into disproportionate Arab deaths (omitting reference to such events as the 1929 massacre in Hebron of its Jewish population), absence of citation of Arab-Nazi collaboration, the assignment of “blame” for the four wars upon Israel (for having declared its independence) rather than recognizing that each conflict was triggered by an act-of-war by an Arab country, the characterization of lands liberated in 1967 (including Jerusalem) as being “occupied,” and the suggestion that negotiations were triggered by a war.]

…In the late 1970s, the social, cultural and economic cleavages between these two major groups [Ashkenazi and Sephardim] continued to pose a critical and potentially explosive problem.  In the opinion of many observers, the divisiveness of this issue is, in the long run, more threaten-ing to the future of the state than the hostility of the Palestinian Arabs and their supporters.

[The sly absurdity of this suggestion[5] is amplified by the capacity for it to appear believable—despite the absence of any quotation from any one of the “many observers”—to a reader who might yearn to read negativity.]

Another, and at times related, divisive issue concerns the separation of church and state.  More specifically, the argument centers on the extent,   if any, to which Halakhah, as set forth in the Torah [and other sacred writings] should bow to the laws and powers of the secular government.  The members of a small ultra-Orthodox minority take such a literal view of Halakhic admonitions and Talmudic and later interpretations that they reject the very existence of the state [absent the Messiah’s prior arrival].  The members of a much larger grouping of Orthodox Jews (although a decided minority of the Jews in Israel) generally accept the state, but insist that the letter of all biblical laws be observed.  Members of these Orthodox groups, for example, find unacceptable and invalid the religious observances of Conservative and Reform congregations in the United States, Canada and Great Britain.  This minority has imposed its will not only on such matters as government observances of the Sabbath and kosher food, but also on such issues as marriage and divorce as they relate to the larger, more emotional issue of “Who is a Jew?”…On the one hand, the secularists hope that they Orthodox institutions will “wither away” after a prolonged exposure to modern, secular influences.  On the other hand, they hesitate to challenge the Orthodox leaders because to do so might create an unbridgeable chasm within the Jewish community—both in Israel and in the Diaspora.

[It is this paragraph that serves as the culmination of the pending question, namely, whether any reasonable characterization of Modern Israel would comport with (or conflict with) that which is contained in the Torah.  Yet, consistent with its predecessors, this rendition of the state-of-affairs was/is grossly inaccurate, thus impugning the ability to invoke this resource.     For example, alleged hegemony exerted by the Orthodoxy does not simply “impose” rules/regulations, for it is the involvement of these parties in the ruling governments that has afforded them operational Knesset majorities.  And this “Jewish Identity” debate was/is hardly raging in the Diaspora.]

The subsequent discussion of “Zionism:  The Founding Fathers” traced the origins of this effort to the 1840’s, through Herzl, and stopped short of transcending the “nationalism” of this effort to address any of the theological Land-related concepts discussed supra.      It did conclude, correctly (albeit in exaggerated phraseology) that, “The memory of the Holocaust and the perceived threat of annihilation from the surrounding countries has continued to provide the unifying elements to hold together Israel’s Jewish community, which has been sharply divided on numerous social, religious and economic issues.”

Listed as “Problems of the New State:  1948-1977” were “The Ingathering of the Exiles” and “Israeli Arabs, Arab Land, and Arab Refugees.”  Absent was any suggestion that the Israeli Government’s major problem was the lack of recognition of its existence by any Arab Government at any time during Israel’s existence[6].    Thus, because this book did not detail any distinction between the Torah’s conceptualization of the Promised Land, the ability to cite subsequent details therein (which also do not “reach” this analytic level) is limited.  This conclusion is related to its discussion of Israeli Society, Government and Politics, the Economy, and National Security.  Perhaps the most revelatory quotation is related to its assessment of the forces that have resulted in governmental policy:

Political values are a product of a historically inherited social reality as much as they are a product of a given political elite and more often than not, both.  They seldom perpetuate in a vacuum independently of objective forces.  As the society changes in temper and grows in complexity, so does the value system.  Seen in this perspective, the erosion of the founding ideology in Israel is perhaps inevitable.

Oh really?  What could be construed merely as a “pedestrian”-level analysis of Israel now is unmasked, revealing “the wizard behind the curtain” [recalling Oz].  One could easily argue that the proper distillation of current intramural turmoil in Israel is consternation with the results of an appeasement process that started in Oslo…and continued in Gaza… and threatens to extend to the Golan.  And none of this practicality is tethered to theology or to elitism (regardless of whether it can be correlated with any type of ethnic strife).

Yet, if there is a truism buried within this quotation, it is that the evolution of society is occurring in Israel, but this is one that cannot be construed as rejecting the Moral Ecology that permeates the Torah.  Therefore, with neither reluctance nor ambiguity, and noting that any articulated argument to the contrary is tainted by previously-revealed bias, it can be concluded with confidence that “Israel is Kosher” or, rather, that Israel is not Tref. 

This conclusion is to be contrasted, after discussion thereof from myriad perspectives, with both the Academic review (Part I) and the Parashot review (Part II) of this analysis.

Conclusions

In Part I, the underlying methods employed to analyze the Parashot resulted in a tentative conclusion that—with regard both to borders and to conceptualizations of what constituted “land”—Modern Israel comported with how a “Jewish State” would exist.  Analysis of each Parashah was necessary to ensure that the functioning of this State complied with the details of what was carefully defined in the Torah, for Ancient Israel.  This was not performed as an apologia, for Modern Israel certainly has myriad “issues.”

All the other disclaimers articulated in Part I (such as recognizing the exclusion of the rest of the Bible from discussion and minimizing insertion of interpretive information) remained operational; the goal was to maintain as academic a posture as can be achieved.  Habel’s work was distilled (yielding a unified stance regarding how each criterion might be conceptualized) and (subsequently) found to encompass the generalized points made throughout (invoking an informal cross-walk between the text and his interpretations).

Part II detailed depictions of the Parashot, invoking Lichtman and the JPS Commentary,  recognizing the need to distill crucial data and to dispel tangential polemics (e.g., aliyah), yielding a comprehensive citation of specific references to Eretz Yisrael.  To these ends, it was decided to defer performing such detailed review of the other two biblical books (encompassed by the Prophets and the Writings) as well as the rabbinic commentaries  composed thereafter (Talmudic and otherwise); episodic reviews of the latter did not add appreciably to concepts derived directly from the Parashot.  Therefore, it is felt that the essence of what was envisioned for this study—Modern Israel—was addressed after a probing-analysis/synthesis of Parashot, framed by context (Part I) and analysis (Part III).

Part III summarized how the major American Jewish movements conceptualize Israel, as well as how (academically) key characteristics of the Covenant (borders and contracts) reflected how the Ancients viewed and functioned in their world.  Then, a demographic analysis yielded the conclusion that, at least by using the distilled parameters in a text written for the United States Government, the prose therein (albeit prejudicial) did not preclude drawing the conclusion that (viewed from a multidisciplinary perspective) “Israel is Kosher.”  More precisely, perhaps, it was concluded that Israel isn’t Tref. 

Overall, despite what the myriad movements in American Judaism might dispute, it is clear that the expository depiction of Zionism composed by Mordechai Kaplan represents the most cogent articulation and reasoning (eloquently stated from multiple perspectives) for why Zionism is inherent within Jewish Philosophy (and, certainly, is not “racist”).

Nevertheless, despite the capacity for multiple authors to wax philosophical regarding the importance of Israel to Jewish Life and a hopeful future, the motivation for this ability may not have been articulated (even as its manifestations were being profoundly felt).  And the “force under the radar” has been the dynamism of the Promised Land, defined by whatever borders might be needed to conceptualize its physical manifestation in 2008.  That Jewry needs to be “assisted” in the process of developing a unique relationship with the Land and its People, this is perhaps the opening concern of some future scrutiny.

To contact me--Robert B. Sklaroff, M.D.--just send an e-mail (rsklaroff@comcast.net).