A sober reflection on the state of the Jewish state after sixty years of existence should, from a Tikkun perspective, be primarily oriented on the search for peace based on compromise with the Palestinian people. However, the Hamas Charter rules out peaceful compromise with any version of a sovereign State of Israel:

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it …The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up …There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. 

It would not be prudent to allow this kind of negation to deflect a religious Zionist from seriously reflecting on Israel on the occasion of its sixtieth.

In the conclusion of his very critical 1998 study of the Middle East conflict, Benny Morris, leading voice among the wave of “new” and critical Israeli historians who the journal Arab Affairs endorsed as “required reading for anyone who professes a serious interest in the Arab-Israeli Conflict over Palestine, ” argued that when “viewed as a whole, the success of the Zionist enterprise has been nothing short of miraculous. For how else can one describe the taking root, in a desolate land, in the face of imperial ill will and native hostility, of a small, ill-equipped community of tens of thousands of transplanted Russian Jews; how else describe the growth of that community … in defiance of increasing Arab opposition and violence? How else describe the victory of the minuscule community against the surrounding sea of Arabs and Arab states in 1948, the establishment of a solid, viable state ….” His remarks are no less relevant twenty years later.

The sages of the Mishnah, in their pastoral mode, suggested that sixty in the life of an individual signifies zikna, literally “old age” (Pirkei Avot 5:24) and as Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak, eleventh century) commented, marked by the weakening of one ’s abilities, simply physical and mental deterioration. Another rabbinic view is that zikna implies attaining the age of wisdom, discernment and judgment, the fruits of experience. By analogy from the individual to the collective, one may conjecture that, following Rashi, the State of Israel is showing signs of weariness, of a losing of its youthful prowess which may signal an eventual caving in of its earliest promise due to the obsolescence of its Zionist dreams. I do not share that view, but see rather its attaining a stage of life ’s wisdom which could only be attained through experience. How could one, after all, imagine a Jewish state before having had one?

The words of the Bible, sacred literature, and liturgy that sustained the dream of Zion when there was no Zion were mere hopes and incomplete visions serving as compensation in fantasy for the absence of a lived Jewish sovereign reality. The complexity that this entailed could not truly be imagined even by its most fervent visionaries current or past. One need only re-read Theodore Herzl ’s vision of Zion, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896) to be convinced how unimaginable the reality of a Jewish state in the middle of the Arabic Islamic Middle East was. Especially, no one could imagine the degree of negation our enemies were capable of articulating in words, policies and deeds.  

Against this background, it seems to me that a decent critique of Israel by a committed Jew must begin with a “shehecheyanu” (benediction expressing gratitude) in appreciation of the resurrection of a nation from ashes and attaining its sixtieth anniversary, a veritable miracle marking the transition from “exile” to “return.” The Psalmist’s yearning “when the Lord restores the fortunes of Zion ... our mouths shall be filled with laughter ... with songs of joy ” (Ps.126: 1-2), words recited before every Sabbath’s grace, were actualized in our time. As a World War II survivor who was born in France in 1942 and whose family was saved by a successful escape through a break in the border fence due to a temporary lapse in the Swiss policy of not returning refugees with children, how could I not acknowledge the privilege of having personally experienced this reality when I resided for twenty years in Israel. I couldn ’t possibly begrudge the sense of elation I felt in dwelling with millions of Jews in their own sovereign state after 1900 years of exile, subjugation and persecution. It is because of that larger perspective that this sixtieth anniversary of Israel ’s existence invites a deep look at ourselves in the details of our return as a people in our land.

The idea that such periodic reflection is desirable is expressed through the Biblical jubilee year, yovel, observance. In its fiftieth year, the land lies fallow for a second consecutive year, following the seven times seven sabbatical years of the forty-nine years of the sabbatical cycle. The Biblical life-rhythm emphasis on periodic withdrawal for the purpose of self-awareness is institutionalized not only into the weekly Shabbat retreat but also within the larger life cycles. The land lies fallow and moreover returns to its original owners having been successfully worked by its current developer. Even slaves sold into perpetuity are liberated, “let freedom be proclaimed in the land” (Lev. 25:10). Let the shofar blast awaken by its sounds the insight of a nation that has mastered the skills of the survival in the earth, having learned how to make it yield its fruits. Reflection means critical thinking principally by committed participants who want the enterprise to succeed, in contrast to outsiders who want the enterprise defeated.

What questions must we pose? What is the proper perspective in which to frame these questions so as to not allow petty annoyances to outweigh more important overall issues? For a “religious” “Zionist” like myself, that means the critique must relate to two issues: The secular reality of the twentieth century in terms of which the dream of political Zionism was articulated. From this perspective, the only redemption from the misery of political dependency and arbitrary persecution was the reestablishment of a homeland on the soil Israel, leading to the “normalization” of the Jewish people. It must also relate to the religious traditions (both prophetic and rabbinic) where the vision of Zion, of “the Land,” is fundamentally anchored in the implementation of its values, and not in the land per se: “keep My statutes and Mine ordinances and do not any of the abominations...so that the Land vomit you not out … (Lev. 18:27-8). The deep linkage between values and space or territory is obvious in that the Bible makes its injunctions ( mitzvot) contingent on “when you come into the Land…” (e.g. Deut. 26:1).

For both the secular and the religious perspectives, “landed-ness” and “being” are inextricably linked!

What was at stake for the secular in this connection was the “normalization” of a people living too long a distorted form of existence that was parasitic on the total environments created by other peoples in their homelands through their cultures. Visiting was fine, but overstaying by 1900 years was seen as overdoing it, a condition that could only lead to political, national and psychic disability —witness the persecution of the Jews in the Diaspora.

From the religious perspective, landed-ness was the very condition for realizing a vision of totally responsible comprehensive collective life. The sages of the Mishna coined the distinction between “precepts dependent on the land/soil” and those “not dependent on the land/soil” (Mishna Kiddushin 1:9; Talmud 36b) to protect this vision when it could not be concretized in the Diaspora and thereby facilitate an incomplete though religiously fulfilling Jewish life in the Diaspora. Even the term for Diaspora life — “galut” (exile)—underlines this. Diaspora is a neutral term that signifies a people merely distributed or dispersed across the globe while “galut” is an evaluative term that signifies loss, of being away from home.

The secular analysis of the Jewish problem explains the

“negation of the Diaspora” ideology by which Israelis, from Ben Gurion to Yitzhak Rabin, tended to interpret the continued Jewish institutionalized life in the Diaspora during the period of its (Israel ’s) development, and even today. This negation expressed itself in its refusal to educate Israeli youth about the two millenia of Diaspora achievement. Israelis were ashamed of their Diaspora/ galut past to the point of denial. For them, the Jewish people was born not in the desert Sinai nor in the slave fields of Egypt, but on the soil Israel. The opening lines of the Israeli Declaration of Independence attest to this: Eretz Yisrael was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here [and not in Egypt or on Mount Sinai] their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped.” It detested the Diaspora and distanced itself from it, disregarding the Diaspora ’s agenda for continued positive life. Israel concerned itself with the Diaspora merely as a potential pool for aliyah. The fundamental, perhaps only, message that its Zionist leaders could communicate to Jewish youth searching for Jewish meaning in the context of their widespread communities was “aleh”—“come on aliyah”—“there is no meaning to Jewish life in the Diaspora!” Spiritual yearning for values, for mitzvot as a life context, was apparently not grasped by Israel rooted shelichim (emissaries). Extra territorium, non salut—Outside the land there is no redemption, no spirituality! It was as if their prooftext was the naive reading of Talmudic teaching that “whoever lives outside the land may be regarded as if he worships idols” (Talmud Ketubot 111a). They were unaware that in that same discussion, even on the same folio, the view is expressed that “whoever leaves Babylon [the Diaspora] to ascend to the land of Israel transgresses. ”

Religious Zionism, on the other hand, had at least, in part, to affirm a positive meaning for the Diaspora, even while it also acknowledged that the opportunities for collective realization of Jewish visions through the Diaspora were limited. It had a much greater sense of continuity between the land of Israel and Diaspora-based contexts of Jewish living. This, because Torah was its foundational measure of Jewish meaning in either of these contexts. Torah was imperative in the Diaspora as well, even if its obligations were more limited.

From the perspective of the secular vision, did the achievement of Zionism in the creation of Israel achieve its goal of normalization? Did it become a nation “like all nations” (Deut. 17:14; I Samuel 8:5, 20), no longer “set apart” nor “disregarded by the nations” (Nu. 23:9), no longer admired or loathed in exaggerated fashion? Did a new “Hebrew” person emerge imbued with ideals of justice and egalitarianism as dreamt of by the Zionist ideologues of the early twentieth century, freed of the social disabilities brought on by the crippling Diaspora existence?

And from the perspective of the religious vision, did the return to the Holy Land stimulate the realization of sanctity as was envisioned in the formation of “a kingdom of priests, a holy people” (Exodus. 19:6)? Were the ideals of the holiness code realized? This wish list begins “you shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy” and culminates in the “loving of one’s neighbor” (19:18) and of “the stranger” (19:34). And what of those articulated by Isaiah that “Zion shall be redeemed with justice and ... lovingkindness” (1:27)? The rabbinic sages singled out the three identifying marks of an Israelite “compassion, shame and kindness” (Talmud Yebamot 79a). Maimonides religiously humanizes his codex, the Mishnah Torah, with the ruling that “the ordinances of the Torah were meant to bring upon the world not vengeance, but mercy, lovingkindness and peace ” (Mishnah Torah, Laws of the Sabbath 2:3). His messianic aspiration did not betoken “that Israel might exercise dominion over the world, or rule over the non-Jews... but that it devote itself to the Torah and its wisdom... ” (Laws of Kings and Wars 12:4). Could it honestly be said by one who defined himself in terms of the religious inspirations of Judaism that the people Israel in their state form have become a “light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6),” Do the nations currently testify how Israel is “a wise and discerning people” (Deut. 4:6) as Moses had hoped? Have we learned to be with one another in our land in a way that would bring the words of the Psalmist to our lips “how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity” (Psalm 133)? Do we treat the stranger in our land according to the maxim “there shall be one law for you, whether stranger or citizen” (Nu. 9:14, 15:15)?

What is it that we have painfully learned through the experience of sixty years of independence in our land? Our proud self-understanding as God ’s elect needs to be tempered by a sober look at ourselves after this period of empowerment! Like the rest of the human race we are merely human and not infrequently act in ways that are open to criticism from universally accepted human rights, as well as Jewish, standards. The mere return to “land” is not by itself a cure for the weakness of the disempowerment that was the condition of the Diaspora, nor for the weaknesses that are the human lot. On the contrary, the return to the land also opened the way to express those weaknesses in larger and more virulent forms than we were able to acknowledge in the more limited context of Diaspora.

Nevertheless, I do not share the view of those who think that Diaspora is that form of Jewish living where the Jewish people were, because of that disempowerment, at their best, as a minority which allowed religious ideals to be exercised without the opportunity for the exploitation of others. In the first place, the price for Diaspora living was too high in because it invited too much persecution. And further, this view smacks of romanticization of the ghetto. It overlooks the actual condition of a people under pressure exercising their “smaller” forms of meanness, often against one another. Besides that, being moral when disempowered is no great achievement. The prophets and sages dreamed of morality within the context of empowerment.

At the same time I do not worship at the shrine of land idolization with those who liturgically proclaimed the return to the land as “the beginning of the flowering of the redemption” (the standard siddur-prayer for Israel composed by the chief rabbinate of Israel). Whether it is an event in redemption depends on what the people of Israel do in the land, by the kind of moral and ethical reality they create there, and not by the mere fact of returning. One is tempted to call that sort of land assessment a new form of idolatry, which the late iconoclastic Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz repeatedly warned against. The enthusiasm for the land in itself which is expressed in such liturgical celebration may be understandable against the background of a long period of deprivation. But after sixty years of acclimatization to that kind of stability, this uncritical enthusiasm must give way to a quieter assessment and a realization that there is much that has gone wrong.

The great Israeli writer Chaim Nahman Bialik is often quoted for suggesting that Israel will finally have become in his eyes a “normal” nation when there are Jewish prostitutes cruising in Tel Aviv, when there are Jewish thieves and more. He would then have been gratified to read the crime statistics in Israel, about its child abuse and battered women in the hundreds of thousands, of the insufficient services for those with disabilities, the increasing economic gap between the haves and have-nots, of bureaucratic indifference, automobile casualties, inter-religious and intra-religious conflicts bordering on violence, political corruption, educational gaps, and the discrimination against and exploitation of minorities, including immigrants —all these and more. How are we to explain

ourselves to ourselves in our so imperfect state and at the same time sustain our vision?

Can we take comfort in realizing the difficulty of the undertaking, of coalescing a scattered people in one land, a people that is in actuality many peoples who come from divergent cultures and have not had contact with one another?

Does the rapid rate of absorption of immigrants explain this? Is our disappointment assuaged in realizing that Israel is a pressure cooker where suppressed anger that has accumulated over so many hundreds of years of containment is being released, often in ugly ways? Is the trauma of the Shoah, the survival mechanism, wreaking havoc in our inability to treat one another without suspicion, without seeking advantage? Are we in Israel experiencing the psychological and social consequences of the first, second and third generation of Holocaust trauma? Or is there something in the concept of our self-understanding that inherently invites the mistreatment or mishandling of the other?

We have challenged ourselves to become a holy people, though we have never been such. I must say, though, that I prefer this kind of problem to that of survival as a minority in a Diaspora in the pre-State era. But that kind of abstraction only works with depersonalization. As soon as one looks into the faces of persecuted people, children, women, and seniors, the words of Maimonides pose a serious critical question:

The practice of the righteous is to suffer insults and not inflict them; to hear themselves reviled and do not retort; to be impelled in what they do by love, and to rejoice in [their own] suffering...(Mishnah Torah, De ’ot- Ethics 2:3 based on Talmud Yoma 23a and Gittin 36a).

If the condition of landed-ness facilitates the infliction of wholesale suffering on others, can one be blamed for the illusion that in a sense the Diaspora was for the Jew an arena of greater morality? There s/he suffered at the hands of others, but was deterred from inflicting collective suffering on others by the very condition of her/his minority status.

Israel must use the occasion of its sixtieth to confront these difficult questions in holding onto and realizing its best visions of itself despite the often unbearably hard reality that understandably brings out its harsher, insensitive sides. God Himself is said to have approved of the appeal “may Thy mercy prevail over Thy anger” (Berachot 7a).

After all, no one forced the people of Israel to take up the burden of becoming a holy people, a divine calling. According to the Jewish tradition as expressed in the Talmud (Shabbat 88a), the people accepted this freely when they in their history affirmed and reaffirmed (Esther 9:27) what they had formally taken upon themselves at the beginning, at Sinai (Ex. 19:5). Let them now make the words of promise real.