With the publication of his new book and its accompanying Guardian interview, Chief Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks has stepped out of the realm of social theology squarely into that of politics. Perforce, his wisdom, rather than his position, is under scrutiny. From the hills of Samaria, where Jewish kings, prophets and priests worshipped the One God at the Tabernacle of Shiloh and created the civilization and culture whose outstanding defender of in the British Isles is, at present, Rabbi Sacks, the view of his efforts is disheartening.
His championing of a solution entailing "a division of the land into two states" comes just as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who for three decades was the main religious authority to promote the parallel "land for peace" principle, traveled to Immanuel, across the Green Line, and instructed them to strike deeper roots into the Land of Israel, terming their presence, "an act of heroism", a play on Psalm 20:7. Sacks urges freedom of access to Jerusalem's holy sites at a time when the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount is in danger of collapse due to the illegal construction by the Muslim Waqf Authority. Their Taliban-like activity has literally destroyed two millennia-old antiquities and is aimed at eradicating anything Jewish in Jerusalem. Where was Sacks last month or last year?
His Zionism is defined as a negativism. He bases it on "Jewish suffering and the existential need for...defensible space". He thus avoids assigning a ritual imperative to residence in the Land of Israel and, by default, plays into the anti-Zionist Arab posture. For fifty years and more the detractors of Israel have queried why the Arabs have needed to be punished for the Christian sins of European anti-Semitism. Sacks is resonating Arab propaganda or, at the very least, that of the Jewish, virulently anti Zionistic Neturei Karta.
Zionism, first and foremost, is the unqualified expression of Jewish nationalism where Jewish religion/culture, land and language are unified. To enfeeble Zionism's essence, at this moment of the Arab/Jewish conflict, in the face of Islamic irrationality and extremism, is unpardonable for a person of Rabbi Sacks' erudition. In fact, the one example he notes as morally troubling, that of Israeli soldiers having their picture taken while gloating over a dead terrorist, was proof just of the opposite. The three were sentenced to incarceration for up to a month. Sacks just didn't know his facts.
In seeking the perfect balance, that "both parties" need to acknowledge the other's people hood and both have to listen to each other's anguish, that both should forgive, Rabbi Sacks adopts a perverted moral equivalency of which the Guardian, to note but one example, is a prime exponent. After nine years of the Oslo Process and the Camp David parley two years ago, for Sacks to place an equal onus on Israel to be moral, to be moderate and to be compromising is not only a historical error of fact but also an almost unpardonable defamation. His interpretation of the diplomatic machinations assigns equal blame on Israel, too. This is outrageous.
One can let go of pain and hate, as he advises, when the danger and threat have passed. For Israel to do what he asks, - by yielding territory, by dismantling communities, by transferring its Jewish population, by taking, yet once again, a security risk with the full knowledge from experience that it may, Heaven forbid, be the last time possible, is not an expression of hope but of despair. I fear that Rabbi Sacks' opinions are more an outcome of the externalities of living in the Diaspora rather than internal convictions stemming from Judaic values.
If we are to follow through with Rabbi Sacks' advice and turn ourselves into the mother of the Solomonic Judgment who gave up her child so that it should not be killed, we must remind ourselves, and that includes Rabbi Sacks, that today there is no Solomon to whom to turn to for justice. What we do have is Arafat and a Shiekh Yassin and there is a Kofi Annan and that French Ambassador to the United Kingdom who came to dinner with Barbara Amiel and said some not too nice things about Israel.
Here in the hills of Efraim, "north of Beth-El, east of the highway to Shchem and south of Levonah" (Judges 21:19), we see things differently. We see things up real close. Consequently, our vision is a different one than that of Rabbi Sacks. Our vision is, I would suggest, in all humility, closer to reality, closer to true Judaism. Closer to, well, home.
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Yisrael Medad resides in Shiloh, Samaria and is a long-time activist
His championing of a solution entailing "a division of the land into two states" comes just as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who for three decades was the main religious authority to promote the parallel "land for peace" principle, traveled to Immanuel, across the Green Line, and instructed them to strike deeper roots into the Land of Israel, terming their presence, "an act of heroism", a play on Psalm 20:7. Sacks urges freedom of access to Jerusalem's holy sites at a time when the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount is in danger of collapse due to the illegal construction by the Muslim Waqf Authority. Their Taliban-like activity has literally destroyed two millennia-old antiquities and is aimed at eradicating anything Jewish in Jerusalem. Where was Sacks last month or last year?
His Zionism is defined as a negativism. He bases it on "Jewish suffering and the existential need for...defensible space". He thus avoids assigning a ritual imperative to residence in the Land of Israel and, by default, plays into the anti-Zionist Arab posture. For fifty years and more the detractors of Israel have queried why the Arabs have needed to be punished for the Christian sins of European anti-Semitism. Sacks is resonating Arab propaganda or, at the very least, that of the Jewish, virulently anti Zionistic Neturei Karta.
Zionism, first and foremost, is the unqualified expression of Jewish nationalism where Jewish religion/culture, land and language are unified. To enfeeble Zionism's essence, at this moment of the Arab/Jewish conflict, in the face of Islamic irrationality and extremism, is unpardonable for a person of Rabbi Sacks' erudition. In fact, the one example he notes as morally troubling, that of Israeli soldiers having their picture taken while gloating over a dead terrorist, was proof just of the opposite. The three were sentenced to incarceration for up to a month. Sacks just didn't know his facts.
In seeking the perfect balance, that "both parties" need to acknowledge the other's people hood and both have to listen to each other's anguish, that both should forgive, Rabbi Sacks adopts a perverted moral equivalency of which the Guardian, to note but one example, is a prime exponent. After nine years of the Oslo Process and the Camp David parley two years ago, for Sacks to place an equal onus on Israel to be moral, to be moderate and to be compromising is not only a historical error of fact but also an almost unpardonable defamation. His interpretation of the diplomatic machinations assigns equal blame on Israel, too. This is outrageous.
One can let go of pain and hate, as he advises, when the danger and threat have passed. For Israel to do what he asks, - by yielding territory, by dismantling communities, by transferring its Jewish population, by taking, yet once again, a security risk with the full knowledge from experience that it may, Heaven forbid, be the last time possible, is not an expression of hope but of despair. I fear that Rabbi Sacks' opinions are more an outcome of the externalities of living in the Diaspora rather than internal convictions stemming from Judaic values.
If we are to follow through with Rabbi Sacks' advice and turn ourselves into the mother of the Solomonic Judgment who gave up her child so that it should not be killed, we must remind ourselves, and that includes Rabbi Sacks, that today there is no Solomon to whom to turn to for justice. What we do have is Arafat and a Shiekh Yassin and there is a Kofi Annan and that French Ambassador to the United Kingdom who came to dinner with Barbara Amiel and said some not too nice things about Israel.
Here in the hills of Efraim, "north of Beth-El, east of the highway to Shchem and south of Levonah" (Judges 21:19), we see things differently. We see things up real close. Consequently, our vision is a different one than that of Rabbi Sacks. Our vision is, I would suggest, in all humility, closer to reality, closer to true Judaism. Closer to, well, home.
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Yisrael Medad resides in Shiloh, Samaria and is a long-time activist