HaRav Shmuel Eliahu is Chief Rabbi of Tzfat
In our morning prayers, after we say, “For You will remove the rule of wickedness from the earth," we pray for the Kingship of God. The connection between the eradication of evil and the Kingship of Hashem is stated many times in the words of the prophets. The most famous expression of this appears in Psalms:
“The Lord shall reign forever; your God, O Zion, from generation to generation, hallelujah."
Prior to this declaration, the psalm states that the Lord “executes justice for the oppressed; gives bread to the hungry; the Lord releases the bound; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord straightens the bent; the Lord loves the righteous; the Lord protects the stranger; He supports the orphan and the widow; but the way of the wicked He makes crooked."
Only afterward does the Kingship of Hashem over the world appear (Psalms 146).
Israel is a Moral and Just State
The Kingship of Hashem over the world is realized in Zion, where David and Solomon established a kingdom of justice and righteousness. As it is written: “David reigned over all Israel, and David executed justice and righteousness for all his people" (II Samuel 8:15). Their kingdom stood in contrast to the empires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, which brought evil and grievous injustice into the world - oppression and slavery. These empires continued the path of the wicked Esav who bore the name of God on his lips while his hands were filled with blood.
In Athens of Greece there were four-hundred-thousand slaves who performed backbreaking labor so that twenty-thousand Greek citizens could exploit them and “enjoy" an abundance of wealth. These slaves had no rights to life and certainly no right to vote. The Greeks were permitted to kill their slaves if they did not do as commanded by their masters. This was Athens, the so-called cradle of democracy.
Tyranny Is Gradually Disappearing from the World
Over the last two-hundred-and-fifty years, the world has been moving from the tyrannical rule of Pharaoh, Greece, and Rome toward governance characterized by greater justice and law. Every few years another country transitions from full tyranny to partial tyranny or to a system of justice and law.
Over the past two centuries, slavery, which exploited hundreds of millions of people for the economic benefit of others, has been abolished. Legal systems throughout the world have become far more fair and just. The principle of equal justice under the law is accepted by most countries of the world. Certainly, the world still has much room for improvement, but it is in a process of continuous and ongoing advancement.
How Did the Change Begin?
The great American Revolution began about 250 years ago. The inhabitants of America refused to remain subjugated to England; they fought and succeeded in removing the yoke of English domination from upon themselves. After achieving independence, they needed to formulate a covenant by which life in the United States of America would be conducted, and they asked John Adams to draft a constitution. John Adams was the first Vice President of the United States and its second President. Together with others, he wrote the nation’s constitution. These individuals are known to this day as the Founding Fathers of America.
They Took Their Values from the Hebrew Nation
John Adams wrote that the values of the American Constitution were taken from the Hebrew nation:
“There is no doubt that without the Jews, the world would be an entirely different place. It is possible that humanity might eventually have arrived at all the Jewish insights, but it is impossible to know this with certainty. All the great discoveries of humanity appear clear and self-evident after they have been discovered, but it requires unique genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews possessed this gift.
"To them we owe the concept that all are equal before the law - divine and human alike; the concept of the sanctity of life and human dignity; the concept of private conscience and therefore personal redemption; the concept of collective conscience and therefore social responsibility; the concept of peace as an ideal and love as a value that stands at the foundation of justice, along with many other principles that comprise the basic moral framework of human consciousness. Without the Jews, the world would certainly be a far emptier place."
There were those who wrote to him that the Greeks and Romans had also contributed to these values. But in a letter to the philosopher Johannes Van der Kemp in 1806, he responded: “I insist that the Hebrews have done more for the civilization of man than any other people."
He also wrote that they were “the most essential instrument for the civilization of nations." He further stated that the principle of faith in God is “the greatest vital principle of morality and, as a consequence, of civilization as a whole."
Additionally, he wrote to Van der Kemp:
“They are the most glorious people who ever lived upon this earth. The Romans and their empire were nothing more than a trifle in comparison to the Jews. They gave religion to more than three-quarters of the inhabitants of the globe and influenced the affairs of humanity with far greater effect than any other nation, ancient or modern."
A few years after America, France carried out its own revolution, removing tyrannical kings who oppressed the people. They attempted to establish in place of that tyranny a kingdom of justice and law. After France, all the countries of Europe followed; after many years, Russia also partially joined in curbing tyranny. Even in China there are signs of an emerging understanding that man is created in the image of God. Thus, today much of the world rejects the tyrannical regimes that were a continuation of Pharaoh’s rule in Egypt.
Israel’s Declaration of Independence
We possess a unique Jewish content - one that should become the inheritance of the entire world. Ben Gurion, who founded the Jewish State, did not agree to include the word “democracy" in the Declaration of Independence. He felt it was an affront to use a Greek term to describe such a lofty value that came into the world through the Jewish People and not through the Greeks. About four months after the declaration of the State, Ben Gurion wrote in his diary:
“As for Western democracy, I am in favor of Jewish democracy. ‘Western’ is insufficient. Being Jewish is not merely a biological fact but also, knowingly or unknowingly,a moral and ethical one. We have a special Jewish Content that must become the inheritance of the world.
“The value of life and human freedom are deeper for us, according to the teachings of the prophets, than in Western democracy. A coercive regime, without freedom of choice and without liberty of conscience, thought, and speech, is incompatible with socialism; but we are not therefore compelled to identify with the ‘West.’ I would like our future to be built upon prophetic ethics (man was created in the image of God; ‘Love your fellow as yourself’ - these lead to lives of equality and freedom as in the kibbutz), and to be established also upon advanced science, and upon advanced technological development."
Accordingly, the Declaration begins with the words:
"In the Land of Israel the Jewish People arose, where its spiritual, religious, and political character was shaped; where it lived a life of sovereign independence; where it created national and universal cultural values; and bequeathed to the whole world the eternal Book of Books."
These words describe the influence of the People of Israel upon all the nations of the world. When this was the guiding principle of the founders of the State, there was no place to insert a Greek value (like democracy) that would imply that we learned these ideals from other nations.
In the view of the editors of the Declaration of Independence, the democratic form of government and the rights of equality, freedom, and human dignity are an essential and inseparable part of the Jewish Heritage. Therefore, they added to the Declaration the phrase: 'It shall be founded on the principles of freedom, justice, and peace in the light of the vision of the prophets of Israel.'
This is the essence of our statehood and not a Greek democracy built upon lofty words that conceal exploitation and enslavement of others.
It is necessary to recall this principle in our own time, for there are occasionally “Supreme Court" judges who say that the State of Israel is Jewish and democratic, and one of them even stated that all the Jewish values of the State are subordinate to its democratic values. This is a mistake. The democratic values of the State are subordinate to its Jewish values, the only values explicitly mentioned in the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel: the values of the prophets, upon which the State of Israel was established.