The importance of being Jewish

By Ted Belman

As far back as the seventies, my orthodox father-in-law used to argue that gentiles have more respect for authentic Jews than for assimilated Jews. There is something attractive about a people or person who is proud of his heritage and lives by its precepts. As you know this idea ran contrary to the prevailing view held by progressive Jews that the more they emulated the gentiles, the more they would be accepted. He was right. Just look at the affinity of the Christian Right in the US for the Jewish settlers and their fight to keep the land.

Paul Eidelberg makes the same point in his important book “Jewish Statesmanship.”

    “Contrary to the expectations of Jewish politicians and intellectuals who, out of fear of anti-Semitism, mindlessly portray Israel as a democracy so as to endow it (and themselves) with legitimacy and respectability, it is precisely this lack of Jewish national authenticity – this adulation of decayed democratic values – that underlies the international contempt for Israel.”

He characterizes this contemporary democracy as upholding “indiscriminate egalitarianism and unrestrained libertarianism”. Israel’s embrace, without question, of this form of contemporary democracy has lead to Arab Israelis who are PLO surrogates and thus enemies of Israel, being elected to the Knesset. It also leads to the PLO being permitted their own press in Jerusalem where they mightily contribute to anti-Israel propaganda and incitement. In other words, this slavish adherence to these contemporary democratic values threatens not only the character of the Jewish state but its very existence.

Instead, he argues that Israel’s statesmen should emphasize Israel’s raison d’etre as a Jewish State and that this necessitates that democracy must be assimilated to Judaism. It means that an authentic Jewish Commonwealth should embrace the supremacy of Torah and not of democracy.

The Left in Israel and around the world considers this to be a sacrilege, at least for Israel, while at the same time it recognizes that democracy must be accommodated to Islam and Arab culture in the Arab states.

Prof. Eidelberg argues that western normless democracy is inferior to Judaism. Such democracy is “little more than a random aggregation of individuals and groups pursuing their own aims and interests”.

The result, he argues, is “eccentric pluralism and multiculturalism fortified by the doctrine of moral and cultural relativism that dominates every level of education in the West. Lacking in contemporary democracy are not only unifying norms of human conduct but any rational basis for national loyalty. Being normless, contemporary democracy denies the existence of universally valid standards by which to determine whether the way of life of one individual, group or nation, is intrinsically superior to that of another – superior in the sense of being more conducive to human excellence or to domestic and international harmony.”

“In contrast, Judaism is a nationality and a prescribed way of life.”

He goes on to describe the conceptual differences between Judaism and contemporary democracy noting that Judaism has a different conception for democracy (replacing the considered judgment of the majority subject to the Torah for the will of the majority, freedom (freedom to serve a higher purpose rather than freedom to do what you want) and equality (everyone’s life is equal to another’s but their rights may vary i.e more is expected of a learned man than an ignoramus).

Yet the Left worries that Israel would become a “theocracy”. By this, they probably mean a state ruled by priests or mullahs or rabbis. If so, then Israel could not be a theocracy because in Judaism, the rabbis don’t rule. There is no Church in Judaism, neither theologically, since there is no mediation between G-d and the individual Jew, nor institutionally since there is no ecclesiastical hierarchy. But, if “theocracy” means the rule of G-d, then Judaism is theocratic for G-d is the ultimate source of law and authority. So what does this mean operationally?

In Judaism, “only publicly tested scholarship can lay claim to any validity regarding the laws of Torah.” Thus scholarship is the highest value of Judaism and any and all Jews can pursue it. A Jewish Israel would be ruled by the most learned people in the Knesset and in the Courts much the same way as Western Democracies are ruled but with the added caveat that they are all subservient to the Torah.

Jewish law has developed and governed the Jewish people for thousands of years. It consists of laws between man and man (Mishpatim) and laws between man and G-d (Hukim). The former are based solely on reason and thus must be changed or administered as is reasonable in the circumstances. So, the secularist need not worry about Mishpatim. As for Hukim, that’s between man and G-d. Thus without fear of G-d, they need not worry about Hukim.

Strange as it may seem, secular Zionists in the pre-state period recognized that Israel’s national renaissance and the rebirth of its national consciousness required the restoration of Jewish Civil Law, otherwise known as Mishpatim. As early as 1909 they declared,

    “Our law is one of the most valuable assets of our national culture and a unifying force [among Jews] throughout the world. The Jewish People have developed and maintained a remarkable system of law whose foundations were laid at the dawn of our national existence: hundreds of generations have toiled over it, perfected it and adorned it, and even today it retains its power to renew its youth and to develop in a manner appropriate to the outlook of our time. During the thousands of years of the existence of our nation this law was influenced by many material and spiritual factors. It absorbed religious and ethical concepts; it reflected cultural, economic and social values; and it can still faithfully reflect the life of the people throughout the future.”

Unfortunately over the last century Israel has moved away from the primacy of Jewish law to embrace the law as it exists in the western democracies. As Prof. Eidelberg and many others point out, this represents a greater existential threat to Judaism and to Israel than do the Arabs.

    “Severed from its own laws and constitutional history, a country’s political, economic and social history will be largely unintelligible. Its legal heritage will cease to have practical relevance. Fewer and fewer people will understand their past, the way their forefathers related to each other in daily life, the conditions under which they lived, their way of thinking, without such knowledge Israel will forget its world-historical mission.”

This loss of mission leaves Israel defenceless before the onslaught of the Muslim mission to recover all the lands of Palestine. Rather than to pursue our rights to the biblical land of Israel which are both historical and religious in nature, we abandon such rights and only pursue an illusory peace. We hear a great deal from the governments of Israel and the USA about protecting our security but nothing about protecting our rights to the land. It’s as if we didn’t have any rights.

The peace process should not be about a contest between their rights to the land and our right to security as enshrined in Res 242 but between our rights and their rights. The more we assert our Jewish rights to the land, the more support we will have for our cause. We can thus argue that justice and truth are on our side. As it is, by default, the world considers that we are occupying Palestinian land and therefore must give it back. With Jewish leadership, this would change.

November 17, 2011 | 5 Comments »

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  1. Well said. Israel should insist on Justice and Rights, not whine about “security,” which only elicits contempt. And denying Israel’s Jewish character and heritage does only elicit contempt from others. Gentiles I respect are constantly puzzled by Jewish liberals who think they will curry love or respect by demeaning their heritage.

  2. Very good article, Ted. Your father-in-law was on the money. About six weeks ago there was an article in the Weekend Australian (actually, the feature article in the weekend magazine) about the Aldiss, an ultra conservative Jewish community here in Melbourne. It was extremely positive eliciting admiration for how they devote themselves to family, learning and Torah without compromise.

    Whereas, the apologetic Jews who write into papers saying they support the two-state solution get treated with contempt by the goyim.

  3. The very first concept Jewish children learn when they begin their Talmud studies in the 5th grade is property rights. To wit, two people come to court holding a cloak; one says “all of it is mine” and the other says, “all of it is mine.” The discussion proceeds for many pages with a dozen principles, scores of scenarios and hundreds of opinions. First, the children learn Talmud like the Koran, memorizing the texts. Later, the opinions coalesce into an understanding of civilization and its requirements and a philosophy of law. By later, I mean the 6th or 7th grade. By the 9th grade students in Israel are able to progress through individual study or with study partners. That ability does not appear among students of Talmud in the United States until the end of high school or later. Non-Jewish American students never touch the theory of the law unless they enter law school. Thus, law has less meaning for Americans, since it has fewer referents than among those who learn Talmud. The study of history and civics used to provide some background, but my understanding is that the Constitution of the United States is rarely referenced and never studied in detail in grades 1-12 in the 21st century.

    During the course my professional duties, it came to light that one student had stolen new and very expensive sneakers from a second student. The victim could not resist, because he was confined to a wheelchair with a condition called spina bifida. When the thief was questioned about his actions, he justified it by saying the victim did not need the sneakers because he could not walk. He, on the other hand, could make good use of them. Well, I was impressed. At least he had a theory of law and a sense of humor. Nonetheless, he seemed to understand that he had to return the sneakers to their owner, since he had been caught in the act.

    It is possible to synthesize the contents of the two preceding paragraphs, but I am too tired to do so now and would much rather leave it as a task for the readers anyway.

  4. “Rather than to pursue our rights to the biblical land of Israel which are both historical and religious in nature, we abandon such rights and only pursue an illusory peace. We hear a great deal from the governments of Israel and the USA about protecting our security, but nothing about protecting our rights to the land. It’s as if we didn’t have any rights.

    “The peace process should not be about a contest between their rights to the land and our right to security as enshrined in Res 242 but between our rights and their rights. The more we assert our Jewish rights to the land, the more support we will have for our cause. We can thus argue that justice and truth are on our side. As it is, by default, the world considers that we are occupying Palestinian land and therefore must give it back.”

    This is well summed-up.