A New Light on Zion

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sunrise jerusalem photo

Jerusalem Sunrise

Elections for a new Parliament (- Knesset) and a new Prime Minister have just taken place in Israel. Some of us have followed the campaign with much interest. Some of us have not paid it much attention. It is the election of another country, after all. I am sure that feelings about the results of the election also run the gamut from elation to depression to apathy. Should we care about what happens over in Israel and how shall we express our care in word and in deed?

As we have moved forward in our exploration of our Shabbat morning prayers we have reached a blessing that touches on this question. As I have explained, the first blessing of the section called “Recitation of the Sh’ma with Her Blessings” is a blessing about light and darkness. I have suggested that it is also a blessing about community, exemplified by the myriads of angels who all cooperate to praise God’s holy Name.

It is a long blessing. It begins with the standard words of a blessing, “Barukh ata” etc., as discussed in previous columns. And it concludes with a paragraph that closes with the words “Barukh ata” etc. The Eternal is praised as “yotzer ha-me’orot – the One Who makes the sources of light.” Thus, the opening of the blessing mentions that God creates everything, including darkness along with light, and the closing blessing specifies the making of light, without mentioning darkness at all. In that sense the blessing forms a coherent statement, moving from an all-inclusive vision that accepts the complex reality of a world of light and dark, to a hopeful concentration on the appreciation of light alone.

But right before the closing of the blessing we find a prayer that doesn’t seem to fit. The prayer says: “May You shine a new light upon Zion and may we all speedily merit to enjoy its light.” Why is this prayer for the renewal of light upon Zion added to a blessing which is all about the entire universe and the miracle of light within it? No less an authority than Saadia Gaon, the greatest religious leader of the 10th century, objected to this sentence and insisted on eliminating it from the prayer book! But his view was not adopted by most communities. What, then was the justification for its inclusion according to the majority of the Jewish people?

I believe that the answer to this question must return us to appreciating the dual themes that I have already highlighted as part of this blessing – complexity and community. This prayer is not simply a celebration of the vast magnificence of the cosmos in all its phenomena, suffused with God’s primal energy – light, as taught to us by the opening verses of the Torah. Rather, this blessing starts from there, but then operates as a vehicle for a gradual narrowing and sharpening of that vision. Like a funnel, the blessing starts wide-open and then channels its contents into a narrower focus. It seeks to meditate on how the infinite resides in the finite. That is why it celebrates the glory of the celestial community, with the angels orchestrated into a harmonious ensemble. And, as we follow the narrowing funnel down from the heavens and into the world of human beings, that vision of community is meant to inspire our own earthly actions. Zion – as a geographical reality in the land of Israel and as a historical reality in the peoplehood of the Jews – is our own particular expression of the infinite.

Our Torah teaches that the job of every particle of reality – at least on the human level – is not to survive per se. Survival is not the supreme value. Rather, we are challenged to realize ourselves as a fulfillment of the Infinite within the particular. How can we hope to do that? What aspects of the Infinite can we bring to reality?

Leading up to the end of this prayer the blessing tells us about the Infinite: It says that God “alone does mighty deeds, makes new things, is the master of wars, seeds forms of righteousness, makes salvations sprout forth, creates cures, is revered in praises and Lord of all wonders, continuously renewing in His Goodness, every day, always, the work of creation.” While God “alone” controls all these phenomena, we have learned that we are meant to try to emulate these qualities appropriately.

Let us notice that the list of attributes of the Infinite, as they apply to this world, is not a list of perfections. It is a list of responses to problems, evils, and sufferings. Sometimes these responses require going to war, but they also require efforts toward healing and the upholding of righteousness. The world is a broken place. Yet the entropy of brokenness does not result in the destruction of the world, for God– out of goodness – continually renews the work of creation.

And that is why Zion needs to always pray for a new light to shine upon it. We are all too vulnerable to being overcome by darkness. We are at risk of seeing that our salvation is only through wars. But what of righteousness and healing, new creativity and wonder?

Zion is at the center of the challenges facing Jews today. As such it is a central specimen for the testing of the ability of human beings to respond to their calling as agents of the Infinite. We are all included in the community of Zion. We can try to own that fact or we can ignore it. But it will not go away. The universal is expressed through the particular, the general through the specific. Our particularity is therefore our opportunity by which we may make a choice, a statement and a difference.

It is in this light that I believe that we should approach our evaluation of the Israeli elections. We should ask what values were affirmed and which ignored by the various parties and, thus, what choices were made by the Israeli electorate. The voters granted Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi) more votes than had been projected, reaching enough mandates to assure him another term, and potentially able to form a solid majority coalition of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties. The general analysis of the campaign and its results is that Bibi would have lost a great number of votes had he not made two last-minute statements. He stated that the Palestinian people would not get a state during his watch, because the Palestinians, like all Arabs, are bent on destroying Israel. He also warned the right wing of Israel that the Arab citizens of Israel were “coming to the polls in droves” supported by the Left and foreign funders. The message was clear. The Left is interested in destroying Israel by assisting the Arabs, who all wish to destroy Israel. And the Left is not really true to Israel, but is an agent of foreign, anti-Israel forces. (As a supporter of left-wing Jewish causes and groups, I have written this past summer in Kol Emunah about how egregious and noxious such views are.)

The Israeli right responded to this declared emergency and gave their votes to Netanyahu. Thus we see a probable governing coalition in Israel that represents a popular belief that Arabs are incapable of living in co-existence with Jews. This includes Arab Israeli citizens who have lived in Israel in peace for the entire history of Israel’s existence. It also includes partners in the government who do not wish to allow non-Orthodox Jews (such as me and you) freedom to live their own version of Judaism in Israel. They also do not want to allow any law that will compel their members to serve in the army or get an education that will equip them for employment.

Netanyahu has since tried to soften and partly retract these words. Some want to be convinced that he means what he says now and not what he said before. But the fact is that he knowingly issued those statements in the hopes of influencing more people to swing their votes in his direction – and he succeeded. The shorthand explanation for this is that Israelis gave primary importance to their security. They saw Bibi as the strong leader, “the master of wars,” to quote our blessing. Other issues mentioned in our blessing, of righteousness and healing, would have to wait or could simply be ignored. The crisis in Israeli society regarding income inequality or housing shortages or ethnic discrimination or anti-democratic laws being advocated by Bibi’s allies was not important. Security and survival was the chief concern.

Yet, there is a basic flaw in this perception. The claim that only the Right has Israel’s security at heart is patently false. This past November over one-hundred retired generals and chiefs of Israeli security, intelligence and police issued a public statement explicitly disagreeing with Bibi’s message that “there is no partner for peace” and that all the Arabs (- and the world) is out to get us. In direct contradiction to Bibi’s statement that there could be no Palestinian state, they argued that he was required to work harder for that goal and that it could be attained. (See – http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-security-officials-urge-pm-to-restart-peace-process/)

Here is an excerpt from their statement:

This is not a question of right or left. This is not a question of fear. This is another idea for the solution of the conflict that is not based on negotiations with the Palestinians that have failed time and again.

Sir, please do not join those who, every other day, use warnings of danger as an excuse to do nothing. We know what is necessary to achieve security for Israel, and we know that regional cooperation will contribute to this goal.

There is a high chance that this initiative will succeed! But even if it doesn’t, you owe this to the people of Israel.

Only then can we look our children and grandchildren in the eye and say: “We tried; we are sorry, we did not succeed.”

(http://www.israelpolicyforum.org/action/100-israeli-generals-call-regional-negotiations)

Netanyahu and a vast swath of the Israeli public would not hear these words. These words were not spoken by leftist puppets of foreign governments or funding agents. They were spoken by Israel’s own “masters of war,” heroes who have fully taken part in Israel’s defense. Similarly, the documentary, The Gatekeepers, presented six former heads of Israeli security, each a “master of war,” who insisted that we really do have partners for peace on the Arab side but that we are not pursuing wise policies to maximize the chances for coexistence. But many people chose not to hear their explicit message and resented the Jewish organizations who promoted the distribution of the film. These men have proven that they recognize the need for Israel to live in security and they have been willing to kill and die for Israel. But they are “masters of war” who have not given up on a dream of healing and righteousness.

This blessing of our prayer book, and the following one, to be discussed another time, introduces the central declaration of the Jewish people – “Hear O Israel, the Eternal is our Almighty Source of Strength, the Eternal is One.” We must challenge ourselves to hear what credible people have the courage to say. We need to pray that a new light shine on Zion and that we may all speedily benefit from that light.

Image by Eric Leger  used with permission via Creative Commons: Attribution-NoDerivs License

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