My friend’s wife suggested a topic for me to write about, which focuses on a different aspect of the Chanukah story. I was intrigued. The crux of her creative angle was to speculate what might have happened had the Maccabees of lore not seized the moment and decided to fight. What if these idealistic individuals had taken a more isolationist or escapist position rather than the noble one we revere and remember today? Al Regel Achat (on one foot), the question can be framed: What would have happened had the Maccabees fled from the challenge and confrontation?
The emphasis of this speculation relates to a specific group within the “religious world,” even though as in most instances, they are hardly monolithic in thought, nor is there a defined system of beliefs uniting them. The focus is certainly NOT on secular Israeli society whose children are tragically nursed (forced fed, to be more precise) in the state public schools with the values of moral relativism (which perpetuates the sick notion that Jews and Arabs each have valid claims), the immoral framework of the treasonous Oslo legacy (which posits that the pragmatic solution is the process of appeasing terrorists whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people), and the subsequent end result that many of our youth will adopt the tragic beliefs of what has become known as “post-Zionism” (namely, that we Jews are the villains.)
No. Such unfortunates are certainly not the focus of this article. I am referring to a more recent phenomenon which my can be seen as a bizarre version of religious post-Zionism among a sector of Jews; who not so long ago subscribed in some sense to the model of a religious mandate of rehabilitating the state. In light of many real recent outrages performed by multiple Israeli governments, such as the mass expulsion of Jews from regions such as Gaza, and other smaller communities; they have become a form of “religious post-Zionist” sector, not Heaven forbid because they don’t believe in the Jewish right to the land, but rather because they have allowed the distorted elements of the Erev Rav to monopolize the word, and because they have an irrational all-or-nothing approach to Judaism, which rejects the real challenges we face when creating a Torah state.
My friend and I share similar beliefs, and are hardly defined by the term “daati leumi,” religious state loyalists (mamlachtim). We are believers in the model presented by Rabbi Kahane. The desire to find a way to change society. It is irrelevant to the ideology if, at the present moment, we or any other people have a definitive model as to how to accomplish this. The point of the matter is that neither the Chareidi nor the mamlachti (and they have many wonderful qualities) will seize this moment, and they are each too stuck in their ways to adapt and rise to the challenge. The former are mired in the murk of the shtetl, and the latter have elevated the state per-say into something sacred, and, at times, something they come very close to worshiping.
There is much that I agree on with these (religious “post-Zionist”) individuals, such as the halachic status of non-Jews in Eretz Yisroel, the issur of giving away land, etc, the danger of missionaries, etc. A major problem is that they have demonized the term Zionist. Zionism is a Torah concept and it relates to Zion, our halachic and hashkafic relation and obligation to the land. Some of these people have adopted mythical magical nonsensical ideas which are contrary to Judaism, and reject the Jewish notion that “ein somchin al hanes.” Their approach is neither realistic not proper from an ideological standpoint.