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David Hartman, Israel's Responsibility for World Jewry

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David Hartman, Israel's Responsibility for World Jewry Engaging Israel: Foundations for a New Relationship The Shalom Hartman Institute Video Lecture Series Lecture 8: Background Reading 19 David Hartman, "Israel's Responsibility For World Jewry: ReFlections on Debate about the Conversion Law," A Heart of Many Rooms, pp. 205-215 (1999) As a diaspora Jew who has taken up residence in Israel, I am deeply struck by the lack oF understanding in Israel and abroad oF the hok hamara (conversion law) issue one oF the more — important issues conFronting Israel since its inception. Neither diaspora Jews nor (and especially) Israelis seem to grasp what is really going on. ("How many converts are there anyway?" said one member oF Knesset—as iF expecting someone to answer: "No problem! We Israelis can easily smuggle them in illegally!") The Israeli government sets up commissions, and everybody is in on the "secret" that when the proposed legislation comes to a vote, there will be a delay and then a Further delay (the best way For the Knesset to deal with a very deep spiritual crisis!). The Fact is that this issue has serious implications For the Future oF Israel and the diaspora. The underlying question is not "Who is a Jew?" or "Who is a rabbi?" but "How should Israel respond to the presence oF religious diversity within the Jewish world?" or "Why is having an oFFicial Orthodox ChieF Rabbinate that deFines and controls what counts as legitimate Jewish spirituality such a mistaken religious approach For the Jewish people?" MODERN HISTORY AND THE CRISIS OF DISCONTINUITY The Six-Day War was one oF those rare moments in Jewish history when Jews were united. The thought oF another possible hurban (destruction) brought Jewish liFe to a complete standstill. One concern, one Fear, gripped the whole Jewish world, which held its breath as one in anxious anticipation. This unique moment oF solidarity and existential oneness with the Israeli reality brought home the idea to many people like myselF that Israel was not just another Jewish community. The signiFicance oF Israel For world Jewry can be understood in terms oF two Features oF modernity that could have threatened Jewish continuity: (1) radical individualism and (2) radical evil. 1 Modern consciousness reFlects the overriding inFluence oF a liberal ideology committed intellectually, culturally, and socially to the values oF autonomy and individualism. In addition to this distinctively modern preoccupation with individual selF-realization independent oF and apart From community and peoplehood, Jewish existence was placed in jeopardy by the proFound cynicism and despair that could have shaped Jewish consciousness Following the Holocaust. As a result oF the Holocaust, Jews as a people could have chosen "invisibility": living a liFe oF hiding, oF being Faceless, oF avoiding public exposure. The stereotypical picture oF galut (diaspora) Jews walking in public is oF a person moving quickly, quietly, and on the side oF the street where you were least noticed. There is safety in not being noticed. Visibility means danger. As one oF my older congregants in Montreal used to tell me: "Why do Jews need to build big homes in Jews then history, in hides God If יי.pogroms Future oF victims First the be will They Hampstead? must also hide in history. This desire to be invisible, to leave history as an identiFiable community, was reinForced by the bitter disappointment oF Jews in the one country they had revered as the best and most perFect expression oF Western culture and humanism. If the homeland oF Lessing, Kant, Goethe, and Beethoven could produce such barbarism and hate, then Western culture and humanism were bankrupt and Fraudulent. There was nothing to learn From Western civilization. There was nothing to trust or believe in. The pervasive cultural inFluence oF radical individualism and the traumatic impact oF the Holocaust in the modern world threatened the very Foundations oF Jewish existence. The Jewish people could have succumbed to a national ethos oF cynicism and withdrawal, oF giving up their public Jewish identity, oF choosing to become invisible in history. ISRAEL AND THE CHOICE OF VISIBILITY Israel represents the alternative response, oF a people returning to history and community without necessarily being Fully conscious oF or able to articulate the signiFicance oF Israel From this perspective. When someone once asked me, "Why did you come on aliyah?" I answered halF- jokingly, "Because Israel is too important to be leFt to the Israelis." What I meant was that the importance oF this reality oFten eludes the immediate awareness oF those most responsible For its existence. The people who created this reality—the pioneers, the kibbutznikim, the Farmers, the soldiers— set in motion a momentous historical process by restoring Jewish visibility in history. Israel said, "No more hiding." Israel restored our sense oF community, oF "we," oF our sense oF the distinctive Jewish integration oF personal identity within the larger context oF community. Against the background oF despair and cynicism Following the Holocaust and the modern Zeitgeist oF radical selF-realization, it said: "We will not choose invisibility. We will 'go public' despite the vulnerability oF such exposure." Israel thus became the most important visible, public Framework in which the collective liFe oF the Jewish people is acted out in world history. 2 VISIBILITY AS A JEWISH IMPERATIVE The theological and human signiFicance oF covenantal election can be interpreted in terms oF the burden oF being visible in history. One oF the distinctive Features oF biblical theology is God's presence in the liFe oF community. Aristotle's God had no such ambitions. Israel's God wanted to be mirrored within the collective liFe oF human nations, to "be sanctiFied in the midst oF the children oF Israel." The collective, as opposed to the individual, nature oF biblical election means that despite the radical evil present in the world, you don’t leave history And the call to Israel to bear witness to the Spirit means that a successFul export economy and high-tech industries are not the long- awaited answer to Jewish prayers. Human beings will never be Fully satisFied by economics alone. They need to be touched by a vision that nurtures their souls. Israel must bear witness to the human spiritual need For something larger, For a larger dream, For a larger purpose in liFe. As a historical people, Israel must continue to believe in and bear witness to the idea oF possibility—the possibilities oF what human communities can become. "I will be" is the name oF God. Idolatry is the Fixation oF God into one Form, one moment. The imageless God oF the Bible, the God whose name is ehyeh ("I will be") is the basis oF the hope oF what human history can become—and oF the pain oF the nonrealization oF this dream. The rebirth oF Israel has kept this dream alive by serving as an antidote to individualism, to the loss oF community, to the loss oF memory and oF history, and to the cynicism that could have paralyzed us as a result oF the radical evil oF the Holocaust. Israel thus speaks to the very soul oF the Jewish people. It is a living testimony to the Jewish people's loyalty to their Foundational covenantal memory. ISRAEL: A FAILURE OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING When Israeli government oFFicials expressed surprise and bewilderment at the uproar created in the diaspora by the proposed conversion law, I said to the Prime Minister: "You must realize that as the Prime Minister oF this people you have two constituencies, one that relates to you politically—that votes in the elections, that expects social and economic leadership, that Forces you to compromise, to Form coalitions, etc.—and another that relates to you out oF spiritual need and concern. The latter Feel connected to the government oF Israel because their lives as Jews are nurtured by this reality. Their war oF survival as Jews is with assimilation. They don't know whether Jewish liFe will continue, whether their grandchildren will be Jewish." I wonder whether Israeli politicians understand the implications oF saying to halF oF the Jewish world that their synagogues and their rabbis are not authentic because they do not reFlect "Judaism" and that thereFore theirs is a Fraudulent Jewish reality. All too many Knesset members do not understand that Israel is needed by the Jewish people not as a political haven but as the most important expression oF Jewish memory, history, and visibility. To tell the majority oF 3 diaspora Jewry that their Jewish way oF liFe does not count in Israel betrays a total lack oF understanding oF the important meaning oF Israel in their lives. The Israeli politicians' deFensive excuse regarding the trivial and inconsequential nature oF the proposed legislation suggests either deep naiveté or deep cynicism. How can delegitimizing Conservative and ReForm rabbis in Israel imply nothing about these Forms oF Judaism in the diaspora? "If you believe I am treif in Jerusalem, how can you believe I am kosher in New York or Chicago?" (Unless, oF course, you believe that treif is afFected by the presence oF UJA support!) What naiveté! What cynicism! If you say Conservative and ReForm rabbis are treif here, then you are saying that Conservative and ReForm rabbis are treif anywhere. And the number oF Jews afFected is irrelevant. Is there no appreciation oF the soul oF this country or oF the Jewish people? Shouldn't the government Feel responsibility For the whole Jewish people? Do we Israelis cynically measure the signiFicance oF Israel For world Jewry solely
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