Political Judaism and the post-Zionist era

Judaism, Spring, 1998 by Kevin Avruch

Redemption. The anti-Zionist Orthodox and the ultra-Orthodox haredim, on the one hand, and the religious nationalists, on the other, view geulah, Redemption, differently. The haredim are essentially political passivists. The majority of them hold that the ways of God are beyond the ken of men and that while one must live every minute as though Mashiach, the Messiah, will come the next, ultimately it is shameful to try to guess, and sinful to try to coerce, the End of Days.

Far from being passive with respect to Redemption, the messianists of Gush Emunim are energetic activists. First, they believe that Redemption has already begun and that, borrowing from the Kabbalah, it progresses in stages of increasing holiness and cosmic healing (tikkun). Secondly, they believe that by their action or inaction they can speed up or - their worst-case scenario - bring to a halt the redemptive process. This is why although the first settlements on the West Bank and talk of the restoration of biblical Israel occurred after the Six-Day War, it was the shock of near-defeat (as most Israelis perceived it) in 1973 that propelled Gush Emunim.(9) The young activists thought the Yom Kippur War was a sign from God that they had not done enough in the intervening six years to warrant redemption. Ian Lustick, in a close analysis of writings in the Gush Emunim journal, Nekuda ("Point"), notes the tendency of Gush to see political events, large or small, as tests of the piety and fortitude of Gush Emunim followers.(10) Sometimes, perceived failure of the movement in the "bigger" tests - their failure to prevent the Israeli withdrawal in 1982 from the Sinai city Yamit, as partial fulfillment of the Camp David Accords - has led to internal crisis and turmoil. In recent years the more extreme wing of the movement has acted as if they could speed up Redemption through specific acts of political violence and terrorism: The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin was simply the latest of these acts. In the past, many of these acts focused on the Temple Mount, and the most extreme was the plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam. This action, members of the makhteret (Jewish terrorist underground) calculated, would arouse the Muslim world into jihad, hastening the apocalyptic battle of Gog and Magog. This is activism with a vengeance; when the haredim accuse the messianists of acting to "force the hand of God," they hardly exaggerate.

Exile. One of the signs of Redemption is the end of Exile, the ingathering of Jews from all the corners of the earth to Zion. It is no wonder that when the elder Rav Kook saw the emphasis put on immigration to Eretz Yisrael (aliya) by the early Zionists, he was moved to think that kibbutz galuyot, the Ingathering of Exiles, had indeed begun. Today, in line with their belief that Redemption is underway, messianists think that the end of Exile is imminent, indeed, that resettlement of Judea and Samaria is part and parcel of Exile's cessation. Their conception of Exile's end was strengthened in the middle and late 1980s by the anticipation and arrival of large numbers of Jews preceding and just following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the coming to Israel of many Ethiopian Jews. This is another example of the way in which political events are interpreted within the messianic framework. Nevertheless, members of Gush Emunim have been disappointed with the relative lack of enthusiasm for West Bank settlement evinced by the Russian and Ethiopian immigrants.