PS: Ethics and the State of Israel

Now that we have the state of Israel - we are judged by our ethics.

The pages of history are bloody with the acts of European society – especially in feudal times. Judaism is not better because we are better than them but because we never had to face the challenge. A private person cannot do the injustices that can be done by a state. What if our history had been different, with a Jewish state in the Middle ages? Would we have been just like the feudal law? I have no answer. To say how we would have acted is ridiculous.

Now that we have a Jewish state, will we act ethically? The State in itself is a contradiction to ethics. Will we refrain from injustices, or immoral practices?

The few experiences, so far, are not re-assuring. I don’t know. We are the master now. Will we act like masters? Will we acknowledge that Judaism does not recognize a morality of master and slave, powerful and powerless, victor and vanquished? This is my problem with the State of Israel.

If the state does not live up to our ethical values then the entire past 2000 years, the entirety of Jewish history will be reinterpreted in a different light. It will prove to the world that Jews are not better and only did not act wickedly because they did not have a chance.

- Rabbi Joseph Soloveichik, 1959

This is a postcript to my last post about supporting Israel. Coincidentally (are there any coincidences?) a friend sent me a link to a speech given by Rav Soloveichik, which he thought was of interest. I was a bit familiar with his work having read the book he is perhaps best known for, "The Lonely Man of Faith." I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Soloveichik, heir to a dynastic line of great Torah scholars, was considered one of the greatest Talmud scholars and Jewish thinkers of the 20th century. He was also a strong supporter of the State of Israel, which is why I found the above quotation from a talk he gave in 1959 so interesting. I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised that a great thinker like Soloveichik would have concerns about the fledgling Jewish State. He believed that the exercise of power was diametrically the opposite of the ethical teaching and sacred mission of the Jew. Of course, he understood that having a country was necessary for the protection of Jews, but warned of its corrupting potential on the dignity and spirit of the individual. Undoubtedly he would have been completely opposed to the notion of religious parties in the Knesset like United Torah Judaism (Degel HaTorah, Agudath Yisroel). He might say that it represents the very perversion of Judaism that he feared most.