A Land for a People Spread Across Many Lands

‫ ֲאנִי יְקוָק אֱלֹיקכֶם‬,‫ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ‬:‫ְדֹשׁים ִתּהְיוּ‬

ִ ‫ק‬
Where does Israel the Nation end, and the State begin? Does Am Israel have a purpose and calling
beyond mere survival? What is the meaning of collective life?
According to the ideas There was prevalent for a long time the
current among Zionists I call heaven and earth to opinion among Jews that although the
Jewish nation has a "mission" of its own,
today, all that is needed is witness against you this a complexity of ideals which it must
to establish the conditions
for a normal national life, day, that I have set before contribute to civilization, we can,
nevertheless, best serve this mission by
and everything will come
of itself. This is a fatal
thee life and death, the remaining scattered among the nations of
error. We do, of course, blessing and the curse; the world. Thus we will be able by closer
contact, they maintain, to offer our ideas
need the conditions of a
normal national life, but therefore choose life, that to every nation so that it should follow
our advice in its collective life. This is a
these are not enough—not thou mayest live, thou and grave mistake. As already stated, one
enough for us, at any rate.
We cannot enthrone thy seed; to love the LORD cannot be taught by precept alone. The
world is prone to learn even new ideas
“normalcy” in place of the
eternal premise of our
thy God, to hearken to His from tangible examples only. England
survival. If we want to be voice, and to cleave unto has, for instance, given to the world an
important social idea self government of
nothing but normal, we
shall soon cease to be at
Him; for that is thy life, a free citizenry. How then did the
English nation teach other peoples to
all….But this will surely and the length of thy understand and regulate such a
not be the fate of a people
that brings great tidings to days; that thou mayest parliamentary system? Certainly not by
being scattered among the nations and so
struggling manking…We dwell in the land which convince them; just the opposite is true.
shall not, of course, be
able to boast of the LORD swore unto thy Thus it became an example from which
the world learned. In a like manner, the
possessing the Book if we
betray its demand for
fathers, to Abraham, to French nation carried out its mission of
righteousness. –Martin Isaac, and to Jacob, to instructing the world the teachings of
liberty and equality which it accepted
Buber
give them. (Deut. 30:19-20) during the great French Revolution The
only right way to offer mankind some
good is to show practically, and not
R’Chiya bar Abba said in the name of R’ Yohannan: All the prophets verbally, how to achieve it. It is not true
prophesized only about the Messianic era, but as for the World-to-Come, that the Zionists have ignored the idea of
No eye except yours, O God, has seen (Isaiah 64:3). And he disagrees with mission, the mission of the Jewish nation
Shmuel, for Shmuel said: There is no difference between this world and in the world; rather we believe that the
world will yet learn from us many truths,
that of the Messianic era, except for Jewish independence from the truths still unknown to it. However, the
dominion of foreign kingdoms, for it says, For the poor shall not cease single way leading to this is the creation
from the land (Deut 15:11). [BT Berachot 34b] of the Jewish State. – Zeev Jabotinsky, Betar
Ideology: http://www.csuohio.edu/tagar/ideo2.htm

Q: Is it reasonable to assume that the Jewish future in America is more secure because of the rebirth of
Israel? A: If by “the security of the Jewish future,” is meant the possibility of maintaining a thriving
Judaism, the answer is unhesitatingly, Yes…To prove how true that is, imagine what the Jewish future in
this country would look like, if there were no State of Israel, nor any prospect of establishing one. There
would then be no common aim for which Jews everywhere, with all of their diversities of belief and
practice, could strive as a means of giving expression to the spiritual, social and moral potentialities of
their three-thousand year old tradition. Without the opportunity of demonstrating what Judaism that has
a free field for itself can do to further social and spiritual progress, the Jewish people is like a musical
genius who lacks an instrument on which to play…The establishment of the State of Israel thus means for
Jews everywhere, and notably in America, an instrument by which the Jewish people is enabled to play a
significant role in human civilization and demonstrate the validity of its holiest ideals. By making Jewish
life more worth living, it serves to maintain the loyalty and devotion of Jews everywhere to their heritage
and insures its continuation and enhancement. --Mordechai M. Kaplan, Know How to Answer. New York: The Jewish
Reconstructionist Federation (1951) pp. 48-49
Creative Zionism Worksheet, prepared by Ariel Beery and Aharon Horwitz