Page 20 - HaMizrachi #9 Yom HaAtzmaut 5779

The

Next every individual is in the image of G-d,

and society must honor that fact.

That was the role of the prophets. While
others were reacting to the present, they
Challenge spoke about the future. Their message
was simple: serve G-d. But it had a
deep rationality that can be translated
into secular terms. The prophets were
political realists. They knew that Israel
is a tiny country surrounded by large
empires. It cannot match them on any
conventional measure of military-
T he first task of Zionism was battles because of its extraordinary
demographic strength. Israel wins its
extraordinary
with
achieved
morale, itself the result of its societal
success: the creation of a Jewish
state. The second task has not yet been strength. When divisions open up within
society, people become demoralized
fully achieved: the creation of a Jewish and the nation falls prey to its larger,
society built entirely around Jewish more powerful neighbors. In Israel,
values. Yet historically it was the second, social solidarity is the nation’s best
not the first, that drove the vision of long term defense. I had a life-changing
the Bible. Israel in ancient times was experience when writing the first of my
not conceived as a political project political books. I suddenly realized that
alone. Judaism never saw power as an Tanach contains a political theory more
end in itself. Politically, one of the most subtle than any of the philosophical
successful Israelite kings was Jeroboam classics. Uniquely, Israel had not one
II. Yet we do not see him as one of our foundational moment but two.
heroes.
One is the moment when Israel first
The visionaries who sustained our became a kingdom in the days of
national identity saw the Jewish task as Samuel. Until then it had been a loose
the creation of a society built on justice, confederation of tribes, without a
compassion, the sanctity of life and political head of state. It was led, during
the dignity of the individual, a society emergencies, by charismatic figures
that was the opposite of the empires of known as ‘judges.’ In Samuel’s old age
their day, in which few had power and the people demanded a king. G-d tells
the many were powerless. As historian Samuel to warn the people of the risks
Norman Gottwald wrote about the involved, and adds that if, despite the
warning, they still want to go ahead,
Israelites of Bible times, ‘Israel thought it Samuel should appoint a king.
was different because it was different: it
constituted an egalitarian social system The narrative is fraught with
in the midst of stratified societies.’ G. ambivalence. Samuel warns the people
K. Chesterton once said that America what will happen if they appoint a king.
was the only nation built on an idea. He He will take their sons into the army,
was wrong. Biblical Israel was based on their daughters into royal service, seize
an idea, millennia ahead of its time: that their property and tax their produce.

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