A Moment to Celebrate

by Professor Arnold M. Eisen

I approach this anniversary of independence for the state of Israel with an enormous sense of blessing. Had I only been born into the blessings of Torah and community, had I only been privileged to live in the best diaspora that Jews have ever known, there would be more than enough reason to say dayenu. To also have the opportunity to visit or even live in a vital, dynamic state of Israel, and to benefit from its Jewish spirit and human energy and creativity – this is too much to take in without pausing to give thanks and to ponder the responsibilities that our blessings impose.

I take special pleasure in calling myself a religious Zionist, I confess, because there are some who would limit the first term to Orthodoxy and the second to disciples of Theodor Herzl or David Ben-Gurion. I am a proud Conservative Jew. I believe – with respect for Jews who believe differently – that the set of paths we call Conservative Judaism constitute the most authentic way of carrying forth the agenda that the Torah, interpreted by the prophets and the rabbis, sets forth. We are commanded to create Jewish communities that are just and have God in their midst, and to use the guidance of Torah to raise ourselves and the world to a level of holiness thus far unachieved. My obligation as a Conservative Jew is to hold fast to Jewish tradition in all its complexities and depth while participating fully in the society and culture that surround me.

That dual task is all the more possible and necessary when, as richly imagined in the book of D’varim, we Jews have the chance not merely to struggle as a tiny minority of the population, but to have the responsibility as a majority to shape the life of a nation.

The state of Israel is far from perfect and its political future is clouded at best. It needs our unstinting support, wisdom, and critical engagement. I believe no less that our survival and thriving depend on Israel’s survival. The vitality of Judaism in our day depends on fruitful interplay between Israel and the North American diaspora. What a shame that most Jews on both sides of the divide know so little about one another. Let us hope that by the time we reach 70 that divide will be overcome! Our responsibility to fulfill that partnership is proportional to our opportunities. The relationship among JTS, the Ziegler School, and the Schechter Institute is one such avenue; the presence of Masorti Jews and congregations in Israel, devoted to living and teaching Torah along the set of paths that we so treasure, is another. I hope we use this occasion to investigate such partnerships more seriously than ever before.

Zionism, for me, begins with Torah. We are heirs to a story that we are meant to carry on not just by telling and studying it but by living it. We are responsible for a covenant that clearly had more in mind than a “religion” in the modern Protestant sense. Why else create a people at Sinai and give it laws for every aspect of existence? And why bring it to a land, freed of the worries of scarcity and protected from enemies, where the Torah’s directives could be institutionalized in every aspect of society?

Some have argued that Israel does not and cannot serve religious ends. I disagree. Our God values life, including Jewish life. Israel is essential to the preservation of countless Jewish lives. Our Torah makes demands on us that can only be done, or can best be done, in Israel and with the help of Israel. Three points illustrate my contention.

First, we cannot identify the achievements of the state of Israel with God’s will, at least not according to any theology I can hold. My view of revelation is not literalist. I do not found our right to the land on God’s word, but on what we have made of God’s word over the centuries, on how our hopes and those of a large portion of humanity have become bound up with this land, on how our vision of the good society and of a just world are inseparable from it, and on how we have returned to actualize these over the past hundred years.

Second, the presence of non-Jews in the land of Israel is a challenge to our reading of Torah. As Conservative Jews, we must be both bold and authentic in our response. Everyone who claims to know exactly how God wants us to solve the Israel-Palestinian problem scares me even when I agree with their policies and those who are so sure of the messiah’s coming in our day, thanks to their policies, scare me most of all. Doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly with God are Jewish virtues that must apply to all.

And third, there can be no Torah in the world without Jews to keep it there. Individual Jews are not enough. Small groups of Jews are not enough. We need communities in order to have agency in the world and to have real impact. We need plausibility structures – Jewish time and space – in order for our claims to get a hearing. Gerson Cohen, one of my distinguished predecessors, called the first principle of our tradition le-taken olam be-malkhut shadai – to perfect the world in the kingship of God. And for this we need living, informed, courageous Jews.

Above all, at this time of celebration mixed with anxiety and gloom given the lack of any real prospect for peace, I hope that we will take Israel’s national anthem as a mitzvah of the first order. “Perhaps the most characteristic quality of Jewish existence is hope,” Abraham Joshua Heschel said 40 years ago. “Hope is the proper articulation of faith. We misunderstand events past unless we cherish events to come.”

Rabbi Heschel made another observation of great importance that I would like to amplify. He put his finger on what I call the “mythic meaning” of Israel to American Jews, the larger-than-life meaning that sometimes gets in the way of appreciation for the reality of Israel. Heschel said, “Jews go to Israel for renewal, for the experience of resurrection.” Absolutely. Israel in its mythic meaning is life after death, life in the face of death. That is the meaning of rising from the ashes, making deserts bloom, ingathering exiles otherwise doomed to slow or instant death, basing the economy of an ancient people on science and high technology.

And this very myth of Israel has a lot to do with what Heschel called our failure “to clarify its meaning, its value to our existence.”

I would like to offer my own agenda to clarify Israel’s meaning for North American Judaism, and particularly for Conservative/ Masorti Judaism.

We must know the reality of Israel better, in large part through partnerships with Masorti Jews, and find ways to bring it closer to our existence, which means neither disengaging nor keeping silent. We should work with Israeli Jews, not as fellow citizens but as fellow Jews, to ensure that Israel and North America are both vehicles for the teaching and living of Torah, for justice and compassion, for wise use of influence and power. Finally, we have to maintain hope. Sixty years, is only a beginning. Political action, financial support, and the use of all our talents will ensure that Israel can continue to offer hope. “The achievements are impressive,” Heschel concluded, “but the tasks are still immense.”

Achievements as well as tasks derive from the texts and history we call Torah, bearing religious meaning and blessing to Conservative Jews that grow with every passing anniversary.