1.
The debate about the nation-state law reared its head again this week, and with it the empty rhetoric about "the deterioration of democracy," "racism," "fundamentalism" and an array of other gems the liberal Left is willing to use when going head-to-head with the conservative Right.
Even the recent murderous events in Judea and Samaria, the ancient parts of our homeland, reminded those disgruntled elements that the war of was essentially the "settlements' war" and that, naturally, "democracy is in danger."
We need no one's validation as to the extent of our democracy. I have often written that since the birth of our nation, our national ethos has been democratic. We have always argued with God, destroyed idols and rebelled against tyrants. Freedom of speech is a constitutive principle in our history, from the Bible, through our sages, to modern times.
The kings of Israel have never been absolute rulers like in Rome or in Europe, but rather always led the public while being subject to the law and to public criticism. I find the attempt by some among us to appropriate the concern for democracy suspicious, as they seem not to be preoccupied with the desire to preserve freedom of speech or civil rights, but by the desire to impose certain controversial values on the public by means of empty threats. Therefore, the debate is not about democracy, but about the second part of the equation: the nature of the phrase "a Jewish state."
2.
Our enemies are not the ones who predominately undermine our existence and our identity – it is the internal dispute plaguing us that does that. The murder of Jews has come to pass many times across the thousands of years in which we have lived in exile; subject to the vagaries of the nations. They murdered us, and when we returned to our ancient land to rebuild our ruins in our homeland, the murders continued.
The disgruntle elements among us try to rationalize the murder of Jews, saying it is because we are "occupiers." Jews have blamed themselves – or accused their own people – for this even as they were being led to the gas chambers in World War II. Even when in exile, we angered the nations in the midst of which we lived by being different in our faith, our customs and in our way of life. Liberal German Jews were dismissive of the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe (the "Ostjuden"), for they looked "too Jewish," and the liberals believed that justified the anti-Semitism they suffered.
Is it a coincidence that those who fought the nation-state law and oppose the Samaria and Judea settlement enterprise, also fight against so-called "religification" and oppose featuring the symbols of Jewish tradition in the public sphere and the education system? No. It is all that same and it is not the "settlements' war" but a war over our identity. Which is the nation that has come back into history after years of absence? Were we born of the sea and are roots transient? Is Zionism, according to this version, a new secular creation, detached from everything our people have known before?
3.
Despite the temporary historical illusion that it is possible to disconnect, it is impossible to separate the national part of our identity from the religious part. It is possible to disengage privately, but the people as a national collective have never really disengaged from their religious heritage.
There was a moment in our modern history when the elite, which in the past was poised to replace the religious leadership, sought to cut the umbilical cord of our people's religious tradition, because it recognized it as the main factor preventing the Jewish people from fully assimilating among the nations.
The Jewish Enlightenment movement pushed many young Jews to assimilate by learning languages, attending universities and integrating into the economies of the nations where they lived. In the late 19th century, when it became clear to the movement's leaders that, despite the attempts to shed Jewish symbols, Jews remained unaccepted and anti-Semitism grew, a new movement emerged, one that did not speak of integration but rather of a new exodus en route to establishing an alternative to life among the nations of the world: re-establishing the third kingdom of Israel in the land of Israel in a modern way.
The Zionist movement arose as a continuation of the Enlightenment movement, but the idea that a new national identity could be established for the Jewish people, one devoid of a significant presence of religious identity in public life, was an illusion.
4.
Our personality is made up of the conscious parts of it but even more from its unconscious parts. It is not serious to relate only to what presents as one's obvious part. An individual cannot escape his biography, what he absorbed in childhood and adulthood, from his dreams and desires, or from his beliefs; nor can nations do the same.
On a national level, the choice narrows even further, because it is very difficult to steer an entire public in a completely different direction from the course assimilated in it for thousands of years; and for the Jewish people, that was, among other things, religious tradition. In many ways, this is our psychology, our raison d'être. Anyone who seeks to speak of the Jewish people and is unfamiliar with this vast calling card is throwing words into the wind, because he speaks of a political creature that does not exist in reality.
This illusion, that national identity can be created in a completely contradictory manner to religious tradition, prompts serious individuals to fear "religification" or what they call "Jewish fundamentalism." Many times, this fear stems from a superficial acquaintance with the vast trove of Jewish texts that no other nation has bequeathed its descendants. The term "religion" with respect to Jewish tradition, superficializes this vast system of ideas, literature, law, philosophy, customs, faith, decrees, commandments and other topics that encompass the entire reality of our lives as individuals, as a people and as a nation.
5.
Similarly, the attempt to escape the parts key components, such as Judea and Samaria, and particularly the Old City of Jerusalem, which play in our national identity, stems from the significant weight they carry in terms of the religious component of that very identity. Luckily, there are Arabs there, so the escape can be explained by the demographic scarecrow.
In the superficial media discourse this part of our identity is called "messianic" and "irrational," as though the return to our ancient homeland is illogical and as if reconnecting with the very essence of our being is suicide.
But the opposite is true: giving up on these parts of our land is precisely what will hurt us, because they were at the core of our survival when we were in exile. Now that we have the historical right to once again hold them and settle them, relinquishing them is to relinquish Zionism – to actually renounce entire chapters of the Bible together with providing our enemies with proof that we have, indeed, stolen land that was not ours.
In the second century, Pappus ben Judah dwelled on the rational political threats of his time and wondered why Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest teachers of our people, insisted on teaching Torah in public despite the decrees of the Romans.
Akiva explained his position with the parable of the fox and the fish. Instead of fleeing the fishermen's nets, the fox suggested to the fish, "Why don't you come out onto dry land? We'll live together, as my ancestors lived with your ancestors." The fish replied: "Are you the one of whom it is said that you are the wisest of animals? You're not wise, but foolish! If, in our environment of life we have cause for fear, how much more so in the environment of our death!" (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 62b).
The fish challenged the fox's artificial rationalism. We have no choice but to live like this, because the threats, great as they may be, do not equate in gravity to what it would mean to leave the water. Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria is the natural and committed continuation of the return to Zion, where we dreamed of returning throughout the long night of our exile. The struggle against it also stems from the attempt to establish a new identity for our people.
For this reason, the bill seeking to retroactively regulate Judea and Samaria outposts, which passed its preliminary Knesset reading this week, is an important step in resolving the struggle: The State of Israel has chosen to hold on to these elements in our identity with the understanding that our entire national stature includes religious tradition, our ancient faith, and every part of our homeland.
Dror Eydar has been appointed Israeli ambassador to Italy.
