The deeply troubling remarks made by Rabbi Dov Lando, 96, the leader of Israel's Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, in a private conversation in which he attacked Religious Zionism and suggested that it would have been better had the State of Israel never been established, have understandably sparked outrage. His claims that "the Arabs would have respected us" and that Torah study alone protects the Jewish people demand a forceful response.
Coming from an eminent Torah scholar who has devoted his life to religious study, these statements reflect a classic, uncompromising strain of ultra-Orthodox thinking. Yet they are fundamentally mistaken and fly in the face of historical reality.
First, the notion that Jews would have fared better under Arab rule is profoundly misguided. Over the 1,300 years since the emergence of Islam, Jewish communities across Arab and Muslim lands endured mass killings, the abduction of women, forced conversions to Islam and repeated massacres of entire communities. Those murdered were not assimilated Jews, but religious judges, rabbis and senior spiritual leaders.
Moreover, the claim that Torah study provides absolute protection was shattered in the most horrific way imaginable during the Holocaust. The Germans did not murder only assimilated Jews. They also slaughtered devout ultra-Orthodox Jews. Heads of yeshivas, Hasidic rebbes, senior Torah teachers and young married yeshiva students all perished at the hands of the Nazis, while European Jewry was devastated.
Where was the supposed protection that Torah study in Europe afforded the Jewish people? Today, the great centers of European Jewish life lie in ruins, and even in the United States, Torah scholarship is but a pale shadow of what it once was.
The only place where the Torah world has experienced an extraordinary revival, on a scale unseen since the Second Temple period, is right here, in the land of Israel, protected by the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces. It is difficult to imagine even a tenth of this flourishing under British Mandatory rule or an Arab government. To claim that the State of Israel was unnecessary is a grievous factual error.
Lando's pronouncements about Religious Zionism also reveal a staggering lack of familiarity with the movement. Before declaring that an entire community's understanding of Torah is "confused" or distorted, one ought to spend two or three years studying at yeshivas such as Mercaz HaRav, Har Hamor or Ateret Cohanim. Only then can one begin to appreciate the profound love of God that inspires their students and the purity of purpose and genuine love for the Jewish people that motivate them to serve in the military.
The obsessive insistence that the Chazon Ish and the Satmar Rebbe, two towering ultra-Orthodox rabbinic authorities, have already settled every question and that nothing remains open to examination runs counter to the entire tradition of Torah study. That tradition is filled with disagreements, changing circumstances and the recognition that evolving realities require fresh approaches to Jewish law and religious thought.
Even the greatest religious figures have repeatedly misread the course of history, from the 10 biblical spies who discouraged the Israelites from entering the Promised Land to the great sages of Babylonia who did not return to the land of Israel in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The Talmud itself is filled with fierce criticism and disputes among sages. With all the immense respect due to Rabbi Lando, it is therefore entirely legitimate to say openly that he is wrong and is misleading others. For all his extraordinary Torah scholarship, he has no understanding of how to advance the Jewish people or provide leadership for the nation.
Worse still, this very detachment from reality and extreme insularity are precisely what drove millions of Jews away from the Torah. They came to feel that it had nothing relevant to offer their generation or the challenges of their time, and instead became Zionist pioneers or emigrants.
Any ordinary person living in today's modern, technologically advanced world will feel an enormous gulf between their own reality and the rabbi's statements, which offer no answers to the human and philosophical developments of our age. We believe wholeheartedly that Rabbi Lando wants what is best for the Jewish people. But good intentions guarantee nothing. As King Solomon warns in Proverbs: "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death."
Finally, we would do well to recall the words of Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed (Part III, Chapter 51), as translated into Hebrew by Rabbi Yosef Qafih. Maimonides describes those who circle the king's palace searching for its entrance, yet lack a deep understanding of the fundamental principles of religion and have never truly investigated the foundations of their faith: A person can be an extraordinary Torah scholar and still talk utter nonsense about matters beyond Torah study and the practical observance of religious commandments.
