It’s been a very difficult few weeks, culminating in a most disappointing election process in Israel. I have wanted to believe that the Jewish people are “A kingdom of priests and a holy people.” (Exodus 19:6) Many antagonists to my personal aspirations for Israel have claimed that Israel is a demon state. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turned to overt demagoguery and racism to win last week’s election I was crushed. “How could a Jew do that?” The Babylonian Talmud says that when a Jew does not act with compassion we should suspect he is not Jewish, and that compassion is one of the three essential Jewish qualities. (Yevamot 79a)
It’s one thing to accuse occupied Palestinians of being a fifth column. It’s an entirely different thing to incite distrust and hatred of the 20 percent of Israel’s population that is Arab and whose rights are enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. {mprestriction ids="1,3"}Before Netanyahu chose elections we saw his attempt to declare Israel more Jewish than democratic. Now, as Aluf Ben pointed out in his article in Ha’aretz following the election, we see the prime minister turn to his core instinct, the fear mongering and hatred of Israel’s Arab population.
Israel was for 2,000 years the aspiration of the Jewish people. A portion of that has been spiritual, but much of it was Israel as a haven against persecution, the messianic vision. Whoever believed that the persecuted would become the persecutors? Is the drive to win the election so deep, so critical, that we forsake the character of the Jewish people in order to triumph? Can we abandon Jewish ethical traditions in order to secure a Jewish state? Cannot the two exist simultaneously?
I certainly do not hold with those who demand a higher standard of Israel than of her neighbors. Egypt kills the Muslim Brotherhood opposition after brief trials. The Syrians slaughter internal dissent and the Saudis allow no opposition, even religious difference is banned. But is expecting democracy too high a standard for the Jewish people? Is refraining from hate-filled demagoguery too much to ask of the prime minister of the Jewish state? I am so disillusioned and just plain sad.
I know that I do not live in Israel nor share their existential threat. Perhaps some would say I should just stay quiet. But the Talmud says, “Silence implies agreement,” and I cannot leave anyone with the impression that this is fine with me. It is not. You cannot forsake the soul of the people in order to preserve the body of the people without changing the body into the new and altered vision of the soul. Suicide takes many forms. The prime minister of Israel has chosen to twist and destroy the Jewish people’s character to win an election. It will have a long-lasting and negative impact. One knows the character of a people from moments like these.
A debate early in Zionist history stated, “Now that the Jewish people are sovereigns, will they govern with justice?” In other words, will we persecute others as we have been persecuted, or will wJ2
e triumph over our baser instincts to treat others as we would have wanted to be treated? If we do not, then Israelis will eventually turn away in disgust at what their nation has become. That, too, is an existential threat, one greater than a nuclear bomb. If Jews cannot rule with justice, how can we demand justice from the nations? If we become just like everyone else in order to preserve Jewish lives, how can we claim to be recipients of God’s word?
I do not sympathize with those who castigate Israel and look with a blind eye upon the other nations, particularly Israel’s neighbors, or Israel’s history of being attacked. But this unprovoked hatred, “sinat hinam,” in order to win an election destroys the character of our people.
I fear for the future. I fear for the soul of Judaism. I know our tradition is strong. But it must be strong enough to compel us to do what is right even in the face of injustice leveled against us, or it is not divine. Can Israel be as Isaiah predicted, “a light to the nations?” It was. I pray that it will yet be.
Rabbi Mark H. Levin is founding rabbi of Congregation Beth Torah.{/mprestriction}