A New Way that is Old

A few months ago, I read Micha Goodman’s new book, HaYom HaShemini: Yisrael She-Acharei 7 be’October (Hebrew). It was released just a few months into the war. While much of it is indeed about the war, it also delves into what preceded it and, hopefully, what can potentially follow. You don’t necessarily need to agree with everything, but this book is required reading if you want to be part of the discussion about what happened and, more importantly, what can happen.

While many parts of the book made me think, one thing stands out and has continued to haunt me ever since I read it. Goodman talks about the number of generations it took for Israelis to take the existence of the State of Israel for granted. He concludes that it is four. He writes something striking:

“Perhaps this is the reason that Jewish rule of the first Temple period, the days of David and Saul, began to disintegrate in the fourth generation in the eighth decade. Perhaps this is also the reason that Jewish rule during the second Temple period, the days of the Hasmonean kingdom, began to disintegrate in the fourth generation in the eighth decade. The fourth generation is when the miracle is forgotten, when the reality seems to be taken for granted. This is the time when the illusion appears that reality is stable and eternal. When this happens, people tend to quarrel and dismantle the project that their fathers and mothers built—from within” (translation mine).

I don’t think I need to spell it out, but I will just in case you are missing the point: We are in the eighth decade of the fourth generation. So, if history is to be any guide, the stakes are quite high.

But that’s not the most important point Goodman makes, in my opinion. The more important point is—and I am using my own words—unity is not just a nice, fluffy idea but rather a strategic necessity. He writes:

“…When Israelis go from healthy and vigorous debate to toxic and destructive quarrels, the State of Israel becomes significantly weakened. Therefore, Israeli polarization is a strategic problem and even a strategic danger…I feel that Israel’s survival and future depend, among other things, on the quality of the conversations that Israelis conduct.”

Unity is not just some nice idea to which people should pay lip service while at the same time acting against it. It is not only an important philosophical concept that brings about many practical Halachic ramifications, but it is strategic—just as important as any strategy developed in the war room. Without it, we are doomed to failure.

We would probably not even be here were it not for Chazal’s amazing ability to, on the one hand, have very strong opinions but, on the other, respect those who differed and maintain appropriate rules of discourse and debate. Their entire system depended on this. We all know the many sources in rabbinic literature that teach us this. We need to stop using them only as slogans and instead have them direct our strategy. Being “open-minded” does not have to mean being parve and wishy-washy. One can have very strong opinions and still learn how to speak and behave in the context of communal or national debate. This is not some new-fangled suggestion. It has been our way for time immemorial. And whenever we strayed from this way, we suffered.

I may be accused of being Pollyannaish, but I don’t care. I think optimism is the only way forward here, and I actually think that we in the Dati community can lead the way because it should be in our genes.

So, here’s the deal. It’s actually quite simple: We need to ask ourselves before saying or doing anything: Is what I am about to say or do going to contribute to Jewish unity or detract from it? And we need to be brutally honest with ourselves.

Only if we are intellectually honest with ourselves will we be able to answer these questions effectively. I heard a well-known rabbi once comment that we sometimes sit around our Shabbat tables or at the kiddush after shul having long discussions about the issues of the day, and when we get up from the table, we think that we have actually accomplished something. It may have been interesting, fun, enlightening, intellectually stimulating—pick the word. But is it going to accomplish anything beneficial in the long run? Is the fact that we sat around the table discussing politics going to bring about change? Much of the time, these discussions turn negative. We often think that if we say something, protest, or write long posts on social media that only the people who agree with us read (don’t worry, I accuse myself of being just as guilty as the next person), we have accomplished something. And almost always, that is not the case. Most often, we have detracted from unity, not helped to bring it about.

On Shabbat, we read about the blessings and the curses. The Torah writes in Deuteronomy 11:26: “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse.” It’s hard to see in English, where there is often no distinction between the individual and plural forms of a word, but in Hebrew, the verb “see” in this verse is said in the singular while the word “you” is in the plural. Most of the biblical commentators ask why the Torah makes this change in the course of just a few mere words. A Polish rabbi who lived in the mid-16th to early 17th centuries, Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Lunschitz, discusses this issue in his famous commentary, Keli Yakar. Without going into each detail, he basically concludes that there is no individual and plural. There is only plural. There is no I. There is only we. Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh BaZeh. The blessings will only come when we live this way. It’s easy for that to be a slogan and much more difficult for it to be something by which we live.

I had a front-row seat for much of the judicial reform controversy. My house sits on a hill right above the home of Justice Minister Yariv Levin, and for months I watched the massive protests that took place there. Most of it was peaceful and respectful. But too much of it was not. I saw Jews call other Jews Nazis and even some physical violence. I fear for Israel now. This is not a good strategy in terms of moving forward.

I sometimes tell my kids that when it’s not challenging to be a religious Jew, it’s not a good time to decide whether we are passing the test. The right time is when it is more challenging. Are we living up to our ideals?  In the period immediately after October 7th, it was easy to be united. We all made a big deal about that, and we should have. It was important and it was refreshing despite the war raging around us. But the real time to decide whether we can live in unity is when it is more difficult. It seems that with the terrible news we all heard yesterday—and the fierce debate going on about how to best move forward—that time has arrived.