Elections: What Are We Electing For?

Reflections on Parashat Shoftim

Israel is heading toward another election. In the coming weeks and months, we will hear many arguments about security, the economy, education, the courts and the future of the country.

All of these questions are important. But Parashat Shoftim invites us to ask a deeper question: What are we really electing for? The parashah commands us regarding the appointment of a king:

“שׂוֹם תָּשִׂים עָלֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ” — “You shall surely set a king over yourself.”

Yet this raises a well-known question. When the Jewish people came to the prophet Shmuel and asked, “שִׂימָה לָּנוּ מֶלֶךְ לְשָׁפְטֵנוּ” — “Appoint for us a king to judge us,” Shmuel was displeased.

But what was wrong with their request? The Torah itself speaks about appointing a king. The K’tav Sofer, Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Binyamin Sofer, explains that the problem was not the desire for a king itself, but the reason given for the request. The people said:

“וְהָיִינוּ גַם אֲנַחְנוּ כְּכָל הַגּוֹיִם” — “So that we too may be like all the nations.”

That was the problem. There is nothing wrong with learning from the world around us. We can adopt useful ideas, benefit from new developments and make good use of the wisdom and technology that the world has produced. But there is a great difference between learning from others and wanting to become like them.

The Jewish people were never meant to be a copy of another nation. We have our own history, our own values, our own mission and our own way of life. And Jewish history itself gives us a powerful reminder of why this matters. For thousands of years, Jews have faced the same basic question: How can a small people survive among the nations?

Again and again, there were Jews who believed that the answer was to become more like the societies around them — to adopt their culture, their values and their way of life. The temptation is understandable. If we become like everyone else, perhaps we will be accepted like everyone else. But history did not work that way. Many Jews who pursued complete assimilation eventually disappeared as Jews. Their descendants became part of the surrounding nations.

Others tried a different approach. They wanted to preserve a Jewish national or cultural identity while moving Torah and mitzvot away from the centre of Jewish life. Movements such as the Bund sought to maintain a Jewish identity based on culture and political solidarity rather than Torah. Many of these movements attracted sincere and idealistic Jews. But they could not replace what had carried the Jewish people through the generations: Torah and mitzvot.

The great historical fact is this: We have survived for thousands of years because we remained Jewish. Generation after generation, despite exile, persecution, dispersion and enormous pressure to assimilate, Jews continued to study Torah, observe mitzvot, keep Shabbat, build Jewish homes and pass the tradition to their children.

That is one of the great secrets of Jewish history. Our distinctiveness was not an obstacle to our survival. It was one of the foundations of it. We should not be afraid of being different.

We can live confidently in the modern world. We can learn from it, contribute to it and benefit from its achievements. We can be doctors, lawyers, scientists, businessmen, artists and professionals. We can use the latest technology and take part fully in the society around us. But we should not confuse being part of the modern world with becoming indistinguishable from it. There is a difference between living among the nations and becoming like the nations.

Perhaps this is also one of the deeper tensions in Israeli society today. The disagreements between religious and secular Jews are often expressed in arguments about politics, education, Shabbat, public space, the army and the character of the State. But underneath many of these disagreements lies a more fundamental question: What does it mean for Israel to be a Jewish state?

For some, Judaism is primarily a national and cultural identity. For others, Torah and mitzvot are at the very heart of Jewish life. The disagreement is therefore not only about what we should do. It is also about who we are.

And this is where the words “וְהָיִינוּ גַם אֲנַחְנוּ כְּכָל הַגּוֹיִם” speak to our own time.

There is nothing wrong with being modern. There is nothing wrong with being open to the world. There is nothing wrong with learning from other peoples. But there is a danger when we begin to believe that the way to build a successful Jewish society is to become as similar as possible to everyone else.

Israel does not have to choose between being a modern state and being a Jewish state. But it does have to know what makes it Jewish. We may disagree deeply about how that Jewish identity should be expressed in public life. We may have different views about politics, religion and the relationship between the State and Torah.

But we should not lose sight of the basic question: What are we trying to preserve? Having a Jewish state is not enough by itself to guarantee Jewish survival. A Jewish state can remain Jewish only if Jews themselves remain connected to what has made the Jewish people Jewish throughout history.

And that brings the message back to each individual. The same temptation that can affect a nation can affect a person. We look around and ask: What are other people doing? How are they living? What is considered successful? What do people expect from me? We compare ourselves with our neighbours, our friends and sometimes even with people we hardly know. We see what they have achieved, what they own, where they travel and how their families appear from the outside. And without noticing, we can begin trying to live someone else’s life.

But the Torah gives us another way of thinking. The question is not: “What is everybody else doing?” The question is: “What does the Torah ask of me?”

The Ribono Shel Olam did not create us all alike. Each person has different strengths, different challenges, different circumstances and a different tafkid. We can certainly learn from others. We can admire someone’s good middot, learn from someone’s wisdom and allow another person’s success to inspire us. But there is a difference between being inspired by someone and trying to become someone else.

A person does not become greater by becoming a copy. He becomes greater by becoming the best Jew he can be. Perhaps that is also one of the deepest lessons of Jewish education. We should not only teach our children what not to do. We should give them a strong sense of who they are: children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov; part of a people with an extraordinary history; heirs to a living Torah; and links in a chain that has continued for thousands of years.

If we want that chain to continue, we must give our children something worth carrying forward. Not merely Jewish history. Not merely Jewish culture. But Torah and mitzvot as a way of life. That is what our ancestors carried through the centuries. That is what kept Jewish homes Jewish in Spain and Poland, in Yemen and Morocco, in Lithuania and Iraq, in America and in Eretz Yisrael.

They did not survive because they became like everyone else. They survived because they remained themselves. And perhaps that is the question we should take with us into the coming election.

Not only: “Which party should I vote for?”

But: “What kind of Jewish society do I want to help build?”

A society that is Jewish mainly in name, history and culture? Or a society that is confident enough in its Jewish identity to build its future on the foundations that carried our people through thousands of years?

The choice is not between being modern and being Jewish. The real choice is whether, in our openness to the world, we will remain sufficiently rooted to remember who we are. Parashat Shoftim warns us against the desire to say:

“וְהָיִינוּ גַם אֲנַחְנוּ כְּכָל הַגּוֹיִם.”

Jewish history has taught us the price of forgetting who we are. It has also taught us the power of remaining faithful. We have survived thousands of years not because we became like the nations, but because we remained different. Our future depends on the same thing: Torah, mitzvot, and the courage to remain who we are.