The Blogs: Is God a Zionist?

Every day God speaks.

Through events, trends, and headlines. When we start to hear something repeatedly, which only recently wasn’t a prominent part of our collective “conversation” and societal consciousness, then that is God trying to get our attention; trying to focus our thoughts and feelings, our perspectives and our decisions.

Since October 7^th, one of the words and concepts that has taken center stage in Jewish life, is Zionism and Zionist. It seems we need to be reflecting on their meaning, and particularly what they do or don’t mean to each of us, and to the collective all of us.

I am offering the following definitions and characterizations not as authoritative statements, but to spur reflection and conversation. Because on the eve of the 9^th of Av, as we are still engaged in a war with the Jihadi forces that would destroy all of Zion if it could, as Jew hatred and empathy for the Jihadists has metastasized in Noth America and Europe, as Jews around the world are wrestling with the question, “is it time to leave,” and as we approach three years since that dark and awful day that reshaped the stage of Jewish history, Zionism-Zionist reflection and conversation might be one of the keys to unlocking what it is God is trying to say in this seminal historico-spiritual moment.

I offer these as departure points for reflection and conversation:

Zionism is the modern expression of the ancient and timeless relationship between the Nation of Israel and the Land of Israel, and its actualization in the form of the State of Israel.
To be a Zionist is to be deeply committed to the flourishing of the Nation of Israel in the State of Israel; first and foremost, through living in Israel, and if necessary, from the lands of exile as well.
To be an orthodox Zionist, is to see the ongoing return of Jews to Israel, and the flourishing of the country, as a modern manifestation of the long-awaited Ingathering of the Exiles, and a critical component within the unfolding process of Geula-Redemption.
To be a young Jew in North America today, is to live in a society where the words Jew and Zionist are interchangeable, where Zionists and the State of Israel are viewed as evil and abhorrent, and to be suddenly confronted by an identity that must either be embraced and defended or rejected and attacked.
To be a young Orthodox Jew in North America today, is to be called upon to ask your parents, teachers, rabbis, and friends a simple question: Why are we living as if our future is here, should we not be actively and practically planning for Aliyah so that our future will be where it is meant to be, in Israel?

The 9^th of Av is a fulcrum moment in time. It is the culmination of three weeks of focusing on the loss of the Zion that was, and the beginning of seven weeks of focusing on the Zion that is, and that can yet be. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is a heavenly sent reason why the words Zion-ism, and Zion-ist, are ringing in our ears like never before.