Jerusalemism

Has the light of holiness permeated our national life and all its deeds?  Has Israel fulfilled its destiny as a light unto the nations?  What is Israel, at this moment, to the world?

Here in America, anti-Zionism has achieved the status of cool.  All the cool Jews are doing it.  It’s a way to remain “acceptably” Jewish.

Sam Harris says: We should no longer use the word Zionism; it scares people, and it’s irrelevant.  The State of Israel exists.  The debate is won.

When we look at ourselves today can we say that we’ve fulfilled the obligations of our promise?  Are we at least attempting to fulfill the obligations negotiated by our forefathers and mothers?

Fighting for survival is one thing.  This necessitates self-interest, short-term thinking, an either/or mindset of kill or be killed.  Projecting light – the composition of a new global narrative – is something else entirely.

Denominational thinking is categorical thinking, produced in the heavy currents of Modernity, no longer applicable to our moment.    The identities produced by denominational thinking are illusory, creating difference and barriers where none, in reality, exist.

We are not Reform Jews, Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews, or Reconstructionist Jews.  We are the Jewish People, and we live in the many rooms and corridors of the House of Israel.

King Solomon says: “And so I propose to build a house for the name of the Eternal my God” (I Kings 5:18).

In this house, some of us gaze longingly through the windows at the green valleys and rolling hills of the world beyond.  Some of us study.  Some pray or cook.  Some dance and sing and cry out to the Lord.  Withdrawn, the sleeper dreams.

In one dream is revealed “the existence of the Jerusalemite movement.  By the name ‘Jerusalem’ or ‘Jerusalemism,’ we refer to the holy side of our national renascence – just as we call its secular side ‘Zion’ or ‘Zionism.’”

“The entire house of Israel are commanded regarding the sanctification of [God’s] great name.”