The Mid - East Impasse – A Torah View

Once again the media inundates us with reports of controversies amongst competing factions in Israel and between Israel and the Palestinians. The claim is that there are merely two general approaches amongst Jewry to the current “disengagement plan.” On the one hand, we are told, some Jews favor relinquishing Israel i sovereignty over Gaza and the West Bank . Others wish to maintain control, as part of a supposed religious imperative to hold onto the Holy Land at all costs.

The media, by and large, ignores the far older, third approach. In point of fact, though, it is this approach that represents the Torah view on these matters from the time the Jewish Diaspora began. This traditional understanding, representing Jewish Orthodoxy, is firmly rooted in Biblical and Talmudic texts. It posits that we are in exile by Divine Decree and may emerge from exile solely via Divine Redemption. All human efforts to alter a metaphysical reality are doomed to end in failure and bloodshed. History has clearly borne out this teaching.

By contrast, Zionism, which advocates a political and military end to the Jewish exile, denies the very essence of our Diaspora existence. We have been told in the Talmud that all attempts to defy our exilic status will be futile. The sorry record of the Israel i state with five wars, endless terror and counter terror, has yielded, not the safe haven envisioned by its misguided founders, rather the most dangerous place for Jews in the entire world.

Although Zionists claim to speak for and protect world Jewry, in fact their actions and rhetoric to further their own cause endangers Jews worldwide.

Current battles between “orange” and “blue” factions of the Zionist movement are actually the final thrashings of an ideology that stands revealed to all as religiously empty and forever in an existential crisis.

The Jewish people do have an agenda in history. It is to fulfill our covenant with the Creator by observing the Torah and living in peace and harmony with all men.

The Torah calls upon the Jewish people to be loyal citizens in the nations of their exile. Being faithful to the government of one's country of residence is one of the basic principles of Jewish religion.

This has been a basic norm of the Torah faith ever since the destruction of the holy Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people some two thousand years ago. The great biblical prophet, Jeremiah, proclaimed G-d's message to all the Diaspora: "Seek out the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray for it to the Almighty, for through its welfare will you have welfare." (29:7). this has been a cornerstone of Jewish morality throughout history.

As Jews we must be ever mindful of the needs of our Jewish brothers wherever they may live. In opposition, the Zionist ideology endangers the welfare of Jews in Israel as well as worldwide and serves to fuel anti-Semitism.

We await the days when all the world will recognize the sovereignty of the Creator, and the words of the prophet Isaiah will yet be fulfilled: "And they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. No nation will lift its sword against any other, nor will they learn warfare anymore."