Manifesto
The establishment of the state of Israel is the most profound modification of the galut which has occurred, but it is not the end of the galut: in the religious sense, and perhaps not only in the religious sense, the state of Israel is a part of the galut. Finite, relative problems can be solved; infinite, absolute problems cannot be solved. In other words, human beings will never create a society which is free of contradictions. From every point of view it looks as if the Jewish people were the chosen people, at least in the sense that the Jewish problem is the most manifest symbol of the human problem . . .
- Leo Strauss
I am a Jew living in the galut. I would remain a Jew living in the galut if I lived on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Zionism responds to the geopolitical dimension of Jewish exile, but exile is not simply or primarily a geopolitical problem. Exile is an infinite, absolute problem that crosses all borders. The state of exile encompasses displacement from God, displacement from nature, displacement from one's times, displacement from one's people and displacement from oneself. Kafka was a prophet of exile when he wrote, "What do I have in common with the Jews? I don't even have anything in common with myself."
As if the history of Israel were the 'divine comedy' or the 'divine ontology' itself . . . belonging to the semiotics of the word God or, as Jews say of their brothers who die for the invisible, to the sanctification of the Name.
- Emmanuel Levinas
Exile is not a uniquely Jewish state, but the Jewish sojourn through history exemplifies the trajectory of a human being. Exodus from Egypt, dispersal from Judaea and expulsion from Europe are macrocosms of banishment from every womb and home.
And like Samuel, one must always go off further still, away from contingent assemblings, to set up, ever elsewhere the ark of reclusion. . . . that point of extreme retreat, that invisible place, that authority of judgment without sanction or tribunal which are the only true universal addresses.
- Bernard-Henri Lévy
I embrace the archetype of the wandering Jew, for my homeland is a memory or a dream: Galicia or the heavenly Jerusalem, Eden or the eschaton. The Promised Land is a state of the finished soul, not just a state founded on shifting soil.
However grave its consequences may have been, the rejection of Christianity remains the Jews’ finest exploit, a no which does them honor. If previously they had walked alone by necessity, they would henceforth do so by resolve, as outcasts armed with a great cynicism, the sole precaution they have taken against the future.
- E.M. Cioran
I reject the totalizing premise of Christianity ("There can be neither Jew nor Greek in Christ") and its secularized descendants: the universalisms that blot out the singularity of the Name. Assimilation is not the end of exile, but cold comfort on Babylon's shores.
We’re nothing but a rabble of rotten, godforsaken Jews. Harbor no illusions! Do not expect salvation!
- Aharon Appelfeld
G-d is dead or absconded from the earth. Yet we honour His memory by refusing to bow before false idols, and by seeking the traces He has left behind. Institutions and ideologies are graven images of Zion, pagan augers of the messianic age that never comes.
A couple quotes you might find interesting regarding Jewish exile, from two prominent Zionists:
ReplyDeleteDavid Ben-Gurion said: "Exile is one with utter dependence - in material things, in politics and culture, in ethics and intellect, and they must be dependent who are an alien minority, who have no Homeland and are separated from their origins, from the soil and labor, from economic creativity. So we [Jews] must become the captains of our fortunes, we must become independent - not only in politics and economy but in spirit, feeling and will."
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Zionist thinker Aaron David Gordon wrote: "We [Jews] are a parasitic people. We have no roots in the soil, there is no ground beneath our feet. And we are parasites not only in an economic sense, but in spirit, in thought, in poetry, in literature, and in our virtues, our ideals, our higher human aspirations. Every alien movement sweeps us along, every wind in the world carries us. We in ourselves are almost non-existent, so of course we are nothing in the eyes of other people either."
Quotes from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negation_of_the_Diaspora
"Jews embodying the "state of exile" include..."
ReplyDeleteTo that list you might also want to add the medieval scholar/rabbi named Abraham ibn Ezra - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_ibn_Ezra
If you read about his life-story, you'll learn that he is the epitome (walking stereotype) of the deracinated 'wandering Jew.'
The Zionist ideologue A. D. Gordon (who was a kind of 'agrarian Zionist') also wrote:
ReplyDelete"The Land of Israel is acquired through labor, not through fire and not through blood. ... The Jewish people has been completely cut off from nature and imprisoned within city walls for two thousand years. We have been accustomed to every form of life, except a life of labor- of labor done at our behalf and for its own sake. It will require the greatest effort of will for such a people to become normal again. We lack the principal ingredient for national life. We lack the habit of labor… for it is labor which binds a people to its soil and to its national culture, which in its turn is an outgrowth of the people's toil and the people's labor. ... We, the Jews, were the first in history to say: "For all the nations shall go each in the name of its God" and "Nations shall not lift up sword against nation" - and then we proceed to cease being a nation ourselves.
As we now come to re-establish our path among the ways of living nations of the earth, we must make sure that we find the right path. We must create a new people, a human people whose attitude toward other peoples is informed with the sense of human brotherhood and whose attitude toward nature and all within it is inspired by noble urges of life-loving creativity. All the forces of our history, all the pain that has accumulated in our national soul, seem to impel us in that direction... we are engaged in a creative endeavor the like of which is itself not to be found in the whole history of mankind: the rebirth and rehabilitation of a people that has been uprooted and scattered to the winds..." - A.D. Gordon, "Our Tasks Ahead" (1920) - See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.D._Gordon
I admire the early Zionists, but I have trouble with the "negation of the Diaspora" ideology. You can't just throw a thousand years of history under the bridge. Not all of our diaspora ancestors were "parasites." Mine include a painter, a jeweller and a doctor. Not farmers, admittedly, but is it so terrible to part of a tradition that values learning over fieldwork? (No disrespect to fieldworkers intended.)
ReplyDeleteThe quotations you point out raise several important questions:
Can a Jew "become independent - not only in politics and economy but in spirit, feeling and will" outside of Israel? (I would argue yes.) And is Israel, given its close ties to the United States, really in the independent position Ben-Gurion dreamed of? Is anyone independent of American influence? Is autarky attainable or even desirable in today's world?
What kind of goal is it to "become normal again"? Who gets to define normal? Why should Jewish nationalism be an imitation of other forms of nationalism - flag, anthem, land? How do we prevent our nationalism from descending to the level of say, Serbia's nationalism? Does that not require some things beyond labour - like the books and the God Zionism sought to leave behind?
With the framing of the land of promise in paradisical terms w/in the Pentateuch, and the 'garden imagery' of the Mosaic tabernacle and tapestry, as well as the obvious parallels between the banishment from Eden and the covenant curse of exile in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, it seems that the whole Pentateuch understands Israel's relation to the land as one of paradise regained - only to be lost again (Deut.28-32). And yet, there is - not only in Moses, but in all the prophets - the hope of paradise found (again), with everlasting shalom. In other words, the particular, ethnic and national concerns of Israel embody the cosmic drama of creation/home, fall/exile, and redemption/return.
ReplyDelete"In other words, the particular, ethnic and national concerns of Israel embody the cosmic drama of creation/home, fall/exile, and redemption/return."
ReplyDeleteThat is my understanding as well. The transcendent truth of the Israelite narrative is why so many other nations and religions have embraced it: from Christians to Rastafarians. Unfortunately Jews tend to forget that it is indeed a cosmic drama, not merely a national one. Thus the common confusion of Zion as a religious ideal with Zion as a political entity. We denude our religion of its glory when we make it so terrestrial. Babylon, for instance, is not merely a place in Iraq. It is the site of our exile, no matter where we are living.
"We denude our religion of its glory when we make it so terrestrial. Babylon, for instance, is not merely a place in Iraq. It is the site of our exile, no matter where we are living."
ReplyDeleteWhat I find fascinating about the Law and the Prophets is that there is in them both a realistic terrestrial reality and grounding (over and against the Gentile tendency toward gnosticism and dualism) and a heavenly and cosmic vision and hope. For Israel's terrestial, historic kingdom (particularly through David's blessed dynasty) both partially embodied and eschatologically anticipated the coming, irrupting heavenly kingdom (Dan.7), in which God's reign would be established firmly and finally among all the nations of the earth. And when this happens (mysteriously through the agency of the royal Davidide, cf. Ps.2; 72; 110; etc.), the Gentiles will be blessed (e.g., Amos.9:11-12; Isa.11:1-10; cf. 2:1-4; 25:6-9), and all of nature will rejoice (e.g., Ps.96; 98)!