(Author: Adam Levick, Vol. 65, No. 3, Chanukah 2010)
“People resent the Jews for having emerged from their immemorial weakness and fearlessly resorted to force. They thereby betrayed the mission that history had assigned to them –being a people…that did not get tangled up in the obtuse narrowness of the nation-state.”
Pascal Bruckner, The Tyranny of Guilt
Tisha B’Av is a day of mourning commemorating the many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people, a number of which coincidentally have occurred on the same date in the Hebrew calendar. Primarily, Tisha B’Av commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples, both of which were destroyed on the ninth of Av. On this day, however, we reflect also on the many other tragedies that befell the Jewish people, from the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 to the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto(both of the latter also occurred on 9 Av).
Like many in Jerusalem, I spent some time on Tisha B’Av evening at the Kotel reflecting on these tragedies. But, I also could not help but view this painful annual recollection of suffering and catastrophe in the context of the Jewish community’s often ambivalent relationship with power, and my new citizenship in the modern Jewish state, a nation often forced to exercise power in order to prevent additional tragedies from befalling the Jewish people.
Indeed, Israel’s creation can be seen as a direct response to these tragedies, an attempt to turn history around, to act instead of being acted upon. Whether defending itself in war, or aiding/rescuing endangered Jewish communities around the world, the Jewish collective has at its disposal, for the first time in over 2000 years, a state apparatus with the means -logistically, politically, diplomatically, and militarily -to protect its interests, just as other people organized in nation-states have had through the ages.
However, with this organized exercise of power comes a price. Any exertion of power, any control over your own fate, inevitably carries with it a burden, the loss of a kind of innocence that is often projected upon people perceived to be powerless. It is a burden that many Jews seem unwilling or unable to bear.
Israeli military power (exercised against terrorism and small scale regional threats, and in actual wars against state actors, and its territorial repercussions), and the relative success and political power of Jewish communities in the West –as well as the influence of a broader political culture which selectively eschews particularistic moral sympathies which fall on the wrong side of the arbitrary post-colonial divide –seems to instill in many a loss of identification with their fellow Jews. This chasm often finds expression in the need to identify in a way uniquely separate from such ethnocentric, seemingly crude, expressions of political and military power. Many Jews today find it more ethically comforting to identify with non-Jewish ‘progressive’ causes than with having to continually defend a state (one representing a very particular identity) in all the complexities and compromises that are invariably associated with even the most progressive national enterprises.
Before the birth of the modern Jewish state, the German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, in his pre-Holocaust book The Star of Redemption, expressed his belief that a return to Israel would embroil the Jews into a worldly history they should eschew. He viewed Judaism as a supra-historical entity, whose importance lies in the fact that it is not political but presents a spiritual ideal only. He saw the creation of a nation-state as a blow to the Jewish ideal of an apolitical spiritual life.
From the recent revival of Mussar (and other similar movements which aspire to furthering individual Jewish ethical and spiritual development)to the progressive mantra of “Tikkun Olam” (which views seeking “social justice” and performing acts of charity as the greatest expression of Jewish devotion), one sees this recurring Jewish tendency to pay greater attention to their own moral performance and good deeds than to the nitty-gritty, everyday, morally unglamorous, necessities of collective survival. It is an inclination that writer Ruth Wisse characterizes as “moral solipsism.”
While personal spiritual improvement is indeed admirable, as is the desire to tend to the needs of “the other” (such as by feeding the hungry or protecting the environment), it can also represent a political pathology –a moral escapism rooted in a willful blindness to the undeniable political lessons of our peoples’ history. Wisse, in her book Jews and Power, argues that, historically, Jews, in displaying the resilience necessary to survive in exile, and not burdened by the weight of a military, believed they could pursue their mission as a “light unto the nations” on a purely moral plane. She demonstrates how, in fact, perpetual political weakness increased Jews’ vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, as it unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast them as perpetual targets.
Throughout their pre-state history, Jews inhabited a potentially precarious position, ever exposed to the whims of rulers and the resentment of the populace. Their trust in God as the absolute arbiter of history allowed them to endure the unimaginable indignities of their situation, and to turn inward to concentrate on their own moral excellence. Wisse concludes that “Jews who endured the powerlessness of exile were in danger of mistaking it for a requirement of Jewish life or, worse, for a Jewish ideal.”
Indeed, some Jews I have known express their disapproval of Israel, or the Jewish community at large, by lamenting this newly acquired capacity to exercise political and military power by exclaiming that (with a tone that almost approaches longing), “Jews have always been the underdog, never the powerful.” Such Jews almost seem to have a fetish-like view of this weakness –their people’s historic lack of agency – and, in so doing, fail to see the role that such powerlessness has played in the suffering that has befallen Jews through the ages.
Yes, with national sovereignty there is a price that has to be paid in terms of responsibility for the occasional infliction of human suffering (even if unintentional) that invariably occurs as the result of even the most responsible and judicious use of national power. But in the lives of individual adults, as in the lives of nations, rarely is there the luxury of making choices that allow one to live a life of pristine innocence, nor one which offers decisions that will result in perfect justice for all concerned. Rather, with every serious decision in front of her, Israel must carefully weigh the costs and benefits of various possible acts and try to make the decision that will likely result in the most positive outcome, not only in the present, but also taking into account how such actions will affect the safety and well-being of future generations of Israelis, and the broader Jewish community, as well.
Israel has a profound responsibility in carrying out the arduous, thankless –but, ethically necessary –task of collective self-defence (a Zionist vision which Theodore Herzl referred to as “The Guardian of the Jews”). For Israel, in an era replete with concrete physical threats by state and non-state actors –as well as, less quantifiable, but no less dangerous, delegitimization campaigns by loosely connected political networks –an unapologetic and fiercely determined self-defence is an urgent moral duty.
Protecting yourself, your family, your community, and your nation from potential harm is consistent with the highest Jewish ethical standards. It is an idea the Jewish community must take seriously while lamenting the suffering of so many throughout our history on Tisha B’Av.
Adam Levick is an Israel-based writer and research analyst whose work has been primarily in the field of Israel advocacy and counter-propaganda. Among the organisations he has worked for are the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, NGO Monitor, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee. He is currently Managing Editor of CiF Watch, a media watchdog group that monitors anti-Israel commentary at the The Guardian ‘Comment is Free’ blog.
