The High Holy Days are an opportunity to recalibrate approaches to Zionism, including the idea that it merely signifies a physical domain
A recent visit to Vienna has provided me with insights and experiences concerning the need and possibility for a spiritual revitalization in Israel today.
While participating as a faculty member at Bar-Ilan University in an international conference on conflict management in Vienna, I took the opportunity to visit the home of Sigmund Freud.
It has been transformed into a fascinating museum about his life and work.
Most surprising is the amount of space devoted to Freud’s Jewish background: mentions of a rabbi in Freud’s background, displays of Hebrew religious texts, and the impact of Nazism on his subsequent exile from Austria and on Austrian Jewry in general.
Also fascinating is the video description of the Jewish identity of Freud’s family and the milieu of much of Austrian Jewry, who were assimilated into high Viennese culture yet maintained some semblance of Jewish identity.
Despite their great contributions to Austrian society in general and Viennese culture in particular, they were not spared the wrath of many of their fellow citizens in the wake of the Nazi Anschluss of Austria in 1938.
Despite a small but vital Jewish community in Vienna, today the qualitative difference between life as a Jew in the Diaspora and in Israel was brought home to me.
Frankly, before my trip to Vienna, I was somewhat pessimistic about Israeli society and its future due to a highly fluid and sometimes volatile strategic environment; and perhaps most importantly, a tumultuous domestic environment that is in danger of worsening as elections approach.
The current wave of emigration is further evidence of this trend.
Work with students at Bar-Ilan University, particularly in the Program in Conflict Resolution, which includes the courses Jewish-Arab Interreligious Dialogue and New Approaches to Conflict Resolution in Israel – based on a federalist orientation – runs in cooperation with the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation; and those of my colleagues have been a source of solace, adding points of light to our reality.
The ideal of Zionism has always been to create a secure home for the physical survival of the Jewish people, but equally important, a home for the Jewish spirit.
Upon my return to Israel, the importance of spiritual renewal strikes me even more strongly.
In addition, despite the extremely challenging environment facing it, Israel remains the Jews’ last best hope.
Those of us who are privileged to be living in this milieu dare not take the existence of the Jewish state for granted. It is a truism that its existence is nothing less than a historic miracle.
Those of us alive in Israel today are the heirs of generations of Jews who could only yearn for the collective return to Zion.
This idea echoes that of British politician and philosopher Edmund Burke, who saw history as a covenant between those who live today, who are part of a chain linking those who came before us and those who will come in future generations.
In fact, this idea is virtually identical to the Jewish idea of brit (covenant in Hebrew), as articulated by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and others such as Daniel J Elazar.
Zionism: Not just a physical homeland, but a spiritual one, too
Rabbi Sacks and other Zionist thinkers such as Martin Buber, Ahad Ha’am, and even David Ben-Gurion stressed the moral and spiritual responsibilities of a renewed Jewish collective in the world, which must not only secure Jewish physical survival but also be a platform to promote a renewed Jewish commitment to becoming a light unto the nations.
The moral contributions of Jews who bolstered national and universal progress (a type of “tikkun olam,” fixing the world) within host societies could now take place within Israel – and through it to the world.
To be sure, Israel has contributed more than its share to global progress in the technological sphere. However, challenges remain in the realm of moral and spiritual achievement.
Powerful social schisms within Israel need to be bridged. Here too, the idea of covenant has great relevance. Those of us involved in conflict resolution understand the importance of humility.
As Hans J Morgenthau, the political thinker and international theorist, mentioned: no one faction in society has a monopoly on the totality of truth. As human beings, we only possess a portion of the “truth.”
In Israel, the Left needs to appreciate certain values of the responsible Right with its emphasis on the particular and national. The Right needs to see the importance of certain values of the responsible Left, such as universal values and ideals.
While formal religion should ideally contain the spiritual, such as linking man and God, most Israelis will seek meaning partly in generic spirituality and in the Torah within a moderate worldview.
Work in conflict resolution within Israeli society has highlighted the intercultural dimension for better advancing intergroup relations.
Based on my practical and research work of over 30 years, the all-important intercultural divide between Jews and Arabs within Israeli society and in the larger region has the strong potential to be bridged by the interreligious dimension, particularly given the strong commonalities between Islam and Judaism.
This idea is further enhanced by perceiving the State of Israel as the anchor of a renewed Jewish civilization in the modern period, especially through Samuel Huntington’s call for civilizations to find commonalities with one another as a partial antidote to his much-heralded “clash of civilizations.”
In effect, contemporary Jewry (both within Israel and the Diaspora) encounters the renewed Arab Islamic civilization. The idea of eventual synergy between these two civilizations is not beyond the realm of possibility.
Responsibly striving for peace is also a fulfillment of the more spiritual versions of Zionism.
As the High Holy Days season approaches with its emphasis on stocktaking, and as the upcoming election grows closer, we can hope that a new government and national leader will be elected who will promote diversity within unity.
This, along with a vision of peace regionally and locally, will have important international significance.
The writer is on the faculty of the Program in Conflict Management, School of Communication, and heads the Project for the Study of Religion, Culture and Peace at Bar-Ilan University.