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Understanding taking the initiative to be a meritorious act is consistent with Jewish tradition as seen by Abraham, Jacob, and the Jewish kings.
By URI PILICHOWSKI DECEMBER 23, 2024 21:40
IDF SOLDIERS operate in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, last month. When foreign forces attempt to curtail Jewish sovereignty on the historic homeland of the Jewish people, the Jews must fight back – even violently – to achieve their independence, the writer asserts.
(photo credit: Oren Cohen/Flash90)
Throughout the 2,000-year Jewish exile from the Land of Israel, many Jews believed the only pathway to redemption, the Jewish return to Eretz Yisrael, would be through the arrival of the Messiah and the Messianic era.
Divine miracles would create a new world order that would celebrate the restoration of the Jewish people to their historic homeland. They believed the establishment of the third Jewish commonwealth would be on “Eagle’s wings.”
Most Jews who maintained the end of the Jewish exile would be Divine and miraculous couldn’t imagine any other method that could bring about the Jewish redemption. Their position wasn’t philosophical – it was practical.
In a hate-filled and antisemitic world of Crusades, pogroms, and a Holocaust, where Jews were weak, divided, and dependent on host countries, how could Jews hope to retake their land if not through Divinely miraculous events?
Jewish thinking began to evolve with the advent of global nationalism – Christian restorationism, which believed the Jewish people should be restored to their land – and the start of the Zionist movement. In the mid-1800s, Jewish leaders began discussing and publishing essays about the need for Jews to take the initiative and foster a return to their homeland.
There were objections from many corners of the Jewish community. One objection advocated a need to wait for the Messiah. This objection was philosophical, not practical. They believed that even if it was possible for the Jews to return to Israel on their own initiative, they were obligated to wait for the Messiah’s arrival.
The position that Jews must wait for Divine intervention to improve their situation is inconsistent and antithetical to traditional Jewish values. While traditional Jewish values, as expressed in the Torah and rabbinic literature, advocate praying for Divine intervention and assistance, they also advocate taking the initiative to improve poor circumstances.
Taking action
Judaism isn’t a religion of waiting and hoping for the best; it is a religion that demands taking action to progress.
When Abraham’s nephew Lot was kidnapped, Abraham didn’t wait for Divine intervention to save his nephew. Instead of waiting for a miracle, Abraham took action, went to war, and defeated the kings who were holding his nephew hostage.
When Jacob confronted his brother Esav, he prayed for success but also took the necessary precautions in case Esav attacked. When the Jewish kings were faced with attacking enemies, they met their attackers with a prayer to God and brute force.
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The Jewish people’s emancipation from Egypt was the result of Divine intervention, which the Passover Haggadah attributes to merit. The Jewish nation mistakenly waited for Pharaoh to die and hoped the new Pharaoh would treat them differently.
When the new Pharaoh treated them the same way, they turned to God in prayer. This correction of their mistake and repentance for not praying to God earlier earned them the merit to be freed.
Without their first step of praying, they would never have been freed, and the Jewish people would still be slaves today.
Maimonides wrote a summary of the Hanukkah story: “In the era of the Second Temple, the Greek kingdom issued decrees against the Jewish people, attempting to nullify their faith and refusing to allow them to observe the Torah and its commandments.
“They extended their hands against their property and their daughters; they entered the Sanctuary, wrought havoc within, and made the sacraments impure. The Jews suffered great difficulties from them, for they oppressed them greatly until the God of our ancestors had mercy upon them, delivered them from their hand, and saved them.
“The sons of the Hasmoneans, the High Priests, overcame them, slew them, and saved the Jews from their hands. They appointed a king from the kohanim (members of the priestly line), and sovereignty returned to Israel for more than 200 years, until the destruction of the Second Temple.”
The mention of the merit of the Jewish people to be saved from the Greeks is notably absent from Maimonides’s account of the Hanukkah story. Jewish tradition maintains that for Divine intervention to assist the Jewish people, they must have acquired the merit to earn it.
Absent any mention of other righteous actions by the Jews at the time of the Greek occupation of Israel, it must be assumed the only activity mentioned – the initiative taken by the sons of the Hasmoneans to rebel against the Greeks – must have been the meritorious deed that earned Divine intervention.
Understanding taking the initiative to be a meritorious act is consistent with Jewish tradition as seen by Abraham, Jacob, and the Jewish kings.
It is also understandable that teaching that taking military action, battling, and killing one’s enemies are meritorious actions might make a Western-minded Jew uncomfortable. Judaism is understood by many to be a religion of kindness, mercy, and peace; glorifying military action, war, and violent interventionism can seem antithetical to these aforementioned Jewish values.
Praising war and violence on their own without the higher goals of chasing peace is inconsistent with Jewish values, but balanced with the ultimate goal of creating a peaceful world, it accurately reflects these values.
The sons of the Hasmoneans didn’t rebel against the Greeks to be violent; they did so because they saw no other path to achieving independence in their homeland, the ability to determine their futures, and to practice their religion on the Temple Mount without resorting to violence.
The Hasmoneans set the model for their Jewish descendants. They demonstrated that when faced with persecution and antisemitism, the Jewish people shouldn’t wait for Divine intervention but should take the initiative themselves.
When foreign forces attempt to curtail Jewish sovereignty on the historic homeland of the Jewish people, the Land of Israel, the Jews must fight back – even violently – to achieve our independence. This is an important Jewish value and one that should be emphasized during Hanukkah.
The writer is a Zionist educator at institutions around the world. He recently published his book, Zionism Today.
English (US) ·