Shabbat Parshat Bo - 5763
Birth of a Nation

In Parshat Bo, we find the last three of the Ten Plagues: Devastation by Locusts, Thick Darkness and the Killing of the First-Born. The last of these finally “broke the back” of the Pharaoh - and the Jewish People, under the leadership of Moshe and guided from above by HaShem, prepared for the Exodus and its emergence into history.

The first Seder was celebrated as the blood of the Pesach Sacrifice was applied to the lintel and the two doorposts, so that HaShem would “pass over” the entrance to the Jewish homes on his path of destruction over Egypt. On the Seventh Day of Passover, the Jewish People would be trapped between the advancing Egyptian army and the surging waters of the Sea of Reeds. When they demonstrated their faith, HaShem split the waters of the Sea for them, differentiating between the powerful Empire and the infant nation. And the People of Israel would sing an immortal song of gratitude to the Creator for their deliverance.

Some seven weeks later, a transcendent event would occur at Mt. Sinai, where HaShem would reveal Himself, and transmit to the Jewish People a precious document, a holy constitution by which to live, whose principles they would teach the other nations. Thus, in a brief period of time, the Chosen People had moved from Slavery to Physical Freedom and from that state, at Sinai, to Freedom of the Spirit.

But at the foot of Sinai, the Jewish People would reveal its lack of patience and worship a Golden Calf, behaving as a “shameless bride within her bridal canopy.” And the nation would be forgiven, and sin again, this time with a major act of betrayal. It would be condemned to wander in the Wilderness for forty years, until the death of its first generation that had tasted freedom, and only then allowed entry, under new leadership, into the Holy Land.

I recently began reading a book that has been highly recommended by many of its readers. It continues discussing the history of that same nation, some thirty three hundred years later. The book is called “The Jewish State – The Struggle for Israel’s Soul,” by Yoram Hazony. Natan Sharansky, at the time the Interior Minister of the State of Israel, said the following about the book: “Fifty years after the birth of the State of Israel, the greatest challenge facing the Jewish State is not securing it from external enemies, but rather preventing its internal disintegration. An ascendant ‘post-Zionism’ threatens Israel’s very foundations as a Jewish state, and its central role in the lives of the entire Jewish People. In tracing the intellectual roots of ‘post-Zionism’ and showing its pervasive influence in Israeli society, Yoram Hazony’s book is invaluable for anyone who wants to understand the heart-wrenching inner challenge.”

In the first fifty pages of the book (that I’ve read so far), Hazony holds up for inspection the so-called “anshei haruach,” men of the “spirit,” who define the “culture” of modern Israel. The fundamental assumption of this powerful elite is, as Hazony paraphrases Baruch Kimmerling, the prominent Hebrew University sociologist, that the history of Zionism resembles “any other nineteenth century colonialist enterprise: A small number of European whites come to Palestine to construct a settlement whose prospects for success – like those of all other colonial enterprises – rest on the twin assumptions of dispossession of the native people and their continued suppression by means of a draconian military regime built along racialist lines...” And the conclusion of Eliezer Schweid, of Hebrew University’s Deptartment of “Jewish” Philosophy, “The only way to solve the problem is to add to the Zionist flag (i.e. the present Israeli flag) a symbol that will represent the participation of the Arab minority, and to compose an anthem... (that) could unite all the citizens of the state, even though each one of them would use it to express his own national or religious identity...” (“The Jewish Qualities of the Israeli Democracy”)

He cites Meir Shalev’s fictional novel “A Russian Romance,” “This vulgar earth must have split its sides laughing at the sight of us pioneers kissing and watering it with our tears of thanksgiving...” And the recent poetry of Nathan Zach, that included in “A Small Song of the War Dead,”

“In whose throat is the grandeur of the future...
How good it is that I have died,
Am rid of you, my homeland.”

And the Supreme Court of Israel, not to be outdone, has abused its power by paving the way for a new “constitution” for the State that reflects humanistic concerns, but is totally devoid of Jewish content.

At the end of his Introduction, Hazony writes, “There is no point in retelling all of this as a protracted eulogy for a cause that once meant a great deal to us. If my criticism is at points harsh, my intention is not to bury the Jewish State, but to contribute to the awakening that is so critical if it is to be restored...”

By all means, obtain a copy of this book and read it! Even though it’s currently out-of-print (because of the demand), it’s available in the library, from Amazon or Barnes&Noble.

It is not the mission of the Jewish People to reduce itself to the dimensions of the nations of the world. Rather, it is its mission to raise its own and those nations’ levels of holiness. As Parshat Bo concludes, “And it shall be when your son will ask you tomorrow, ‘What is this?’ You shall say to him, ‘With a strong hand, HaShem removed us from Egypt, from the ‘House of Bondage.’ ”

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

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