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Jerusalem Post
STRENGTH AND POWER
Jan 20 2006
Over the centuries of exile
and dispersion, the Jewish people have in the main been portrayed as a
weak, defenseless people, subject to the varying whims of inimical
rulers and to the vagaries of time and society. To a great degree, this
characterization was of necessity an accurate one. Alone and
outnumbered, persecuted by dogmatic faiths and jealous hatreds, the
Jewish people survived by an inner strength and belief in the justice
of their cause, the truth of their beliefs and an unswerving commitment
to their better tomorrow. This inner strength, more powerful than any
weapon of destruction, was reflected by the words of the prophet
Zecharia who long ago proclaimed: "Not by strength nor by might, but
rather by My spirit, says the Lord of Hosts." But the Jewish people
became restless under the yoke of servile acceptance of the abuse and
suffering heaped upon them. What the Jewish world was willing to accept
because they had no choice in the Middle Ages in Europe, it was less
willing to do so in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Zionism was
built upon the bedrock of Jewish power and strength. Jewish
participation in the revolutionary movements of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries – Communism, Socialism, Anarchism, etc. – was
founded more or less on the famous dictum of the great murderer Mao Tse
Tung: "Power comes from the end of the barrel of a gun." This change of
attitude was a radical departure from traditional Jewish thought and
attitude over the years of the Exile. In my opinion, this was one of
the greatest changes that Zionism wrought within the Jewish society and
how Jews began to think about themselves and their future, vis a vis
their enemies and foes.
Over the long years of exile, Jews were always taught to have
a low profile, never to provoke, confront or antagonize the non-Jewish
society that they lived in. The destruction of European Jewry in the
Holocaust provided a painful opportunity to reassess this behavior
pattern and attitude. The new idea of Jewish power and physical
strength, of no longer accepting indignities, discrimination and abuse,
took hold in the Jewish communities of the United States and the Land
of Israel in the latter half of the twentieth century. In The United
States this was a matter of legal battles, public education to equality
and a Jewish sense that the United States was different than all other
places of exile and that eventually a realization that a Jew could be
accepted as an American without compromising one’s Jewishness would
take hold. In the Land of Israel this new Jewish attitude of
assertiveness took on the form of armed conflict and power from the
barrel of a gun. The success of Israel in all of its wars changed the
image of the Jew in much of the world. The accusation of servility and
being parasites now was changed into the canard of Jewish aggression
and unwarranted use of its military might. Just look up the UN
resolutions against Israel to understand the world’s changed perception
of us.
But just as abject servility was no answer to the "Jewish
problem," unrestrained use of strength and power has also proven to be
an unworkable long range solution. This is especially true, since the
exercise of physical strength and power sadly expunged God’s spirit and
Torah values from many of those who wielded this new found strength and
power. The Israeli statement that "when strength doesn’t work, try more
strength" has not really achieved much in our social lives and in the
diplomatic arena of the world. The Torah is a Torah of balance, of the
balancing of contradictory ideas and philosophies. Not exercising power
is suicide for Israel and the Jewish world in today’s world of
terrorism and profound danger and exisistentialist threats. But a
nation without spirit and tradition, without rituals and common
observances, cannot triumph on the basis of physical power and strength
alone. The values of a secular society alone, devoid of Jewish content
and tradition, and fully reliant solely on physical power and strength,
will prove insufficient to carry us past the difficult challenges that
yet await us. By not emphasizing the idea of "My spirit" in our
society, not in its politics, on its roads, in the everyday conduct of
its citizens, we do a great disservice to ourselves and to future
generations. Strength and spirit were meant to be applied and used
wisely and in consort one with another.
Shabat shalom.
Berel Wein
Rabbi Berel Wein- Jewish historian, author and international lecturer
offers a complete selection of CDs, audio tapes, video tapes, DVDs, and
books on Jewish history at www.rabbiwein.com.
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