To Lead is to Love

Harav Kook was no kook. He said that just as the Temple was torn down because of sin'at chinam - pointless hatred between brothers - so it shall be rebuilt thanks to ahavat chinam - brotherly love for love's sake.

Now that may sound like one of those meaningless syllogisms Shimon Peres loves to make up ("better a peaceful valley without terror than a terrorist pissing in the valley", that kind of tripe) but Harav Kook was no Shimon Peres. He meant what he said.

There is a certain stream among the religious Zionists that thinks Harav was kidding. People from this stream look for Jews to hate and make a vocation out of hating them. This is the erev rav, they say, this is the leftist scum that controls Israel. We are good, they are bad, they say. They feel good like that. They vilify the government and the army and most of Israeli society, and are content to be the "pure camp" in all of this filth.

This is a dangerous trend, imho. I agree that the Zionist dati camp is the best camp in Israel, if only in terms of its sane lifestyle and its strong family and community values. I envy you, to the point of wanting to join you. But by living inside this worldview I just outlined as many of you (us) do, you are missing the chance to lead. And make no mistake - the window of opportunity for an emuni leadership is there, it has begun to open up and it will open up more and more in the coming years, beckoning us to leap through it. But do we dare? Leading involves loving. You cannot lead someone you despise. You cannot lead someone whom you see as inferior to you.

The majority of Israelis are what Naomi Shemer called anashim tovim be'emtza haderech - "good people in the middle of the road." This includes much of what we call "the elites." Please, stop looking at "the elites" as a cohesive body, they are anything but that. Look for the cracks, look for the blocs we can woo to our side.

Israeli society was formed by secular socialist Zionists, with the emphasis on "Zionists." Its core values could be summed up in two words: "build" and "fight!". It was the country where, for the first time in millennia, Jews built a Jewish infrastructure for a Jewish land and fought like men to defend it.

Over time, socialism withered and died. Into the ideological vacuum stepped a very radical leftist ideology, a form of pacifistic gender-marxism which was the opposite of what Zionism was all about. The result has been a period of shameful behavior by Israel, an abandonment of its manly core values for belief in withdrawals and surrenders, which was coupled with a hedonistic obsession for sexual license and scandal and gossip-mongering, as it often has been in history.

I believe we are coming out of that dark period now. There are signs all around us that this is happening. The media is full of articles blasting pacifistic draft dodgers like Aviv Geffen and Ivri Lider - people who have been this society's pop icons. Heroism is being talked about more and more. This is oxygen for the Zionist soul. Without deep love and respect for our military, we are dead men and women, and our children, G-d forbid, are dead.

The heart of the people is good. Jews who fight for their homeland are good. We can work with them. And we don't necessarily have to follow them. We can lead them, too.

Everyone knows the Redemption involves (a) a great leadership and (b) the Temple being rebuilt and (c) military victories and (d) everyone making tshuva. But what order do these things occur in? I think it's a, c, b, d (though I'm not convinced everyone will ever make tshuva - there are some advantages to having a non-religious minority to keep everyone on their toes. Also, they can make good rock'n'roll...).

I think the first thing the leadership should lead to is military victory. As a result of military victory, it will be possible to rebuild the Temple. The Temple cannot be rebuilt when Israel is only fully sovereign and in demographic control of the land to the west of it!

Our enemy is the Muslim-Arab bloc in the Middle East. It is not necessarily all of Islam (see third graf here). If and when we defeat the enemy - which has reached the point of begging us to defeat it, if you think about it - then we can go about rebuilding the Temple. Tshuva will come naturally in that situation, but not just secular-to-religious tshuva, also hareidi-to-Zionist tshuva. When emuni Zionism is a winning brand, people will join it. We will see thousands of those pale Me'a Shearim types joining the Paratroopers, believe me we will. But right now, with a tiny measly state in the middle of a frothing sea of (frothing) Muslims, it's not so clear that we are winners.

To make all of this happen, we need to lead. And like I said, leading involves loving and respecting, not separation and despisal. We need to look for the good things in the mainstream Israelis, the "good people in the middle of the road." We need to see them as part of our camp, and ourselves as part of their camp. We need to come up with pragmatic plans and with down-to-earth reasons why these plans should be followed. "Because Hashem said so" does not fall into that category for these people. So it cannot be used. Modern techniques of PR need to be used. A Knesset lobby needs to be created. And it can't all be about Yesha. Saying Yesha over and over again does not solve anything. I'm sorry to say so, but climbing and reclimbing hills in Yesha - while important in and of itself - does not cut it anymore either. Are we goats or leaders? Do we have geopolitical vision or are we just self-content parakeets?

Harav Kook, so I once read, had a picture of Herzl on the wall in his office. We need to reach a point where a new Herzl has a picture of Harav Kook on his office. Then we will be on the road to making it, big time.