By Yoram Getzler
the sake of all Creation
I can not help but reflect of what we are suppose to be doing here, in relation to what it is that we actually are doing!
From a shallow reading of Hertzl, our inspiration, prophet and visionary, this nation was to be the answer to our homelessness among the nations. To our lack of rooted-ness within the nations where we lived. This was to be a nation like all the nations. We were to become another Albania or Lichtenstein. With sovereignty and responsibility but with out too much drama. A nice well mannered Germanic/Austrian tea house on a national scale.
According to a much more ancient tradition we were destined to be a “light onto the nations”.
Among some there were hopes and aspirations for a renewed “Kingdom”, something along the lines we imagine King David ruled over. With a rebuilt Temple on mount Moria, in the re-built holy city of Jerusalem. And a “religious” society to match, with priestly sacrifices and issues of purity high on the national agenda.
The visions were as varied as lands from which we would in gather. The ideas were drawn from the Holy Scriptures, from Karl Marx. The recent national foundations of the newly unified states of Europe, Germany & Italy. The progressive ideals of the French Revolution were to meet the eternal Word of G_d.
Practically, it is little wonder, that after two thousand years of being at the “mercy” of the mostly Christian or Islamic nations among whom we lived, we were almost totally concerned with ourselves. With no ill will for others, and great concern for ourselves, even, and especially before the final punctuation point of our European saga, I believe we, Zionists, were justified in concentrating on ourselves.
And here is a lesson for our present and future, justification is not the same as wisdom!
Were our acts legal, then or now? NO that is not the correct question either. It is not the legality but the morality and necessity that we must be concerned with.
Were we promised the whole of the land of Israel? Is also the wrong question. But rather what is it we are required to be doing in however much of the land we can secure? Is it demanded of us to possess and rule or to nurture and improve the lives of our neighbors as well as our own?
On that question I recently received an interesting answer; Driving down the Jordan Valley, returning to Jerusalem from a brief tour of the Kenrette ( Sea of Galilee). I could not help but notice that over there, to the east, on the other side of that famous Jordan River, in the Jordanian version of our common river valley…When I first passed this way twenty years ago, it was all brown over there; where over the years I have observed increasing land devoted to agriculture, the land being greened; now the green was increasingly covered by vast areas of plastic (not necessarily aesthetic). In other words the “advanced” agricultural techniques first employed by Israeli farmers then by the local Bedouin to improve yields had been transferred over the border, over the River, to our Arab neighbors.
YES, we are a light to the nations, even those who had been our enemies. And if you visit Israeli hospitals, our light extends even to those Palestinians and even Iraqis who are still our enemies. While required to expend a tremendous amount of energy, effort as well as both economic and human resources on our survival we still somehow continue to contribute to the betterment of the human community on this planet.
