In the Path of the Patriarchs — Benny Lau’s Journey
Gabe Ende – In the Path of the Patriarchs
I have just completed Benny Lau’s very timely book, In the Path of the Patriarchs, and highly recommend it to anyone pondering our future against the shocking backdrop of Jewish terrorism in northern Samaria and other parts of the West Bank. This will not be a review of the book but an opportunity to share insights gleaned from its contents and to vent cries of anger and anguish—the same overwhelming feelings that led Rabbi Lau to once again travel through the area which he knows so well and meet with dozens of protagonists.
The model for the book was Amos Oz’s Here and There in the Land of Israel, published close to forty-five years ago. But the celebrated novelist was not at home among his interlocutors. Benny is very much at home, certainly among the settlers. Their religious idiom is his idiom, their rabbinic sources his sources. He was thus able to discern nuances with a sharper eye and pose questions that might have escaped his predecessor.
There are no polemics in the book. The many protagonists—settlers and Palestinians from the area, rabbis and politicians, alongside two companions from the “soft left”—speak freely without pressure from high-powered media personalities, as do the figures who added comments at the end of the book. Many truths thus emerge from the pages—some horrifying—and the reader is advised to proceed slowly among the many short chapters, digesting the shifting material.
A few insights and quandaries:
- The “Hilltop Youth” are not a random collection of young delinquents who gravitated to the outposts and “farms” in search of “action” against the will of the settler leadership, as Bibi proclaims from every available podium– but rather a central instrument in the implementation of the current leadership’s strategy. They are there to play a unique role in forcing the Arabs to flee from their lands and villages , setting the stage for the large-scale “Judaization” of the “territories” and the realization of their highly vaunted “messianic vision”. This is why the ministries of the “All Right” government have funded their infrastructure with billions of shekels . No group can function as effectively as extra-legal violent catalysts and enforcers of large-scale evictions… Horrifying? Only to those with moral sensitivity who don’t share the apocalyptic “vision”. Those who do are very similar to the “Hate Israel” groups on American campuses, for whom morality is simply a function of ideology and ideology a function of authoritative trend-setters.
- Except among the officials with a commitment to the rule of law, ( the “old leadership” of the settler movement,the Amana “gradualists”, as opposed to the unbridled Nachala fanatics, such as Smotrich and Daniela Weiss) the “farm youth” are the undisputed heroes among settler activists. Everyone attributes to them the fact that “fear has changed sides”—the Palestinians have stopped attacking and threatening local Jews and have begun to fear them. They are now acknowledged allies of the settler mainstream and “young idealists” from mainstream families can be found in their ranks ( Incidentally, I’havdil , many Germans also referred to members of the S.S. as ” young idealists” before the late 1930s. The label does not always indicate purity of action and values.)
- The distinct fascist nexus connecting intellectuals and politicians with the hooligans in the field is undeniable, As our distinguished Prime Minister graphically explained at the U.N.,
“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck—it must be a duck.”
The racist, national-chauvinist, belligerent discourse and style, the yearning for a past “when no foreigners lived among us”, the demand for legislation to establish the superior status of one’s nation and disregard for the basic human rights and needs among hated “minorities” characterized the many movements called “fascist” in Europe between the two World Wars—and it is important that we also refer to our racist punks by that derogatory term in order to internalize the depth of the moral deviation that they represent.
And even more horrifying: the writings of many of their political and rabbinic mentors are replete with versions of the “segregation-subjugation- expulsion” pattern as a prelude to extensive national settlement! ( The fact that Gazans had nowhere to go and that such a plan for them failed even under the most “promising” of conditions doesn’t concern those peddling at present far-fetched “emigration by choice” schemes). There are even some who propose forcing all the Palestinian villagers and Bedouins into large cities in order to facilitate the process!!… It is much more than likely that these bums will not succeed in realizing their goal but they have significantly greater chances of succeeding in the assassination of the image and moral character of the Jewish heritage– within the light of day for all to see and under strict Orthodox rabbinic supervision!!
Read the book and judge… These fellows are adamant in their refusal to hold up a mirror to themselves, nor to concern themselves with the plummeting status of the Jewish state because The Eternal People/the Chosen People/ the nation with a Divinely bestowed deed to sovereignty in the Holy Land/the people exclusively possessed of a “Godly Soul”/ those commanded to “dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations” must focus single-mindedly upon its mission.
- These fundamentalist religious ideologues labor to integrate their visions into Biblical and midrashic precedents, particularly passages from Deuteronomy describing the hapless fate of the “seven Canaanite nations” and the blood-riddled conquests in the book of Joshua. Their contentions elicit an angry response from Rabbi Benny, controversial in Orthodox circles: “Where does this certainty of the eternal relevance of the passages come from”? His outrage leads him to leave the halachic arena in order to expose these would-be “scoundrels with assumed permission from the Torah” in full disgrace.
- And what about us, the liberal Jewish-Zionist public whose very self-definition is anchored in enlightened human values? Who are unwilling to compromise on the inseparable components in the vision of Isaiah: “Zion shall be redeemed with Justice and Those Returning to Her with Righteousness”? Unlike many of his colleagues in the “national-religious” community, he rejects the notion that the need for “unity” will ultimately marginalize all other considerations. A more likely scenario is that if Bibi and his partners are re-elected and the Jewish terrorists permitted to renew their outrageous activities, very few will accept the notion that “the command of democracy” requires us to close ranks ( By the way, Benny cites many junctures in recent decades at which prominent voices in the Right openly preached refusing military service, far beyond the few vague voices among the “Kaplinists”).
So what to do? Join the many good people who have already left the country? After all, those who remain bear at least formal responsibility for the injustices committed by the government or under its auspices…Remain in the country, inter alia, to be part of an active opposition to the deviant regime? Adopt the humiliating behavior attributed to ostriches?
Our external enemies remain very real and very dangerous and the IDF must enlist the best of our young men and women to prepare for future hostilities—but there is a limit to the effectiveness of the arguments that we force upon ourselves to “remain faithful”. The demagogues of the right taunt: “So leave already, Bloody Traitors. We’ll be better off without you”… If they only had a clue to the pressure of the desperate temptation to reply to them: “So gather all your fellow travellers and take on half the world without us. We’ll sit in the bleachers, alongside the Hareidim”.
