A publication about the activities of the Centro Pro Unione “UT OMNES UNUM SINT” Digital Edition C ENTRO P RO U NIONE Semi-Annual Bulletin Web https://bulletin.prounione.it E-mail bulletin@prounione.it 2532-4144 Digital Edition ISSN A Ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement Centro Pro Unione Interfaith Dialogue: St. Francis of Assisi and Sultan Al Malik al Kamil `Centro Conferences Muhammad Shafiq In this issue Olav Fykse Tveit What Does Mutual Accountability Mean for Christians and the Christian Life? `Centro Conferences Marshall J. Breger `Centro Conferences James F. Puglisi, SA `Letter from the Director Michael D. Calabria St. Francis and the Sultan: Foundations for Christian-Muslim Dialogue in the 21 st Century `Centro Conferences 21 23 12 3 2 17 Thirty-fourth Supplement (2019) by Loredana Nepi 58 `A Bibliography of Interchurch and Inter- confessional Theological Dialogues The Place of the Land of Israel in Jewish Thought A Sufficient Differentiated Consensus Regarding the Sacramentality of the Ordained Ministry? ` Centro Conferences Tomi Karttunen Jari Jolkkonen `Centro Conferences 32 A Sufficient Differentiated Consensus for the Lifting of the 16th Century Doctrinal Condemnations? A Lutheran Approach Pauli Annala `Centro Conferences 35 A Sufficient Differentiated Consensus for the Lifting of the 16th Century Doctrinal Condemnations? A Catholic Approach Simo Peura `Centro Conferences 37 A Differentiated Consensus Reached on the Concrete Sacramental Structures of the Church? A Lutheran Approach William Henn, ofm cap `Centro Conferences 40 A Reached Differentiated Consensus on the Concrete Sacramental Structures of the Church? A Catholic Approach Hervé Legrand, op `Centro Conferences 27 A Response to Prof. Kartunnen on Episcopacy Paula R.Gooder `Centro Conferences 43 Walking on the Way: Accompanying Young People on the Journey Towards Christian Unity Hureem Salas / Paul Geck ` Centro Conferences 48-50 Testimony Davide Bracale `Centro Conferenze 52 Mons. Nazareno Patrizi: La vita, il pensiero, la fede di un prelato originario di Bellegra N. 95 - Spring 2019 E-book2 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin DIRECTOR'S DESK Centro Pro Unione Bulletin A semi-annual publication about the activities of the Centro Pro Unione The Centro Pro Unione in Rome, founded and directed by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, - www.atonementfriars.org - is an ecumenical research and action center. Its purpose is to give space for dialogue, to be a place for study, research and formation in ecumenism: theological, pastoral, social and spiritual. The Bulletin has been pubblished since 1968 and is released in Spring and Fall. IN THIS ISSUE Letter from the Director EDITORIAL STAFF bulletin@prounione.it Contact Information Via Santa Maria dell'Anima, 30 I-00186 Rome (+39) 06 687 9552 pro@prounione.it Website, Social media www.prounione.it @EcumenUnity CENTRO PRO UNIONE A Ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement N. 95 - Spring 2019 Fr. James Puglisi, SA – Director Centro Pro Unione James F. Puglisi, SA Director Centro Pro Unione Spring 2019, n. 95 / Digital Edition (Web) ›Marshall J. Breger · Olav Fykse Tveit · Michael D. Calabria · Muhammad Shafiq · Tomi Karttunen · Hervé Legrand, op · Jari Jolkkonen · Pauli Annala · Simo Peura · William Henn, ofm cap · Paula R.Gooder · Hureem Salas · Paul Geck · Davide Bracale ›Editorial News (Spring 2019) ›Bibliography of Interchurch and Interconfessional Theological Dialogues (Thirty-fourth Supplement / 2019) his issue of the Bulletin – Centro Pro Unione is rather large since it contains texts of the Fall conference program as well as the thirty-fourth addition of the bibliography of theological dialogues. This past year marked the 50 th anniversary of the foundation of the Centro Pro Unione by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement which also coincided with the seventieth anniversary of the World Council of Churches. We were able to join these two events with a lecture given by the Secretary General of the WCC, Pastor Olav Fyske Tveit. His text deals with “mutual accountability” of Christians and of the churches for the task of Christian unity. At the same time as Tveit spoke the Centro launched a new initiative M.A.D. for Ecumenism which is an attempt at the local level here in Rome for Christians to assume accountability for their life together in this city. The first modular dealt with the question of preaching and engaged Catholics and Pentecostals. The second modular with deal with our common baptism and call to holiness and will engage Methodists, Lutherans and Catholics. The kick-off lecture will be given by retiring Methodist Pastor Tim Macquiban to be followed one given in the Fall by Dr. Gordon Lathrop. Prof. Marshall Breger rounded out last Spring’s lecture series with a talk on the place of the Land of Israel in Jewish thought and challenged Christian and Muslims to rethink the role of Land in their theologies. The 21 st annual lecture in honor of our Founders of the Society of the Atonement commemorated the 800th anniversary of Francis of Assisi’s encounter with the Sultan. The joint lecture St. Francis and the Sultan – Foundations for Christian- Muslim Dialogue in the 21 st Century was presented by Fr. Michael Calabria, ofm and Dr. Muhammad Shafiq. The Centro together with the Pontifical Santa Croce University continued our joint study of the work of the Joint Lutheran and Catholic Commission in Finland: Communion in Growth. Declaration on the Church, Eucharist and Ministry. We posed the question to both Lutherans and Catholics if there was a “sufficient differentiated consensus” for these churches in Finland to lift the final 16 th doctrinal condemnations. To this end two responses were offered. The first set of responses dealt with the question of the sacramentality of the ordained ministry. Drs. Tomi Karttunen and Hervé Legrand treated this issue. Following their presentations the question of the Eucharist was treated by Dr. Jari Jolkkonen and Pauli Annala. Finally the ecclesiological question was dealt with by Drs. Simo Peura and William Henn. A group of ten Lutheran and Catholic scholars were then able to react and respond to the presentations given. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was celebrated at the Centro with the collaboration of the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas. Following on the conclusion of the special synod on youth, Rev. Paula Gooder offered a stimulating presentation on how the churches can accompany youth on the road toward Christian unity. In response to her presentation two young people offered their personal reflections and testimonies. As per our custom an ecumenical prayer vigil followed. Lastly we publish the presentation of the volume on Mons Nazareno Patrizi, relative of one of our colleagues, Dr. Davide Bracale. Our annual Summer course in ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue will begin on June 24 until July 12. Participants this year will come from Malaysia, Finland, Italy, Malta, Turkey, Albania and the USA. Each year there is always an interesting group of students who bring much experience and the occasion of this course has generated deep friendships that last. This Bulletin is in- dexed in the ATLA Religion Database, published by the American Theological Library Associa- tion, 250 S. Wacker Drive, 16th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606 (www.atla.com). T3 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 95 - Spring 2019 The Place of the Land of Israel in Jewish Thought Prof. Marshall J. Breger - Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America and Russell Berrie Visiting Professor, Angelicum University Prof. Marshall J. Breger – Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law The relationship between Land and religion is often considered anachronistic, indeed tribal. In ancient times the idols (Gods) were Gods of particular geographical places and the Gods of various tribes like the Canaanites or Jebusites were the gods of their geographical area. However, in the 19th century, autocephalous Orthodox churches developed in Eastern Europe such as the Serbian and Bulgarian Orthodox churches– all a sign of nationalism in religion. And in Fall 2018, the Ukraine Orthodox church broke with the Moscow Patriarchate– the ‘schism’ a reflection of nationalist politics. Earlier, more ominously, in the 1930s, the Kirchenbewegung Deutsche Christen (German Church Movement (KDC)), sought to develop a Christianity that focused on German nationalistic tropes as well as developing a ‘de-Judaized’ Jesus. Today both Christiani- ty and Islam claim to be universal religions which do not privilege either race or geographical place. Judaism as well claims to be a universal religion. But no one can deny the attachment of Jews and Judaism to the land of Israel. Indeed as W. D. Davies has written “To accept Judaism on its own terms is to recognize that near to and indeed within the heart of Judaism is “The Land.” Indeed, the relationship between Judaism and Israel is not simply nationalistic but reflects the concept of election, that God not only chose the Jews, but chose the Jews in the land of Israel. This is an important issue for the Christian understanding of Judaism. There is no doubt that documents like Nostra Aetate have totally undercut the traditional Christian justification of the exile from Palestine – the Augustinian theory of the “wandering Jew” so to speak. However, for many reasons, some theological, some political and reflecting raison d’état, the Christian reevaluation of the place of Israel in the Jewish religion has tended to separate theological and political dimensions. This is not always easy to do in Jewish thought. This can clearly be seen first in popular religion, which often reflects custom (minhag) rather than doctrine or law (halacha). Consider the following: – at a wedding after the marriage ceremony, a glass is broken by the groom to remind himself and the participants that in the midst of their joy they must remember the destruction of Jerusalem. – at the Passover Seder meal, the key ritual of the Passover holiday, the service ends with the chant “next year in Jerusalem.” The chant carries messianic connotations, and indeed, post-1948 the chant ended with the phrase yerushahilayim habenuyah– a renewed and rebuilt Jerusalem. Also on Yom Kippur, the Neilah service which ends the day (and the fast) concludes the same way. Second, The Bible is replete with passages in which God promises to give the Land of Israel to the Jews, and not just any land-a land “flowing with milk and honey.” You would need a concordance a to list all the examples of this promise or more specifically conquest theology in the Bible. Examples can be found in: Gen 13:14- 7; Deut 7:1-5; Isaiah 34:17 and I could go on and on. (Conference given at the Centro Pro Unione, Wednesday, 21 March 2018) `Marshall Breger4 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 95 - Spring 2019 – Some of the promises discuss the borders of the land referring to “the land you can see,” “where the soles of your feet have walked,” Josh1:3; Deut 11:24, and sometimes speak about various geographical signposts, Josh1:4; Ex. 23:31 among others. And boy the land God gave is big! At times from the Nile to the Euphrates. In almost all cases the land is promised not to Abraham but to his progeny-his seed (Unto thy seed I will give the land)(Gen 12:7) This is meaningful, as in ancient days you did not own land to sell but for your heirs. If it goes to your seed it means you own it forever. Those like evangelical Christians who believe in Israel’s right to the land often ignore the issue of conditionality. We Jews should not. In the Shema, a prayer that is recited twice daily in statutory prayer and once at bedtime, Jews quote Deut 11: 13-17 that the promise of the land depends on Israel following God’s requirements. “And it shall come to pass, if you shall give heed diligently to my commandments which I command you this day, love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. That I will give you the rain of your land in its due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, and your wine, and your oil. And I will send grass in your fields for your cattle, that you may eat and be full. Take heed to yourself, that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; And then the Lord anger be kindled against you, and he closed the skies, that there should be no rain, and the land yield not her fruit, and lest you perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord gives you.” The threat in Leviticus 18:28 is stark: That the land vomit not you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. And the prophets put it more poetically. Thus Jeremiah at 25:9-10: I will exterminate them and make them a desolation, an object of hissing – ruins for all time. And I will banish from them the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of bridegroom and bride, and the sound of the mill and the light of the lamp. This whole land shall be desolate ruin. But from an eternal perspective, the covenant will ultimately hold. In Rabbinic tradition God loves Israel and will show mercy on her. As Isaiah writes at 1:18, “though your sins be red as scarlet, they will be white as snow.” On this view Israel will ultimately repent and if necessary God will lead it to repentance, thus allowing the promise and the covenant to be fulfilled. The attachment to the Land in the Mishnah and Talmud The attachment to the land of Israel is self-evident throughout the Mishnah and Talmud. We are told in the Babylonian Talmud in the Tractate Ketubot that merely walking in the land of Israel earns one a place in the world to come. The Sifre teaches that “settling in the land of Israel is equal in value to all of the Commandments in the Bible combined.” The Talmud further teaches that you can divorce your wife without paying the get (divorce fee) if she does not want to accompany you to the land of Israel. And Tractate Ketubot 110b commands that it is better to live in a city in Israel that is mostly composed of idol worshippers than to live in a city outside the land that is mostly inhabited by Jews. (see also Tosefta Avodah Zorah 5:2) The questions can sometimes be complicated and reflect not only legal questions but attitudes toward holiness and sanctity. As but one, perhaps pedantic, example, the Bible makes clear in Numbers 15:17-19 that the priests should receive some share of the dough that is used for baking. This “dough offering” is one of the many benefits of being part of the priestly class. For example, in Hallah 2:1, the Mishnah seems to accept that produce grown `HE Oren David, Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See Prof. Marshall J. Breger – Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law5 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 95 - Spring 2019 outside that land of Israel that is imported to make bread is liable for the dough offering. The theory, we can infer, is that the water added to the raw produce such as flour to make the dough is from Israel and may have some special (sanctified?) significance. Alternatively, the action that triggers the dough offering is the making of the dough and while the flour may be from abroad the dough is actually produced in the Holy Land. The more interesting question is what is the rule when raw produce (i.e. flour) is exported from Israel and the dough is made outside of Israel. R. Eliezer a first century sage says yes you are still liable for the dough offering. His legal basis is to carefully read Numbers 15:17-19 which says that when you enter the land and eat of the food of the Land you shall “present a cake as an offering.” R. Eliezer says you are liable for the cake wherever it is physically prepared as long as it is made of produce grown in the land. What R. Eliezer is really saying is that there is some sanctified character to crops grown in Israel. He is talking about the sanctity of crops because of the sanctity of the land. In contrast, Rabbi Akiva says that if the raw material is exported it has no sanctity and the dough offering is not required. It is not the produce that requires the dough offering; it is the production of the produce in the sacred space of the land. Outside the land the flour is just regular flour. Thus Akiva underscores the Rabbi’s view of the magical, if not sacred, character of the Land. Further, the Bible and Talmud are replete with specific commandments that can only be fulfilled in the land of Israel. I do not have time to go into detail here but consider the following examples: – the sabbatical or shmittah year in which the agricultural land of Israel lies fallow once every seven years to rejuvenate itself. – Other complex agricultural rules require offerings such as the first fruits to the priestly class, the barley offering of the omer on Shavuot and many others. – And, of course, the complete ritual of the temple service which is to be undertaken only in the land of Israel after the temple is restored. The duty to settle the land But perhaps the most important question in Jewish law for our purposes today is whether there is a specific commandment to settle the land of Israel. Interestingly, “the great Eagle” Maimonides (referred to as the Rambam) in his magisterial identification and compilation of the commandments, does not include a specific commandment to settle the land, although in fairness many of the commandments imply it. Maimonides was harshly criticized around a 100 years later by Nachmanides, called the Ramban, who compiled a supplementary list of 17 “positive commandments that the Rabbi forgot.” The fourth, called mitzvah Dalet, is a specific commandment to settle the land of Israel stating, “We were commanded to take possession of the land which God gave to our fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob and we must not abandon it to any other of the nations or leave it in desolation.” Dalet 4 has played a huge role in the understanding of the Jewish attachment to the land. Some have read the text to go beyond settling and to include conquest. “Kibbush Eretz Yisrael.” Whether that “commandment” includes the duty of conquest bears heavily in the consequential question of whether any duty to settle the land is individual or collective- an issue which has relevance to the Zionist dream of a collective return to Palestine. We should also note that Nachimandes in his commentary on Leviticus 18:25 further argues that: The Tradition was given to be kept in Eretz Yisrael. In the diaspora the Commandments are kept as a ‘dress rehearsal’ so that they would not be novelties when Israel returns to the Land. I am sorry to say that the attachment to the Land did not in practice always mean return to the land even when Jews had the chance to do so. When Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem, not many went. Most were living the good life in Babylon. Some years after the first return, a small group under Zerubbabel returned and some years later Ezra and then Nechemiah did so. The bulk of the Jews stayed in Babylon however (similarly few of the Jews of America ‘went up’ to Israel after 1948) This had theological consequences. The Talmud suggests `Students gathering together for post-conference refreshments Prof. Marshall J. Breger – Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law6 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 95 - Spring 2019 that one reason for the destruction of the second temple was that the Jews did not return en masse -as a wall, so to speak, to Jerusalem.Thus in Yoma 9b the Babylonian Talmud gives us this tale: Resh Lakish was swimming in the Jordan. Thereupon Rabbah b. Bar Hana came and extended him his hand: Said (Resh Lakish) to him: By God! I hate you (Babylonians). For it is written: If she be a wall, we will build her a turret of silver; if she be a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar (Shir Hashirim 8:9). Had you made yourself like a wall and had all come up in the days of Ezra, you would have been compared to silver, which no rottenness can ever affect. A similar tale is told in Song of Songs Rabbah. It would be interesting to consider the contemporary theological meaning of the critique of Babylonian Jewry as expressed in Yoma in light of the small amount of aliyah (immigration) from countries today. Opposition to Return The religious opposition to return to the Land of Israel is encapsulated in what are called “the three oaths” in the Talmud where it states: Song of Songs 2:7: “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field that ye awaken not, nor stir up love, until it please:” And R.Zera? (He would respond:) That implies that Israel shall not go up as a wall. And Rav Yehudah” (He would respond:) Another: adjure you’ is written in Scripture ! (See Song of Songs 3:5) And R.Zera? That text is required for (an exposition) like that of R. Jose son of R. Hanina who said: “What was the purpose of those three adjurations? (See also Song of Songs 8:4) One, that Israel shall not go up as a wall; the second, that the Holy One , blessed be He, adjured Israel that they shall not rebel against the nation of the world; and the third is that the Holy One, blessed be He, adjured the idolaters that they shall not oppress Israel too much: And Rav Yehudah? (He would respond:) it is written in Scripture, “That ye awaken not, nor stir up.” Another formulation is found in Song of Songs Rabba 2:6: Rabbi Helbo said: Four adjurations are mentioned here. God adjured Israel that they should not rebel against the Nations, that they should not seek to hasten the end, that they should not reveal their mysteries to the other nations, and that they should not attempt to go up from the Diaspora as a wall. Many Zionist historians and philosophers have attempted to minimize the importance of the three oaths pointing out that they were viewed as aggadic (that is to say parable or advice) and non-binding. But Avi Ravitzsky, in my view, conclusively shows the importance of the three oaths in Rabbinic Jewish thought. True they were not discussed in times when aliyah was considered minor, but they were deployed aggressively during periods of immigration to Palestine. Indeed, the three oaths grew to anchor a theology of exile; a theology based on passivity and obedience to God’s will. In some articulations they reflected the view that the Shechina (the divine spirit) had gone into exile with the Jewish people. On this view the Shechina was no longer found in the Land of Israel while the Jewish people were exiled. Indeed, Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, the former Satmar Rebbe, opined that even if the nations of the world wish to work to force the Jews back to Palestine they should resist. And Rabbi Jacob Emden in the 1700’s formulated a prayer for the exile which included aspects of the oaths. “Master of the Universe, be Thou for us a God of salvation from the Exile; for You have adjured us with four oaths lest we ourselves do anything to force the End, but only wait (Your) salvation.” KABBALAH OR JEWISH MYSTICISM Kabbalah or Jewish mysticism has had an unusual relationship with the land of Israel. For the Kabbalists, the Land of Israel was feminine. It was the female part of the union of the two divided powers Tiferet (bridegroom) and Malkut (bride). Tiferet was law; Malkut was the Land of Israel. Here I am reminded of Rev 21:2 where John speaks of the holy city of Jerusalem coming down from heaven “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” The mediaeval Kabbalists saw the Land of Israel as a unique place. It was variously, the omphalos (i.e. the navel) center of the world; the place with the material world and the spiritual world meet; it was astrologically superior, whatever that means; and it was climatologically superior - the weather was better and the air was purer. In ecstatic or prophetic Kabbalah, the land of Israel is understood in spiritual, not geographical, terms. According to R. Abraham Ablufia (1240- 1291) the land of Israel should be understood as akin to the body of the righteous man. Thus, the righteous live spiritually in the land of Israel even though they may reside outside it (at least according to R. Yitzhak at Acre). This approach can be seen in the pre-War Chabad motto, “Make Erez Yisrael here.” And it is reminiscent of the view of William Blake, who sought ‘to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.’ Prof. Marshall J. Breger – Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law7 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 95 - Spring 2019 INDIVIDUAL MIGRATION TO ISRAEL Notwithstanding the “theology of exile,” Jews did move to Israel in the Middle Ages through the mid 1800’s. They did so as individuals with few exceptions and they did so to study, to contemplate, to seek a holy life and prepare for death. For most of Jewish history, the “three oaths” were seen as applying to communal not individual migration. The returnees were financially supported in this by the Jewish diaspora.-the Jewish world outside of Palestine. We have records of charity collectors collecting funds for Jerusalem in 17th century Dutch Surinam and Brazil, in New York, in Cairo, and Baghdad as well as Europe. In the 1830’s there was an earthquake in Jerusalem which caused much damage to many buildings. A group of Jews there wrote to the Rabbis of Amsterdam seeking funds to rebuild and to further to create light industry like leather tanneries, tailoring, etc., to create what we would today call sustainable societies. They were swiftly rebuked. The Rabbis told them it was not their job to build a sustainable community but to study and pray and be supported by outside charity. The French Revolution As the armies of the French Revolution entered European cities, the walls of the ghettoes came down. Jews were granted full citizenship under the revolutionary regimes. There was one catch– exemplified by a discussion at the French revolutionary assembly in the 1780’s– to the Jews as citizens everything, to the Jews as a Jewish nation nothing. This meant that the French were giving equal rights to French citizens of the Jewish faith but rejected the idea of a Jewish nation or a Jewish attachment to the land of Israel. When Napoleon called an Assembly of Jewish Notables together after he crowned himself Emperor, they accepted this position. It was also the view of Reform Judaism which developed in Germany in the 1830’s, and became the predominant Jewish religious force in America by the late 19th century. In the U.S., major reform theologians like Kaufmann Kohler argued that Judaism had been “denationalized” and that this unleashed Judaism to pursue its universal prophetic mission. In 1885 the Pittsburgh platform of the American reform movement explicitly stated that we “expect neither a return to Palestine nor the restoration of the land concerning the Jewish state.” This Reform approach collapsed after World War II for pragmatic reasons (the needs of the European Jews who survived the Nazis) and in due course a Reform theology of the Land of Israel developed that reflected this popular change by the Reform laity. Political Zionism The late nineteenth century saw the growth of political Zionism– the desire to build a national home in Palestine for the Jewish people. Political Zionism developed largely in response to three issues: 1.The failure of the emancipation project for the Jews as exemplified by the Dreyfus Affair in France. 2.The need for a “safe refuge” for Jews of eastern Europe suffering persecution and pogroms in the Russian empire. 3.The manifestation of nationalism in Europe, that is to say the idea that since there is a Jewish nation there should be a Jewish state. Germany established a state in 1870, Italy after the Risorgimento. Why not the Jewish people? Having a state it was argued would lead to the “normalization” of the Jewish people. Jewish life in Europe had been distorted because Jews were so often forbidden from occupations like agriculture and shunted into occupations like money lending. In a normalized nation there would even be Jewish criminals. The great poet Bialik noted, a normal state would have Jewish thieves and a Jewish police force, and, he argued, this was to the good. Coupled with the idea of normalization was the correlative notion of the ingathering of the exiles. This was not simply a factual prediction, it was a normative one. There was no place for Jewish life in the diaspora it was argued, and Zionist theory focused on the negation of the Diaspora `A participant asks a question Prof. Marshall J. Breger – Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law8 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 95 - Spring 2019 But where should the Jewish homeland be placed? The Western bourgeois Jews who were the first political Zionists recognized of course the emotional attachment of Jews to Zion but were ultimately indifferent to the geographical site of the Jewish State. Herzl himself in an article written for the London Jewish Chronicle which came out before his iconic work The Jewish State, shared that he saw advantages both to the Argentine and to Palestine and that he would leave it to the Jewish leadership to choose. And indeed when it came to Palestine, Herzl did not believe in the revival of Hebrew and thought a national home for the Jewish people should be multilingual like Switzerland where every immigrant would continue to speak his “native” language. And if you read his Utopian novel about life in the new Palestine “Alteneuland,” it is evident that he saw Palestine as a Western country with Italian opera, French theatre and German literature. Some years later when the British government floated the idea of Uganda as a Jewish state as a refuge for the Jews of Europe, Herzl expressed his agreement at the 6 th Zionist Congress in 1903. Only the emotional (and religious) attachment of the Eastern European Jews nixed that plan. I should add that as the Zionist movement developed, the political Zionists dropped their uncertainty about geography and went all in with Palestine. They were not, however, particularly enamored of Jerusalem or even the Temple Mount. Jerusalem, to them, represented the “old yishuv,” the diaspora Jew who came to Israel to be holy and live on the charity of others. They preferred Tel Aviv, the all Jewish city begun in the early 20th Century that represented the new Israeli Jew. Even in 1948 there were discussions in the newly created Knesset-Israeli parliament- whether the capital should be Jerusalem, Haifa or Nahariya. RELIGIOUS ZIONISM The Rabbis who joined the Zionist movement at first did so to provide a place of safe refuge. Their Zionism did not include religious connotations. Indeed, Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines, the founder of the Mizrachi, –the religious component of the Zionist movement– took this pragmatic view. But over time the rabbis saw the return to Zion as a sign of divine intervention in history– the atchalta degeulah– the beginning of the redemption albeit a redemption way down the road. The political expression of religious Zionism, the Mizrachi movement, took as their grundnorm ‘the people of Israel in the land of Israel according to the Torah of Israel.’ These were seen as the three components of the triangle representing G-d’s intervention in Middle Eastern history. In the religious Zionist view, however, it was but the beginning step of a long indeterminate process. Reines, himself, understood the commandment to conquer the land (Nachmanides) as really meaning conquest as acquisition by purchase -an elongated process. As for the Rabbinical “forerunners” of Zionism like Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, they too saw the redemption as a long gradual process, albeit one which contra the ultra-orthodox can be impacted by human agency. Thus in the mid-nineteenth century Kalisher wrote to Amschel Rothschild (of the Frankfurt branch of the Rothschilds): “No one should think that the redemption of Israel and our Messiah whom we await each day will arrive through God’s sudden dissension upon earth saying to his people, Go out” It would, he continued, take human efforts applied to natural processes. For this reason, among others, the religious Zionists in the early years of the State could live with the secular political Zionists– they had the same goal, they just approached it in different ways. Chief Rabbi Abraham Kook While the politics of Religious Zionism was reflected by Reines and the Mizrachi, the theology (not that everyone read and understood theology) was developed by the Chief Rabbi of Palestine Abraham Kook. The key contribution of Chief Rabbi Kook was the notion of the holiness of the state, the notion that God is working his purposes through the state or precisely the pre-state Yishuv (the Jewish institutions in Palestine before 1948), even – I say that even – if the inhabitants themselves don’t know it or don’t intend it. `International participants Prof. Marshall J. Breger – Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law9 Centro Pro Unione Bulletin CENTRO CONFERENCES N. 95 - Spring 2019 This can be seen in Rabbi Kook’s statement that secular Kibbutz soldiers eating non kosher meat while guarding a village during the Sabbath are doing holy work. He told the group that in defending the Jewish settlements in pre -1948 Palestine they were doing God’s work and were holy. As Kook put it in another context: “The bricks can also be borne by those who do not divine [the religious meaning of the work] They can even supervise the work. When the time comes, however, the hidden meaning will be revealed.” As one can imagine this application of Hegel’s “cunning of history” made Kook a popular Chief Rabbi among the secular, although Amos Oz, the great novelist, once complained that the secular Kibbutzniks should be allowed the dignity of their own “heresy.” In Kook’s view therefore the building of the state in mandate Palestine was part of a divine process. For the Kookians therefore, the state itself was holy-an instrument of God’s purpose. This sanctification of the state (as a vehicle for the redemption of the land) again allowed religious Zionism to coexist with the statism – the mamlakhti’yut – of Ben Gurion and political Zionism. The question was how soon the redemption would come. For Chief Rabbi Abraham Kook, we have already entered “the birth pangs” of the Messiah. Kook died in 1935 before the creation of the state. For his son, Zvi Yehuda Kook, we were in the parlor, not the antechamber. As he once put it, we are in the middle of the redemptive process. The redemption was imminent as was seen by God’s work in building the state. As Zvi Yehuda put it: “it is not we mortals who are forcing the End, but rather the Master of the House, the Lord of the Universe, was forcing our hand; it was not human voices that broke down the wall separating us from our Land, but a voice from the Living God calling us to say “Go Up” After the miracle of the June 1967 war, the circle around Zvi Yehuda and the Mercaz Harav yeshiva promoted settlement of the West Bank. This was, in a sense, the final move in the redemption process. To the Rabbis in that circle the messianic train had left the station. It could be slowed but not reversed. And the redemption of the land would lead to the redemption of the people. The unique feature of these post-state Messianists is their view that the process of redemption works for us first through the body – the Land of Israel so to speak – and then the spirit – the religious values behind the state. This means that the settler movement should focus first on the wholeness of the Land of Israel, meaning in some sense the settlement or annexation or at least control of the West Bank plus, and then seek to create a spiritual unity of the people under Torah values. This is a rejection of the traditional Jewish view that redemption occurs first through individual spiritual renewal and /or collective spiritual renewal. On that view the settler movement should first raise their spiritual level and then seek to “settle in the hearts of the people” before taking direct action to advance the redemptive process. For Zvi Yehuda Kook and his circle, the land of Israel was an organic single entity. In some sense it was considered animate with its own will and certainly its own innate sanctity. It certainly could not be divided, shared, or compromised. He told his students that at the time of the UN resolution instituting the State in 1948, while others danced in the streets with joy, “I sat alone, red with shame” at the fact that the new state had relinquished parts of the biblical land of Israel. Indeed in 1967 Kook refused to sign a petition that Israel would keep control of the entire land of Israel (eretz yisroel shlema) because the petition did not refer to TransJordan. Sometime after 1973, the Arabs began the process of talking with the Jewish state and various efforts at territorial compromise were broached. The settlers in the West Bank, or as they called it Judea and Samaria, rejected all of them. Their motto was ‘not one inch.’ The decision by the State to actually withdraw from “liberated” land or prevent settlement there created an existential crisis for religious Zionism. `Students Prof. Marshall J. Breger – Professor of Law at the Columbus School of LawNext >