THE CHOSEN PEOPLE AND THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL

I. Introduction

he modern State of Israel presents a curious paradox.а Its founders, secular Zionists, were animated by the noble desire to provide for the security of the Jewish people on the one hand, and to restore their dignity on the other.аа We see, however, that the five million Jews now living in Israel are anything but secure, and seldom have they been so humiliated.аа Every day Jews are killed or wounded or shelled by Arab terrorists, while the leaders of their supposedlyа powerful state kowtow to these terrorists and thus behave like craven fools.аа If the Jews are the Chosen People, it appears that they have been chosen to suffer every conceivable misery.

That they have nonetheless survived two thousand years of exile, persecution, torture,а pogroms, and holocaust is a phenomenon that defies any known or supposed laws of history, sociology, or anthropology.аа

Some 3,300 years ago the people of Israel accepted the laws of the Torah at Mount Sinai.а This same system of jurisprudence is alive and vibrant today.а All the old religions of the nations have either been abandoned or have been so changed that their founders would not now be able to recognize them.а In contrast, despite the vicissitudes of time, the Jews, a stateless and tormented people, have retained their Уportable homeland,Ф the Torah.а Indeed, never in Jewishа history have so many Jews returnedа toа the Torah, andа neverа before have theyа establishedа soа many academies of Jewish learning.а Moreover, during the pastа two decades,а a veritableа renaissanceа

has been taking place in Jewish philosophy.аа Mathematicians, physicists, and biologists, are interfacing science with the Torah.а At least one political philosopher is subjecting the social sciences to critical analysis by means of the TorahТs conception of human nature.а Also, Torah principles and values are being employed to illuminate and elevate the character of democracy, now in a state of moral decay.

Thus, despite the murderous hatred and humiliation of Jews down through history, Judaism continues to flourish.а History may not prove that the Jews are the Chosen People, but the annals of history prove that they constitute a people like no other.а

II.а Ancient Philosemitism

In contrast to the vilification of Jews by the generality of mankind, many of the most learned gentiles have admired the Jewish people.а Theophrastus (372-288/7 B.C.E.) AristotleТs student and successor at the Lyceum, referred to the Jews as a Уnation of philosophers.Ф[1]а Clearchus, another student ofа Aristotle, and in the very first rank of peripatetic philosophers, records his having heard his master tell of an encounter with a Jew from УJudaea.Фа Aristotle notes that the man spoke Greek, and adds: УDuring my stay in Asia, he visited the same places as I did, and came to converse with me and some other scholars, to test our learning.а But as one who has been intimate with many cultivated persons, it was rather he who imparted more to us than we to him.Ф[2]аа

Nor is this all.

Numenius, a second century C.E. Syrian philosopher, who is regarded as a founder of NeoPlatonism, greatly admired the Jews, especially Moses.а Indeed, he is recorded as having said, УFor what else is Plato than Moses speaking Attic Greek.Ф[3]аа A direct quotation by Numenius from Genesis is given by Porphyry, and his frequent use of both the Pentateuch and the Prophets, which he interpreted allegorically, is attested by Origen, the well-known early Christian theologian.

The influence of Judaism on Greek philosophy, recorded in the surviving fragments of ancient writers, was ignored or denied by modern historians until recent decades.а Cyrus Gordon presents evidence showing that УGreek and Hebrew civilizations [are] parallel structures built upon the same East Mediterranean foundation.Ф[4]а Most interesting is evidence of Jewish influence on Thales and Pythagorus.аа Thales, who lived at the time of the destruction of the First Temple (586 BCE), and who is regarded as the Уfirst philosopher,Ф was not a Greek, as reputed, but a Phoenician.а Phoenician was the Greek name for the Canaanites.а Canaan stretched along the eastern Mediterranean shore from northern Syria of today to the south as far as the Carmel.а And of course part of Canaanа became Israel.аа It was from this semitic people that the Greeks derived their alphabet.[5]аа

Thales was expelled from Phoenicia and became a citizen of Miletus, a Greek city.а This astronomer and cosmologist was known as the first of the Seven Sages.аа According to Aristotle, Thales introduced geometry (reportedly from Egyptian sources) to Hellas.а He taught that water was the primary substance underlying the earth, which recalls the account of creation in Genesis.а Asked what is the divine, Thales replied, УThat which has neither beginning nor endФЧclearly a Jewish teaching.[6]а Even more striking is that Thales is reported as having saidа Уthere were three blessings for which he was grateful for Fortune: Сfirst, that I was born a human being and not one of the brutes; next, that I was born a man and not a woman; thirdly a Greek [as he may have preferred, or was, preferred by others, to be known] and not a barbarian.Ф[7]аа These three blessings parallel the morning prayers of Jews.а Since these blessings were not common among Greeks, one should not dismiss the possibility that Thales was Jewish!а Consistent with this possibility, Diogenes Laertius reports that when Thales was asked which was older, night or day, he replied:аа УNight is the older by one day.Фа Laertius also ascribes to Thales the following sayings, all of which are consistent with the cosmology of Genesis and Jewish philosophy:

Of all things that are, the most ancient is God, for he is uncreated.

The most beautiful is the universe, for it is GodТs workmanship.

The greatest is space, for it holds all things.

As for Pythagoras (circa 530 BCE), various ancient sources say that he was a Phoenician, that Thales was one of his teachers, and that he lived for a considerable time on Mount Carmel, which then was on the border between Phoenicia and Israel.аа The prophet Elijah lived on Mount Carmel, as did his disciple Elisha and other prophets.аа In fact, some ancient writers report that Pythagoras learned from Jews.а Hermippos said that Pythagoras transferred Jewish doctrines into his own philosophy.[8]а More specific reports indicate that PythagorasТ teachings and practices parallel those of the Nazirites, such as Samson, Samuel, and Daniel.а For example, Pythagoras did not drink wine or eat animal food, and he did not cut his hair.аа

It thus appears quite probable that Greek philosophy owes much to the Jews.а PythagorasТ numerical or mathematical conception of the universe has influenced science to this day.а It parallels the idea that the Torah, whose letters represent numbers (Gematria), contains the genetic code of the universe.

III.а Modern Philosemitism

John Adams, a Harvard graduate and second president of the United States, had this to say of the Jewish people:

The Jews have done more to civilize men than any other Nation.а They are the most glorious Nation that ever inhabited the earth.а The Romans and their Empire were but a bauble in comparison to the Jews.а They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily than any other Nation, ancient or modern.[9]

Historian and statesman Thomas B. Macaulay put it differently.а In the course of a debate in 1833 in the British House of Commons over whether Jews should have their legal and political disabilities removed by law, Macaulay boldly declared:а

In the infancy of civilization, when our island was as savage as New Guinea, when letters and arts were still unknown in Athens, when scarcely a thatched hut stood on what was afterwards the site of Rome, this condemned people had their fenced cities and cedar palaces, their splendid temple,... their schools of sacred learning, their great statesmen and soldiers, their natural philosophers, their historians and poets.[10]

This reference to the temple of the Jews, as well as to their Уschools of sacred learning" and Уnatural philosophers,Ф suggests that the civilization of ancient Israel harbored no tension or dichotomy between religion and science (i.e., Уnatural philosophyФ). ааIndeed, Judaism has been called the religion of reason.а Consistent therewith,а Friedrich Nietzsche has written:а УWherever the Jews have attained to influence, they have taught to analyze more subtly, to argue more acutely, to write more clearly and purely:а it has always been their problem to bring people to Сraison.ТФ[11]

Finally, Mark Twain.а Writing in 1899, some forty years before the Nazi Holocaust, that penetrating observer of humanity had this to say about the Jews:

аааааааа

аIf the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one per cent of the human race.а It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way.а Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of.а He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.а His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.а

He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him.а He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.а The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.а The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind.

All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains.а What is the secret of his immortality?[12]

Can it be that the answer to Mark TwainТs question will be found in the Torah?

IV.а The Origin of the Chosen People

If the Jews are in fact the Chosen People, that fact cannot be proven by reason or reasoning.а It can only be proven by God Himself.а All one can do is elucidate the concept of the Chosen People and perhaps the probability or necessity of such a people if mankind is to achieve perfection.

The concept of the Chosen People has its origin in Abraham, the father of the Jewish people.а God said to Abram: УGo for your own sake, get away from your land from your birthplace, and fromа your fatherТs house, to the land that I will show you.а I will make you into a great nation.а I will bless you and make you great.а You shall become a blessing.а I will bless those who bless you, and he that curses you, I will curse.а All the families of the earth shall be blessed through youФ (Gen. 12:1-3).а That blessing is nothing less than ethical monotheism, which has civilized much of mankind.а By itself, monotheism, as the great philosopher-mathematician Alfred North Whitehead discerned, is the basis of modern science.а Whitehead saw that monotheism involves the idea of a rationally ordered universe, a presupposition of scientific inquiry.а Divorced from ethics, however, science has become a curse as well as not a blessing.а Let us therefore try to understand the man who conferred the blessing of ethical monotheism upon mankind.[13]

Without any teacher, and in opposition to the polytheism and vicious practices of his people, Abraham discovered, through reason and observation, that this vast multifarious universe is an integrated whole created by one supreme and transcendent Being of infinite wisdom and power (Gen. 14:22).аа Over the course of years thousands of people gathered about him and became part of his household.а Such was his greatness as a teacher and leader of men that he was called a УPrince of GodФ (Gen. 23:6).а He discerned the providential kindliness of God and deduced therefrom His code of conduct for men (Gen. 26:5).а Abraham saw that the world was designed for manТs use and happiness, hence that Man is the purpose of creation.а He reasoned that since the Creator showed nothing of Himself but His deeds, then it is His will that men should know Him by the graciousness of His deeds, an attribute they ought to emulate in their relations with one another.

Abraham also reasoned that it is proper for men to be grateful to their Benefactor by thanking Him and by speakingа of His graciousness, as well as of His wisdom and power, and to demonstrate their gratitude by consecrating their lives to His service (Gen. 12-14).а

Accordingly, Abraham devoted all his thoughts and efforts to serving God (Gen. 18:27).а He disciplined himself until he learned absolute self-control (Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 32b).а Through the commandment of circumcision he gained mastery over his body.а No difficulty was too great for him, and the greatest sacrifices did not hinder him. Despite his greatness, he was ever humble, regarding himself as Уmere dust and ashesФ (Gen. 16:17).а In his dealings with menЧeven enemiesЧhe manifested unequalled hospitality and magnanimity, for which reason he is the exemplar of graciousness (Hesed), that purely voluntary and overflowing kindness that seeks neither reward nor recognition (Gen. 14:22-23, 18:1-8, 23).

These principles and this manner of service he taught his household and to all that would listen to him.а In short, Abraham developed in himself superior intellectual and moral qualities which became part of his being and were transmitted to his seed forever (B.T. Megilla 13b). аIt was because of his superlative character that God changed his name to Abraham, which means Уfather ofа multitude of nationsФа (Gen. 17:5), and sent him forth to found a new nation in a new land.а This nation, Israel, was to be an Abraham writ large.

The ethical monotheism discovered by Abraham and transmitted to his descendants is the only solid and rational basis for the moral unity of the human race or the idea of the human community.а Pphilosopher and jurisprudent Yitzhak Breuer writes:

The idea of the human community is one of the most beautiful pearls in the treasure of Jewish doctrine; it is a basic truth of Judaism; it is that Jewish idea which first set out on its triumphal procession from the Jewish camp into the whole world; it is the first message of salvation which Israel brought to a society of states which knew only force and the misuse of power.а УGod created man in His image. In the likeness of God He created himФ [Gen. 1:26].а Here we have the lapidary sentence from Holy Writ which proclaims through all ages the inalienable, godlike nobility of man as such.[14]

The idea of the human community was unknown to the whole of antiquity.а Breuer continues.

The noblest and most sensitive moral philosopher of Greece only dared hint at it an shied away in awe before its consequences which spelt the destruction of the whole structure of classical society.а It appears quietly and shyly in Roman law, too, and the great legal minds provided it with a sparse home in the so-called natural law, which it vainly tried to wrest for itself in the Civil Code.а It was reserved only for Judaism to bring it to validity with full lucidity at the end of antiquity, and this deed is the highest glory which Judaism acquired in the battle for the religious progress of the human community.а It was the idea of the human community whose consoling beam and strengthening balsam at the end of antiquity drove all the miserable and the burdened, the pursue and enslaved among the heathens, as well as the great and the distinguished for whom Greek skepticism embittered all joy of being, into the arms of Judaism.а It was the idea of the human community whose banner Christianity borrowed from Judaism, and under whose standard the ingenious propaganda of a Paul made the world subservient to itself.[15]

Breuer goes on to point out that although the concept of the human community is a Jewish concept, it is not the sole concept of Judaism nor even the basis of Judaism.аа Theа basis of Judaism is to be found not in its universalism, which it bestowed upon mankind, but in its particularism, namely, in Jewish law.аа The reason is this:а

God creates not only individuals but nations with distinct ways of life.аа For these ways of life to be mutually reinforcing and not mutually obstructive, they require the rational constraints of the Seven Noahide Laws of Universal Morality.а IsraelТs world-historical function, therefore, is to provide mankind the example of a nation that synthesizes particularism and universalism, which it can only do as a nation consecrated to God.

By affirming a plurality of nations, and by qualifying this particularism with laws of universal morality, Israel avoids political, cultural, and religiousа imperialism.а At the same time, Israel avoids the moral decay evident among democracies that have separated morality and public law.а

And so, only a nation dedicated to God can inspire mankind.а As Leo Jung has eloquently written:

Had Judaism been entrusted to all nations, it would have lost color and intensity.а As everybody's concern it would have remained nobody's concern.... Ideals are better entrusted to minorities as their differentiating asset, because of which they live.... Judaism, given at once to the shapeless multitudes of the world, would have become a meaningless phrase ... Hence it was bestowed upon one nation as its heirloom, as the single reason for its existence, as the single argument of its national life, as the aim and end of its struggles and labors.а

The Jewish people thus received a charge that was to inspire its life, but the benefit of which was to accrue to all the world.а At the beginning of Jewish history, Abraham, the first Jew, received the universal call, 'And thou shalt be a blessing to all the nations of the world.'а For the consummation of this ideal, Israel is to walk apart.а It will not be counted among the nations ... Guided exclusively by the will of God, living by his commandments and dying if need be for the sanctification of His name, Israel is to present the example of a whole nation elevated, ennobled, illumined by the life in God and encouraging thereby a universal imitatio Dei.[16]

ааааааааааа Although this is not proof that the Jews are the Chosen People, it provides some evidence for the probability and perhaps necessity of such a people.а It remains to discuss how the present State of Israel is based on the denial of the Chosen People.

V.а Foundations of the State of Israel

The denial that the Jews are the Chosen People is implied in the very first sentence of the 1948 Proclamation of the Establishment of the State of Israel, otherwise known as IsraelТs Declarationа of Independence, a document signed by four rabbis!а The first sentence reads:аа УThe Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people.Фа This sentence suggests that the Jews did not become a УpeopleФ until the conquest of the land of Canaan by Joshua, and, therefore, only after the Law-giving at Mount Sinai.а Yet the Children of Israel are repeatedly referred to as a people even before their exodus from Egypt, as well as during their wanderings in the Wilderness.а In fact, they are also called a Уnation.Фа Thus:а УWhat great nation has laws and social rules so righteous as this Torah?Ф (Deut. 4:8; and see Exod. 1:9; Num. 23:9).

We see, therefore, that the Jewish people, like no other, was constituted a nation before they received a land of their own.а This means that the physical possession of a country is not the condition for the Jewish peopleТs existence as a nation.а What made the Jews a people was not the Land of Israel so much as their Torah.а It was only the Torah that preserved them as a nation despite their having been without a land of their own for nineteen centuries.

The founders of the State of Israel, however, relegated the Torah to the domain of the family and the synagogue.аа No longer was Jewish civil and criminal law to shape the social and economic relations of men.аа Far from being unique, let alone Chosen, Israel was to be just another secular democratic state.аа Is it any wonder that Israel today lacks Jewish national pride?а Is it any wonder that its government is willing to surrender Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the Jewish people, to a gang of murderers?а Is it any wonder that this government, having armed IsraelТs enemies, allows them to kill Jews with impunity?

The State of Israel is based on false foundations, on the non-Jewish concept of territorial nationalism rather than on the Covenant of Mount Sinai.аа Hence it was inevitable that this State would lose Jewish territory by succumbing to the Oslo Covenant of Death.а It seems to me, therefore, that the foundations of this State must be utterly uprooted and replaced by a new system of governance if the Jews are to worthy of being called the Chosen People.