God's land without God

[Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim]

1) How do you feel about our claim to an Israel bereft of Torah adherence?

2) What are your opinions on the Shima prayer, wherein God promises to abandon the Jews who violate His Torah?

3) Should Israeli leadership be governed by Torah law?

[John Swiontek]

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

1) How do you feel about our claim to an Israel bereft of Torah adherence?

The claim to the land is from its creator to his chosen people. The fact that some of the people do not seek after Him is unrelated to their birth-right claim to the land.

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

2) What are your opinions on the Shima prayer, wherein God promises to abandon the Jews who violate His Torah?

And He said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. Genesis 18

He would not destroy the righteous with the wicked then. He will not abandon them unto utter destruction at the hands of their enemies now.

The only thing holding back His judgment is the presence of the righteous.

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

3) Should Israeli leadership be governed by Torah law?

Oh yes! Absolutely. But it would take a very strong, powerful Torah leader to rise to authority. And then the people would insist on it.

John Swiontek

[Beth]

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

1) How do you feel about our claim to an Israel bereft of Torah adherence?

I'm concerned that we will be "spat out" if klal Yisrael lacks a sufficient level of Torah adherence. Yes, we would still have a claim to the land, because God is the source of that claim. No person is capable of nullifying that claim. But we aren't able to inhabit the land unless God allows us to.

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

2) What are your opinions on the Shima prayer, wherein God promises to abandon the Jews who violate His Torah?

Scary. But we We can't change the rules that God creates. If we rebel against those rules, then we'll experience the consequences. May God show us mercy because of the merit of our Sages.

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

3) Should Israeli leadership be governed by Torah law?

Yes!

[Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim]

The Torah, specifically the Shimah blessing, outlines our loss of God's Providence and the Land, when we fail to adhere to the Torah. What can be done now to bring Israel to this realization, so that military strategies are not the sole response to terror, but that Israelis also return to Torah adherence, especially at this time of Teshuvah, repentance?

[Spirit before of old]

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

1) How do you feel about our claim to an Israel bereft of Torah adherence?

Torah has always been open to opinions ever since its inception at Sinai, and later we see the differences between Shamai and Hillel; and the history of Torah through the ages taught us that diversity is crucially needed for the survival of Judaism itself, and thus we have today this system of open accountability of leaders and sages, and freedom of choices as a people and as an individual. People will eventually learn on their own terms that God alone is righteuos, and His Word is all good, that is when a total return to God be possible. That is why today is a must-through stage before a long-lasting gathering of Israel before God a reality before the eyes of the whole world.

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

2) What are your opinions on the Shima prayer, wherein God promises to abandon the Jews who violate His Torah?

One tiny violation isn't different from 1000 tiny violations of Torah, that is why God has been merciful to all. Israel today is still in the stage of rebuilding the nation. 10 lost Tribes were choicedly in China today, Ezekiel's 390 years prediction of the rise of Han Tribe in China at 202BCE, which is the year after (593BCE-390years=)203BCE, the same time the 10 lost Tribes starting to thrive in China. God prophesied the return of some of these now-Chinese back to Israel as Israeli citizens when the Messiah shall rise among them at a latter date, i.e., in a aliyah-thriving time as today. And the Messiah shall set things straight in China and in the whole world. Without this Messiah from God, Israel will not be whole before God in all its dealings. So, God is holding Himself accountable, and Israel won't be regarded as abandoning of the Torah, and the Torah is yet to be perfected, until the time of the Messiah.

3)

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

Should Israeli leadership be governed by Torah law?

They are already accountable for their actions, people need to be sanctified first before a change in the executions of the leadership can be achieved. Hasmonians and a changed people changed the history of Judah when they cleansed the temple at 203BCE-40years=163BCE. Torah discussions will open up the mind of the Israelis in a day not far from today, then the government of Israel will surely follow suit in all its perfections.

[Anasazi]

I've decided to post in this thread in light of the latest developments in Israel, mainly the expulsion of Jews from the Gaza Strip and the war against the Hezbollah.

Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak ha'Kohen Kook understood that, unknowingly, secular Jews are God's chosen tool to hasten the return of the people of Israel back to their Land. Only by breaking away from the restricting traditions, could these people open up to other peoples of Europe (during the Spring of Nations) and rediscover their national ethos. The enlightened and assimilated Jews who, despite Emancipation, faced Anti-Semitism decided to reclaim their ancient homeland. They have therefore become Secular Zionists.

Nevertheless, secular Zionism already contained the seeds of its own demise. The rationalistic critics of Judaism's most basic assumption, having found no satisfactory proofs for Jewish claims, turned to secular nationalism. Today the same rationalistic approach undermines Zionist ideals. The result is a Leftist Humanist ideology where the individual's life, happiness and freedom hold the highest value. Any arguments which appeal to national feelings are automatically portrayed as primitive, nationalistic, fascist, etc, because they hamper with the individual's effort to attain his happy materialistic ends.

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

1) How do you feel about our claim to an Israel bereft of Torah adherence?

2) What are your opinions on the Shima prayer, wherein God promises to abandon the Jews who violate His Torah?

Torah constitutes the Jewish value system; the Jewish spirit and purpose.
Indeed, any claim to an Israel without Torah based values is therefore absurd and we can see it in reality. The same people who couldn't justify the Jewish settlements in Gaza would not be able to justify Jews living in Jerusalem or Tel-Aviv when the time comes to defend those places. Those same people could not find the will to crush the Hezbollah during the war in Lebanon. After the war, the head of the Israeli Human Resources Directorate confirmed that secular Tel-Avivans fail to show up for reserve duty or to send their children to combat units.

Through a seemingly natural process – the Jews abandoned God and they themselves were abandoned.

Originally Posted by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

3) Should Israeli leadership be governed by Torah law?

A resounding YES!
However...


Halacha today is not suitable for a modern state because it's a product of almost two millennia of a stateless exile. The Shulchan Aruch, which successfully regularizes East European Shtetls, apartment blocks in Boro Park and ultra-orthodox Jerusalem neighborhoods, has practically no directives for a tzibur (public) comprising of thousand and millions of Jews. The Shabbat, for example, posses a major difficulty in the (mostly Jewish) public level and pikuach nefesh is not always the honest solution for questions like:

· what to do when production plants that cannot be shut down
· what to do with the electric company
· what military activities may be performed

In the early days of the Israel some Haredi rabbis suggested that every Shabbat the country's official authorization be transferred to a non-Jew… This too is an abandonment of God, and a silent approval that Torah isn't suitable for modern national existence.

The expulsion from the Gaza Strip was made possible because Haredi party members which preferred funds for its yeshivas over (religious) Jewish settlements. The same Knesset members had a say during the war with Hezbollah, although most of them didn’t serve in the army, and their children don't serve in the army, unlike most other Israelis.

Other questions arise in the field of security. A prominent posek decreed that land should be traded for peace – thus approving the Oslo Accords in the Israeli parliament. At least 2000 Jews (and some 4000 Arabs) died when these agreements failed. From what I understood, that posek applied an immediate pikuach nefesh approach. Just like in the Exile…

The list goes on and on and encompasses all of human activity: economics, welfare, war...

In Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits' words:

Any further development of Judaism is possible only by the creation, somewhere on this earth, of a complete Jewish environment, one wide enough to embrace the whole existence of a Jewish national entity.
Only by the creation of such a Jewish environment can we give back to Torah the great partnership of life which alone is capable of freeing Judaism from its present exilic rigidity, and create the circumstances in which evolution will again be possible.

[Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim]

I am reviewing your thoughtful responses. Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts.
I will respond shortly.