The portion of the Torah that we read this morning, up front in Parashat Eqev, is one of the most Zionist moments in the Five Books of Moshe. It’s so Zionist that when the Conservative movement established the custom of reading Torah on Yom HaAtzma’ut (Israel’s Independence Day), which we do here at Beth Shalom, they chose this passage to read. In particular, Eqev says the following (Devarim / Deuteronomy 8:7-10):
כִּ֚י ה’ אֱ-לֹקֶ֔יךָ מְבִֽיאֲךָ֖ אֶל־אֶ֣רֶץ טוֹבָ֑ה אֶ֚רֶץ נַ֣חֲלֵי מָ֔יִם עֲיָנֹת֙ וּתְהֹמֹ֔ת יֹצְאִ֥ים בַּבִּקְעָ֖ה וּבָהָֽר׃ אֶ֤רֶץ חִטָּה֙ וּשְׂעֹרָ֔ה וְגֶ֥פֶן וּתְאֵנָ֖ה וְרִמּ֑וֹן אֶֽרֶץ־זֵ֥ית שֶׁ֖מֶן וּדְבָֽשׁ׃ (ט) אֶ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֨ר לֹ֤א בְמִסְכֵּנֻת֙ תֹּֽאכַל־בָּ֣הּ לֶ֔חֶם לֹֽא־תֶחְסַ֥ר כֹּ֖ל בָּ֑הּ אֶ֚רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֲבָנֶ֣יהָ בַרְזֶ֔ל וּמֵהֲרָרֶ֖יהָ תַּחְצֹ֥ב נְחֹֽשֶׁת׃ וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙ אֶת־ה’ אֱ-לֹקֶ֔יךָ עַל־הָאָ֥רֶץ הַטֹּבָ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר נָֽתַן־לָֽךְ׃
(7) For YHWH your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; (8) a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey; (9) a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper. (10) When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to YHWH your God for the good land which God has given you.
What I hear in this passage is a love letter to the Land of Israel, describing its bounty, its landscape, its minerals, and its intimate connection to the body of stories and laws and customs known as Judaism. It includes, of course, the list of the Seven Species typical to the land, and of course the passage that we know from Birkat haMazon / grace after meals, in which we are required to express our gratitude liturgically after eating.
Of course, it is somewhat anachronistic to impose a late-19th-century political movement for the return to Israel onto a text written about two-and-a-half millennia earlier. “Zionism” per se is not exactly what the Torah is invoking, as Moshe addresses the Israelites on the far side of the Jordan River. Rather, this passage is meant as an incentive to the Israelites, speaking to their perspective as the children of former slaves wandering through the wilderness. Fear not, it seems to say; you will soon be in a place where everything is wonderful. You have an ancient and eternal connection to this land, and when you inherit it properly now as the significant nation you have become, you will fully reap the benefits that God has promised you as part of the berit, the covenant with your ancestors.
We are living, of course, in a very different world today, 75 years into the existence of the modern, democratic State of Israel, which of course bears little resemblance to the Torah’s vision of Israelite governance. And yet, this text surely summons the Zionist passion which many of us feel.
There is an Israeli pop song that’s been floating through my head all week. It’s by the reggae group Hatikvah 6 called “לאן הולכים מכאן” (Le-an holkhim mikan / Where do we go from here?). The song hints at the political protests of 2011, when hundreds of Israelis set up tents in central Tel Aviv to decry the astronomical cost of living. The movement launched careers for a few politicians, but ultimately had minimal lasting effect on apartment rental prices in Israeli cities. In fact, in 2022, Tel Aviv was the third most-expensive city in the world.
But the question of “Where do we go from here?” neatly captures the current moment in Israel. As you may know, the governing coalition in the Knesset, which holds a slight majority of 64 seats out of 120, passed a piece of legislation known as the “reasonableness clause” as a part of a larger package of judicial reform. This law would prevent the Israeli Supreme Court from using “reasonableness” as a standard for upholding the law, and in particular as a check on legislative orders from the Knesset. Given the uproar in Israel over these reforms, the opposition walked out en masse in protest, so the law passed 64-0.
What this legislation effectively says is that if a simple majority of elected politicians, even 61 out of 120, believe that a government decision is reasonable, it does not matter if all the other 59 members of Knesset and the entire Supreme Court feel it is unreasonable. Commentators have observed that this might open the door to corruption. (BTW, the best analysis I have read about the situation in Israel is by David Horovitz, editor of the Times of Israel.)
The Supreme Court has already announced that it will debate the legality of the law. When they strike it down, as I anticipate that they will, the State of Israel will be in uncharted “constitutional” territory. I say “constitutional” in quotes, because, as you may know, Israel has no constitution, and no upper parliamentary body, so the Supreme Court is really the only check on the power of the majority coalition in the Knesset. This attempt by the Netanyahu coalition to reign in the judiciary amounts to what some in the opposition have labeled a “coup,” weakening the Supreme Court and thereby giving too much power to the Knesset majority.
Furthermore, the “reasonableness” legislation is only the beginning. There are more pieces of judicial reform to come from this coalition. And when the hobbling of the courts is complete, they will turn to those pieces of legislation that are features of the coalition agreements, the back-room horse-trading deals which hold the coalition together and which might otherwise be struck down by the court, as explained by Horovitz. Those include:
… the legalization of discrimination based on religious beliefs, the annexation of parts or all of the West Bank without equal rights for Palestinians, the restricting of media, the constriction of women’s rights, the blanket exemption of the fastest-growing sector of the populace, the ultra-Orthodox, from military and national service.
Make no mistake: everybody in this room is part of a minority whose rights will be curtailed by a government which tips its hat to theocracy. We all know that Israel right now is only barely tolerant of non-Orthodox Judaism. How about an Israel that makes it illegal? Imagine being on a synagogue trip with your rabbi, observing Shabbat according to our customs, and suddenly we are arrested for hosting a service in which men and women are sitting together?
Israelis of all sorts, but particularly the intellectual elite, are facing a state which they do not recognize. Hundreds of thousands have been out in the streets. Some are actively leaving. Israeli reservists are writing letters to the IDF leadership to tell them that they will no longer serve their reserve duty. The economic and security toll of the actions of this government is inestimable.
So לאן הולכים מכאן? Where do we go from here? The challenge here for us as Diaspora Jews, most of whom are not Israeli citizens, but all of whom have a significant stake in the State of Israel, is how to respond to this.
We have supported, and must continue to support Israel because the right to a tiny strip of our ancestral land, as described in Parashat Eqev, where we Jews are guaranteed self-determination, is essential to our survival as a people. We support Israel because of the values espoused in her Declaration of Independence. We support Israel because we see her democratic government committed to upholding those values, protecting minority voices and giving strength to the disenfranchised.
There are really only two things that might affect the situation. First, ongoing protests in the streets of Israel, which did succeed in at least delaying the vote a few months back, and made the opinion of what is likely a majority of Israelis painfully clear.
Second, economic protest, and here is where things get thorny for the American Jewish community. We provide $3.8 billion of military aid to Israel every year. This is really a “back-door” subsidy to American defense contractors: the money goes to them, and the arms (like the Iron Dome system, which shoots down incoming missiles, launched largely from Gaza) go to Israel. This subsidy protects Israeli citizens and makes life safe and livable in a rough neighborhood, and of course supports American jobs. I would not want to see this money go away.
Also, we Americans have always demonstrated our support by sending personal charitable contributions to Israel. So the dilemma we are facing is how to continue to support the Israeli people and the democratic norms within Israeli society without enabling the more problematic aspects of the current government.
One such organization that we might want to support is called התנועה לאיכות השלטון, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a well-established, non-partisan non-profit that works for improved government, to expose corruption and flaws in the democratic system. There are probably others, and as I become aware of them, I will share that info with you as well.
A final thought: there is a reason we call immigrating to Israel “making aliyah,” where “aliyah” literally means, “ascent.” In the Talmud, Israel is described as the highest spiritual point in the world; one “ascends” to Israel from anywhere else in the world, and within Israel one ascends to Jerusalem.
During the protests of the last couple of weeks, thousands of Israelis made the 40-odd mile trek on foot from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They ascended physically and spiritually, and their aliyah was a sign not only of their commitment to the State of Israel but also to its democratic principles.
I hope that as they were climbing through the Shefelah, the fertile Judean foothills in the center of the country, at least a few of them thought about Parashat Eqev: the Seven Species, and the sense of expressing gratitude for this land. I hope that some of them were thinking, and perhaps causing some other Israelis to pause and think that the only way that we might continue to eat, to be satisfied, and to express thanks for what they have is to ensure that we do not deepen this growing rift in Israel and indeed the Jewish world. That we must continue to make a metaphorical aliyah together.
לאן הולכים מכאן? Where do we go from here? We keep going up. We do not have a choice.
~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Shabbat morning, 8/5/2023.)
The Modern Rabbi 