Category Archives: Current Events

The Truth About RCA Geirus – Jewish Press – 3/12/2008

Posted on March 12, 2008 | Comments Off

There is a sign hanging in my office that should be standard in the office of every rabbi, communal leader, worker for Klal Yisrael or activist of any sort. It reads: “For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism.” And so goes the overheated, misleading, and at times blatantly false reaction by several of my distinguished RCA colleagues to the RCA’s recent promulgation of the Geirus Policies and Standards (GPS).

Let us sort through the myths and the facts.

Myth: The Jewish Week headlined its report “RCA Seen as Caving in on Conversions” (to the Chief Rabbinate of Israel). That headline is a contemptible untruth. Having served from its inception on the GPS Committee that formulated the standards, I can state that the reality is the Rabbanut never once suggested an approach to conversion in America, a change in any of our standards, or the adoption of any of their standards.

Myth: The GPS calls for the re-evaluation of all conversions done in the past by RCA rabbis. This is an especially despicable falsehood, as it serves only to make generations of converts in the Jewish community anxious about their status and acceptance in the community at large. The reality is that not one past geirus is being reviewed by the RCA or its Beth Din of America, and such was never contemplated. To even suggest otherwise is to blatantly violate the Torah’s numerous admonitions against tormenting the ger.

Myth: The RCA is shifting “to the right” (whatever that means) and has now adopted a series of harsh and restrictive regulations that will hinder the ability of non-Jews to convert. The reality is that these standards are not new, but an expression of the majority opinion in halacha as interpreted through the ages and historically applied by the overwhelming majority of RCA rabbis involved in geirus.

The proximate cause of the promulgation of the GPS was the sense – here and in Israel – that some rabbis, both inside and outside the RCA, were not adhering to any reasonable benchmark by which geirus has traditionally been executed. This situation had to be rectified in order to protect the integrity of geirus in America and to facilitate a convert’s acceptance in Israel should he or she choose to make aliyah.

Myth: The Chief Rabbinate will sit in judgment of each American geirus – past, present and future. Well, there is a kernel of truth in every bushel of lies. But this point is nothing new. Certainly the Rabbanut has no standing (or interest) to review the geirus that occurs outside Israel until and unless there is some Israel nexus, such as when the convert makes aliyah. But this has always been the case.

As a pulpit rabbi, I have provided dozens of affidavits to the Rabbanut attesting to the Jewishness of my members who were born Jews or who converted according to halacha andwho wished to make aliyah or marry in Israel. And this is justly the province and domain of the Chief Rabbinate, and its legal authority under Israeli law. In this instance, the GPS makes the process easier, as participating regional batei din in the network of the RCA, under the auspices of the Beth Din of America, are pre-certified to have their conversions accepted by the Rabbanut.

A convert who (sadly) never contemplates aliyah or does not marry in the State of Israel will never have any contact with the Rabbanut on these matters.

Myth: The Chief Rabbinate will not recognize any conversion performed outside the GPS framework. This is also completely false. Any rabbi – RCA or otherwise – can continue to perform conversions on his own and apply to the Rabbanut for acceptance. The considerations the Rabbanut will use are its alone, and completely within its purview. I suspect that some conversions will be accepted, and others rejected – as it has always been.

Beyond the myths, there is a bigger picture that needs to be considered. One of the most joyous moments in the rabbinate, for me, has been presiding over the conversion process. In a single instant, a non-Jew accepts upon himself not only the laws and customs that regulate Jewish life but also the history and destiny of our covenantal people. A conversion properly conducted and performed is fraught with solemnity, consequence and elation. The process should require intense study, a steadily increasing commitment to halachic practice, and climaxing in a complete acceptance of the mitzvos while standing in the mikveh.

Nevertheless, it has long been an open secret in the United States (filtered over time to rabbinic authorities in Israel) that there were some American rabbis – again, both members and non-members of the RCA – who officiated at conversions that lacked these prerequisites. Apparently there were rabbis who took substantial sums of money for conversions, turning this sublime process into a lucrative business. There were rabbis who were forced to convert non-Jews under duress, as in the (hypothetical) shul president stating: “Convert my future daughter-in-law or find another job.”

There were rabbis who were lax in applying the appropriate halachic standards and not insisting, expecting or even contemplating that there would be kabbalas hamitzvos in any realistic way – conversions without a genuine commitment to observance of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpacha and other staples of Jewish life.

They asked questions with a wink and received the appropriate answers by the candidates, as if they were reading from a script. (And in almost every such case the conversions were performed for the purpose of marriage. Why else would a rabbi even think of converting a non-Jew who does not wish to observe Jewish law, except for some pressing ulterior concern that itself undermines the very fabric of geirus?)

There were rabbis who were negligent even in the technical performance of the act of geirus, including a failure to observe the immersion in the mikveh. There were rabbis who converted non-Jewish women knowing they would marry kohanim in violation of Torah law. There were some who availed themselves of every leniency and loophole, ensuring that pro forma conversions would take place that would satisfy the needs of the member in question but not necessarily the letter or spirit of the law.

(Lest the reader think there was pervasive chaos, the “rabbis” referred to in the examples above were usually the very same small number of people.)

The GPS Committee performed a vital public service in formulating and disseminating these standards. The formation of regional batei din across the United States – and the ban on the sponsoring or teaching rabbi from serving as a dayan for someone he himself taught or guided – ensure that the individual rabbi is shielded from undue pressure to perform a conversion that is unsatisfactory and lacking in halachic substance.

These dozen batei din, and the more than forty rabbanim who serve on them, have the full backing of the Chief Rabbinate, ensuring that converts who are potential olim receive a royal welcome home. And, I suspect, the existence of these batei din will sharply reduce the number of non-Jews who convert solely for marriage or some other inducement. Further, the GPS deals sensitively with gerim who are contemplating marriage but wish to convert sincerely, with intermarried couples that want to re-enter the community of committed Jews, and with infertile couples who wish to adopt a non-Jewish child and confer merit upon him under the wings of the Divine Presence.

With all due respect, I must strongly object to my colleagues’ demagoguery, which serves only to alarm true and sincere converts as well as promote these esteemed rabbis’ own private, political agenda. The GPS Committee – comprised of a geographic and hashkaficcross-section of the RCA – labored over 18 months to produce an appropriate formula that universalizes standards for geirus but that nonetheless allows for the flexibility needed in evaluating something as subjective as another person’s commitment and sincerity. It has, perhaps, the support of 97% of the RCA membership. It is fair, honorable, sensitive, just and moral.

Its opponents, rather than talk in flowery generalities, must answer the following:

Do you require from prospective converts a genuine commitment to observance of Shabbos, kashrus, and other fundamental areas of Jewish law? If not, please state so openly.

Do you perform conversions in which there is willful blindness to reality in order to accommodate those whose commitment is lacking, and have you ever officiated at a conversion in which you were doubtful of the candidate’s sincere commitment to Torah and mitzvos? If so, please state so openly.

Do you feel you are performing a public service in adding to the ranks of the Jewish people those who do not share our value system, our lifestyle or our destiny – thereby transforming good and decent non-Jews into sinning Jews? If so, please state precisely the nature of that public service, explain the reasoning behind that disservice to non-Jews as well as the justification that underlies the unbridled attack on the sincere efforts of your colleagues.

Certainly, for every action there is an equal and opposite criticism – if only the criticism would be reasonable, measured, truthful and justified.

With the GPS system in place, a stumbling block has been removed from the process of conversion and the process itself simplified; the honor of righteous converts has been redeemed; the privilege of joining the Jewish people given its proper credence; and, most important, the Torah has been magnified and glorified.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey, treasurer of the Rabbinical Council of America, a member of the Geirus Policies and Standards Committee, and the rosh beit din of the Beit Din L’Giyur in Bergen County where, he reports, GPS guidelines are already in place and functioning superbly.

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A Glimpse Into The Mindset Of A Judicial Oligarch – Jewish Press – 12/27/2007

Posted on December 27, 2007 | Comments Off

“A democracy must fight terror with one hand tied behind its back.”

So stated Aharon Barak, the former president of Israel’s Supreme Court at a forum I recently attended at the Shasha Center for Strategic Studies at the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University.

The discussion centered on the potential and real conflict between democracy and the war on terror, and featured a debate between Barak and Judge Richard Posner, former chief judge of the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (based in Chicago), and one of the leading conservative legal scholars in the United States.

Abstractions do not always mingle well with the real world. Hebrew University President Menachem Magidor bragged that it is good to be in an ivory tower, detached from the real world and capable of pontificating about anything without consequences, although, he said, “we should keep the doors and windows open to see what the people are doing.”

So when the evening began with 25 minutes of heckling from individuals protesting “the occupation,” the liberal authorities (and HU is a liberal bastion) had no idea how to respond. People jeered – at the evening’s chair, former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy, and then at Barak when he started to speak – and security raced over to plead with the protesters to sit down and be quiet, and plead, and plead some more.

I was sitting in the third row with a group of professors (don’t ask), and when one said, “See, this is real democracy,” I answered, “No, this is not democracy, this is anarchy.”

After 20 minutes the crowd started chanting to throw the hecklers out, and eventually the ringleader was dragged away (howling that her rights of free speech were being violated!). Five minutes after she left, another one started in. By the fifth such demonstrator, “tolerance” was tossed to the wind, along with the remaining protesters.

The irony is that they should have stayed, because Barak’s words, actions and philosophy are powerful weapons in the hands of terrorists and a major reason why Israel’s strategic position has declined so precipitously in the last 15 years.

Justice Barak posited that the main function of a judge in the war on terror is to protect democracy “both from the terrorists and from the means the state uses to combat terrorists.”

The judge protects democracy from the state, the Knesset, the army, and even the people – even if there is less security for the people. Any curtailment of liberties that occurs in wartime will inevitably carry over to peacetime, and, in any event, “peace for one person is war for another.” Terrorists are just “lawbreakers” and must be dealt with, but not at the expense of fairness, justice or their human rights.

Thus, he boasted of his court’s decisions (almost all written by him) forcing the army to re-route the security wall (“the additional security provided was not commensurate with the additional harm caused to Palestinians”); overturning the government’s decisions expelling certain terrorists; nullifying the Knesset’s law permitting the demolition of the homes of terrorists; and setting the standards on a case-by-case basis for targeted assassinations of terrorist chieftains.

Barak even invalidated the Knesset’s repeal of the “Family Reunification Law” that had permitted Israeli Arabs to marry spouses from Judea, Samaria and Gaza and enable them move to Israel proper. This law became, in effect, an underground railroad for terrorists as no fewer than 26 of these “spouses” were subsequently imprisoned for perpetrating murderous acts against Jews. Barak ruled that the law must remain in effect, as it would violate the human rights of Arabs not to be able to choose their spouses and have them live in Israel. (Of course, the women could have moved to the Gaza paradise to live with their basherts, but Barak did not consider that.)

And so on. Barak prided himself on ruling Knesset laws unconstitutional, a neat trick given that Israel has no written constitution. He paid lip service to Justice Robert Jackson’s famous dictum that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact” and to the idea that a government’s primary obligation is to protect its citizens. But Barak sees a higher value – protecting the abstract beauty of democracy and human rights (in which “judges are the experts”), notwithstanding the harm to the individual.

The altar of democracy requires sacrifices. Of course, Barak likely does not ride buses, or shop in Machane Yehuda, or have any relatives in Sderot. Nor, strange as it sounds, did Barak even mention once that Israel is a Jewish state. Democracy uber alles.

Imagine if the ACLU actually governed the United States instead of just incessantly filing lawsuits; that is the picture of the legal system in Israel today. It is both naïve and dangerous.

I was reminded of George Orwell’s observation that “some ideas are so absurd only an intellectual could believe them.” But Judge Posner, who is as soft-spoken as he is brilliant and riveting, demolished Barak’s arguments point by point. Clearly from the American experience, he said, there is no slippery slope.

In every war (beginning with Lincoln’s suspension of habeus corpus during the Civil War), there were severe limitations on various civil rights, but when the war ended the measures were simply repealed and the status quo ante restored. Many of the restrictions imposed after the Arab Terror of 9/11 have already been relaxed (foolishly, Posner thought).

It is unthinkable in an American context that the Supreme Court should insert itself at will into the decisions of the political or military establishment, and micromanage government and security. Cases take years to get to the Supreme Court, so American judges already have real-life experience as to what works, what doesn’t work and what real harm is caused, if any.

Judicial tyranny is also incompatible with democracy, and judges are not omnipotent, Posner said. (Much of the audience cheered, and Barak squirmed.) He lambasted Barak’s assertion that Barak’s decisions are (as Barak had said) the “correct interpretation of law”, and said he – Posner – would never say that he is indisputably correct even when he is in the majority.

Posner added that he never uses terms like “justice, fairness, human rights,” deriding them as “empty words” that can be twisted by a judge to mean whatever he wants them to mean. And then there is no “rule of law,” but the subjective opinion of one person who is no more informed or expert in these nebulous matters than any other person.

Law is a “river of uncertainty” and it is perilous when judges create an “air of mystery” around their decisions, as if they are descending from some higher authority. He quipped that sometimes “with freedom comes irresponsibility.” But, he asserted, in America “we don’t want to fight a war with one hand tied behind our back.” American courts are not unfettered; Congress can limit their jurisdiction and budgets. And judges should never feel completely independent; “judicial independence is not a synonym for omnipotence or the rule of judges.”

Interesting, a Jew with seichel. Democracy is based on majority rule with protection for minority rights – but the minority does not have the right to infringe on the lives and well-being of the majority.

Barak was left to grimace, and then – in rebuttal – to remark how disappointed he was in Posner’s “extreme” views. He went on and on and on about the indispensability of unlimited judicial power as the only safeguard for democracy and human rights. “There is no justice without fairness, and there is no democracy without human rights,” he declared.

At that point, a gentleman in the third row asked: “What about the settlers from Gush Katif? Did they have human rights, or do human rights only flow in one direction, to Arabs?” The audience was thrust into silence and then a low murmur at this most peculiar turn of events – a pro-Jewish advocate at Hebrew University. (All right, I confess, the inquirer was me. I had more to say but held back so as not to be rude.)

Barak was flummoxed. He looked at me and could not respond except for mumbling some platitude about the right to free speech. He ended his talk abruptly and sat down. Posner, who was sort of beaming during my brief remarks, had the decency not to respond to Barak’s condescension to him, and the evening ended.

In an instant, the bubble of high-minded, self-righteous piety had been burst, and the emperor was shown to indeed have no clothes. In the world according to Barak, it is an outrageous and unacceptable affront to justice to demolish the homes of terrorists – murderers of Jews – but perfectly acceptable and moral to demolish the homes of 9,000 religious-nationalist Jews.

The dangers of subjectivity in law – by a self-perpetuating judicial oligarchy answerable to no one, composed exclusively of like-minded liberals who are charged with appointing their successors – became apparent. It was now easy to understand how Jewish teenagers who had blocked a highway to protest the Gaza expulsion could be sentenced to two years in prison.

I left and walked to Mount Scopus to gaze at the Temple Mount, thinking of the lyrics of Yehoram Gaon’s famous song about Jerusalem: “For a hundred generations, I dreamt of you – to cry, to see to merit, the light of your face.” That light, of course, is the light of the Torah that goes forth from Zion and that does not yet have any standing before Israel’s judges.

I then drove to the Kotel as the Tenth of Tevet began – to be cleansed, to be comforted, to daven Maariv, to mourn the thousands of victims of Barak-ism, and to pray that Israel survive even the well-intentioned efforts of the Knights Templar of “Democracy and Human Rights.”

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey, is currently on Sabbatical in Israel.

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The Sin Of Yehoyakimism – Jewish Press – 8/16/2006

Posted on August 16, 2006 | Comments Off

It is as unpleasant as it is impolitic to point out – in wartime, especially – that, despite all protestations to the contrary, the emperor indeed has no clothes. Neither spin nor sloganeering can conceal from the Jewish public and world opinion the obvious deterioration of Israel’s security situation.

While we all pray for the IDF’s success in dealing Arab terror a death blow, demolishing its infrastructure and silencing its proponents, as this is written little has been accomplished – after a month’s fighting – other than the devastation of Northern Israel and of Lebanon.

How did we arrive at this state? For sure, prudence would ordinarily dictate that we wait for a postwar investigation to uncover failures, blunders and errors. During wartime there is a natural and healthy tendency to rally around the flag and to settle accounts after hostilities have ceased.

My fear, however, is that Jewish leaders are never held accountable, never do a cheshbon hanefesh, old crises are quickly supplanted by new crises – and nothing ever changes. This is especially true since clear and obvious lessons are not being learned from the past and mistakes are doomed to be repeated with even more disastrous consequences.

No one wants to hear bad news, and the Jewish people have a depressing history of suppressing bad news until it is too late. Years before destruction of the first Beit Hamikdash, the prophet Yirmiyahu sent messengers to deliver to King Yehoyakim the Book of Eicha (Lamentations) and its dire prophecies. After listening to each chapter, Yehoyakim sliced each scroll with a sharp blade and threw the fragments in the fireplace (see Yirmiyahu, Chapter 36).

One mode of destruction was insufficient: Yehoyakim cut them to display his contempt for the prophet’s words but burned them as well, as if to say, these words never existed and were never uttered. Who could have predicted the churban?

The sin of Yehoyakimism is alive and well, to our great detriment. Having just returned from a week in war-torn Israel, there are three ironies that struck me as apparent to anyone with eyes and a mind (even as I concede that I do not know how God runs His world).

First, the two places from which Israel fled ignominiously in the last six years – from Lebanon like thieves in the night and from Gaza like marauders at high noon – have both risen against Israel with a vengeance. From those two places that are redolent of Jewish self-destruction, the missiles and rockets of the enemy flow incessantly. In 28 years, nothing has changed in Lebanon, except that to the traditional targets of Kiryat Shmonah and Metulla have been added Haifa, Safed, Tiberias and Hadera.

Second, exactly one year after Jews made 10,000 other Jews refugees in their own land, we now have more refugees in the land of Israel than we ever could have imagined in our worst nightmare. Refugees caused by our own hand begat refugees caused by the enemy, and the destruction of Jewish homes and businesses in Gush Katif and Shomron by our own hand begat the destruction of many more Jewish homes and businesses by the enemy. Those who sow destruction will reap even more destruction.

Have any lessons been learned? No, unfortunately. Prime Minister Olmert himself has announced that this war will be followed by further retreats from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and the Left and media elites have already started the new drumbeat. “Peace” will again require the expulsion of Jews and surrender of territory, and those who would save the State of Israel by dismembering and relinquishing the land of Israel have only been – bizarrely – emboldened by this conflict.

And that engenders the third irony: the havoc and mayhem in the north of Israel did not filter down to the center of the country, in which life – except for the influx of refugees – proceeded as normal. Shops, cafes, malls and playgrounds were full of vibrant activity. Baruch Hashem. But for many, this illusion of serenity simply ratified the policy conclusions of the government that retreat has no consequences, weakness has no real penalty, and a multinational force (as if that has never been tried before) can work its magic in the rest of YESHA as well as in Lebanon.

There is afoot a concerted effort to deny that the expulsions and retreats of the last few years have any connection or relevance to the current crisis, as there is an ongoing effort to whitewash the difficulties the IDF – which was cynically exploited and used to expel Jews – is experiencing in this conflict. Certainly, we must express our gratitude and appreciation for our soldiers’ professionalism, self-sacrifice and bravery, and pray for their success and welfare. But is it not true as well that we are the ones who exult that “they come with chariots and horses, and we come with the power of the remembrance of the name of God” (Tehillim 20:8)?

As much as we value and encourage human endeavor, it is ultimately God’s will that prevails and we are only successful when we subjugate our hearts and minds to Heaven.

We need to look back with contrition and humility in order to look ahead with any confidence to the new challenges and confrontations. We cannot change anything in our national lives – and nothing will change – unless and until we repent the sins of Oslo and the crimes of Gush Katif. Those twin events – spiritual calamities and strategic disasters – are still the underpinnings of Israeli political life and gloomy harbingers of a darker future unless we the people, the Jews of Israel and of the exile, evince a desire to change and transform the foundations of our national existence.

Yehoyakim was killed long before the churban. Although his brother Tzidkiyahu had his eyes put out by Nevuchadnetzar, it was Yehoyakim who could not see, and who in his arrogance renounced the Torah and denied the reality that was before him.

It is not too late, but the point of no return is rapidly approaching. The strategic conduct of the war will yet be scrutinized, but the spiritual dimension must always be paramount for us. Anyone who thinks that this is all about Iran and Syria is as foolish as those who thought the churban was all about Babylon and Rome. It is not about Nasrallah, any more than the churban was about Nevuchadnetzar and Titus. That shortsightedness is a symptom of the disease – the sin – of Yehoyakimism.

One can argue, on a strategic level, that Israel must learn to target the assets of the enemy, and they have failed to do so, preferring the sound and fury of a relentless aerial bombing. But as the Arabs perceive this as a religious war, religion is a powerful tool that must be utilized against them.

There are certainly Islamic assets in the land of Israel whose existence might be endangered if Islam pursues a war of extermination against the State of Israel. We need not fear “riling up” the Arab world – it is always riled up about something, whether perpetrated by Danes, Spaniards, Dutchmen, Englishmen, Russians, Frenchmen, Americans or Jews. Identify those assets, and fight terrorists and guerillas on a different battlefield. And let the government apologize for, and forever renounce, the policies of retreat, surrender and expulsion that have brought us today’s predicament. It is imperative, even at the war’s end, to recall the proximate cause of the war’s beginning.

More important, on a spiritual level, we desperately need a new generation of Jewish leaders imbued with the wisdom, spirit, and values of Torah to emerge and finally bury the illusions of the past, spark a wave of teshuvah, rekindle the mystique of the Jewish people that has been lost, lead the fight against the evil that threatens to consume the entire world, and be the catalysts for the spiritual revolution of mankind.

That is our task and our destiny; only Yehoyakimism can hold us back. The future of the world may depend on our internal success in this noble undertaking.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun of Teaneck, New Jersey, and the author of the new book “A Prophet for Today: Contemporary Lessons from the Book of Yehoshua” (Gefen Publishing House).

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The Real Debate – Jewish Press – 11/3/04

Posted on November 3, 2004 | Comments Off

The struggle today in the land of Israel should re-ignite a debate that has existed in the Jewish world for at least 100 years – albeit submerged for long periods of time – between those who perceive Eretz Yisrael primarily as a vehicle for the sanctification of Hashem’s name and the fulfillment of the mitzvot and those who see it as a purely political, secular entity – a homeland and refuge for Jews.

There are some gradations on each side, and surely some embrace aspects of both, but the issue ultimately comes down to which is the higher value: the mitzvah of yishuv Eretz Yisrael or the State of Israel – Which is the means, and which is the end? Is the State of Israel the means to optimally fulfilling the mitzvah of settling the Land of Israel – in which case a State of Israel that seeks to suppress or restrict Jewish settlement loses some of its legitimacy? Or is yishuv Eretz Yisrael simply the means to establish the geographical framework of the State of Israel, in which case the State – like any state – retains the right to restructure its borders as it pleases?

This distinction is anything but theoretical. It clarifies the premises of the two sides in the original Oslo debate, removed from the sparring over security and terrorism, and elucidates the contrasting arguments in the current dispute over the right, obligation or propriety of Jewish soldiers to refuse orders to forcibly expel Jews from Gush Katif and destroy their homes. The coming cataclysm – no matter what the vote was last week or next year – is over this issue: What does the Land of Israel mean to the people of Israel?

This issue is partially obscured by the compelling personal dilemma facing every soldier who receives orders to deport his fellow Jews, in which there are respected rabbis on both sides. Certainly this question is not for me to decide, but it would behoove advocates – active or passive – of the expulsion to employ a stronger argument than the alleged obligation of every soldier to follow orders without regard to morality or conscience.

There is a sad, bitter irony in anticipating Jewish soldiers saying “I was only following orders” after dragging elderly Jews from their homes. For Jews, that phrase – a staple of our enemies in the not-too-distant past – has an especially discordant, grating ring.

That is not to say that the “expulsion is the Holocaust.” Such comparisons are as ridiculous as they are odious, and do such a disservice to defenders of Israel that one wonders whether those who utter such remarks are disinformation agents of the government designed to discredit all legitimate opposition.

But the notion that soldiers must blindly follow all orders has been discredited for quite some time, and such refusal – in cases of immoral acts against enemies – has been enshrined in the Geneva Conventions as obligatory. Soldiers are often prosecuted for unseemly acts they committed that were ordered by their superiors. At the very least, those who advocate turning the Gaza Strip into the Pale of Non-Settlement should find a better justification than merely parroting that “soldiers must blindly follow orders.”

On the other hand, an army cannot function if soldiers question every order and scrutinize every decision of their commanders. If soldiers asked a she’elah to their poskim every time a sensitive issue arose – e.g., “does the danger to my life supersede the order to enter this building or capture this hill?” – military discipline and effectiveness would collapse. The conundrum then is to devise a system that permits refusal on moral but not operational grounds, but that does not always lend itself to easy resolutions. Certainly every society’s moral norms define what is legitimate or illegitimate behavior, but the dilemma here presents a unique dimension.

Indeed, the two sides in this debate reflect the two conceptions of the land of Israel. If the paramount value is the State, and the army is the instrument of the State, then refusal to participate in any legitimate operation of the State is unjustified. If, however, the paramount value of the State is as the vehicle for fulfilling the mitzvah of settling the land, then an order to dismantle a settlement is illegitimate as it serves to negate the essential function of the State itself.

Will widespread refusal by soldiers to obey orders threaten Israel’s democracy? Certainly, it is to be hoped that the very threat of military disobedience will deter the government from pursuing a policy that might provoke civil war and split the nation. Democracy is an admirable form of government, but its limitations, and the ease with which it can be corrupted, are on full display here.

Surely supporters of a candidate for prime minister have a right to be disappointed, even infuriated and disgusted, by a leader who before the election ridicules and disparages his opponent’s platform of unilateral withdrawal, and then shortly after the election embraces it wholeheartedly. Yet, that is exactly what Prime Minister Sharon did, without explanation and with obvious contempt for the electorate, the norms of democracy, and for his erstwhile opponent Amram Mitzna.

It would surely be devastating to have the unity of the nation torn asunder by the mass refusal of soldiers to join a military operation directed against their fellow citizens, rather than their common enemy. On the other hand, unleashing a people’s army against its fellow citizens is equally, if not more, devastating; and, one could cogently argue, the first shot in a tragic civil war. Perhaps, then, the call for refusal is best understood for its deterrent effect – a call to a wayward government to regain its senses – and as a reiteration of the mitzvah of yishuv Eretz Yisrael as the primary function and purpose of the State.

How did we reach such a sad state of affairs, and how can we extricate ourselves? In Parshat Lech Lecha, Avraham, promised the land of Israel for his descendants, asked Hashem, “How can I know that I will inherit the land?” Hashem answered several verses later that “you will surely know that your descendants will be strangers in a land not theirs for four hundred years,” an immediate reference to the sojourn in Egypt, but, as Rashi notes, a vision of the tribulations and darkness of all the future exiles.

But how does this answer Avraham’s question?

Avraham asked a very profound question: How can I know that my descendants will inherit this land? How can I be guaranteed that they will always be worthy of the land of Israel? Indeed, how can I be guaranteed that they will even want it? Maybe they will prefer to live in Teaneck? Maybe they will dwell in the land of Israel but tire of it, and be tempted to abandon it to their neighbors?

Hashem answered by putting Avraham into a deep slumber, and affording him a vision of the future exiles. The guarantor of our possession of the land of Israel is, paradoxically, exile. Only a nation with a concept of exile – only a nation that feels itself in exile – can ever remain permanently bonded to its land and its past. The institution of exile, not the factual reality of exile, safeguards our national identity and our ineradicable relationship with the land of Israel. Most people who move to a new land lose their national character and assimilate into the host country. Eighty percent of Americans marry outside their ethnic background. They assume a new national identity, as Americans. Jews are different.

Exile for Jews is a curse, but it is also contains a blessing. It is a punishment, but a constructive punishment – as dispensed by a good parent who wisely disciplines an unruly child. It guaranteed that as a nation we would never be destroyed or disappear but would always remain connected to the Torah and the Land, despite the political machinations, the corruption, the hypocrisy and the desecration of Hashem’s name. That connection is a metaphysical one, and cannot be lost for a moment or a millennium.

It is fascinating, therefore, that the majority of Israeli opposition to the surrender of Gaza and the appeasement of terrorists comes from the religious community, which understands the philosophical concept of exile, and the community of immigrants – former Americans, Russians, Sefardim, etc. – who lived and remember the reality of exile. The average Israeli, who never tasted the bitterness of exile, has developed other priorities.

When Yaakov slept and dreamt in Parshat Vayetzei, the Torah says that he awoke and prophesied. The Torah never says that Avraham awoke, because Avraham’s vision is the pattern of our existence: exile and return, exile and return, exile and return. Whether we are trapped again in the downward spiral of that pattern or can overcome it is the question of the immediate future. It will require looking beyond the smokescreen of soldiers and their orders and to the real question of what is Israel – a land like all lands or the eternal gift of Hashem to the Jewish people, the ideal setting for the fulfillment of the Torah’s commandments.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun of Teaneck, New Jersey.

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