Reconstituting a Torah Nation in the Land of Israel (Part II)

Please note: this is a direct continuation of Reconstituting a Torah Nation in the Land of Israel (Part I).

The Establishment Right

If things had been left up to the Jewish taskmasters, we would have been slaves forever, G-D forbid. We would have had well meaning Jews fighting to improve our slavery conditions, but slaves we would have remained if Moshe did not come and do Hashem’s bidding.

What we don’t realize is that slaves we would have been, and slaves we are now.

Virtually every sector of Israeli society is enslaved to the rules of the game created by the elites. I won’t speak of the left for not only are they enslaved, but they actively support those who enslave us. Rather, I will speak of the right. I will begin explaining through the following story: The story took place during Hanukkah in 2023. 200 Jewish activists dubbed their protest "the Maccabee March;" they were set to go up on Har Habayit and demand that the state take control of it. Certainly, the sentiments are commendable, no doubt.

There is, however, a glaring issue: they called it "the Maccabee March." The Maccabees would never in a thousand years have demanded the Hellenists to take control of Har HaBayit. You don’t ask a G-Dless establishment that stands against Hashem’s Torah to take bold Jewish action. First of all, you don’t want globalist bootlickers to be in charge of Har Habayit, and second of all, you can’t expect them to actually take control; that would disrupt the leftist order far too much. For them, it’s a cute story that Har HaBayit was in our hands for a moment, but Moshe Dayan decided to give it to the Muslim occupation, and that’s that, don’t disrupt the order. What do we need Har Habayit for anyway? the leftist elite asks. A temple? Forget about the temple! We, the leftists and globalists, are your temple, your protector, your big brother…so would say the Supreme Court and their friends (perhaps not out loud, and perhaps not so overtly), G-D forbid.

The Maccabee March was just a microcosm of what one finds on the establishment right. These are well meaning people with the right values, but no vision – certainly not a Torah vision. They care about Torah values. However, if you ask them how to build a Torah society, they will admit they do not know, and frankly no one knows. We haven’t given it a go in thousands of years.

So, when it comes to society building, we all revert to whatever structures exist and are familiar to us. Unfortunately, that familiar structure today is called democracy. In theory, democracy tells you that your voice matters, that your vote matters, that your peaceful protest matters. These are all mechanisms by which you can apparently achieve change.

But I believe this is all an illusion. First of all, democracy glorifies subjectivity of the masses; it dictates that if enough people think that something objectively immoral is actually moral, then it is now moral, even if Hashem says otherwise.

Second of all, democracy is the most efficient mechanism by which to placate a society. It happens to be that you don’t necessarily need a majority to dictate the direction of a country. All you need is for people to believe that they live in a democracy and whatever comes out of this democracy is indeed a reflection of the majority’s will…regardless of whether it is or isn’t.

Furthermore, in a democracy, people feel that there is a system through which they can change society, whether it be through votes, peaceful protests, etc. And if they haven’t changed society yet, it’s because they haven’t worked the system well enough. It’s a perfect recipe for making people feel that the system is fair while they run around in circles trying to change it. If people believe that we live in a democracy, elites can easily make people feel like their voice matters; meanwhile, the elites can do whatever they need without the people feeling too alienated.

On a related note, one can observe this phenomenon among the crowd that advocates for ascending Har HaBayit for daily prayer; which is truly a most noble effort. They celebrate every small victory they receive from the government without realizing that the approach is unsustainable. For instance, it used to be that you couldn’t move your lips on Har HaBayit without getting arrested. Today, Baruch Hashem, we can pray on Har HaBayit… but without Tefillin, Tallit, and a Siddur.

And so, Jews patiently wait until enough Jews ascend Har HaBayit and vote in another one of their guys (like Itamar Gen Gvir) so they can eventually wear Tefillin, Tallit, and bring a Siddur up there. I am not saying we can’t benefit from low-hanging fruits, but I am saying that one has to realize that this approach has a natural dead end. As long as we wait for a G-Dless establishment to make room for our next move on Har HaBayit, we are at their mercy. If we want to be able to fulfill Hashem’s Torah, do we want to be at the mercy of a system that was established to oppose Hashem’s Torah? Is it they who will approve the construction of the Beit HaMikdash? Surely not. 

Democracy will run us ragged trying to get every new Torah action approved. And yet, every single thing that does get approved has a long-term cost attached to it. The cost becomes apparent when it is no longer in the elites’ interest to allow the said thing to continue. Gush Katif was a perfect example. Gush Katif was a beautiful settlement, but once Ariel Sharon and the elites deemed Gush Katif too burdensome to deal with due to American pressure to give it up to the Arabs as part of a "peace deal," Sharon turned on 10,000 Jews and expelled them in just a few days. The rest is history – we all know the situation with Gaza firing upon Israelis for years, as well as the Shemini Atzeret massacre, came about as direct results of this desecration of Hashem’s name. 

Back to Har HaBayit. Be’ezrat Hashem, we will soon get Tefillin and Tallit up to Har Habayit, but in doing so, one should know this is far from the end game. The end game is the Beit HaMikdash, Be’ezrat Hashem soon. The elites will never concede to this – at least not as long as they avoid doing teshuva. It doesn’t matter how many Ben Gvirs we get in the government. There will be a natural dead end where we will realize that we can’t dance around the subject anymore: we must build a Beit HaMikdash, and the elites will come down on all the “progress” made. After all, the progress came from their system. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to take something away if they deem it no longer in their interest?

We find in the Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 33b that Rebbi Yehuda exclaims, “How pleasant are the deeds of this nation (Rome)! They built marketplaces, they built bridges, they built bathhouses….” to which Rebbi Shimon Bar Yohai responds, “Everything they established, they established only for their own benefit. Marketplaces – to place prostitutes there. Bathhouses – to pamper themselves. Bridges – to collect taxes.” Anything the elites give to us, whether it is the ability to expand a settlement or a concession on Har Habayit, is done with enough room for them to be able to stab us in the back when it is necessary. They create the strings, and we attach ourselves to them as they dangle temporary “progress” in front of us. 

Unfortunately, the establishment Dati-Leumi right wing believes that this Hellenist state, which answers to the West and ultimately to globalists (much like the Hellenist Jews of yore answered to the Assyrian Greeks), can be worked with to achieve the geulah. They don’t practically conceive of the idea that we will need to appoint a Davidic leader, a Kohen Gadol, re-establish a Sanhedrin in order to build a Torah society Be’ezrat Hashem. In their eyes, that belongs to some future time not practically connected to this one; it will naturally, seamlessly evolve from the current system that exists, or so they think.

The establishment right wing does not understand that the current system is existentially against being a unique nation, a nation of priests, a holy nation, and a light unto the other nations. We are meant to be a nation isolated from foreign influences, developing a unique relationship with the Creator of the universe in the land He gives us, according to the Torah He gives us. This unique relationship must serve as a light unto the nations, and they will come here to seek out this light, to understand how to serve Hashem, like we find in the days of Shlomo HaMelekh. This is not a vision that the current system can allow for. 

And so, you may ask, how did the Maccabee March end? Well, the authorities told the activists that their presence would cause too much of a ruckus, so they should go back home. And what did the marchers do? Just like Maccabees of yore, they packed their bags and obeyed the Hellenist establishment. If the establishment, the democratic structures that we can’t see ourselves getting anywhere without, told us to turn around, then I guess we must turn around. This lack of vision keeps the establishment and its G-Dless vision in power, unfortunately. I stand by the statement I made earlier: as long as we seek to work through the system, we will forever be slaves to the system. As long as we don’t look into Hashem’s instruction, His Torah, we will lack vision, and whatever vision we do have will be hijacked by the current systems that are in place. 

This is indeed the very reason that thousands of Israelis in Gush Etzion voted for Yaron Rosenthal, the Gush Etzion Council head who appealed to Betzalel Smotrich to tear down the homes built on the hill near Metzad. These people certainly believe in Hashem and His Torah. But they can’t see the Torah’s vision being enacted through anything but the establishment. At best, according to their perspective, the establishment is organized, it has the best interest of Am Yisrael in mind, it represents the first flowering of the redemption.

At worst, they believe it is a practical vehicle, a government which can be kashered and used to direct us to the geulah. They see no contradiction between the interests of this “vehicle” and the interests of Hashem’s Torah. They don’t really understand the Torah's vision, and quite frankly, they are scared to try to understand it. It is a vision that does not synchronize with the majority of right-wingers' western sensibilities.

After all, Yaron Rosenthal’s voter base doesn’t really think we are fighting the Arabs as a nation; they think we are just fighting the bad terrorists. They don’t grasp the concept that it is a Muslim’s responsibility, no matter where they are, to see land they conquered at some point in history as under the “din” of islam. To expel or fight a nation en masse makes Yaron’s voter base cringe.

Additionally, this same voter base also believes that it is irresponsible for Jews to own plots of land. Tell that to our ancestors who entered Eretz Yisrael by the millions and received their permanent nahalot, their tribal inheritances of land!

The claims I heard range from "there is not enough space for everyone to own a plot of land," all the way to "there is not enough security if people live on plots of land." To me, this sounds like apologetics for the crammed city life all these voters came from. Just take a drive through Eretz HaKodesh and you will realize how much empty space there is; unsurprising, since more than 90% of the population is stuffed into apartment buildings.

Furthermore, someone will have to explain how living in high rises provides more security from enemy missiles. I would argue that owning plots of land in Eretz HaKodesh would infuse them with increased appreciation for the land they are fighting for, much more than living in a high-rise apartment complex. 

So, why would these Jews vote for anyone but the Yaron Rosenthal and Betzalel Smotrich types? After all, like their voter base, they do not want to kick Arabs off the land, and they do not want Jews to own plots of land. These politicians' reasons are of course different from the reasons of their voters, but the outcome is the same: Jews who conquered the land get kicked off; the right-wing politicians and the developers make good money building new apartment complexes; and the voter base feels we are “expanding” in Judea and Samaria responsibly through the organized actions of their beloved state. The reasons fed to the voters for why we have to settle "responsibly" and the real reasons are very different. However, the lack of vision on the part of the general populace leaves them vulnerable to be manipulated into anti-Torah agendas. 

And so, the establishment right wing deems any action outside of the establishment as irresponsible and even criminal. As such, they vote for figures like Rosenthal and Smotrich, who in truth could care less about Yishuv Eretz Yisrael. Rosenthal and his ilk would never lift a finger against murderous Arabs taking up more and more land by the day – 97,000 illegal Arab houses have been built in Area C, which is legally Israeli-controlled territory.

But the moment that G-D fearing Jews do any such thing, the Rosenthals of the State will gladly kick those Jews off the land and claim that these holy Jews are the thieves and demonstrate that he really meant to stuff Jews into apartments in glorified ghettos all along. Jews settling on several dunams, living on the land the way our ancestors did? That’s irresponsible, his voter base agrees, and our suffering continues.