So What is Your Solution?
by: Moshe Feiglin
Founder and President, Manhigut Yehudit
10 Iyar, 5766 (May 8 �06)

This article, translated and excerpted from Moshe Feiglin's new book,
The War of Dreams, was originally written on Kislev 23, 5761 (Dec. 20, 2000).

In Israel's younger days, the famous slogan was, "We came to the Land to build it and to be built." A very nice slogan with a seemingly symmetric formula. "We came" equals "to build and to be built." But there are two unknowns in the formula. It is clear that we came and it is clear that we are building. What is not clear is who are "we" and what is "to be built?"

The people who came thought the "we" meant "the Jews." But for the Zionist leadership at the time "we" meant a new nation: the Israelis. This new nation had no obligatory connection to Judaism. On the contrary, the Israelis divested themselves of the ghetto hunchback and adopted a new, cosmopolitan and modern identity.

For most of those who came to Israel, "to be built" meant "to be built as a complete Jew," with the dimension of the Land of Israel filling the gap that the exile had left wide open. But for the minority in control, "to be built," meant to be reprogrammed with a new identity and completely new cultural codes.

The leadership triumphed, and in the State born in the Land of Israel there was a majority of Jews by birth that spoke Hebrew. This summed up their connection to Judaism.

The cultural codes turning the wheels in the State of Israel are a concoction borrowed from other nations. They have nothing to do with Jewish culture -- and for that matter -- with any culture at all. The culture of a nation is like a glove fitted to the hand. When it doesn't fit, it is irrelevant. The Israeli nation has no culture.

Israel's attempt to be just an ordinary country has not been received with understanding by the nations of the world -- not by our overt Islamic enemies and not by our more concealed Christian enemies. They are not willing to play the game and to accept the new costume that the Jews are wearing. What they see in front of them is Jews, and it is against the Jews that they fight.

"So what is your solution?" the Israeli television interviewer probed.

"The solution is to be a Jew," I began to answer.

"Fine, fine, but what is your practical solution?" he cut me off. And in truth, it is hard for a person who sees Judaism as simply personal observance to imagine a reality in which Judaism encompasses all facets of life and provides solutions to national dilemmas.

In other words, when the interviewer asked me for my solution, he was actually asking, "What is your solution to my problem?" And when I answered that the solution is to be a Jew, I was actually saying that the solution is for him to emerge from his obsession, and that his problem is not my problem at all.

Israeli thinking insists that we are just an ordinary country, and that our destiny and our existence are one and the same. Thus, the pinnacle of our aspirations is to achieve some sort of arrangement with our neighbors that will allow us to exist.

But Jewish thinking has a completely different perspective. We have a Divine destiny and it is only that destiny that justifies our existence and makes it possible. Thus the pinnacle of our aspirations is the fulfillment of our destiny. Any obstacle in the path of that fulfillment is an enemy. There is not and there cannot be peace with it.

A person with Israeli thinking will necessarily come up with slogans like "Only Sharon will bring peace" and will axiomatically surrender Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. But for a person with Jewish thinking, peace in and of itself will never be a goal. For him it is preferable to be killed and not to surrender the Temple Mount, the cardinal tool for the fulfillment of our destiny.

If one's only goal is to achieve "peace" he will find himself in relentless retreat. But a person whose goal is the fulfillment of Jewish destiny does not see Arab murderousness as an essential problem, but rather as a local obstacle that is promptly dealt with. He of course does not negotiate with murderers, but fights them with the intent of destroying them.

Because neither the Right nor the Left have adopted the Jewish perspective, they will both surrender and retreat -- not stopping until Israel's inevitable collapse, G-d forbid.

The simple truth is now rising to the surface. The State of Israel has two choices: To be Jewish or not to be at all.

It is sometimes more difficult to explain this to religious Jews, because they see Judaism as a religion and they feel that they are already doing what they can. But the solution is more than just to be religious. The solution is to acquire national perspective, culture and ideals that are Jewish. The solution is to be Jews.