hellinger - a clearly democratic rz philosophy - the early thought of yl

7/31/2019 Hellinger - A Clearly Democratic RZ Philosophy - The Early Thought of YL

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A CLEARLY DEMOCRATIC RELIGIOUS-ZIONISTPHILOSOPHY: THE EARLY THOUGHT OF

YESHAYAHU LEIBOWITZ

Moshe Hellinger

Bar-Ilan University

Abstract

In his early teaching, from the 1920s through the 1950s, Yeshayahu Leibowitz

(19031994) stands out as one of the most fascinating religious Zionist thinkers. He

strives to establish a Jewish democratic state whose democratic aspects will be chan-

neled toward the establishment of an exemplary society, one that can express its

religious roots within a modern democratic context.

Leibowitz thus attaches enormous importance to democracy in terms of both its

political components and its modern Orthodox aspirations. In this respect, he is the

most radical spokesman of the Neo-Orthodox notion of Torah withDerekh Eretz, astranslated into religious-Zionist terms.

1. Introduction

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (Riga, Latvia, 1903Jerusalem, 1994) was prob-

ably the most renowned philosopher in the State of Israel, and pos-

sibly the most prominent and influential one, since its foundation.

He was also one of the major Jewish philosophers of the 20th cen-

tury. From the very beginning of his career, and especially during

the last twenty-five years of his life, his challenging and provocativeteaching influenced many people. As a charismatic lecturer at the

Hebrew University from 1935 onwards, he shaped the thought of

his students in the disciplines of science and the philosophy of sci-

ence. As a long-time editor of the Hebrew Encyclopedia, he made

invaluable contributions to that vital enterprise, not least of which

was his own image as a religious intellectual distinguished by a

Renaissance-style versatility. According to his student and colleague,

Aviezer Ravitzky, Leibowitz was, above all, the one who made us

re-examine, from scratch, all the beliefs and views that we formerly

held: in theology and ideology, in ethics and politics. Even if later


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254 moshe hellinger

1 Aviezer Ravitzky, Values and Impressions: on Yeshayahu Leibowitz (in Hebrew),in Avi Sagi (ed.), Yeshayahu Leibowitz: His World and Philosophy ( Jerusalem: KeterPublishing House, 1995), p. 16. For biographical details on Yeshayahu Leibowitz,see Ratziti Lishol Otkha Prof. Leibowitz: Mikhtavim el Yeshayahu Leibowitz u-Mimenu (Iwanted to ask you, Prof. Leibowitz: letters to and from Yeshayahu Leibowitz), ed.Mira Ofran et al. ( Jerusalem: Keter, 1999), pp. 1112. An intellectual biographyof Yeshayahu Leibowitz is still waiting to be written.

I would like to thank Ms. Ruth Bar-Ilan for her translation of this article andthe excerpts embedded in it, as well as the journals readers for their insightful

comments.2 On the centrality of the theology underlying religious-Zionist ideology in itsvarious nuances, see Dov Schwartz, Faith at the Crossroads: A Theological Profile ofReligious Zionism, trans. Batya Stein (Leiden: Brill, 2002). On Leibowitzs strong oppo-sition to the religious-Zionist theological edifice, see ibid., pp. 21015. On the cen-trality of messianism as a constant underlying layer in religious Zionist thought andits involvement in delegitimizing secularism and modernityas well as on religiousZionist thinkers such as Eliezer Goldman (not to mention Leibowitz), who haveinternalized both these orientationssee Dov Schwartz, Challenge and Crisis in RabbiKooks Circle (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 2001), chs. 3, 4.

3 Avi Sagi and Gilli Zivan represent a more inclusive approach in the study ofreligious Zionism which considers ways of thinking such as Leibowitzs and Goldmans

as part of the intellectual world of religious Zionism. See for instance: Avi Sagi, AChallenge: Returning to Tradition (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 2003),chs. 3, 11; Gilli Zivan, A Different Religious Zionism: From Modernism to Post-

on we rebuilt them, despite his attacks, they changed in character

and were no longer the same, neither in style nor in content.1

Leibowitz was known to the public both as a Zionist and as areligious thinker, but he insisted on keeping the two worlds apart.

He consistently preached a radical separation of religion and state,

thus rejecting the most fundamental religious-Zionist assumptions.

And yet this particular perspective is characteristic of his later thought,

which he formulated after he had changed his outlook and moved

away from the religious-Zionist world. In his early work, he moved

in the opposite direction.

In his studies on religious Zionism, Dov Schwartz systematically

develops the concept that the ideological edifice of religious Zionismis from its very beginning grounded in theological premises, partic-

ularly those of a theo-messianic nature. It is not surprising that promi-

nent thinkers who disagreed with these ideas, such as Yeshayahu

Leibowitz and Eliezer Goldman, whose thinking was close to that

of Leibowitz in several respects, were pushed out of the circle of

influence.2 It is possible, however, to present a more pluralistic posi-

tion concerning the character of religious Zionism and the possibil-

ities that arise from its world.3 This article maintains that in striving


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a clearly democratic religious-zionist philosophy 255

Schwartz (eds.), A Hundred Years of Religious Zionism, vol. 3: Philosophical Aspects (inHebrew) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2003), pp. 32350.

4 Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Torah u-Mitzvot ba-Zeman ha-Zeh (Torah and Mitzvoth inour Days) (Tel-Aviv: Massadah, 1954). This text, which embodies most of his ear-liest teaching, was incorporated, with certain changes, in Yahadut, Am Yehudi u-MedinatYisrael ( Judaism, the Jewish People, and the State of Israel) ( Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: Schocken, 1973). The latter, his most well-known collection of articles, was

composed during the period in which he developed his later teaching. Various arti-cles taken from both works were translated into English and published togetherwith others in the following collection: Yeshayahu Leibowitz,Judaism, Human Values,

to create a meaningful linkage between his neo-Orthodox worldview

and his Zionist identity, the early Leibowitz established himself as a

religious-Zionist thinker par excellence, though some of his positionswent against what was acceptable to most of that camp.

The extensive literature that deals with Leibowitz is primarily con-

cerned with his later and more familiar thought, but even the recently

growing research on his earlier teaching overlooks a major point:

Leibowitzs strong commitment to democracy as the foundation of

his religious-Zionist outlook. As a democratic thinker, the early

Leibowitz seems to epitomize the religious-Zionist integration of tra-

dition and modernity, of religious law (Halakhah) and democracy, and

of particular Jewish interiority and universal exteriority. In followingthis path, the early Leibowitz represents a promising potential that

has yet to be realized in religious-Zionist thinking, either in its polit-

ical democratic aspects or in its religious ones.

Leibowitzs early thought emerged in the late 1920s, when he was

politically active among Tzeirei haMizrachi (Mizrachi Youth) and

Brit Chalutzim Datiyyim (Bachad; the Alliance of Religious Pioneers)

in Germany; it continued to develop up until his journal articles of

the 1950s. It was a type of religious-Zionist thought that made a

radical statement in the religious sphere and had a clearly democ-

ratic bent, the kind of thought that was a fresh and unique inter-

pretation of the Jewish and the democratic worlds alike.

In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to highlight this pro-

found synthesis of Judaism and democracy, which merges Leibowitzs

religious and political teaching into a systematic whole. After intro-

ducing a number of his early positions, I will turn to an analysis of

his teaching as it emerges from his important work on Torah (in its

broadest meaning, as the entire canon of Jewish religious teaching)and the mitzvot (commandments) in contemporary society.4 I will


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256 moshe hellinger

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992; 1995). Another important sourcein Hebrew for Leibowitzs early positions is Ratziti Lishol Otkha (supra, note 1),which contains some of his publications in the German journals Zion and Choser

Bachad. For the convenience of the readers, the references to the excerpted textsare given in parenthesis following the citations. The essays in Leibowitzs Torahu-Mitzvot ba-Zeman ha-Zeh that are cited in this article are listed in full at the end

conclude the discussion by analyzing the process that put an end to

Leibowitzs clear-cut religious-Zionist period.

2. The German Period: The Late 1920s and the Early 1930s

Leibowitz began his public activity in the late 1920s as one of the

leaders ofTzeirei haMizrachi, the Mizrachi youth movement (founded

in 1927) in Germany. This movement believed in the importance of

combining nationality, religion, and socialism. This approachfits with

the marked socialist bent of secular Zionist ideology, the very same

ideology that later on led to the foundation of the kibbutzim andthe formation of the Mapai (Israeli Labor) Party, which eventually

became a nation-building party. According to the central Zionist

vision, the Jewish state should come into being through the collec-

tive efforts of organized groups of laborers committed to building a

reformed and properly functioning society that would present an alter-

native to the capitalist world. It is precisely this socially orientated

productive activity that would serve as the foundation of the renascent

Israeli nation, and as the antithesis of the exilic, non-productive prac-

tices of petty commerce.

Tzeirei haMizrachi in Germany strove to set up pioneer religious-

communal training that could contribute to the establishment of an

exemplary model of a Jewish religious-pioneer society, which would

in turn implement its ideals in the Land of Israel and would also

put into practice the universal vision of Rabbi Samson Raphael

Hirsch, the leader of the neo-Orthodoxy in 19th century Germany.

The pioneer training was conducted at Rodges Farm, purchased in

1927. Brit Chalutzim Datiyyim, the alliance of religious pioneers, wasfounded in 1929 and coordinated the activities involved in ideolog-

ical and practical training. This is where what was to become the

Religious Kibbutz Movement (Kibbutz HaDati) came into being.

It would become the more modern and democratic stream of the


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5 On this, see Pinchas Rosenblitt, On the Mizrachi movement in Germany,inBe-Yisrael u-ba-Adam: Mivhar Maamarim (The Community of Israel and the Individual

Jew: A Selection of Articles), pp. 277313, esp. pp. 300313; Moshe Unna,BinyanAv: The Religious-Zionist Training Project in Its Early Stage in Germany (in Hebrew) (AlonShvut: Yad Shapira, 1989); Aryei Fishman,Judaism and Modernization on the ReligiousKibbutz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), ch. 4.

6 Aryei Fishman, The striving toward religious-experiential unity: the early arti-cles of Yeshayahu Leibowitz (in Hebrew), in Yeshayahu Leibowitz: His World andPhilosophy (supra, note 1), p.121. See as well Eliezer Goldman, Zionism as a ReligiousChallenge in the Thought of Yeshayahu Leibowitz (in Hebrew), in ibid., pp.17986.

Leibowitzs articles from this period were published in Zion 5 (1930): 6265; Zion1011 (1930): 142149; Choser Bachad (Adar 5692 = FebruaryMarch 1932):12;(Av 5692 = August 1932): 14. Excerpts from Leibowitzs publications of this period

religious camp in the 20th century.5 The young Leibowitz was involved

in the activities of the religious-Zionist movement in Germany in the

late 1920s and the early 1930s; he was even included amongst thetop candidates of the Mizrachi list in the elections for the 16th and

the 17th Zionist Congresses (in 1929 and 1931, respectively). During

that period, he wrote three programmatic articles.6 These articles

suggest that the young Leibowitz was a modern Orthodox thinker

par excellence, totally committed to the halakhic tradition and striv-

ing to produce a sound synthesis between Jewish Orthodoxy and

Western modernity.

As will be demonstrated subsequently, Leibowitzs synthesis of a

universal Western outlook with commitment to the Halakhah andthe traditional observance of the commandments eventually results

in the concept of a democratic halakhic Judaism with distinctly

radical attributes. This radicalism is manifested in the participatory

democratic model he adopts, which is characteristic of clearly left-

wing democratic ideas. It is even more visible in his efforts to cre-

ate a democratic halakhic community in which new halakhic legislation

is produced in response to demands from that very same public and

within a clearly democratic Jewish political framework, rather than

through the initiative of traditional religious leaders. Such a Jewish

democratic approach has no match in the Jewish world, not even

among halakhic thinkers who have largely internalized the basic assump-

tions of modern democracy, such as Rabbi Hayyim Hirschensonn,

Rabbi Yoseph Dov Halevi Soloveitchik, and Eliezer Berkovitch. Even

Eliezer Goldman, the orthodox thinker who in many respects was

closest to Leibowitzs world, was reluctant to move in such a radical

direction, as we shall see at the end of the present discussion, and


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7 Choser Bachad(Av 5692 = August 1932): 1, published in Fishman (supra, note 6),

perhaps this, too, led to Leibowitzs disillusionment with the possi-

bility of implementing his radical vision.

From the very beginning of his intellectual activity, Leibowitztended to present reality in a way that was simple and lucid (pro-

saic, in his later terminology), yet penetrating:

Vast is the contribution of the non-Jewish world and its culture. It iscomprehensive and embraces all the physical and conceptual elementsof reality, such as politics, economics, social relations and their pat-terns, science, art, and language. . . . Judaism is becoming more andmore a matter of cognition, artificially sustained alongside the realessence of life.7

According to Charles Liebman, the encounter between Jewish tra-

dition and modernity gave rise to two major modes of responses.

The Orthodox or neo-traditional response rejects the values of the

modern world. A more moderate approach, which is more in line

with modern Orthodoxy, accepts the modern world and yields three

ideal types (using Webers terminology) of response: (1) adjustment:

accommodating Jewish values along with modern ones; (2) com-

partmentalization: the separation of the religious and modern spheres

of life; and (3) expansion: combining the modernization of the sourceswith a purist stance according to which everything is already found

in traditional sources. The early Leibowitz is clearly an anti-

compartmentalist. In his programmatic essay from 1932, entitled

LiSheelat haTarbut (On the Question of Culture), Leibowitz

presents his modern Orthodox approach, which combines the appli-

cation of the Torah to all spheres of life and its accommodation of

the values of modernity:

We cannot agree to the notion that seclusion and escape from realityare the appropriate expression of an all-encompassing and intensiveJewish existence . . . We must insist that the belief and recognition thatthe Torah is ones obligation and task does not deplete ones spiritualwealth or diminishes ones interest in the facts and problems of cul-ture, and that one must take a stand in all of these matters accord-ing to the Torah. (Choser Bachad[Adar 5692 = FebruaryMarch 1932]:1, cited in Hebrew in Ratziti Lishol Otkha Prof. Leibowitz, pp. 32526)

According to Leibowitz, the Torah crisis brought about by the

pervasive secularization processes within the Jewish world was first


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8 Published in Goldman (supra, note 6), p.189; emphasis added.9 On Hirschs teaching see for instance Yona Immanuel (ed.), Rabbi Samson Raphael

Hirsch: His Teaching and His Methods(in Hebrew) ( Jerusalem: Ezra Movement, 1962);Mordechai Breuer, Modernity within Tradition: The Social History of Orthodox Jewry inImperial Germany, translated by Elizabeth Petuchowski (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1992), ch. 2; Eliezer Schweid,A History of Jewish Thought in Modern Times (inHebrew) ( Jerusalem: Hakkibutz Hameuchad and Keter Publishing Houses, 1977),pp. 291309.

10

In confronting the Reform Jews, who developed a universal, one-tier notionof Judaism, R. Hirsch wrote in 1857: Judaism is not a religion, the synagogue isnot a church, and the Rabbi is not a priest . . . Judaism embraces life as a whole . . .

and foremost a product of the exilic reality of the Jewish people.

The activity of the Jews within the confines of the ghetto inhibited

true religious creativity. The areas of life that were subject to theinfluence of the Torah were dictated by the surrounding non-Jewish

society. His statement is firm and clear: In the absence of a full

life there is no all-embracing Torah.8

Already, in this preliminary stage of Leibowitzs thought, the conflict

between religious obligations and the given reality plays an impor-

tant role. Eventually this conflict would become a major lynchpin

of Leibowitzs religious thought. According to Leibowitz, the Torah

as toratayyim, a teaching given to live by, requires one to struggle

hard in order to carry it out in the face of a harsh reality. Thisstruggle is possible only when the Torah is regarded as a teaching

meant to shape ones daily way of life in various areas, something

that was impossible in the exilic context. In this respect, there are

clear points of similarity and difference between the young Leibowitz

and the path blazed by Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, the founder of neo-

Orthodoxy in 19th-century Germany.9

In Frankfurt am Main, Rabbi Hirsch founded an independent,

observant community that set itself apart from the much larger,

Reform dominated, general Jewish community. As a separatist, he

followed the way of Hungarian-Jewish Orthodoxy. At the same time,

he displayed a positive attitude towards modern values in general and

humanist values in particular. The Orthodox community was required

to ground itself in the comprehensive, particularist-universalist idea

of Adam-Israel (mankind-the Jewish people). According to Rabbi

Hirsch, the Orthodox community must conduct itself in conformity

with a two-tier system of values: a layer of universal moral-cultural

values (mostly Kantian) underneath a layer of unique Torah-orientedvalues.10


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the will of Godthis is Judaism. The more intense ones Judaism, the more uni-versal ones outlooks and orientations and the closer one is to everything good and

proper, real and honest in art and science, in culture and education . . . All this istrue, however, provided that the Jew does not have to sacrifice his Judaism at thisnew stage, but manages to maintain it with greater perfection (published inMordechai Breuer, Chapters from a Biography, and cited in Yona Immanuel[supra, note 9], p. 35).

11 Jacob Katz, A House Divided: Orthodoxy and Schism in Nineteenth-Century CentralEuropean Jewry, translated by Ziporah Brody (Hanover, N.H.: Brandeis UniversityPress, 1998), ch. 22.

12 Zvi Kurzweil, The Modern Impulse of Traditional Judaism (Hoboken, N.J: Ktav,1985), ch. 2; Jonathan Sacks, Tradition in An Untraditional Age (London: VallentineMitchell, 1990), ch. 2.

13 Aryei Fishman,Judaism and Modernization (supra, note 5), ch. 2. At this point,

it should be noted that Isaac Breuer, Rabbi Hirschs grandson (who was one of thefascinating Jewish thinkers and ideologues in the first half of the 20th century) devel-oped an intricate ultra-Orthodox position that incorporated modern elements andattached great weight to populating the land of Israel and supporting the existenceof a sovereign Jewish state. Breuer became the spiritual guide of Poalei AgudatYisrael, a movement that was ultra-Orthodox but not anti-Zionist. Beueur himselfwas labeled an anti-Zionist Zionist; there is great affinity between him and Leibowitz.For instance, both of them were influenced by Kants philosophy and placed thelaw at the centre of their Jewish teaching. In any case, the movement ofTorah im

Derekh Eretz failed to take root, whether in Hirschs manifestation or Breuers moreZionist version, and actually vanished after the annihilation of German JewishOrthodoxy. Still, various components of its doctrine infiltrated the world of the

modern Ultra-Orthodox and that of the religious Zionists. On this matter, see MeirSeidler, Isaac Breuers Concept of Law, Jewish Law Association Studies 8 (2000)167171; Asher Dominik Biemann, Isaac Breuer: Zionist against His Will?Modern

It is noteworthy that Rabbi S. R. Hirsch viewed the Orthodox

community in a democratic light.11 He wanted Jews to be accepted

in Germany as equal citizens. Rabbi Hirschs great innovation wasin transferring the concept of a Jewish national-peoplehood to the

local communal level, while still holding on to solidarity with the

Jewish people as a whole. At the same time, his anti-Zionist stand,

which went hand in hand with his separatist approach vis--vis

Reform Jewry, reinforced the universalistic aspects of his teaching at

the expense of whatever emphasis on the national uniqueness of the

Jewish people.12 The great difference between his approach and

emerging modern Zionist Orthodoxy in Germany (with the young

Leibowitz as one of its outspoken speakers) lies precisely in this point.For Leibowitz and his comrades, a democratic religious-Zionist com-

munity could only function as a national community in the Land of

Israel. It is this assumption that led to the founding of the religious

kibbutz by the German wing of the Torah and Labor Movement.13


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14 See supra, note 7.15

Sagi,A Challenge(supra, note 3), ch. 16; Zivan, A Different Religious Zionism(supra, note 3), pp. 34446.16 From Choser Bachad(Av 5692 = August 1932): 2, cited (in Hebrew) in Fishman

The exilic reality was just one aspect of the Torah crisis. This cri-

sis intensified when the winds of modernity strengthened their impact

on the Jewish shtetl (village). In the first excerpt cited above, Leibowitzacknowledges the impact of modern culture, which embraces all

the physical and conceptual elements of reality.14 Here, Leibowitz

refers to the close connection between modernity and secularization,

which affects increasingly expanding areas of life by removing the

religious significance attached to them. Indeed, in his later thought,

he seems to have come to terms with the secularization of Jewish

life, so that the removal of metaphysics from religion is one of the

prominent elements in his thought at that stage.15 In the early days,

however, Leibowitz makes the opposite move, expanding the boundsof Halakhah ( Jewish law), as well as the scope of Judaisms meta-

physical elements. In his religious-Zionist approach, the sovereignty

of the Torah over extensive areas of life depends upon national sov-

ereignty. Thus, from the very beginning, Leibowitz establishes a con-

nection between modern Orthodoxy and the principle of national

self-definition, along with its explicit democratic elements (especially

the notion of popular sovereignty). Leibowitzs early religious teach-

ings turn naturally to the national and democratic arena in the effort

to create a Gemeinschaft, a true community:

The sovereignty of the Torah is doomed to become a mere slogan ifit does not involve the recognition that we must . . . struggle for thecreation of a Jewish national, cultural and social Gemeinschaft, which isself-contained and self-enclosed. Only such a Gemeinschaftcan serve asthe basis for the Torah as a comprehensive value of Jewish cultureand education, and as the factor that shapes the individual as a whole.16

The effort to establish of a sovereign Jewish community committed

to both the Torah and human reality in the modern age gave riseto Leibowitzs religious-Zionist teaching. This combined a meta-

physical concept of the Torah and a national-pioneer ideology in

the sense of creating an independent Jewish national and cultural

community, which is the only one that can serve as the foundation

for the emergence of the Torah as a formative factor in the culture


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262 moshe hellinger

17 From Choser Bachad (Av 5692 = August 1932):1, cited in ibid.18

On participatory democratic approaches, see Benjamin R. Barber, StrongDemocracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age(Berkeley: University of California Press,1984); Carol C. Gould, Rethinking Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

and education of the whole person.17 Leibowitzs position during

this period underlines the collective elements of Jewish identity. The

linkage between the principles of popular sovereignty, pioneering,and active nation-wide participation reflects the influence of a social-

democratic outlook on his world and his subscription to the princi-

ples of participatory democracy.18

3. The Israeli Period: The 1940s and the Early 1950s

Leibowitzs Zionist, modern Orthodox teaching, as elaborated in his

essays from the early 1930s, remained basically intact even manyyears after he had settled in the Land of Israel in 1935. He remained

within the confines of the religious-Zionist movement in spite of his

incisive criticism of it. In his article Hinnukh liMedinat haTorah

(Education for the Torah State), published in 1943, Leibowitz once

again refers to the modern revolution through which the private

domain is being swallowed up by the mundane-secular domain in

politics, economics, and science (Torah uMitzvot, p. 57). Due to mod-

ern secularization, religion has withdrawn into the private domain

and as a result, the Torah has ceased to be relevant for regulating

the public domain (ibid., pp. 5960). This has had detrimental con-

sequences as far as religious education was concerned: Religion lacks

any educational power because it has lost its significance in reality

and makes no demands with respect to controlling the decisive fac-

tors in present-day life (ibid., p. 60). Without restoring the public

and national significance of the Torah, there is no future for Jewish

education in the modern era, and here, in Leibowitzs eyes, lies

the importance of the alternative that religious Zionism can offer.Whoever is familiar only with the later stage of Leibowitzs thought,

which is extremely critical of religious Zionism, would be amazed

by the following praise:

The collocation [religious Zionism] does not mean a conjunction oftwo separate thingsreligion and nationality. Rather, it signifies an


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19 By its very nature, the modern world is a secularized world, which creates apluralistic consciousness due to the existence of a conceptual market state. Thetext most associated with this position is Peter L. Berger, The Heretical Imperative(Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1970). The dialectic between modernism and con-servatism is a well-recognized feature in the study of religious-Zionist thought. Seefor instance Sagi,A Challenge(supra, note 3), ch. 7. On this issue in the context ofthe Torah and Labor movement, especially among the thinkers of the ReligiousKibbutz Movement, see Fishman,Judaism and Modernization (supra, note 5), ch. 3.

20 A prominent figure, in terms of the public weight he carried among the cir-cles of the religious kibbutz, was Moshe Unnawho was clearly influenced by

Liebowitzs thought, see Moshe Hellinger, The Tension between Universal andParticular- Orientations within Religious Zionism and Its Consequences: The Torahand Labor Movement as a Test Case, Review of Rabbinic Judaism, vol. XI, no. 1

old-new way of looking at things through the lens of the people ofIsrael . . . It seems that in religious Zionism, religion assumes a differentmeaning, which was not accepted by our forefathers and our rabbis . . .In our conception, religion extends to areas and problems over which,according to their own feelingor even in their own mindthe ruleof the Torah does not apply. (ibid., pp. 6162)

Writing in the vein of religious Zionism in general and that of the

thinkers of the Torah and Labor movement in particular, Leibowitz

combines a modern consciousness of the significance of innovations

with the sentiment that this way restores things to their pre-exilic

glory.19 The linkage between the Torah, nationality, and social pio-

neering suggests the centrality of Leibowitz as a religious-Zionistthinker who made an important contribution to the effort to crys-

tallize the concept of the religious kibbutz. Although Leibowitz was

not affiliated with the religious kibbutz, he was amongst its ideo-

logical guides once he had settled in the Land of Israel.20 As a mod-

ern Zionist Orthodox thinker, he channeled most of his efforts toward

the claim that positing an alternative to a Torah state required

renewed legislation by the community of Torah and mitzvot observers,

who were committed to the future of the Torah as an all-embracing

Torah of life in a modern independent Jewish state.Significantly, Leibowitz did not formulate any systematic teaching

concerning the Torah State, an issue that was central to his early

thought, and, as a result, various questions remain unresolved. Amongst

them are the following: (1) Where is the boundary that separates his

outlook from Conservative Judaisms halakhic ideas? Apparently, the

Conservative term closest to describing Leibowitzs world is Solomon

Schechters Catholic Israel. One must distinguish, however, between


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264 moshe hellinger

Leibowitzs concept of legislation issued by all those who are loyal

to the Torah, which applies only to the Orthodox public, and

Schechters concept, which encompasses all Jewish denominationsalong with the differences between them. Concerning this point, it

seems that Leibowitz is more realistic than Schechter, but not

sufficiently so, as will emerge from the following arguments. (2) The

contrast repeatedly suggested by Leibowitznamely, that between

new halakhic creativity for the sake of the Torah, such as he him-

self is striving for, and novelty motivated by personal interests, such

as that endorsed by the Reform Jewsis not sharp enough. For

instance, is there room to consider changes in the Halakhah in view

of certain moral discontent that is personal but that, at the sametime, paves the way for the Torah as a teaching to live by in a

modern democratic age? (3) Is it possible that Leibowitzs campaign

for halakhic change for the sake of the Torah would eventually

weaken the Orthodox circles commitment to the Torah, in contrast

with the solid commitment among the ultra-Orthodox with whom

Leibowitz takes issue? Does Leibowitz really expect, contrary to any

accepted judicial concept, that someone who is not versed in the

halakhic world, and who has no scholarly background in issuing

halakhic rulings, would be equal to a Talmudic scholar in his abil-

ity to initiate a halakhic change? Leibowitzs teaching does not pro-

vide adequate answers to these questions. This may well be one of

the reasons why the religious kibbutz movement, to which Leibowitz

assigned the role of leading Torah-oriented halakhic creativity, refused

to follow him in this way. Be that as it may, one cannot ignore the

fact that, in itself, this goal suggests how Leibowitz internalized the

participatory democratic worldview, which by its very nature is anti-

elitist.Before engaging in a detailed discussion of this issue, which is also

central to an understanding of the synthesis between theology and

democracy in Leibowitzs conceptual worldview at that time, let me

dwell on some major principles of his teaching. These were subse-

quently formulated at length, but their foundations are already found

in his writings from the 1940s. His basic, well-known and continu-

ing argument is as follows:

Let me state, as a most simple starting point, a historical-empirical factthat does not depend on any ideology, any creed, or preconceptionabout the nature of Judaismthe fact that Judaism, as a specific his-


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21

On Leibowitzs dichotomous picture of the world see Pnina Leonov, On Isaiah Iand II (Leibowitz) (in Hebrew), Zehut3 (Summer 1983): 2336.

22 Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Science and Values (in Hebrew), Iyyun 42 (October

years of continuity, was embodied in one thing only: in practicalmitzvoth that coalesce into a systematic edifice in the form of theHalakhah. This alone is the objective, historical- empirical distinctionof Judaism, without attaching to it any subjective evaluation. (MM, 11)

While Leibowitzs approach to Judaism is clearly positivistic, as is

apparent from this excerpt, it is nonetheless more complex than the

above one-dimensional presentation of the Halakhah as an empiri-

cal reality. Leibowitz tends to dwell on a series of significant dichotomies

such as the holy and the profane, the service of God for its own

sake and not for its own sake, and the like.21 These dichotomies

became more pronounced in his later teaching, but what stands out

from the beginning is the major dichotomy that underlies his thought:objective nature versus the subjective human will. For Leibowitz,

nature is deterministic and objective. The natural sciences, accord-

ingly, strive toward an objective presentation of reality, in accor-

dance with human cognition, which is imposedon humans. Rational

scientific knowledge must be objective, and its place is within the

public domain of cognition, which is available to everyone. In con-

trast, the human personality is associated with ones subjective will

and is not conditional upon objective reality. This is why the human

sciences deal with the private domain. Following Kant, Leibowitz

believes that the connative element, rather than the cognitive one,

is the decisive factor in human personality. A voluntary decision does

not depend on reason or information, has no logical justification,

and is not imposed on an individual. In Leibowitzs words, as he

formulated the idea in the 1980s:

The will does not reflect what one knows (or thinks he knows) eitherabout oneself or about the objective data. Rather, it reflects ones per-

sonality. I consider volition an elementary component of human per-sonality, namely an element that does not derive from other elementsnor is it conditional upon outside factors. In other words, ones vol-untary action is not a matter of a conclusion he reaches on the basisof reality but rather a decision he makes in view of his own relationto reality; hence it cannot be accounted for on logical grounds.22

The Kantian dichotomy of will versus nature gives rise to various

other dichotomies, among them that of value versus necessity. Needs


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266 moshe hellinger

23 Bein Madda le-Arakhim ve-Idiologiah (Between Science and Values and Ideology)in Yeshayahu Leibowitz,Bein Madda le-Philosophyah(Between Science and Philosophy)( Jerusalem: Akademon, 1987), pp. 27677. See Moshe Hellinger, YeshayahuLeibowitz as a Religious-Political Thinker (in Hebrew), in Sagi (ed.), Yeshayahu

Leibowitz(supra, note 1), pp. 187208.24 Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Hok u-Musar (Law and Morality), a lecture deliv-ered on 19 June 1990 (Tel-Aviv: Institute for the Research of the Labor Movement),

are natural and therefore are imposed on humans. Values, on the

other hand, are voluntary and express ones personality. They demand

a voluntary decision, which in turns requires a constant struggle:

Everyone must eat and drink since there is no choice in this matterand this has nothing to do with values. But no one is forced, out ofreasons grounded in reality, to be a decent person; he can be a vil-lain just the same. Therefore ones decision to be a decent personbelongs to the sphere of values. . . . There is a strong contrast betweenthe objective reality, which finds its expression in certain needs, andany given values.23

One of the examples that the later Leibowitz tends to cite in this

context is the contrast between the values of Eleanor Roosevelt andthose of General Hideki Tojo, Japans ruler during World War II.

As emerges from the speeches that each of them delivered in 1944,

Mrs. Roosevelt envisions a world in which human society will daily

provide a glass of milk to any child, regardless of religion, race,

nationality or class, whereas Tojo celebrates war, the supreme

value and the highest good: dying for the Emperor and for the sake

of honor.24 For Leibowitz, Eleanor Roosevelt and General Tojo

illustrate the fact that there is no way to objectively prioritize val-

ues; one must simply take sides in accordance with ones personal

will, even if the struggle between values is bound to amount to

a total world war. Needs, on the other hand, are not a matter of

decision-making; they are a natural given imposed upon humans.

In Leibowitzs early thought, the contrast between natural needs

and voluntary values reaches its peakin the antithesis between

nature and the Halakhah. In his article Hinnukh leMitzvot (1953)

he states:

Nature and the Halakhah are antithetical. Nature is the world of givensas such, without any meaning or purpose attached to them; Halakhahis the control over the givens of nature, to the extent that they oper-ate within the individual. The Halakhah consists in viewing the world


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not in terms of what there is, or what is absent, in itthis is thescientific way of looking at thingsbut rather in terms of the mitz-vah . . . Religion in the sense of Torah and mitzvot liberates humansfrom the bondage of nature. (HM, 30)

This liberation is first and foremost collective, though not exclusively

so. In this respect, Leibowitzs religious Zionist approach differs from

the existential approach and its strictly individualistic orientation (to

which it is often compared), and rightly so. True religious education

requires a struggle between natural, objective needs and conditions

and the values of Torah and its commandments, which are designed

to create a religious society by force of the human will (ibid., p. 36).

This value-oriented struggle disappeared in the course of the exile,when the Halakhah was unable to mould Jewish society as a whole

through an indispensable struggle of values against needs. The exilic

mentality, according to Leibowitz, also exerted its influence on the

renewed society in the Land of Israel during the period of the Yishuv,

when the state on the way was developing. At that time, the great

scholars of the Torah made no effort to guide social life by issuing

new halakhic rulings that were needed in order to cope with the

contemporary dynamic reality. Even the members of the religious

kibbutz, who were more religiously daring, did not endeavor to offer

an adequate answer to the Jewish Yishuv as a whole and instead cre-

ated for themselves a suitable place of refuge (TH, 62). Leibowitzs

conclusion is clear: new halakhic legislation is necessary. Since the

religious authorities are incapable of producing it, the community of

Torah observers must act independently.

Leibowitz thus adds another floor to the edifice whose founda-

tions he has begun to lay in his early writings: the effort to create

a Jewish Gemeinschaft that will establish a close connection betweencommitment to the Torah and participatory democracy. The demo-

cratic principles of popular sovereignty and extensive public partic-

ipation, which are more characteristic of participatory democracy

than of representative liberal democracy, become the major lynch-

pin of Leibowitzs bold halakhic concept. They become the basis for

the community of Torah observers, whose members endeavor to turn

the Torah into a collective Torah oflife, a teaching to live by.

Leibowitzs democratic political concept goes hand in hand with

his Kantian philosophy (as suggested in his distinction between willand nature, as quoted above) and its emphasis on the element of


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268 moshe hellinger

25 Nathan Rotenstreich, Studies in Jewish Thought in Our Time (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1978), p. 86. Rotenstreich points out the tension in Leibowitzsthought, which revolves around two elementsintention and the empirical way oflifeand finds its expression in the observance of the mitzvoth. The attempt todefine Judaism objectively, empirically (in a positivistic wayM.H.) runs counterto a far-reaching tendency to subjectify Judaism. See ibid., p. 88. The Kantian ele-ments in Leibowitzs thought were studied by various scholars. See for instanceYohanan Silman, Kantian Motives in Leibowitzs Thought (in Hebrew), in AsaKasher and Yaakov Levinger (eds.), Sefer Yeshayahu Leibowitz (Tel-Aviv: Tel-AvivUniversity, 1979), pp. 4755; Naomi Kasher, Leibowitzs View of Judaism asOpposed to Kants View of Ethics, in L. Apostel et al. (eds.), Religious Atheism?

(Gent, Belgium: E. Story-Scientia, 1982), pp. 5572; idem, God in the YeshayahuLeibowitzs Perception of Judaism (in Hebrew), in Sagi (ed.), Yeshayahu Leibowitz(supra, note 1), pp. 92108; Danny Statman, The Moral Philosophy of Leibowitz

differentiate between worthy halakhic innovations and the invalid

innovations initiated by Reform Jews. Nathan Rotenstreich sums up

Leibowitzs approach as follows: The absolute nature of intentiongrants power of attorney to halakhic novelty.25 Indeed, according

to Leibowitz,

The role of enacting new halakhic legislation, of establishing a reli-gious law in a state-organized society in this day and age, is assignedto the religious public as a whole. For obvious historical-psychologicalreasons, the authoritative rabbinical institutions are incapable of doingso. The religious authority of the public to generate Halakhahevencontrary to an existing halakhahis unquestionable, provided that this

pubic acts according to its best understanding of the Torah and ismotivated by a sincere wish to fulfill it. Shape religion according tothe needs of religion (TH, 73).

For the short term, Leibowitz is aware that the new halakhic legis-

lation will be binding only with the observant public. Yet he insists

on the importance of creating the vision of a sustained, independent

Jewish state by applying a daring, modern halakhic idea. This poses

a real challenge to the secular public and its leadersa challenge

that does not exist in a reality in which the religious public and its

leaders are satisfied with typically exilic halakhic norms.Leibowitzs democratic approach emerges in his struggles to insti-

tute a Torah regime in the 1940s and the early 1950s (TH, 65).

The halakhic participatory democracy that he advocates is meant to

curb two opposing tendencies: (1) Ultra-Orthodox halakhic passivity

and (2) Non-Orthodox halakhic activism. Discouraging new halakhic

legislation would separate the Torah from life. Imposing halakhic


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26

For Rousseaus approach, see The Social Contract, inJean-Jacques Rousseau:The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. and trans. by Victor Gourevitch,Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge and New York:

changes according to the will of individuals would lead to halakhic

anarchy and the separation of life from the Torah. The solution is

to promote halakhic legislation that is democratically enacted by thecollective of Torah observers for the sake of the Torah. This sort

of legislation is motivated by a collectiveconcern, which reflects a sort

of a Rousseauian general will that stresses the elements of posi-

tive liberty:

Our sages have already said, For you will not find a freer person thanone who performs the mitzvoth [originally: one who is involved inthe study of Torah (Ethics of the FathersVI, 2); the difference is notaccidentalM.H], . . . Accepting the yoke of Torah and mitzvot signifies

mans liberation and manifests his mastery over the natural, instinc-tive drives within him.26

In fact, Leibowitzs collectivist Jewish-democratic teaching continues

Maimonides religious-political concept. In his Guide to the Perplexed

(III, 27), Maimonides attaches great importance to the state as a

tool for tikkun haguf, or improving the body (eliminating wrong-

doing and inculcating useful social virtues), without which there is

no way to achieve tikkun hanefesh, or improving the soul (attaining

true ideas about God). The Torah regime, as much as it has aspiritual-intellectual character, is based on earthly and political foun-

dations, which are in turn reinforced by most of the Torah com-

mandments. As a classic medieval thinker, Maimonides was far

removed from the artificial notion of the state in the Anglo-Saxon

version of the social contract, whose originators (such as Hobbes and

Locke) laid down the foundation of a liberal individualist doctrine.

Similarly, Leibowitz views the Jewish democratic halakhic state as a

natural expression of the existence of a God-worshippingsociety with-

out which the individual can only partially maintain the world ofthe Halakhah. The establishment of an independent Jewish state

becomes a platform (tikkun haguf) that enables the service of God out

of duty (a Kantian tikkun hanefeshtransformed into Maimonides intel-

lectual-rationalist outlook).

The halakhic collectivism in Leibowitzs view consists of a num-

ber of aspects:


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270 moshe hellinger

Empirical Judaism is associated with collectivist doingrather than

with faith or individual conviction.

Halakhic Judaism aims at creating a sovereign, God-worshippingsociety that actually lives by the Torah, thus transforming it into a

Torah of life.

Communalautonomous legislation paves the way to establishing such

a society.

So far, I have dwelt on the democratic elements of Leibowitzs reli-

gious teaching. It is noteworthy that he also stressed an important lib-

eralelement: the existence of an opposition that presents an alternative

to the government and restrains its power. This opposition is vital notonly for invigorating religion but also for sustaining the secular state:

For it will induce a confrontation with the historical content of reli-gious Judaism, which will emerge not as sectarian interests but ratheras a claim to shape the state. This will be highly beneficial, for whatwe presently lack is a struggle between religion and state. (HTM, 145)

And here Leibowitz adds a broader argument, based on the impor-

tance of offering an alternative to the government, which would limit

its power:

This is analogous to the political aspect: presently, our political disas-ter derives from the absence of a struggle between the governmentand the opposition . . . We have nothing but interest groups that aretrying to squeeze something or other out of the ruling government,and the government, too, is degenerating because it is not challengedby any rivals aiming to usurp its place.Just as in our political life we needthe very foundation of democracya government and an opposition, so in our spir-itual and cultural reality we need a war between the world of political values andthe world of religious values. (ibid., pp. 14546; emphasis added)

These liberal aspects were to become a major lynchpin of Leibowitzs

later thought, which stressed individualist elements par excellence.

As a matter of fact, the late Leibowitz is a radical liberal thinker,

whereas the early Leibowitz is a radical democratic thinker. In his

early teaching Leibowitz stresses collective principles, such as popu-

lar sovereignty and the decision of the majority, and mobilizes them

for the purpose of not only shaping the political character of the

desirable Hebraic state but also guiding the specific community of

the faithful observant. In contrast, his later teaching emphasizes lib-eral, individualistic elements, such as the freedom of thought and


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27 Fishman,Judaism and Modernization (supra, note 5), ch. 8.28 Asher Cohen concludes his account of the decline of the Torah State vision

with the Leibowitz-Neriah polemics. See Asher Cohen, The Talit and the Flag: ReligiousZionism and the Concept of a Torah State 19471953 (in Hebrew) ( Jerusalem: Yad Izhak

4. Toward the End of Leibowitzs Religious-Zionist Period

The articles Leibowitz published in the 1940s did not place him out-side the religious-Zionist camp. Moreover, his position that a charis-

matic community of Torah observers should replace rabbinical

leadership was embraced by many within the religious kibbutz move-

ment.27 The rift that separated Leibowitz from the religious-Zionist

movement occurred only in the 1950s, as a result of the contention

between Leibowitz (then the head of the Religious Workers faction

in the Histadrut), the General Federation of Labor in Israel, and

Rabbi Moshe Zvi Neriah, Rabbi A. I. H. Kooks disciple, who was

the head of Kfar Haroeh Yeshivah and the founder of the yeshivotof Bnei-Akiva (the religious Zionist youth movement). As Asher Cohen

rightly points out, following Leibowitzs penetrating presentation of

reality, many affiliates of religious Zionism were forced to abandon

the slogan of the Torah State as a realistic program for the renewed

State of Israel.28

In his controversial article on the issue of Sabbath observance in

Israel, Leibowitz argues that the most important question is not what

is the political significance of religion? but rather what is the reli-

gious significance of the state? It is important to understand how

central the latter question is to Leibowitzs early worldview. On the

one hand, it suggests that at this stage Leibowitz is still a religious-

Zionist thinker par excellence, for whom the religious significance of

the State of Israel is crucial for establishing a connection between a

modern religious identity and a Zionist identity. On the other hand,

here lies the beginning of the process that would eventually lead to

Leibowitzs sobering realization that, in practice, no religious significance

should be attached to the State of Israel. He wouldfinally reach aliberal conclusion: the state is religiously neutral.

For the young Leibowitz, the issue of Sabbath observance illustrates

the depth of the crisis of Jewish religion, which is to be surmounted

only through religious rulings that enable the realization of the Torah

in the socio-economic context of a modern, independent Jewish state

(SBM, 8687). Religious Jewry has to initiate and commit itself to a


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272 moshe hellinger

29 R. Moshe Zvi Neriah, Kuntres ha-Vikkuah (The Pamphlet of the Debate)( Jerusalem: 1952), pp. 1014.

30

The Comments of Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog (in Hebrew), cited in AryehStrikovsky (ed.), Ha-Medinah be-Hagut ha-Yehudit: Mekorot u-Maamarim (The State inJewish Thought: Sources and Articles) ( Jerusalem: The Division for Religious Culture,

binding program of its own, instead of struggling to exempt religious

Jews from working on the Sabbath day by letting others do their

jobs. This is a parasitical method that distances religious youth them-selves from the Torah (ibid., p. 88). Leibowitz suggests that, instead

of relying on the assistance of the shabbes goy (a non-Jew or sec-

ular Jew able perform certain otherwise-forbidden labor on the

Sabbath), one must work toward new halakhic legislation that would

allow religious Jews and others to provide vital services on the Sabbath

day (ibid., pp. 90100).

For Rabbi Moshe Zvi Neriah, his adversarys program meant

breaking the accepted boundaries of Orthodoxy. According to Rabbi

Neriah, the Halakhah as isprovides tools for coping with the exis-tence of a modern Jewish state. Although a necessary desecration of

the Sabbath is possiblesince safeguarding the existence of the state

overrides the sanctity of the Sabbaththe strict observance of the

Sabbath is still a worthy cause. The reliance on the shabbes goy

is not a problem, since the Torah does not forbid the settlement of

non-Jews in the Land of Israel. The discontent with such a reality

on the part of a certain public or the youth is, according to him,

not a valid reason for changing the Halakhah. The way Rabbi Neriah

sees it, the factor that has thwarted the possibility of a Torah state

as a viable alternative is not the religious leadership but rather the

dominant secular majority.29

Rabbi Neriahs position gained the support of Chief Rabbi Isaac

Herzog, who pointed out the danger of adopting Leibowitzs way:

it entailed the desecration of the Sabbath for the sake offinancial

gain.30

Leibowitz responded to Rabbi Neriahs arguments in a systematic

article on the crisis of religion in the State of Israel. In his view,halakhic Jewish historiosophy has recognized three possibilities: state-

hood and independence in an ideal past; exile and foreign rule in

a realistic present; and statehood and independence in an ideal future.

At the time of his writing, however, we are facing a fourth possi-

bility: Israeli statehood and independence in an unredeemed world


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and among peopleJews and non-Jewswho have not yet attained

their tikkun (MDM, 121). The public made up of Torah observers

must make a choice between two possibilities: (1) renouncing thepossibility of fulfilling the Torah in the most complete way, in expec-

tation of the utopian End of Days, or (2) taking responsibility for

the possibility of a Torah regime in present-day reality as it is

(ibid., p. 129). The first choice leads the religious public to clerical

politics. The second choice lends itself to a value-oriented struggle

on behalf of the religious character of the state (ibid., p. 125). At

the time, the religious public is facing the possibility oflivinghero-

ically for and by the Torah (ibid., p. 130).

The banner waved by Leibowitz failed to gain a meaningfulresponse. In 1953, Leibowitz gave vent to his disappointment in an

unequivocal conclusion: In the final analysis, religious Jewry aspires

to a secular state that operates its necessary services without any

affinity with the Torah, while privileging the religious sector and

exempting it from civil duties and functions. The only exception is

the group ofNeturei Karta[a tiny group of anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox

Jews], which utterly denies the validity of the State of Israel. . . .

Should we not view this phenomenon as the historical death throes

of religious Jewry? (YD, 163). It seems that the hardest blow to

Leibowitz came from the camp closest to him, namely, the Religious

Kibbutz Movement, which was reluctant to wave the banner of new

legislation to be issued by the community of Torah observers. The

response of Moshe Unna, formerly the leader of the Religious Kibbutz

Movement and one of the prominent religious-Zionist public figures,

clarified to Leibowitz that the course taken by Brit Chalutzim Datiyyim

in Germany had proved to be unsuccessful. We are not willing to

issue a halakhic permit by our own authority, said Moshe Unna,and therefore there are many things that we find displeasing with-

out being able to change them or even to protest against them.31

Eliezer Goldman, the intellectual closest to Leibowitzs way of

thinking, was also critical of Rabbi Neriah for failing to meet the

halakhic challenges faced by the State of Israel. And yet he was

unable to go as far as Leibowitz in proposing a renewal of the

halakhic rulings. In his view, there are certain elements in the

Halakhah that lend themselves to the concept of state; from these,


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274 moshe hellinger

32 Eliezer Goldman, The Halakhah and the State, Expositions and Inquiries: JewishThought in Past and Present ( Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1996), pp. 396405.

33 Akiva Ernst Simon, Are We Still Jews? (in Hebrew), in idem, Are We StillJews: Essays (Tel-Aviv, Sifriyat Poalim, 1983).

34 Eliezer Goldman, The State of Israel under the Test of Judaism accordingto Yeshayahu Leibowitz (in Hebrew), in idem, Expositions and Inquiries (supra, note

32), pp. 24647. On Simons analysis and Leibowitzs shift from Catholicism toProtestantism see Sagi,A Challenge (supra, note 3).

one can derive the principles of managing a modern halakhic state,

even though the Halakhah itself has developed under exilic condi-

tions. Hence a broad legal adaptation of the given halakhic rawmaterials is both possible and sufficient. Thus, through creative think-

ing, the exception (pikkuah nefesh, the principle of saving life) can

become the rule.32

Ernst Simon perceives the early Leibowitz, in his aspiration to

present the alternative of a Torah regime, as representing a catholic

Jewish direction that strives to take over all spheres of life. Simon

dwells on two interesting points: (1) Leibowitz strove to carry out

the modern vision of Torah and Labor throughout Israeli society,

whereas the members of the Religious Kibbutz Movement were con-tent with the attempt to fulfill this vision within a particular sector

of the population. This facilitated their pursuit but actually reflected

a protestant direction, since they gave up the ideal of affecting soci-

ety as a whole; and (2) it is precisely protestant Judaism (which

retreats to the personal or sectarian private domain) that tends to

be conservative. In contrast, the catholic way that Leibowitz rep-

resents, which expands the Halakhah, requires a drastic modification

of the Halakhah based on modern reality.33

In the years that followed, Leibowitz lost hope of ever fulfilling

his catholic vision and turned to protestant and far more indi-

vidualist provinces. The intriguing question is the reason, or reasons,

for this move. According to Eliezer Goldman, Leibowitz realized that

the State of Israel, far from developing in the direction of a Torah

state, had become a secular state with national characteristics that

weaken religious identity.34 Indeed, it seems that here lies one of the

major drives for his move. Yet Goldman tends to underestimate the

position of the religious kibbutz as a contributing factor in Leibowitzsdisillusion with religious Zionism, not to mention the fact that Goldman

himself eventually adopted a middle position in between those of

Leibowitz and Rabbi Neriah, respectively.


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Leibowitz began as a radical thinker. Radical thought is interested

not in making gradual changes to reality but rather in introducing

revolutionary change. For Leibowitz, this sort of radicalism was thevery foundation of the religious kibbutz as envisioned by its initia-

tors, the members of Brit Chalutzim Datiyyim in Germany of the

1920s and the early 1930s. The fact that the members of the reli-

gious kibbutz were in favor of introducing changes exclusively within

the general exilic, halakhic frameworka preference that was moti-

vated either by apprehensions (as suggested by Moshe Unna) or by

principles (as suggested by Eliezer Goldman)was crucial to the

early stage of Leibowitzs disenchantment with his utopian belief in

the potential religious significance of the Zionist State of Israel. It istrue that in the 1950s, he occasionally still referred to the religious

significance of the State of Israel; however, by that time, the seeds

of the drastic change in his inner world had already been sown.

Once his religious-Zionist fervor and its modern messianic dimen-

sion cooled off, this radical thinker, who tended toward dichotomous

positions, was driven to direct lethal criticism towards the religious-

Zionist camp. But in order for him to reach this stage, further dis-

illusionment had to occur. This took place from a different direction,

a moral one: his disappointment with the questionable moral char-

acter of the State of Israel. This second stage in the process of his

sobering occurred as a result of the Kibiyeh affair.

The Kibiyeh affair, in which innocent Arabs were killed by Israeli

soldiers in retaliation for terrorist acts, was perceived by Leibowitz

as another example of the irrelevance of the exilic system of values.

But in this case, the values in question were not halakhic but rather

national. Relying on his own existential axiology, he states:

However, values are precious to the extent that their realization isdifficult and easily frustrated. This is the true religious and moralsignificance of regaining political independence and the capacity todeploy force. We are now being put to the test. Are we capable notonly of suffering for the sake of the values we cherish but also of act-ing in accordance with them? It is easy to suffer physically and mate-rially and even to sacrifice ones life for their sake. This requires onlyphysical courage, which is abundant to a surprising degree in all humancommunities. It is much more difficult to forego, out of considerationfor such values, actions which promote other prized endslegitimate

communal needs and interests. The moral problem becomes acutewhen two good inclinations clash. (Af.K., 186)


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276 moshe hellinger

Leibowitz distinguishes between engaging in a necessary war (such

as the War of Independence in 1948), which by its very nature

involves bloodshed, and situations in which the boundaries betweenwhat is morally right and wrong are blurred, as happened in retal-

iatory acts in which innocent people were killed (Af.K, 18788). In

this article, contrary to the thesis he puts forward later, Leibowitz

touches upon universal moral standards, but, at the same time, he

distinguishes between morality, which by its very nature is theistic-

anthropocentric, and religion, which is theocentric (ibid., 18889).

And here he raises and answers a piercing question:

What produced this generation of youth, which felt no inhibition orinner compunction in performing the atrocity when given the innerurge and external occasion for retaliation? . . . The answer is that theevents at Kibiyeh were a consequence of applying the religious cate-gory of holiness to social, national, and political values and interests . . .From a religious standpoint only God is holy, and only His impera-tive is absolute. All human values and all obligations and undertak-ings derived from them are profane and have no absolute validity.Country, state, and nation impose pressing obligations and tasks thatare sometimes very difficult. They do not, on that account, acquiresanctity. They are always subject to judgment and criticism from ahigher standpoint . . . The original sin of our education appears alreadyin our Declaration of Independence. Its use of the expression theRock of Israel in the concluding sentence reflects a fraudulent agree-ment between two sectors of the public . . . The secular nation andstate adjusted the sense of this term at its convenience, and used it tobribe the religious minority. [Leibowitz refers to the compromisebetween Ben Gurion the atheist, the founder of the state and theDeclaration of Independence, who did not want to mention God inthe declaration, and the representatives of the religious public whoobviously held the opposite view.] . . .

If the nation and its welfare and the country and its security areholy, and if the sword is the Rock of Israelthen Kibiyeh is pos-sible and permissible.

This is the terrible punishment for transgressing the stringent pro-hibition, Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.The transgression may cause our third commonwealth to incur thecurse of our father Jacob. (ibid., pp. 189190)

Leibowitzs strong statements foreshadow his critical moral statements

following the conquest of the West Bank during the Six-Day War

(1967). In his view, for Israel to hold onto the territories of Judea,Samaria and the Gaza strip after the Six-Day War, maintaining a


25/31


but a symptom of the sore evil that had been laid bare much ear-

lier during the Kibbiya affair, but that now assumed further moral,

religious, and political implications. It is this state of affairs that droveLeibowitz to his blatant positions against the corrupting military occu-

pation and its devastating consequences. For now, however, let us

turn back to his essay on the Kibbiya affair.

Leibowitzs fury addresses two targets: Ben Gurion and his cronies,

who were the advocates of the secular-Zionist, state-oriented policy;

and the religious Zionists. In his view, both are guilty of the orig-

inal sin (!) of shaping the character of the State of Israel in a way

that sanctifies secular nationality with the help of religious clerical-

ism. In Leibowitzs later thought, as opposed to his earlier views,this is considered the gravest sin, since it signifies an idolatry that

sanctifies the profane. Leibowitzs expectations from the State of

Israel in general and from the religious Zionist public in particular

were in direct proportion to his despair.

In this essay, Leibowitz is not yet calling for the separation of reli-

gion from the state, the position that is closely associated with his

later religious-political teaching. And yet the theoretical assumptions

on which this call for a separation on religious grounds is based are

already visible. Only God is holy, and anything earthly is profane.

Leibowitzs early conception, the catholic one using Simons ter-

minology, did strive to uncover religious significance in mundane

life. For Leibowitz, the unholy alliance between Ben Gurions insis-

tence on a state-oriented vision and the religious-Zionist camps incli-

nation to accord sanctity to the Zionist state as it exists, in spite of

its shortcomingthis very pact, which led to compromises that pre-

vented true and daring religious legislation, is what has made it pos-

sible to accord religious-Zionist legitimacy to the state in all itsactivities, including those that are obviously immoral. At this stage

of Leibowitzs thinking, it is still valid to strive to sanctify mundane

life in a worthy Jewish state at some point in the future, however

irrelevant the concept seems given the present defective reality. It

would take several more years before Leibowitz drew the final, prac-

tical conclusions from his painful disappointment, but the seeds for

that drastic change in his worldview had already been sown.

The conclusion that he reached was presented in some articles

in his major work, Yahadut, Am Yehudi u-Medinat Yisrael. This book isa collection of articles that he wrote from the mid-1940s to the


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278 moshe hellinger

earlier book, Torah u-Mitzvot ba-Zeman ha-Zeh. By the time it was pub-

lished, Leibowitz was already engaged in other conceptual areas, as

is apparent from the other parts of the book.35

In his article Ha-Am, ha-Dat veha-Medinah (People, Religion,

and the State), which was published in the late 1950s, Leibowitz

has already made the point that the State of Israel is essentially sec-

ular, since its foundation was not religiously motivated (p. 149). He

states, contrary to his earlier belief:

From an in-depth perspective of religious thought it seems that theconcept of a Torah-governed state, which has never been attainedin Israel, is actually unattainable, for the Torah is divine whereas the

stateany state!is an institution designed to meet human needs andinterests. Torah state is not a realityneither in the historical past,nor in the present or in any foreseeable future. Rather, it is the goaland purpose towards which the public of Torah observers must striveand for whose sake it must engage in a permanent struggle, such asthe struggle of the prophets against the kingship of Israel during theperiod of the First Temple and that of the sages against the Hasmoneanstate. Neverthelessor perhaps precisely because of thisintroducingthis program may have two positive, crucial functions: it would freereligious Jews, who would fight for this program, from their sectarian

position, feelings and perceptions; they will become a faction that fightsover shaping the character of the people and the state. As far as thestate is concerned, such a program would function as a challenge thatwill awaken it from its cultural stagnation and a factor that will res-cue it from its spiritual distress . . . Just as in political life, the basicfoundation of democracy is the confrontation between the governmentand opposition, so in the spiritual and cultural reality we need a warbetween the world of political, secular, anthropocentric values, on theone hand, and the world of religious, theocentric values, on the other.But for this purpose a confrontation between the two worlds is imper-

ative. This accounts for the demand to create a separation between religion andstate. Through this separation, Judaism would no longer serve as anauxiliary means for satisfying the political needs of the state or berestricted to the status of a government office, a function of the statebureaucracy and administration. (ibid., p. 154, emphasis in the original)

The vision of Israel as a Torah State is now presented as a desir-

able but unattainable one. Striving towards it requiresa separation of

religion and state. This separation is necessary for revitalizing reli-

gion and the state alike. Furthermore, the State of Israel, like any


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other state according to the liberal view, serves as a means rather

than as an end in itself.

How can a thinker totally change his mind? Some would say thatwith a thinker like Leibowitz anything is possible, since he adheres

to dichotomies that paint the world in black and white, thus mak-

ing it easier for him to move from a religious-Zionist vision of a

Torah State to a religious andZionist vision that conceptualizes the

state as a mere platform for struggles in the spirit of liberal ideas

that celebrate the neutrality of statehood. In addition, one might say

that the transition from ardent love to ice-cold hatred is not a rare

phenomenon. Nonetheless, it is quite likely that the crisis that Leibowitz

underwent in the 1950s was the beginning of a journey, one thatled him to the conclusion that religious Zionism must go through a

process of mental and spiritual rehabilitation before it is ready to

function as an ideological alternative to secular Zionism in the style

of Ben Gurion. This would require an interim period of reassess-

ment. The breach was meant to prepare the ground for a worthy

religious-Zionist alternative. As time went by, however, what began

as a temporary rehabilitative move became a complex and consis-

tent worldview. The conquest of the West Bank and the Gaza strip

in the Six-Day war and their control by the Labor Partyand even

more so, the rise of religious-Zionist messianic ideology and its set-

tlement movement, both originating from the Merkaz Harav school

of thoughtcemented the about-face in Leibowitzs thought. The

later Leibowitz became a self-proclaimed adversary of religious Zionism,

to which he was still inseparably connected through the strong link-

age between orthodoxy and modernity in his own interior world.

The Lebanon War (1982) was the last stage in Leibowitzs process

of change. In the aftermath of this war, he called for extensive civildisobedience that would put an end not only to the military service

in Lebanon but also to any military activity in the occupied terri-

tories.

The process of change that Leibowitz underwent corresponds to

the changes that took place in the State of Israel, which was trans-

formed from a state that strove to be exemplary in its invocations

of social-democratic principles to a more individualist and capitalist

society, as the control of the occupied territories increasingly shaped

its foreign and internal affairs. Nonetheless, one cannot fully accountfor the changes in Leibowitzs convictions by presenting them as mir-


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280 moshe hellinger

36 Yeshayahu Leibowitz,Al Olam u-Meloo: Sihot im Michael Shashar (On just about

changed his basic assumptions regarding the connection between reli-

gion and state. In addition, he moved away from collectivist notions

with a messianic dimension and instead embraced clearly liberal indi-vidualist positions. In this sense, it seems that Leibowitzs later views

are in line with Israeli political culture as it developed in the 1960s

and reached its peak from the 1980s onwards. It was precisely the

religious-Zionist camp that held on to strictly collectivist positions.

However, in sharp contrast to socialist collectivism in the style of

the religious kibbutz, this later collectivism was based on ideas of

the immanent sanctity of the People of Israel and the Land of Israel

in its broadest biblical boundaries. This sort of collectivism was chal-

lenged by Leibowitzs liberal, individualist outlook, which was protes-tant in the Anglo-Saxon meaning of the term.

Significantly, the Leibowitz of the late 1980s reformulated the

clear-cut national-religious concepts that he held at the beginning of

his theo-political activity: I was a member of Tzeirei haMizrachi

sixty years ago, but I have never understood the concept of reli-

gious Zionism. There are observant Jews who are Zionists and there

are secular Jewsthose who have rejected the yoke of Torahwho

are Zionists. Both groups are equally Zionists. If Zionism is per-

ceived in religious categories, then it is not Zionism.36 The present

article attempts to demonstrate how far Leibowitzs self-testimony

about his early outlook contradicts the facts.

5. Conclusion

The early thought of Yeshayahu Leibowitz is one of the most fas-

cinating and consistent formulations of a democratic religious-Zioniststance. This particular doctrine is deeply influenced by Western con-

cepts, which it projects into Judaism while still making a bold and

unique Jewish statement. In fact, Leibowitz presents the range of pos-

sibilities that are open to a modern, pioneering, religious-Zionist pub-

lic interested in transforming the foundation of the National Home

in the Land of Israel into a lever for reviving Judaism in an innov-

ative halakhic way. From the late fifties onwards, Leibowitz came to

realize where Israeli society, and religious Zionism in particular, was


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actually heading; it was at this point that he became a harsh critic

operating outside the religious Zionist camp. The processes that Israeli

society has undergone since the Six-Day War only strengthened hisopposition and further alienated him from religious Zionism, which

strove to become an integral part of the Zionist establishment and

(even more importantly) to lead the Zionist machine on the way to

achieving a strong foothold in the Greater Israel.

The later Leibowitz consistently preached for a unilateral with-

drawal from these territories without any expectation of a peace

agreement with the Palestinians, who adamantly refuse to acknowl-

edge the Zionist state. It is a matter of historical irony that a step

in the Leibowitzean direction was made by the person he appar-ently most opposed: Ariel Sharon. The settlement project, in which

Sharon played a major role, and even more so the first Lebanon

War (1982), were the exact antithesis of Leibowitzs political path.

In fact, this war provoked him to call for a rebellion against the

state and for civil disobedience on a large scale. From then on, he

was highly critical of the approach taken by the State of Israel,

though he never abandoned his basic Zionist commitment. And yet

it was this same Sharon who initiated the Disengagement Plan and

defended it on the grounds that Israel should not control the

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip against their will and that, therefore,

the withdrawal was in Israels interest even though it might not lead

to a true peace process.

The disengagement process led by former Prime Minister Sharon

is thus a step in the right direction as Leibowitz would have defined

it. Due to this process, a considerable portion of the religious Zionist

camp began to wonder, for the first time, whether the course taken

by religious Zionism might be essentially wrong and whether thetime might have come to break the linkage between Zionism and

religion and adopt a compartmentalizing approach. As we have seen,

such a transition was first introduced into the religious Zionist camp

by Leibowitz himself, but for opposite reasons. Is it possible that,

paradoxically, it is precisely this disengagement move, which has

caused such a deep trauma within wide circles of the religious Zionist

camp, that will lead many of them to opt for Leibowitzs opposing

viewpoint? Conversely, is there any likelihood that further withdrawals

from the territories of Greater Israel would result in a differentsort of religious Zionism, with which Leibowitz could have found


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282 moshe hellinger

Abbreviations of the articles published in Torah u-Mitzvot ba-Zeman

ha-Zeh

Af.K After Kibiyeh, an English translation of Aarei Kibiyeh

(pp. 168173), published in Religion, Human Values, and the

Jewish State, edited by Eliezer Goldman, translated by Eliezer

Goldman et al., (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1992; 1995), pp. 185190.

HM Hinukh le-Mitzvot (Education to Mitzvot), pp. 2737.

HMT Hinnukh li-Medinat ha-Torah (Education for the Torah State),

pp. 5368.

HTM Halakhah Toranit Meudeshest ke-flukah li-Medinat Yisrael(Renewed Torah-Oriented Halakhah as a Constitution for

the State of Israel), pp. 135153.

MDM Mashber ha-Dat ba-Medinah (The Crisis of Religion in the

State of Israel, pp. 101130. In the English version:Judaism,

Human Values, pp. 158173.

MM Mitzvot Maasiyyot (Religious Praxis), pp. 926.

SBM Ha-Shabbat ba-Medinahki-Beayah Datit (The Sabbath in

the State of Israel as a Religious Problem), pp. 86100.

TH Torah ve-flevrah (Torah and Society), pp. 6873.

YD Ha-Yahadut ha-Datitneged Dat Yisrael? (Religious Jewry

Against the Jewish Religion?), pp. 154164.


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hellinger - a clearly democratic rz philosophy - the early thought of yl

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