Religious Zionism Sources

Bio: Rabbi Yehudah Halevi (Source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org and brittanica.com)

Yehudah Halevi (1075-1141 was the greatest Hebrew poet of his time. Born in Toledo, the capital of Castile, Judah studied with the famous rabbinic scholar, Isaac Alfasi. In addition to mastering biblical Hebrew, Arabic and the intricacies of the Talmud, Judah explored the physical sciences, philosophy and metaphysics. He was especially proficient at writing poetry, and soon he attracted the attention of the great poet Moses Ibn Ezra. It wasn't long before his fame spread throughout the Jewish communities of Spain. Because Cordoba was the cultural capital of Spanish Jewry, Halevi migrated there. As he matured, Judah Halevi found his voice as Israel's sweetest singer. He left behind an abundance of synagogue liturgy and nationalistic poems. Since he lived at the time of the first crusade, Judah realized the plight of his people.

Yehudah ha-Levi thought about and prepared for his journey to the Holy Land for many years. Judah ha-Levi left Spain in 1140. According to his carefully laid plans, he was first to embark for Egypt and then to proceed from there via the land route to Palestine. His ship entered Alexandria harbour on May 3, 1140, where he, along with a large Jewish party, was splendidly received. He was lodged in the magnificent home of Aaron ibn al-ʿAmmānī, a noted Jewish physician and judge, and stayed in Egypt for several months. Many prominent Jews of the country came to admire him and to make his acquaintance, and he acquired many friends. From Alexandria he went to Cairo, or Fustat, the city where lived Samuel ben Hananiah, the Nagid, or head, of all Egyptian Jews, and there he was further acclaimed.

Yehudah ha-Levi did not in fact go beyond Egypt, although it is not known what detained him there. He died in 1141 and was deeply mourned in Egypt. His death was romantically embellished in a legend that arose much later, according to which he was slain by a hostile Muslim just as he had arrived in Zion.

He expounded his views on the nature of Judaism in an Arabic prose work consisting of dialogues between a learned Jew and the Khazar king who was converted to Judaism in the 8th century. It was widely circulated in Hebrew translation under the title Sefer ha-Kuzari.

Bio: Rambam/Maimonides (Source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Maimonides' (1138-1204) full name was Moses ben Maimon; in Hebrew he is known by the acronym of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, Rambam. He was born in Spain shortly before the fanatical Muslim Almohades came to power there. To avoid persecution by the Muslim sect — which was wont to offer Jews and Christians the choice of conversion to Islam or death — Maimonides fled with his family, first to Morocco, later to Israel, and finally to Egypt. He apparently hoped to continue his studies for several years more, but when his brother David, a jewelry merchant, perished in the Indian Ocean with much of the family's fortune, he had to begin earning money. He probably started practicing medicine at this time.

Maimonides's major contribution to Jewish life remains the Mishneh Torah, his code of Jewish law. His intention was to compose a book that would guide Jews on how to behave in all situations just by reading the Torah and his code, without having to expend large amounts of time searching through the Talmud. Needless to say, this provocative rationale did not endear Maimonides to many traditional Jews, who feared that people would rely on his code and no longer study the Talmud. Despite sometimes intense opposition, the Mishneh Torah became a standard guide to Jewish practice: It later served as the model for the Shulkhan Arukh, the sixteenth­century code of Jewish law that is still regarded as authoritative by Orthodox Jews.

Philosophically, Maimonides was a religious rationalist. His damning attacks on people who held ideas he regarded as primitive — those, for example, who understood literally such biblical expressions as “the finger of God” so infuriated his opponents that they proscribed parts of his code and all of The Guide to the Perplexed. Other, more liberal, spirits forbade study of the Guide to anyone not of mature years.

Three leading rabbis in France denounced his books to the Dominicans, who headed the French Inquisition. The Inquisitors were only too happy to intervene and burn the books. Eight years later, when the Dominicans started burning the Talmud, one of the rabbis involved, Jonah Gerondi, concluded that God was punishing him and French Jewry for their unjust condemnation of Maimonides. He resolved to travel to Maimonides's grave in Tiberias, in Israel, to request forgiveness.

Throughout most of the Jewish world, Maimonides remained a hero, of course. When he died, Egyptian Jews observed three full days of mourning, and applied to his death the biblical verse "The ark of the Lord has been taken" (I Samuel 4:11).

To this day, Maimonides and the French ­Jewish sage Rashi are the most widely studied Jewish scholars. Contemporary yeshiva students generally focus on the Mishneh Torah, and his Book of Commandments (Sefer ha­Mitzvot) a compilation of the Torah's 613 commandments. Maimonides also formulated a credo of Judaism expressed in thirteen articles of faith, a popular reworking of which (the Yigdal prayer) appears in most Jewish prayerbooks. Among other things, this credo affirms belief in the oneness of God, the divine origins of the Torah, and the afterlife. Its twelfth statement of faith — “I believe with a full heart in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may tarry I will still wait for him” — was often among the last words said by Jews being marched into Nazi gas chambers.

Maimonides was one of the few Jewish thinkers whose teachings also influenced the non-­Jewish world; much of his philosophical writings in the Guide were about God and other theological issues of general, not exclusively Jewish, interest. Thomas Aquinas refers in his writings to “Rabbi Moses,” and shows considerable familiarity with the Guide. In 1985, on the 850th anniversary of Maimonides's birth, Pakistan and Cuba — which do not recognize Israel — were among the co­sponsors of a UNESCO conference in Paris on Maimonides. Vitali Naumkin, a Soviet scholar, observed on this occasion: “;Maimonides is perhaps the only philosopher in the Middle Ages, perhaps even now, who symbolizes a confluence of four cultures: Greco­-Roman, Arab, Jewish, and Western.” More remarkably, Abderrahmane Badawi, a Muslim professor from Kuwait University, declared: “I regard him first and foremost as an Arab thinker.” This sentiment was echoed by Saudi Arabian professor Huseyin Atay, who claimed that “if you didn't know he was Jewish, you might easily make the mistake of saying that a Muslim was writing.” That is, if you didn't read any of his Jewish writings. Maimonides scholar Shlomo Pines delivered perhaps the most accurate assessment at the conference: “Maimonides is the most influential Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, and quite possibly of all time” (Time magazine, December 23, 1985). As a popular Jewish expression of the Middle Ages declares: “From Moses [of the Torah] to Moses [Maimonides] there was none like Moses.”

Bio: Ramban/Nachmanides (Source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Nachmanides (1194-1270) was the foremost halakhist of his age. Like Maimonides before him, Nachmanides was a Spaniard who was both a physician and a great Torah scholar. His biblical commentaries are the first ones to incorporate the mystical teachings of kabbalah.

He was well-known for his aggressive refutations of Christianity, most notably, his debate with Pablo Christiani, a converted Jew, before King Jaime I of Spain in 1263.

Nachmanides could be described as one of history's first Zionists, because he declared that it is a mitzvah to take possession of Israel and to live in it (relying on Num. 33:53). He said, "So long as Israel occupies [the Holy Land], the earth is regarded as subject to Him." Nachmanides fulfilled this commandment, moving to the Holy Land during the Crusades after he was expelled from Spain for his polemics. He found devastation in the Holy Land, "but even in this destruction," he said, "it is a blessed land." He died there in 1270 C.E.

Hovevei Zion (Source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Hovevei Zion was a proto-zionist organization in late 19th-century Europe. Both Kalischer and Alkalai were members.

The first Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) organizations were established in 1881­-1882 with the aim of furthering Jewish settlement, particularly agricultural settlement in Eretz-Israel. The groups varied not only in size but in their activity. Some were interested in philanthropic work while others were intent on immigration to Eretz-Israel.

From its inception, the Hovevei Zion groups in Russia sought to erect a country­wide legally recognized framework. After arduous negotiations, in which the authorities demanded that the society be set up as a charitable body, its establishment was approved, early in 1890, as The Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Eretz-Israel, which came to be known as The Odessa Committee.

In 1892, the organization had approximately 14,000 sympathizers in Russia. Among its leaders were Rabbi Samuel Mohilever (1824­1898), Moshe Leib Lilienblum (1843­-1910) and Leon Pinsker (1821­-1891).

Following the publication of Herzl's Der Judenstaat in 1896, and the establishment of the World Zionist Organization, most of the branches of Hovevei Zion aligned themselves with the new movement.

Bio: Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer (Source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Rabbi and pioneer Zionist (b. Leszno, Prussia, 1795; d. Thorn, Prussia, 1874). A student of Rabbi Akiva Eger and a strong opponent of Reform Judaism, Kalischer also acquired a knowledge of philosophy and other secular subjects. He spent most of his life as a rabbi in Thorn (now Torun, Poland), serving without salary. In 1862 he declared that the redemption of Zion would have to begin with action on the part of the Jewish people; the messianic miracle would then follow. He frequently had to defend these views against rabbinic opponents in both Europe and Eretz­ Israel who insisted that the Jewish people would have to wait for the Messiah without taking any action to hasten its deliverance. His volume Derishat Tziyon ve­Hevrat Erez Noshevet (1862) was in effect the first Hebrew book to appear in eastern Europe on the subject of modern Jewish agricultural settlement in Eretz­ Israel.

Kalischer traveled through Germany asking wealthy and influential Jews to aid Jewish settlement projects. His influence inspired the founding of several settlement societies, and in 1864 he was responsible for the establishment of the Central Committee for Settlement in Eretz­Israel in Berlin. Kalischer first interested the Alliance Israelite Universelle in aiding agriculture in Erez Israel, an interest which led to the opening of the Mikve Yisrael Agricultural School in 1870. In reply to the argument from various quarters in Eretz­Israel that conditions were not propitious for the establishment of agricultural settlements, he proposed that the settlers organize guard units whose members would combine farm work with defense against attack. Tirat Tzevi, a religious kibbutz in the Bet She'an Valley, is named for him.

Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, Drishat Tziyon, 1862

The Redemption of Israel, for which we long, is not be imagined a sudden miracle. The Almighty, blessed be His Name, will not suddenly descend from on high and command His people to go forth. He will not send the Messiah from heaven in a twinkling of an eye, to sound the great trumpet for the scattered of Israel and gather them into Jerusalem. He will not surround the Holy City with a wall of fire or cause the Holy Temple to descend from the heavens. The bliss and the miracles that were promised by His servants, the prophets, will certainly come to pass – everything will be fulfilled – but we will not run in terror and flight, for the Redemption of Israel will come by slow degrees and the ray of deliverance will shine forth gradually. My dear reader! Cast aside the conventional view that the Messiah will suddenly sound a blast on the great trumpet and cause all the inhabitants of the earth to tremble. On the contrary, the Redemption will begin by awakening support among the philanthropists and by gaining the consent of the nations to the gathering of some of the scattered of Israel into the Holy Land.

…I would suggest that an organization be established to encourage settlement in the Holy Land, for the purpose of purchasing and cultivating farms and vineyards. Such a program would appear as a ray of deliverance to those now living in the Land in poverty and famine. The pittance that is gathered from the entire Jewish world for their support is not enough to satisfy their hunger; indeed, in Jerusalem, the city which should be a source of blessing and well-being, many pious and saintly people are fainting of hunger in the streets.

…The situation would be different if we were inspired by the fervor of working the land with our own hands. Surely, God would bless our labor and there would be no need to import grain from Egypt and other neighboring countries, for our harvest would prosper greatly….But, beyond all this, Jewish farming would be a spur to the ultimate Messianic Redemption. As we bring redemption to the land in a “this-wordly” way, the rays of heavenly deliverance will gradually appear. ..

…Why do the people of Italy and of other countries sacrifice their lives for the land of their fathers, while we, like men bereft of strength and courage do nothing? Are we inferior to all other peoples, who have no regard for life and fortune as compared with love of their land and nation? Let us take to heart the examples of the Italians, Poles, and Hungarians, who laid down their lives and possessions in the struggle for national independence, while we, the children of Israel, who have the most glorious and holiest of lands as our inheritance, are spiritless and silent. We should be ashamed of ourselves! All the other peoples have striven only for the sake of their own national honor; how much more should we exert ourselves, for our duty is to labor not only for the glory of our ancestors but for the glory of God who chose Zion!

Bio: Yehudah Alkalai (Source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Judah Ben Solomon Hai Alkalai is one of the precursors of modern Zionism (b. Sarajevo, Bosnia; d. Jerusalem). At the age of 28 he became reader and teacher of the Sephardi community of Zemun, near Belgrade. Some years later he was appointed rabbi of the community, serving in this capacity until his emigration to Eretz Israel.

Steeped in the study of the Kabbala, Alkalai believed that the year 5600 (1840) would usher in the Messianic redemption of the Jewish people. In the introduction to Darkhei No'am, a book dealing with Hebrew grammar which he published in 1839, he called upon his fellow Jews to prepare for the redemption by prayer and spiritual devotion to Zion and by rendering material assistance to those already residing in the Land of Israel. He further developed his ideas in Shelom Yerushalayim (1840), in which he warned his people that misfortune would befall them if they did not prepare for redemption and exhorted them to give concrete expression to their devotion to Zion by dedicating one ­tenth of their income ("tithe") to the support of those who dwelt in Jerusalem.

The Damascus affair (1840) had far­reaching effects on Alkalai's views on the redemption of the Jewish people. On the one hand he saw in the blood accusation a danger signal, warning the Jews to leave the lands of the Diaspora. On the other, the United Jewish effort led by Jewish notables from western Europe and the intervention of European powers on behalf of the victims revealed to him that a Return to Zion could be achieved with the help of the nations. In Minhat Yehuda (1843) and subsequent brochures and articles, Alkalai advocated the formation of an "Assembly of Jewish Notables" which would serve as the representative body of the Jewish people, appeal to the nations to permit the Jews to return to their ancient Homeland, and organize the gradual settlement of the Jews with the funds of the tithe. Supporting his ideas and arguments with ample quotations from Jewish religious literature, Alkalai asserted that the final supernatural redemption to be brought about by the Messiah must be preceded by the physical return of the Jews to Zion. To spread his ideas, Alkalai developed a prolific literary activity, and in 1851­-1852 he toured several foreign countries, including Great Britain, where he published a pamphlet in English and established a short­lived Eretz Israel settlement society. In 1874 Alkalai settled in Eretz ­ Israel.

Rabbi Yehudah Alkalai, Minchat Yehudah, 1843

There are two kinds of return: individual and collective. Individual return means that each man should turn away from his evil personal ways and repent; the way of such repentance has been prescribed in the devotional books of our religious tradition. This kind of repentance is called individual, because it is relative to the particular needs of each man. Collective return means that all Israel should return to the land which is the inheritance of our fathers, to receive the Divine command and to accept the yoke of Heaven…

I wish to attest to the pain I have always felt at the error our ancestors, that they allowed our Holy Tongue to be so forgotten. Because of this our people was divided into seventy peoples; our one language was replaced by the seventy languages of the lands of exile.

The Redemption will begin with efforts by the Jews themselves; they must organize and unite, choose leaders, and leave the lands of exile. Since no community can exist without a governing body, the very first new ordinance must be the appointment of the elders of each district, men of piety and wisdom, to oversee all the affairs of the community. I humbly suggest that this chosen assembly – the assembly of the elders – is what is meant by the promise to us of the Messiah, the son of Joseph…

…It is not impossible for us to carry out the commandment to return to the Holy Land. The Sultan will not object, for His Majesty knows that the Jews are his loyal subjects. Difference of religion should not be an obstacle, for each nation will worship its own god and we will forever obey the Lord our God.

Bio: Theodore Herzl (Source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Theodor (Binyamin Ze'ev) Herzl was the visionary behind modern Zionism and the reinstitution of a Jewish homeland.

Herzl (born May 2, 1860; died July 3, 1904) was born in Budapest in 1860. He was educated in the spirit of the German-Jewish Enlightenment, and learned to appreciate secular culture. In 1878 the family moved to Vienna, and in 1884 Herzl was awarded a doctorate of law from the University of Vienna. He became a writer, playwright and journalist. The Paris correspondent of the influential liberal Vienna newspaper Neue Freie Presse was none other than Theodor Herzl.

Herzl first encountered the anti-Semitism that would shape his life and the fate of the Jews in the twentieth century while studying at the University of Vienna (1882). Later, during his stay in Paris as a journalist, he was brought face-to-face with the problem. At the time, he regarded the Jewish problem as a social issue and wrote a drama, The Ghetto (1894), in which assimilation and conversion are rejected as solutions. He hoped that The Ghetto would lead to debate and ultimately to a solution, based on mutual tolerance and respect between Christians and Jews.

In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was unjustly accused of treason, mainly because of the prevailing anti-Semitic atmosphere. Herzl witnessed mobs shouting “Death to the Jews” in France, the home of the French Revolution, and resolved that there was only one solution: the mass immigration of Jews to a land that they could call their own. Thus, the Dreyfus Case became one of the determinants in the genesis of Political Zionism.

Herzl concluded that anti-Semitism was a stable and immutable factor in human society, which assimilation did not solve. He mulled over the idea of Jewish sovereignty, and, despite ridicule from Jewish leaders, published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896). Herzl argued that the essence of the Jewish problem was not individual but national. He declared that the Jews could gain acceptance in the world only if they ceased being a national anomaly. The Jews are one people, he said, and their plight could be transformed into a positive force by the establishment of a Jewish state with the consent of the great powers. He saw the Jewish question as an international political question to be dealt with in the arena of international politics.

Herzl proposed a practical program for collecting funds from Jews around the world by a company to be owned by stockholders, which would work toward the practical realization of this goal. (This organization, when it was eventually formed, was called the Zionist Organization.) He saw the future state as a model social state, basing his ideas on the European model of the time, of a modern enlightened society. It would be neutral and peace-seeking, and of a secular nature.

In his Zionist novel, Altneuland (Old New Land, 1902), Herzl pictured the future Jewish state as a socialist utopia. He envisioned a new society that was to rise in the Land of Israel on a cooperative basis utilizing science and technology in the development of the Land.

He included detailed ideas about how he saw the future state’s political structure, immigration, fund­raising, diplomatic relations, social laws and relations between religion and the state. In Altneuland, the Jewish state was foreseen as a pluralist, advanced society, a “light unto the nations.” This book had a great impact on the Jews of the time and became a symbol of the Zionist vision in the Land of Israel.

Herzl's ideas were met with enthusiasm by the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe, although Jewish leaders were less ardent. Herzl appealed to wealthy Jews such as Baron Hirsch and Baron Rothschild, to join the national Zionist movement, but in vain. He then appealed to the people, and the result was the convening of the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, on August 29­31, 1897.

The Congress was the first interterritorial gathering of Jews on a national and secular basis. Here the delegates adopted the Basle Program, the program of the Zionist movement, and declared, “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.” At the Congress the World Zionist Organization was established as the political arm of the Jewish people, and Herzl was elected its first president.

Herzl convened six Zionist Congresses between 1897 and 1902. It was here that the tools for Zionist activism were forged: Otzar Hityashvut Hayehudim, the Jewish National Fund and the movement’s newspaper Die Welt.

After the First Zionist Congress, the movement met yearly at an international Zionist Congress. In 1936, the center of the Zionist movement was transferred to Jerusalem.

Herzl saw the need for encouragement by the great powers of the aims of the Jewish people in the Land. Thus, he traveled to the Land of Israel and Istanbul in 1898 to meet with Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The meeting with Wilhelm was a failure - the monarch dismissed Herzl’s political entreaties with snide anti-Semitic remarks. When these efforts proved fruitless, he turned to Great Britain, and met with Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary and others. The only concrete offer he received from the British was the proposal of a Jewish autonomous region in east Africa, in Uganda.

In 1899, in an essay entitled “The Family Affliction” written for The American Hebrew, Herzl wrote, “Anyone who wants to work in behalf of the Jews needs - to use a popular phrase - a strong stomach.”

The 1903 Kishinev pogrom and the difficult state of Russian Jewry, witnessed firsthand by Herzl during a visit to Russia, had a profound effect on him. He requested that the Russian government assist the Zionist Movement to transfer Jews from Russia to Eretz Yisrael.

At the Sixth Zionist Congress (1903), Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as a temporary refuge for Jews in Russia in immediate danger. While Herzl made it clear that this program would not affect the ultimate aim of Zionism, a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, the proposal aroused a storm at the Congress and nearly led to a split in the Zionist movement. The Uganda Program was finally rejected by the Zionist movement at the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905.

Herzl died in Vienna in 1904, of pneumonia and a weak heart overworked by his incessant efforts on behalf of Zionism. By then the movement had found its place on the world political map. In 1949, Herzl’s remains were brought to Israel and reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State, translated by Sylvie D'avigdor, Chapter 2

Bio: Ahad Ha'am (source: brittanica.com)

Aḥad Haʿam, ( Hebrew: “One of the People”, ) original name Asher Ginzberg (born Aug. 18, 1856, Skvira, near Kiev, Russian Empire [now in Ukraine]—died Jan. 2, 1927, Tel Aviv, Palestine [now in Israel]), Zionist leader whose concepts of Hebrew culture had a definitive influence on the objectives of the early Jewish settlement in Palestine.

Reared in Russia in a rigidly Orthodox Jewish family, he mastered rabbinic literature but soon was attracted to the rationalist school of medieval Jewish philosophy and to the writings of the Haskala (“Enlightenment”), a liberal Jewish movement that attempted to integrate Judaism with modern Western thought.

At the age of 22, Aḥad Haʿam went to Odessa, the centre of the Jewish nationalist movement known as Hibbat Zion (“Love of Zion”). There he was influenced both by Jewish nationalism and by the materialistic philosophies of the Russian nihilist D.I. Pisarev and the English and French positivists. After joining the central committee of Hibbat Zion, he published his first essay, “Lo ze ha-derekh” (1889; “This Is Not the Way”), which emphasized the spiritual basis of Zionism.

In 1897, after two visits to Palestine, he founded the periodical Ha-Shiloaḥ, in which he severely criticized the political Zionism of Theodor Herzl, the foremost Jewish nationalist leader of the time. Aḥad Haʿam remained outside the Zionist organization, believing that a Jewish state would be the end result of a Jewish spiritual renaissance rather than the beginning. He called for a renaissance of Hebrew-language culture, and to that end he did urge the creation of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine as the centre and model for Jewish life in the Diaspora (i.e., the settlements of Jews outside Palestine).

Aḥad Haʿam was an intimate adviser to the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann during the time that Weizmann was playing a leading role in eliciting from the British government its Balfour Declaration of 1917, a document supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine. His last years were spent in Palestine, editing his Iggerot Aḥad Haʿam, 6 vol. (1923–25; “Letters of Aḥad Haʿam”). Further letters, principally from the last phase of his life, and his memoirs were published in Aḥad Haʿam: Pirqe zikhronot we-iggerot (1931; “Collected Memoirs and Letters”). His essays comprise four volumes (1895, 1903, 1904, and 1913).

While stressing the rational and moral character of Judaism, Aḥad Haʿam believed that the goal of re-creating Jewish nationhood could not be achieved by purely political means but rather required spiritual rebirth. The clarity and precision of his essays made him a major Hebrew-language stylist and an influential force in modern Hebrew literature.

Ahad Ha'am, The Jewish State and the Jewish Problem, tranlsated by Leon Simon

The Western Jew, after leaving the Ghetto and seeking to attach himself to the people of the country in which he lives, is unhappy because his hope of an open-armed welcome is disappointed. He returns reluctantly to his own people, and tries to find within the Jewish community that life for which he yearns -- but in vain. Communal life and communal problems no longer satisfy him. He has already grown accustomed to a broader social and political life; and on the inteliectual side Jewish cultural work has no attraction, because Jewish culture has played no part in his education from childhood, and is a closed book to him. So in his trouble he turns to the land of his ancestors, and pictures to himself how good it would be if a Jewish State were re-established there -- a State arranged and organised exactly after the pattern of other States. Then he could live a full, complete life among his own people, and find at home all that he now sees outside, dangled before his eyes, but out of reach. Of course, not all the Jews will be able to take wing and go to their State; but the very existence of the Jewish State will raise the prestige of those who remain in exile, and their fellow citizens will no more despise them and keep them at arm's length, as though they were ignoble slaves, dependent entirely on the hospitality of others. As he contemplates this fascinating vision, it suddenly dawns on his inner consciousness that even now, before the Jewish State is established, the mere idea of it gives him almost complete relief. He has an opportunity for organised work, for political excitement; he finds a suitable field of activity without having to become subservient to non-Jews; and he feels that thanks to this ideal he stands once more spiritually erect, and has regained human dignity, without overmuch trouble and without external aid. So he devotes himself to the ideal with all the ardour of which he is capable; he gives rein to his fancy, and lets it soar as it will, up above reality and the limitations of human power. For it is not the attainment of the ideal that he needs: its pursuit alone is sufficient to cure him of his moral sickness, which is the consciousness of inferiority; and the higher and more distant the ideal, the greater its power of exaltation.

This is the basis of Western Zionism and the secret of its attraction. But Eastern Chibbath Zion has a different origin and development. Originally, like "Zionism," it was political; but being a result of material evils, it could not rest satisfied with an "activity " consisting only of outbursts of feeling and fine phrases. These things may satisfy the heart, but not the stomach. So Chibbath Zion began at once to express itself in concrete activities -- in the establishment of settlements in Palestine. This practical work soon clipped the wings of fancy, and made it clear that Chibbath Zion could not lessen the material evil by one iota. One might have thought, then, that when this fact became patent the Choveve Zion would give up their activity, and cease wasting time and energy on work which brought them no nearer their goal. But, no: they remained true to their flag, and went on working with the old enthusiasm, though most of them did not understand even in their own minds why they did so. They felt instinctively that so they must do; but as they did not clearly appreciate the nature of this feeling, the things that they did were not always rightly directed towards that object which in reality was drawing them on without their knowledge.

For at the very time when the material tragedy in the East was at its height, the heart of the Eastern Jew was still oppressed by another tragedy -- the moral one; and when the Choveve Zion began to work for the solution of the material problem, the national instinct of the people felt that just in such work could it find the remedy for its moral trouble. Hence the people took up this work and would not abandon it even after it had become obvious that the material trouble could not be cured in this way. The Eastern form of the moral trouble is absolutely different from the Western. In the West it is the problem of the Jews, in the East the problem of Judaism. The one weighs on the individual, the other on the nation. The one is felt by Jews who have had a European education, the other by Jews whose education has been Jewish. The one is a product of antisemitism, and is dependent on antisemitism for its existence; the other is a natural product of a real link with a culture of thousands of years, which will retain its hold even if the troubles of the Jews all over the world come to an end, together with antisemitism, and all the Jews in every land have comfortable positions, are on the best possible terms with their neighbours, and are allowed by them to take part in every sphere of social and political life on terms of absolute equality.

It is not only Jews who have come out of the Ghetto: Judaism has come out, too. For Jews the exodus is confined to certain countries, and is due to toleration; but Judaism has come out (or is coming out) of its own accord wherever it has come into contact with modern culture. This contact with modern culture overturns the defences of Judaism from within, so that Judaism can no longer remain isolated and live a life apart. The spirit of our people strives for development: it wants to absorb those elements of general culture which reach it from outside, to digest them and to make them a part of itself, as it has done before at different periods of its history. But the conditions of its life in exile are not suitable. In our time culture wears in each country the garb of the national spirit, and the stranger who would woo her must sink his individuality and become absorbed in the dominant spirit. For this reason Judaism in exile cannot develop its individuality in its own way. When it leaves the Ghetto walls it is in danger of losing its essential being or -- at best -- its national unity: it is in danger of being split up into as many kinds of Judaism, each with a different character and life, as there are countries of the Jewish dispersion.

And now Judaism finds that it can no longer tolerate the galuth form which it had to take on, in obedience to its will-to-live, when it was exiled from its own country, and that if it loses that form its life is in danger. So it seeks to return to its historic centre, in order to live there a life of natural development, to bring its powers into play in every department of human culture, to develop and perfect those national possessions which it has acquired up to now, and thus to contribute to the common stock of humanity, in the future as in the past, a great national culture, the fruit of the unhampered activity of a people living according to its own spirit. For this purpose Judaism needs at present but little. It needs not an independent State, but only the creation in its native land of conditions favourable to its development: a good-sized settlement of Jews working without hindrance in every branch of culture, from agriculture and handicrafts to science and literature. This Jewish settlement, which will be a gradual growth, will become in course of time the centre of the nation, wherein its spirit will find pure expression and develop in all its aspects up to the highest degree of perfection of which it is capable. Then from this centre the spirit of Judaism will go forth to the great circumference, to all the communities of the Diaspora, and will breathe new life into them and preserve their unity; and when our national culture in Palestine has attained that level, we may be confident that it will produce men in the country who will be able, on a favourable opportunity, to establish a State which will be a Jewish State, and not merely a State of Jews.

Bio: Yaakov Reines (source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Born in Karolin, Belorussia, he studied at yeshivot in Eishistok and Volozhin before becoming a rabbi in Lithuania. His last post was in Lida, where he was the rabbi from 1885 until his death.

A member of the Hibbat Zion movement from its inception, Reines joined Rabbi Samuel Mohilever in proposing settlement which combined Torah study with physical labor. He was also one of the first rabbis to answer Herzl's call to become part of the Zionist movement; as such, he attended the First Zionist Congress (Basle, 1897). Herzl recognized the need for rabbis to support his new movement.

While most of his eastern and western European rabbinical colleagues remained opposed to political Zionism, in 1902 Reines published a book, Or Hadash al Tzion (A New Light on Zion) which countered the claims of the Anti-Zionist rabbis. The same year he organized a conference of the religious Zionist movement in Vilna, where the Mizrachi movement was founded. He was recognized as the movement's leader at its founding convention in Pressburg, Bratislava in 1904.

In 1905, Reines accomplished his own personal dream with the establishment of a yeshiva in Lida where both secular and religious subjects were taught.

Rabbi Yaakov Reines, published in Hamelitz 78, 1900, translated by Michael Swirsky and Jonathan Chipman

Anyone who thinks the Zionist idea is somehow associated with future redemption and the coming of the Messiah and who therefore regards it as undermining our holy faith is clearly in error. [Zionism] has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of redemption. The entire point of this idea is merely the improvement of the condition of our wretched brethren. In recent years our situation has deteriorated disastrously, and many of our brethren are scattered in every direction, to the seven seas, in places where the fear of assimilation is hardly remote. [The Zionists] saw that the only fitting place for our brethren to settle would be in the Holy Land.

Rabbi Yaakov Reines The Light of the Seven Days, 1896, pp. 21a-b, translated by Batya Stein

Nature is only the external receptacle of the divine light, the purse where Divine Providence lies hidden and folded...The knowledge that divine light lies within the purse of nature, that nature is inherently full of spirituality and divinity, is the knowledge underlying all faith and religion, inherent in the meaning and contents of all concepts.

Rabbi Yaakov Reines, Sha'arei Ora V'Simcha, part 7, chapter 5

One of the basic foundations of our faith is the belief in the return of Israel to its land, for it is not possible to conceive that our nation is meant to be scattered and separated forever among the other nations in the world without its own land. Therefore ‘nationalism’ is the first and basic part of the faith of Israel…For a unique people with its unique religion can only be fulfilled at the time when it has its own land or, at the very least, a hope that it can return to its land.

Rabbi Yaakov Reines, Address to the Zionist Congress, 1897

All that others see as detrimental (to the Zionist cause), I view as a positive influence; Others see in the (many) Zionist parties division of the hearts and I see in it a unification of powers. If one party were to work for the coming redemption this would not be surprising. But the fact that many different factions, each retaining its own specific view and ideology can unite under one general flag – the national flag- this can only be seen as ‘the finger of God’, a phenomena that is not normal. The very fact that there are so many different political factions within the Zionist movement is in itself the best witness that this movement is resultant from the entire people of Israel, for they (the political factions) unify the various potentials which exist (within our nation).

Bio: Avraham Yitzchak Kook (source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Rav Kook was born in Griva, Latvia in 1865. His father was a student of the Volozhin Yeshiva, the center of 'mitnagdut,' whereas his maternal grandfather was a memeber of the Hassidic movement. He entered the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1884, where he became close to the Rosh HaYeshiva, Rav Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv). Already in his youth, he was well-known as a prodigy. At the age of 23, he entered his first rabbinical position. Between 1901 and 1904, he published three articles which anticipate the fully-developed philosophy which he developed in the Land of Israel.

In 1904, he came to the Land of Israel to assume the rabbinical post in Jaffa, which also included responsibility for the new secular Zionist agricultural settlements nearby. His influence on people in different walks of life was already noticeable, as he attempted to introduce Torah and Halakha into the life of the city and the settlements.

The outbreak of the First World War caught him in Europe, and he was forced to remain in London and Switzerland for the remainder of the war. While there, he was involved in the activities which led to the Balfour Declaration. (Interestingly, despite his strong support for religious Zionism, Rav Kook never joined the Mizrachi.) Upon returning, he was appointed the Rav of Jerusalem, and soon after, as first Chief Rabbi of Israel (though the state had not yet been been born). Rav Kook was a man of halakhah in the strictest sense, while at the same time possessing an unusual openness to new ideas. This drew many religious and non­religious people to him, but also led to widespread misunderstanding of his ideas. He wrote prolifically on both halakhah and Jewish Thought, and his books and personality continued to influence many even after his death in Jerusalem in 1935. His authority and influence continue to this day.

Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, Orot "The Land of Israel," translated by Arthur Hertzberg

Eretz Israel is not something apart from the soul of the Jewish people; it is no mere national possession, serving as a means of unifying our people and buttressing its material, or even its spiritual, survival. Eretz Israel is part of the very essence of our nationhood; it is bound organically to its very life and inner being. Human reason, even at its most sublime, cannot begin to understand the unique holiness of Eretz Israel; it cannot stir the depths of love for the land that are dormant within our people. ...

To regard Eretz Israel as merely a tool for establishing our national unity—or even for sustaining our religion in the Diaspora by preserving its proper character and its faith, piety, and observances—is a sterile notion; it is unworthy of the holiness of Eretz Israel. A valid strengthening of Judaism in the Diaspora can only come from a deepened attachment to Eretz Israel. The home for the return to the Holy Land is the continuing Source of the distinctive nature of Judaism. The hope for the redemption is the force that sustains Judaism in the Diaspora; the Judaism of Eretz Israel, is the very redemption.

Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, Orot "Lights for Rebirth," translated by Arthur Hertzberg

There is an eternal covenant which assures the whole House of Israel that it will not ever become completely unclean. Yes, it may be partially corroded, but it can never be totally cut off from the source of divine life. Many of the adherents of the present national revival maintain that they are secularists. If a Jewish secular nationalism were really imaginable, then we would, indeed, be in danger of falling so low as to be beyond redemption.

But Jewish secular nationalism is a form of self-delusion: the spirit of Israel is so closely linked to the spirit of God that a Jewish nationalist, no matter how secular his intention may be, must, despite himself, affirm the divine. An individual can sever the tie that binds him to life eternal, but the House of Israel as a whole cannot. All of its most cherished possessions--its land, language, history, and customs--are vessels of the spirit of the Lord.

How should men of faith respond to an age of ideological ferment which affirms all of these values in the name of nationalism, and denies their source, the rootedness of the national spirit, in God? To oppose Jewish nationalism, even in speech, and to denigrate its values is not permissible, for the spirit of God and the spirit of Israel are identical. What they must do is to work all the harder at the task of uncovering the light and holiness implicit in our national spirit, the divine element which is its core. The secularists will thus be constrained to realize that they are immersed and rooted in the life of God and bathed in the radiant sanctity that comes from above.

Despite the grave faults of which we are aware in our life in general, and in Eretz Israel in particular, we must feel that we are being reborn and that we are being created once again as at the beginning of time. Our entire spiritual heritage is presently being absorbed within its source and is reappearing in a new guise, much reduced in material extent but qualitatively very rich and luxuriant and full of vital force. We are called to a new world suffused with the highest light, to an epoch the glory of which will surpass that of all the great ages which have preceded. All of our people believes that we are in the first stage of the Final Redemption. This deep faith is the very secret of its existence; it is the divine mystery implicit in its historical experience. This ancient tradition about the Redemption bears witness to the spiritual light by which the Jew understands himself and all the events of his history to the last generation, the one that is awaiting the Redemption that is near at hand.

Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook Musar Avicha, translated by Moshe Sokolow

It is impossible not to love God, and it is impossible that the power of this sweet and necessary love will not bring forth a practical result.

It is impossible not to love the Torah and the commandments which are bound up with the goodness of God. It is impossible not to love honesty and righteousness--the perfect order...And it is impossible not to be filled with love for every creature for the abundance of God's light illuminates everything and everything is a revelation of the desirable pleasantness of God. The benevolence of God fills the world.

Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook Igrot Rayah 555, translated by Moshe Sokolow

Let heaven and earth attest the greatness of my love, literally my whole heart and my whole soul. To our whole people, its individuals and all its denominations...

In each faction and each movement there are certainly things with which I cannot agree, but this cannot cause my love, full of that flame that burns within me for our people and all its individuals, to be diminished even by a hair's breadth. It is sustained within me, in equal measure, to those who respect me and those who despise me. I love all of them without limits.

...

There are two principle matters which, together, build the sanctity of Israel and God's bond with Israel.

The first is "chosenness," that is the natural sanctity which a Jewish soul has inherited from his ancestors, as it says, "Yet it was to your fathers that God was drawn in His love for them, so that He chose you, their lineal descendants...," and "...You shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples."

Chosenness is an inner holy force embedded by the will of God in the nature of the soul, like the nature of anything in existence which cannot change at all, "For He has spoken, and it was." "He made them endure forever."

The second matter is "choice." This depends on good deeds and Torah study....

...

When the "footsteps of Messiah" [sound], the power of chosenness triumphs, being the essence of "recollecting the merit of the fathers and bringing redemption to their descendants for the sake of His name, in love." That is to say, not on account of our choice, which derives from the descendants' good deeds and repentance, but "for the sake of His name" which is revealeled by the recollection of the merits of their ancestors.

Bio: Shalom Dov Baer Schneersohn (source: chabad.org)

The fifth rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn, known by the acronym “Rashab,” was born in the town of Lubavitch, in White Russia, on the 20th of the Jewish month of Cheshvan in 1860 (5621 since creation).

Rabbi Sholom DovBer was the third child (and second son) of Rabbi Shmuel of Lubavitch, the fourth Chabad rebbe (known as the “Maharash”), and his illustrious wife, Rebbetzin Rivkah.

Rabbi Shmuel passed away in 1882, at the young age of forty-eight; Rabbi Sholom DovBer was only twenty-one years old when he was orphaned. Though Rabbi Sholom DovBer began delivering original chassidic discourses immediately following his father’s passing—traditionally an act reserved in Chabad for the rebbe—he refused to officially take on the leadership of the movement, in deference to his older brother, Rabbi Schneur Zalman Aharon (known as “Raza”), himself an eminent scholar and worthy leader. Yet Raza, recognizing his younger brother’s holiness and leadership abilities, also refused to accept the position. It was only after Raza moved away from the town of Lubavitch in 1893, eleven years after the passing of their father Rabbi Shmuel, that Rabbi Sholom DovBer officially accepted the mantle of leadership.

Famed for his phenomenal mind and analytical treatment of Chabad philosophy, Rabbi Sholom DovBer wrote and delivered some 2,000 chassidic discourses over the thirty-eight years of his leadership. Rabbi Sholom DovBer became known as the “Maimonides of Chabad Chassidism,” for his ability to organize topics in chassidic thought (much as Maimonides codified the Oral Law). He would often recite hemshechim (long series of discourses)—some that lasted for several years!—wherein he comprehensively covered the most abstruse Kabbalistic concepts.

In 1897 Rabbi Sholom DovBer established an institution of Jewish learning, a school whose curriculum included the study of Talmudic and legal courses as well as the mystical teachings of Chabad Chassidism. This school also placed special emphasis on prayer: students were encouraged to meditate while praying, to use the opportunity to open their hearts and souls to their Father in heaven.

Rabbi Sholom DovBer named this innovative school “Tomchei Temimim.”

Rabbi Sholom DovBer took an active role in assisting the Jews oppressed by the czarist government. For example, in 1891, when the Jews were expelled from Moscow, Rabbi Sholom DovBer established a factory for knitting, giving thousands a source of livelihood. He also took a lead in assisting the Jewish soldiers in the Russian army, particularly during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, helping them secure their religious and spiritual needs. Rabbi Sholom DovBer was also in the forefront of the fight against Jewish “reformation” and all the other movements and “isms” whose ideologies ran contrary to traditional Jewish values.

In what would become the prototype for Lubavitch outreach, Rabbi Sholom DovBer sent out emissaries to the largely ignorant “mountain Jews” living in the Russian Caucasian mountains. These emissaries worked on educating the youth, in the interest of creating educated leadership from within the ranks of the local communities.

Rabbi Sholom DovBer is the one who compared the chassid to a lamplighter. “The lamplighter,” he explained, “walks the streets carrying a flame at the end of a pole. He knows that the flame is not his. And he goes from lamp to lamp to set them alight.”

Due to the turmoil caused by the First World War, in the autumn of 1915 Rabbi Sholom DovBer moved from the town of Lubavitch to the city of Rostov on the Don River. There he was at the time of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, and from there he started to wage a war against the Soviet Union’s attempt to squelch Jewish religious life. After his passing, this effort was continued and expanded by his son.

Rabbi Shalom Dov Baer Schneersohn (a.k.a. The 5th Lubavitcher Rebbe,1860-1920), Iggerot Kodesh

In order to infuse our brethren with the idea of being a "nation" ... the Zionists must give nationalism precedence over Torah, because it is known that those who cling to Torah and the commandments are not likely to change and accept another identity.

...

The redemption that took place through Moses and Aaron was also not a full one, for the Jewish people were once again to be enslaved; and even less so was the redemption at the hands of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah…In the present exile we must expect redemption and salvation only at the hands of the Holy Blessed One, Himself, not by flesh and blood, and thus will our redemption be complete.

Bio: Hayim Soloveitchik (source: wikipedia)

Chaim (Halevi) Soloveitchik (Yiddish: חיים סאָלאָווייטשיק, Polish: Chaim Sołowiejczyk), also known as Reb Chaim Brisker (1853 – 30 July 1918), was a rabbi and Talmudic scholar credited as the founder of the popular Brisker approach to Talmudic study within Judaism. He was born in Volozhin in 1853, where his father, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik served as a lecturer in the famous Volozhiner Yeshiva. After a few years, his father was appointed as a Rav in Slutzk, where young Chaim was first educated. While still a youngster, his genius and lightning-quick grasp were widely recognized. Eventually, following many years as a senior lecturer in the renowned Volozhiner Yeshiva, he accepted a position as Rav of Brest, Belarus (Brisk in Yiddish).[1] A member of the Soloveitchik-family rabbinical dynasty, he is commonly known as Reb Chaim Brisker ("Rabbi Chaim [from] Brisk").

He is considered the founder of the "Brisker method" (in Yiddish: Brisker derech; Hebrew: derekh brisk‎‎), a method of highly exacting and analytical Talmudical study that focuses on precise definition/s and categorization/s of Jewish law as commanded in the Torah with particular emphasis on the legal writings of Maimonides.

His primary work was Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim, a volume of insights on Maimonides' Mishneh Torah which often would suggest novel understandings of the Talmud as well. Based on his teachings and lectures, his students wrote down his insights on the Talmud known as Chiddushi HaGRaCh Al Shas. This book is known as "Reb Chaim's stencils" and contains analytical insights into Talmudical topics.

He married the daughter of Rabbi Refael Shapiro and had two famous sons, Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik (also known as Rabbi Velvel Soloveitchik) who subsequently moved to Israel and Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik who moved to the United States and subsequently served as a Rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Yitzchak Elchonon (YU/RIETS) in New York and who was in turn succeeded by his own son Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993). Rabbi Velvel 's son, Rabbi Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik, heads a renowned yeshiva in Jerusalem; two of his other sons, Meir and Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, also led prominent yeshivos.

Rabbi Hayim Soloveitchik of Brisk (1853-1918), in "Or LeSharim," 1900

Regarding the Zionist sect, which has now banded and united together by force…Have they not a bad reputation in their own places, and is not their purpose to uproot the fundamentals of our religion – and to this end also to take control of all the Jewish communities…The people of Israel should take care not to join a venture that threatens their souls, to destroy religion, and is a stumbling block to the House of Israel.

Bio: Yoel Teitelbaum (source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum began his rabbinic career in Krooly, a small town in Hungary. In 1929, the Rav of the Orthodox community in Satmar, a larger and more prestigious community, passed away, and Rabbi Teitelbaum was invited for a Shabbos “tryout.” The Rav displayed exceptional knowledge of Talmud, far above the prevailing image of a Chassidic rabbi, who was expected to be more of an expert in Kabbalah and prayer. He was retained by the community, which prospered under his leadership, and began attracting students to its yeshiva from all over Hungary.

As the War approached, the Satmarer Rav was smuggled out of harm’s way, first into Switzerland, where he remained throughout the War, and afterwards in 1946, into Israel. On a fund-raising mission to the United States, he met many people from his former community who urged him to stay in America and help them recover from the trauma of the War. Rabbi Teitelbaum’s decision to stay in America was historic, in that it set in place the foundation for the growth of the Satmar community. After only a short time, the transplanted “Yetiv Lev” Congregation emerged upon American soil, with Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum at the helm.

In 1948, he drew worldwide attention when he became the only Jewish leader to denounce the newly founded Jewish state.

In the 1950’s, the Satmar community continued to blossom. Williamsburg became the scene of many inspiring Chassidic gatherings and public tefilos, such as would occur annually on Hoshanah Rabbah, when the Satmar synagogue was a sea of lulavim and esrogim.

By the 1960’s, the Satmar community in Brooklyn had grown rapidly and the rebbe had gained many new adherents from immigration to the United States, and his opinions and blessings were sought by thousands.

In the 1970’s, the rebbe bought land in Monroe, NY, and founded Kiryas Yoel, where a large branch of the Satmar community now lives.

Tens of thousands of his Chassidim attended his funeral in Kiryat Yoel. None of his children survived him, as all three of his daughters passed away during his lifetime. The Satmar community grieved at the tremendous loss of their rebbe, who had led his followers according to uncompromising principles, in which he deeply believed.

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum (a.k.a. the Satmar Rav, 1887-1979) Vayoel Moshe, “Essay on the Three Oaths”

Even if the cabinet ministers were ‘all beloved of God, all pure,’ even if they were all Talmudic sages, nevertheless, because they have seized freedom and sovereignty before the appointed time, they have committed hersy against our holy Torah and faith. The kingdom of [Bar Kokhba] was, after all, ruled by the Torah…and his contemporaries were all saints…Yet see how grievously they were punished, heaven spare us the like, for [their actions, in rebelling against Rome] amounted to a forcing of the End before the appointed time…Even if the members of the Knesset were saints, it would be a terrible crime to seize deliverance and statehood, for the prohibition against violating the oaths and trying to advance the End applies to all Jews, however righteous.

Rabbi Yehudah Alkalai, Minchat Yehudah, 1843

Therefore, He made us swear not to come (to Israel) all-together for two reasons (Babylonian Talmud: Ketubot 111a). Firstly we will need our brothers in the Diaspora to help those who come to settle, for it is written: “What shall one answer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord has founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall find shelter in it.” (Isiah 14:32) Secondly, the Holy One Blessed be He desires that this redemption come about through honor and therefore He made us swear not to come together so that we would not be spread across the fields as Bedouin, rather little by little (we will come) until this land is reclaimed and rebuilt speedily in our days.

Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, Drishat Tziyon, Maamar Kadishin, 1862

Regarding the oath of G-d, which forms the basis for people who retreat from listening to the words of the prophet – “Do not give Him silence until He establishes and makes Jerusalem the praise of the earth” (Yishaya 62:7) – I will respond to you in two ways: Firstly, the warning “do not arouse or awaken” (Shir Hashirim 2:7) only means that we may not go up with a strong hand to the walls of Jerusalem, as it is explicitly stated in the Gemara there (Kesubos 111a) “that they must not go up as walls” and Rashi explains “with strength”; and also that they must not rebel against the nations; but rather they must wait for the kindness of Hashem, that He turn His eye of mercy to us, if He is pleased with the work of our hands. He only made us swear not to engage in forceful immigration, to go up to the mountain with strength, but to desire its stones and to settle the land is fine, and there is no greater mitzvah than this, as I have explained at length.

Bio: Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (source: wikipedia)

Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (1843–1926) was a rabbi and prominent leader of Orthodox Judaism in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century. He was a kohen, and is therefore often referred to as Meir Simcha ha-Kohen ("Meir Simcha the Kohen"). He is known for his writings on Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, which he titled Ohr Somayach, as well as his novellae on the Torah, titled Meshech Chochma.

Meir Simcha was born in Butrimonys (Yiddish: Baltrimantz‎), Lithuania, to Samson Kalonymus, a local wealthy merchant. According to family tradition, his later success in Torah study was attributed to two blessings his parents had received from local rabbis before his birth.

After marrying in 1860, at age 17, he settled in Białystok, Poland. After 23 years there he finally, after turning down many offers, accepted the rabbinate of the mitnagdim (non-Hasidic Jews) in the Latvian town of Dvinsk, now known as Daugavpils. He served in that position for 39 years until his death.

In Dvinsk, his counterpart was the Hasidic Rabbi Yosef Rosen, known as the Rogatchover Gaon or by his work Tzofnath Paneach. The two had a great respect for each other, despite Rosen's legendary fiery temper, and on occasions referred questions in Jewish law to each other. They also shared a love for the works of Maimonides.

His political ideas were decidedly anti-Zionist, although he has been reported as welcoming the Balfour Declaration. He was present at the founding meetings of Agudath Yisrael in the German town of Bad Homburg, but could not attend the first large conference in Katowice due to poor health. He had several clashes with some of his contemporaries, including Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (the Chafetz Chaim) on political issues and questions of Jewish law.

He died in a hotel in Riga while seeking medical treatment. He had one daughter, who predeceased him before her marriage. One of his most prominent students and a close friend, Rabbi Yisrael Avraham Abba Krieger, adopted his name since Rabbi Meir Simcha had no surviving children, carrying the full name Yisrael Avraham Abba Meir Simcha Krieger.

Rabbi Meir Simcha Hakohen of Dvinsk, Letter to the Mizrachi, translated by Rabbi Daniel Mann

In this century, rays of light shone forth with a great awakening by people of action such as Montefiore and rabbis such as R. Tzvi Hirsch [Kalischer] of Torun and R. Eliyahu [Gutmacher] of Grodzesk to build and restore Jerusalem and remove its destruction … Many rabbis opposed their efforts and even those who wanted to join, placed their hand over their mouth because they feared … [violating] the Three Oaths of the daughters of Jerusalem … Now, however, [we have experienced] Divine providence in the gathering of the League of Nations in San Remo and a pronouncement was made that the Land of Israel will belong to the Jewish people. Since the fear of the oaths has passed with permission of the nations, the mitzvah to settle the Land of Israel — which is equal in weight to all other mitzvot in the Torah combined — is now restored. Everyone should do what they can to help fulfill this mitzvah.

Bio: Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal (source: wikipedia)

Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal was born in Hungary in 1885 from a family of well-known rabbis and Jewish leaders. His parents were Gittel and Yitzchak Teichtal. His father was a scholar, teacher, and a chasid of the Rebbe of Sanz. At thirteen years of age, Teichtal began his yeshiva study under Rabbi Shalom Weider who was the av beit din (town rabbi) of Nyíregyháza, Hungary. At age fifteen he moved to Żabno (now in Poland), where he was a student of Rabbi Shalom Unger.

Teichtal returned to Hungary and at the age of twenty-one he received rabbinic ordination (semichah) from the Rebbe of Talisheva. He received another ordination a year later from Rabbi Shmuel Rosenberg and a third ordination the same year from Rabbi Mordechai Leib Winkler. Teichtal first married Freidl Ginz when he was 19 years of age. When Freidl died at a young age, he married Nechamah Friedman.

In 1921 Teichtal became the av beit din and Rabbi of Pishtian, a city famous for its mineral baths, in Czechoslovakia. Remaining in Pishtian for 20 years, he established the Moriah Yeshiva.

Czechoslovakia was invaded in 1938 while Teichtal was still residing in Pishtian. As the Nazi oppression increased he found himself along with ten other family members in hiding at the local beit midrash (house of learning). From his hiding place he witnessed many atrocities including the mass deportation of friends and neighbors.

The Chief Rabbi of Slovakia in Nitra sent messengers offering refuge for Teichtal and his family. In the month of Elul 1942, he and his family escaped into Hungary to go into hiding in Nitra. After much wandering he finally ended up in Budapest where he remained for nearly two years. In Budapest he completed his seminal work, Eim HaBanim Semeicha after working on it for a little more than one year.

In 1944 Hungary was invaded by the Nazis. Thinking that Slovakia might be safe, the Teichtal family returned there to wait out the end of the war. At the time the Nazis stepped up their efforts to find remaining Jews. Teichtal and his family were captured and transported to Auschwitz.

As the Soviet army advanced through Poland, in January 1945, the inmates of Auschwitz, including Teichtal and his family, were transported deeper into Germany. Teichtal died in a train on his way to the Mauthausen concentration camp on the 10th of Shevat, 5705 (January 24, 1945).

As a result of the Holocaust Teichtal changed his position on Israel as he struggled to make meaning out of what was happening around him. His carefully constructed arguments are outlined in his book Eim Habanim Semeichah penned during his wanderings in hiding from his Nazi oppressors and their collaborators. In that work, first published in 1943, he makes a case for the rebuilding of the land of Israel bringing about the ultimate redemption. His original view had been that of the majority in the Hungarian Orthodox Jewish world at the time, which discouraged an active movement for a return of Jews to Israel. The prevalent view at that time was that God would bring about a return without the need of human mechanizations. The Holocaust caused him to re-think this approach, and he therefore came to the conclusion that the reason that the Jewish people had not been redeemed, was because they had not returned to their homeland, the land of Israel, to resettle and rebuild it to its former glory.

Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal (1885-1945) Eim Habanim Semeichah, 3:6 translated by Moshe Lichtman

This explains a comment found in the Ahavat Yonatan on the verse I have adjured you (Shir Hashirim 2:7—the first of the three oaths from the Gemara in Ketubot). Our mentor explains that the Assembly of Israel declared under oath that they would not go to Eretz Yisrael even if the nations consent, for the end is concealed. All of the antagonists base their opposition to the lofty and sacred idea of rebuilding the Land upon this statement. However, based on what I presented above, it is clear that the Ahavat Yonatan is correct [only] as long as there is no heavenly sign indicated that HaShem wants us to leave the lands of exile. That is to say, he is indeed correct that we should not return to Eretz Yisrael, even with the consent of the nations, when the Jewish world enjoys peace and tranquility, the Ramban’s “promise of exile” is still in effect, and Jews are able to live here comfortable (like in the Ahavat Yonatan’s lifetime).

Today, however, the words of the prophet have come true: And the remnant of Ya’akov will be among the nations…like a lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion among flocks of sheep, who, if he passes by, tramples and tears in pieces, and there is no savior (Michah 5:7). On the other hand, the kingdoms have given us permission to return to our Holy Land! Is there any doubt that HaShem wants us to return to Eretz Yisrael?! I am certain that if our mentor, the author of the Ahavat Yonatan, were alive today and saw our condition in bitter exile, he too would say, “My Jewish brethren, the time has come to go up to Zion and the Land of our forefathers, for this is God’s will. What is happening to us here in exile is not by change. The finger of God is instructing us to leave the Diaspora and ascend to our forefathers’ inheritance.”

Bio: Menachem Mendel Kasher (source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

KASHER, MENAHEM (1895–1983), rabbi and halakhist, distinguished for his research in talmudic and rabbinic literature. Kasher, born in Warsaw, studied under the greatest Polish rabbis of his time, and was primarily influenced in his method of study by Abraham Bornstein. He was ordained by Meir Dan Plotzki in 1915 and went to Ereẓ Israel in 1925 as an emissary of Abraham Mordecai Alter, the head of the ḥasidic Gur dynasty, on whose behalf he founded in Jerusalem the yeshivah Sefat Emet, which he directed and managed for two years. Despite his communal work and his religious activity, Kasher never held any official appointment, and his reputation derives mainly from his literary work. This consists for the most part of varied anthologies, encyclopedic in character, which he not only initiated and wrote, but also took the responsibility for financing. His Torah Shelemah is an encyclopedia of the Talmud and Midrash, in which all relevant material in the oral law, both published and in manuscript, is collected according to the Scriptural verse to which it applies together with notes, expositions, and supplements. Thirty-three volumes, covering Genesis–Leviticus 24:23 had been published by 1981 (the first volume appeared in 1927). For this work, Kasher was awarded the Israel Prize in 1962. He instituted an eruv for Manhattan in New York which gave rise to considerable controversy. In 1968 there appeared his Ha-Tekufah ha-Gedolah in which he maintained that the establishment of the State of Israel is the beginning of the Redemption foretold by the prophets, and its development its progressive realization. A hitherto unknown work on a similar theme by R. Hillel Shklover, a disciple of Elijah Gaon of Vilna, is appended to the work with a commentary by Kasher.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher (1895-1983), A Torah Viewpoint on the Oath not to Ascend to Israel as a Wall, 1977

In Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 236:6), it states, "When two people take an oath together to each do something for one another, if one of them violates the oath, the second is also exempt."...

I will quote here the words of the genius, the holy Rabbi Hillel Kolomeier with regard to the Three Oaths being nullified and inapplicable nowadays...:

"The Three Oaths are well-known. God caused Israel to swear that they would not rebel against non-Jewish rule or try to force the end of days. However, the third oath is that at the same time, God caused the leaders of the non-Jewish nations to swear that they would not oppress the Jews excessively and would allow the Jews to live under their protection...The law in Shulchan Aruch is that if two people take an oath to each other and one of them violates the oath, the second is permitted to violate the oath as well. Thus, if the non-Jewish governments violate their oath by persecuting and enslaving the Jews, it would then be permitted for the Jews to violate their oaths as well...At the present time, after the terrible Holocaust, where the blood of Jews was spilled like water, and all of the nations remained silent and did not give the Jews a place to flee to in their countries...it should be clear to all who wish to understand the truth that the Three Oaths have no further applicability and are completely annulled."

Bio: Shaul Yisraeli (source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli z'tl, President of Kollel Eretz Hemdah in Israel.

One of the leaders and decisors of National Religious Jewry in Israel and the world

Born: Sluck, Belarouse 1910

Gained famed as a talmudic prodigy in his youth; immigrated to Eretz Yisrael, with great dedication and thanks to miracles, in 1934. With the support of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook he became his outstanding student at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva.

In 1938, after the death of Rabbi Kook, he moved to Kfar Haroeh, which he served as rabbi until 1966.

In 1947 he was named a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council, where for many years he served as the head of the Committee on Halakhah

In 1959 he was appointed an instructor at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva.

In 1965 he was named a dayyan of the Supreme Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem.

In 1982 he became The Rosh Yeshiva of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva.

From 1987 he served as president of the Eretz Hemdah Institutes, Jerusalem

Passed away on June 16, 1995 (19 Sivan 5755)

Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli (Student of Rav Kook, 1909-1995) Eretz Chemdah, vol. 1, 1:6.4, 1957

The recognition by the United Nations of Israel's rights is certainly sufficient for it not to be considered, "taking it by force," even though the neighboring Arab nations and the Arabs living in the land were opposed to it. [Permission is needed only] from those in control of the land, which would be those who conquered it in war. In this case, it was the British who conquered it, and continued to rule it with the assent of other nations, who recognized their right to rule over it as a temporary mandate. Thus, it is the decision of those nations that is significant, since they had control over the land. The other Arab nations have no rights over the land of Israel, and even the Arab residents of Israel had no political control over it. Therefore, the fact that they opposed the United Nations decision to establish the State of Israel is of no significance, since they were overridden by the majority vote at the United Nations.

Since they decided that the establishment of a state by the Jews living in Israel was legal and since it was done with the permission of those in charge of the land, necessarily it is legal according to the viewpoint of the Torah as well. From this point forward, even if the nations should subsequently change their minds, it would be of no consequence. We have already taken possession of the land, and only taking the land by force [would be a violation of the three oaths], not protecting what we already have.

Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal (1885-1945) Eim Habanim Semeichah, translated by Moshe Lichtman

Had the Orthodox Jews joined those who were engaged in this sacred endeavor [Zionism] sixty, fifty, or forty years ago, and had they inspired all of Israel to do the same, we would have found abundant relief in the Land. Thousands upon thousands of Jews would have settled there and would have been rescued from death.

...

I must confess the truth and declare my sin. I, too, despised the rebuilding of the land, because I heard unqualified statements made by many Orthodox Jews, which became firmly implanted in my heart...I only delved into this topic after we suffered afflictions in this bitter exile. Hashem enlightened me, and I saw that I, and all those who opposed this movement, were mistaken. I admit and say, "that which I previously told you was mistaken," just like Rava and other great Talmudic sages did. When rabbis admit their mistakes, they are praiseworthy.

...

Now, if the God-fearing, Orthodox Jews continue to refuse to participate in rebuilding the land (in its totality and in its details) and if they do not keep a watchful eye over the state of affairs, refusing to dedicate their money, their minds, and their spirits to this cause, they will have no say whatsoever in the Land's management. They will be unable to assist the young immigrants with their physical needs, and they will lose their spiritual influence over them as well.

...

Furthermore, the sole purpose of all the afflictions that smite us in our exile is to arouse us to return to our Holy Land...The essential point is that Hashem is waiting for us to take the initiative, to desire and long for the to return to Eretz Yisrael. He does not want us to wait for Him to bring us there...When we, of our own volition, truly, and with all our strength, desire and strive [to return to the Land], then God will bring our work to a successful end.

Bio: Yosef Eliyahu Henkin (source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Rav Henkin was an original, independent person who was a unique blend of forcefulness and modesty. He was unaffiliated organizationally, but related to every segment of the Orthodox spectrum. His integrity was incomparable (when taking a phone call unrelated to his work he deducted the time) and though his views were not always accepted, they always commanded respect. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik once remarked that when he saw Rav Henkin he could imagine Adam before the fall.

Born in Belorussia, he applied to the Slutzker Yeshiva under R. Isser Zalman Meltzer at a tender age. When R. Isser Zalman tested him on Tractate Eruvin, he soon realized that the boy knew it better than he. In addition to R. Meltzer, he was ordained by R. Boruch Ber Leibowitz and the Aruch HaShulchan. After serving as rabbi and Yeshiva head in a number of Russian towns, he emigrated to America in 1922 and in 1925 became Director of Ezras Torah, which provided assistance to scholars. He served in that capacity until his death. He was paid a meager salary and when he attained an advanced age and reduced his work day, he insisted that his salary be correspondingly reduced.

Rav Henkin was one of the leading Halachic authorities of his generation and was particularly expert in the laws of divorce. He was thoroughly knowledgeable concerning the issues of the day and wrote many articles expressing his frequently critical viewpoint. He urged each community to hire a dayan, besides the rabbi, who could decide all questions of halakhah. He strongly attacked self-styled Jewish leaders who jeopardized Jewish lives to advance their political ambitions. He held that witnessed civil marriages were halachically binding. He believed that once the State of Israel was established it should be supported by all Jews, except in matters contrary to Torah. Most of his writings are collected in two volumes printed by Ezras Torah.

Indicative of the esteem in which Rav Henkin was held, is R. Yaakov Kamenetzky’s statement at Rav Henkin’s funeral that he had always thought that Rav Henkin would be our representative to greet the Messiah.

Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin (1881-1973), "A Letter to the Satmar Rav," 1959, translated by Rabbi Chaim Wasserman

Now all the rabbis who were opposed to Zionism and the establishment of a state took up that position until the time that it was officially founded. Once the state was declared, anyone who plays into the hands of the nations of the world [who are enemies of Israel] even where there is no imminent danger, will clearly cause harm to come to Jews. All the more when there is danger to destruction of life in so doing...

I call upon all the sagacious leaders who identify with this position to repudiate this stand immediately because the Arabs and their cohorts are using this material to strengthen their propaganda against Israel…
I have already written elsewhere that with vulgar protests we will not succeed with the powers that be. Such tactics make things worse. What has to be done is to get into the government and the Knesset to internally save what can be saved and to strengthen Torah and its adherents.

Those essays I wrote before the advent of the state (many of which have been reprinted in my book Leiv Ivra) will testify to the fact that I am not a chassid of the government, I objected to the entire idea of a state. (It is for this reason I am not a member of Agudah so that I not be judged incorrectly as one who agreed with their position in the founding of the state.) But now it is our obligation that we all support the state in the face of its external enemies and then go on to guide it in the ways of Torah.

Bio: Eliyahu Dessler (source: ou.org)

Rav Eliyahu Dessler was born into a family of Torah Scholars who specialized in the Branch of Jewish Learning known as “Mussar,” Jewish Ethics. But Rabbi Dessler also had the opportunity to meet outstanding “CHABAD” thinkers. As head of the Gateshead Kollel in England, he became familiar with Kabbalistic and Chassidic thought, particularly with the thought of Rabbi Tzadok HaCohen.

His essays and letters, under the title of “Michtav Me’Eliyahu,” “A Letter from Eliyahu,” have been published in English under the name “Strive for Truth.” His topics include such fundamental issues as free will and faith and how to respond to the Holocaust.

Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler (1892-1953) Mikhtav Me'eliyahu, vol. 3, pp. 349-353, 1948

In every generation, God tests his people in various ways. However this is our test, the test of our generation, the test of the footsteps of the Messiah--the test of the generation of the coming of the Messiah. What I mean is that if we succeed in this test, we shall merit that the light of the Messiah shall be revealed to the world...We do not know or understand the purpose of what is happening to us today, but surely all of this destruction has not been for naught. Do the millions of martyrs not make some impression on us? Do they not bring us to some change? Anyone who says it happened by chance is a heretic. But we believers, if we truly believe with all of our hearts that this was from God, do we not then know with certainty that this must bring about some drastic change?

...Out of the very sea of hatred that they were drowning us in, its exact opposite was born, for they [the nations that had formerly persecuted us] themselves said we should return Israel to its Holy Land. Is this the normal way of the world? Can this happen naturally?

We have seen even more miracles than this!...If everything we have seen testifies to the fact that God is guiding us with miracles, it is all the more incumbent upon us to succeed in the test that everything is dependent on. If we are too lazy to see all that God has done from a spiritual perspective, and we do not become closer to Him and His Torah and His service at this time, will it not be considered a sin?

...

It is difficult to define the present state we are in in the Holy Land as necessarily the beginning of the ultimate redemption. At the very least, though, it is a great kindness [from God], a drastic shift from one extreme to the other. We have gone from the extreme of persecution and destruction of 6 million of our brethren to the other extreme--the settlement of our people in our own state in the Holy Land. From this we need to learn and establish faith in our hearts...

May God help us strengthen our faith and commitment to His service. May we cling to His Torah with all our hearts and all our souls!

Bio: Tzvi Yehudah Kook (source: wikipedia)

Zvi Yehuda Kook (Hebrew: צבי יהודה קוק‎, born 23 April 1891, died 9 March 1982) was an Orthodox rabbi, a prominent leader of Religious Zionism, and Rosh Yeshiva of the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva. He was the son of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and named in honor of his maternal grandfather's brother, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Rabinowitch Teomim.

His teachings are partially responsible for the modern religious settlement movement in the West Bank. Many of his ideological followers in the Religious Zionist movement settled there.

Under the leadership of Rabbi Kook, with its center in the yeshiva founded by his father, Jerusalem's Mercaz HaRav, thousands of Orthodox Jews campaigned actively against territorial compromise, and established numerous settlements throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many of these settlements were subsequently granted official recognition by Israeli governments, both right and left.

In 1922, he married Chava Leah Hutner in Warsaw. Chava Leah died childless in 1944, and Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda remained a widower until his death nearly 40 years later. From 1923, he served as the administrative director of the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva. After Rabbi Charlap died in 1952, he became Rosh Yeshiva until his own death. After the Six Day War in 1967, he induced the Israeli government to approve the building of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and sent his students to that mission. He tried to strengthen the Chief Rabbinate, which he saw as the precursor of the future Sanhedrin. He died in 1982 in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Kook’s view was that Israel's struggle with the Arabs over the Land of Israel is a national one. The rights of individual minorities, however, must be respected. Thus, when the Israeli High Court ruled that the Elon Moreh group of settlers had to evacuate lands of the Rujeib village, which was under Palestinian ownership, the rabbi told his followers to abide by the court's verdict, even though his ideological view was: "There is no such thing as Arab land in Eretz Israel." (There is considerable debate whether his father would have agreed with this statement.) Benny Katzover recalls: "The rabbi told us several times, 'We cannot damage land belonging to Ahmad and Mustafa', that we couldn't touch lands that had belonged to Arabs for generations."

Rabbi Kook's approach is also apparent in a letter he wrote in 1947. The rabbi lodged a complaint with the principal and teachers at a Jewish school in Jerusalem after he witnessed a group of students physically and verbally harassing two Arab street vendors. "I was deeply pained and ashamed at what I saw", Rabbi Kook wrote. "This incident, which pained and embarrassed me, requires me to inform you of the need for particular attention to educate against such actions. Students must be taught that such behavior is prohibited - both due to the essential teachings of Torah, Judaism, and morality, and also due to the practical value for the Jewish community and maintaining peaceful relations with neighbors."

Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook (1891-1982, son of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook)

The State of Israel is divine…Not only can/must there be no retreat from a single kilometer of the Land of Israel, God forbid, but on the contrary, we shall conquer and liberate more and more, as much in the spiritual as in the physical sense. “The Glory of Israel does not deceive or change His mind.” [I Samuel 15:29.] We are stronger than America, stronger than Russia. With all the troubles and delays [we suffer], our position in the world, the world of history, the cosmic world, is stronger and more secure in its timelessness than theirs. There are nations that know this, and there are nations of uncircumcised heart that do not know it, but they shall gradually come to know it! Heaven protect us from weakness and timidity…In our divine, world-encompassing undertaking, there is no room for retreat.

...

There are those who speak of ‘the beginning of redemption’ in our own time. But we must perceive clearly that we area already in the midst of redemption. We are already in the throne room, not just in the antechamber. The beginning took place more than a century ago when Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel was renewed.

Bio: Yehuda Amital (source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Rabbi Yehuda Amital was an Orthodox Rabbi, head of the Har Etzion Yeshiva and a member of the Israeli Cabinet.

Amital (born October 31, 1924; died July 9, 2010) was born in Transylvania, modern-day Romania. As a boy he studied in heder and yeshiva, and had virtually no formal secular education. In 1943, the Nazis deported him to a labor camp; the rest of his family perished in Auschwitz. Upon his liberation in December 1944, he emigrated to pre-State Israel.

Amital resumed his yeshiva studies in Jerusalem, where he received rabbinical ordination and also joined the Haganah, fighting in the battles of Latrun and the Western Galilee in Israel's 1948 War of Independence.

Rabbi Amital foresaw that the exemption from army service granted to yeshiva students would increase the friction between the religious and secular communities, and make it almost impossible for the yeshiva world to maintain an appreciation for the religious signifcance of the accomplishments of the new State. He took an active role in developing Yeshivat HaDarom, and it was there that he formulated the idea of the "yeshivat hesder", combining yeshiva study and military service. It was at Yeshivat HaDarom that the first hesder group was organized.

After the liberation of Gush Etzion in the Six Day War of 1967, Rabbi Amital was asked to open a "yeshivat hesder" in the area. In 1968 Yeshivat Har Etzion first opened its doors to thirty students in Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, not far from the site of today's yeshiva in Alon Shvut. Together with Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, Rabbi Amital still serves as head of the Har Etzion yeshiva.

With the rank of captain (res.) in the Armored Corps, Rabbi Amital continued to represent the "yeshivot hesder" in the Israeli defense network.

In 1993 he founded "Meimad, the Movement for Religious Zionist Renewal", a public policy movement aimed at rejuvenating the traditional religious Zionist principles of openness, breadth of vision, and concern for the welfare of all segments of the State of Israel.

He served as Minister without Portfolio from November 1995 until July 1996.

In October 2008, Amital officially retired from his position leading the Har Etzion yeshiva and was succeeded by Moshe Liechtenstein.

Rabbi Amital died on July 9, 2010. Thousands attended his funeral in Jerusalem. He is survived by his wife and five children.

Rabbi Yehuda Amital (1924-2010), “Guardian of Israel”

We cannot insert the establishment of the State of Israel into any verse in the Bible except for those that speak of the return to Zion. In the beginning of the redemption, there is no promise that ‘all will be okay.” The students of the Vilna Gaon spoke of the “beginning of the redemption.”…Our teacher, Rabbi Kook, spoke of the “beginning of the redemption.” And after all that came the Holocaust.

Rabbi Yehuda Amital “Confronting the Holocaust as a Religious and a Historical Phenomenon”

In the Religious Zionist camp as well, which sees the rebirth of the Jewish people in its land as part of a process of redemption, there are those who disregard the Shoah. The claims are familiar: “The redemption process began in the time of the aliya of the students of the Gaon of Vilna and continues to our day, like the morning star’s light shines forth and grows ever brighter.” They thus ignore, in pragmatic terms, the Shoah. Is the redemption expressed only by the blossoming of the Land of Israel and measured only by the extent of our control over it? And what about the Nation of Israel? Is what happens to the Jewish People not tied to the concept of redemption? Such destruction never happened before to the Nation of Israel. Can this destruction truly be made to fit into the redemption process? Seeing the redemption process as continuous and unwavering, constantly gaining strength and progressing, implies ignoring the Shoah.

Bio: Joseph B. Soloveitchik (source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Joseph Ber (Yosef Dov) Soloveitchik (often known to his students simply as “the Rav”) was an Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist and modern Jewish philosopher.

Over the course of almost half a century he ordained close to 2,000 rabbis who took positions in Orthodox synagogues across America; they were able to relate to their less traditional congregants, drawing them closer to traditional Jewish observance with quite a few becoming religiously observant. He served as an advisor, guide, mentor, and role model for tens of thousands of Modern Orthodox Jews as their favorite Talmudical Scholar and religious leader.

Rabbi Soloveitchik inherited his father's, Rabbi Moses (Moshe), position as head of the RIETS rabbinical school at Yeshiva University in 1941 . He was a scion of the famous Soloveitchik Lithuanian rabbinical dynasty going back some 200 years and grandson of the renowned rabbinical scholar Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, grandson as well as name-sake, of his great grand-father Rabbi Yosef Ber Soloveitchik known for his work as the Bais HaLevi on Talmud .

Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik was educated in the traditional manner at a Talmud Torah, an elementary yeshiva, and by private tutors as his parents realized his great mental powers. Soon after marriage to Tonya, he moved to Berlin in Germany where he remained for almost a decade studying at the University of Berlin obtaining a Ph.D. based on the philosophy of the great German philosopher Herman Cohen, and simultaneously maintaining a rigorous schedule of intensive Talmud study. During his years in Berlin, he made the acquaintance of two other young scholars pursuing similar paths to his own. One was Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson who was destined to command the Chabad Lubavitch movement centered in Brooklyn , New York and the other was Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner who would become the Dean of the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin also in Brooklyn, New York. Each developed a system of thought that bridged the Eastern European way of traditional scholarship with the new forces of modernity in the Western World.

During his tenure at Yeshiva University in addition to his Talmudic lectures, he deepened the system of "synthesis" whereby the best of religious Torah scholarship would be combined with the best secular scholarship in Western civilization. This has become known as the Torah U'mada - "Torah and Science" philosophy unique to Yeshiva University. Through public lectures, writings, and his policy decisions for the moderate Modern Orthodox world, he strengthened the intellectual and ideological framework of Modern Orthodoxy.

In his early career in America he joined with the traditional movements such as Agudath Israel of America and the Agudat Harabanim - the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of North America. However as he became entrenched in the Modern Orthodox outlook, he removed himself from the former organizations, and instead joined with the Mizrachi Religious Zionists of America (RZA) and the centrist Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), where many of his students were to be found in leadership positions. Whilst he was bound scholastically and through family connections to the more Haredi Agudath Israel group, his world-view had placed itself at the center of Modern Orthodox Judaism, with its stress on excellence in secular studies, the professions, and active Zionism.

He thus became a "lightning rod" of criticism from two directions: From the "left" he was viewed as being too connected to the Old World of Europe, whilst for those to the "right" he was seen as legitimizing those wanting to lower their religious standards in the attempt to modernize and Americanize. He was staunchly proud of his connections to the Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty, speaking fondly of his "uncles" and chiding them from time to time in public. To his relatives and namesakes who now lived in Jerusalem where they had established their own branch of the staunchly anti-Zionist Brisk Yeshiva, he was respected for his supreme genius in Talmudic scholarship which few could challenge, yet they saw him as their wayward cousin who had departed from the family Haredi "party line."

His independence became very clear when in 1956, all the major Haredi rabbinical heads of the Yeshivot, including two from his own Yeshiva University signed and issued a proclamation forbidding any rabbinical alumni of their yeshivot from joining with Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism rabbis in professional organizations. Rabbi Soloveitchik refused to sign it outright, maintaining that there were areas, particularly relating to problems that threaten all of Judaism that required co-operation regardless of affiliation.

He pioneered one of the first Hebrew day schools in Boston in 1936 where he originally intended to settle and resided there when not teaching in New York. He involved himself in all manner of religious issues in the Boston area. He was at times both a rabbinical supervisor of kosher slaughtering - shchita- and gladly accepted invitations to lecture in Jewish and religious philosophy at prestigious New England colleges and universities. His own son-in-law was on the faculty of Harvard.

Not satisfied that young Orthodox women were granted the opportunity to study at their own academic college (Stern College of Yeshiva University) ,he advocated more intensive textual Torah studies for Jewish women, giving the first class in Talmud inaugurated at Stern College, the women's division of Yeshiva College - University.

As he got older he suffered several bouts of serious illness. Family members cared for his every need and distinguished people came to visit him in his last years in Boston, where in 1993 he was laid to rest at the age of ninety.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993, grandson of Rabbi Hayim Soloveitchik) The Rav Speaks (based on addresses to the Mizrachi Convention in 1962), pp. 25-36

When the Mizrachi was founded in 5662, the founders of our movement fulfilled, "go out from your country, from your birthplace, from your father's house." For he who joined the Mizrachi was virtually excluded from his birthplace, and ostracized from his spiritual paternal home.

We were lonely, as Joseph the dreamer was lonely among his brothers who mocked him. Our brethren also suspected us of many sins and looked at us, "from far off." They related to us as Joseph's brothers had dealt with him...The tragedy, above all, lay in the fact that the controversy between the Joseph of 5662 and his brothers, the Tribes of God, was in truth based on a misunderstanding--just as the ancient controversy between the first Joseph, the son of Jacob, and his brothers was a result of, "they saw him from far off:" a lack of communication.

...What did Joseph seek? To what did he aspire? What foreboding troubled him? The answer is: an obscure feeling of insecurity frightened him...The words, "for your seed shall be a stranger in an alien land," kept tolling in his ears. He saw himself and his brothers in an alien environment, far from the land of Canaan, in new circumstances and under new conditions of life. In his dream, he saw, "behold we are binding sheaves." We are no longer in Canaan, we are in the land of Egypt and can no longer be shepherds. We are integrated into a new economy, with new rules of living, characteristics, and laws. We can no longer support ourselves by pasturing sheep. The sons of Jacob have to learn new occupations such as farming, building, stone-cutting, woodwork, and become skilled in gold, silver, and brass, which are adapted to the new conditions. Basically, he dreamt of a new framework within which the unity of the family could be preserved, even in the far places where the Creator of the universe would scatter them. His constant preoccupation was the continuation of Abraham's tradition amidst a new economic structure and civilization.

The brothers did not understand him, for they looked upon the future as a continuation of the present. They perceived all problems from within the framework of their life in Canaan, the land of their fathers' wanderings. In the traditional surroundings, in the thoroughly familiar habitat of the Patriarchs, they did not need new frameworks or novel economic methods.

...

In this dispute in the name of Heaven, Divine Providence decided in favor of Joseph, and the house of Jacob was saved from destruction only due to Joseph's dreams. What would the brothers have done without him when "the famine was intense in the land and they finished the food"? Were it not for Joseph's dreams, the entire house of Jacob would have perished of starvation. But for, "God sent me before you to give you survivors in the land," the heritage of Abraham would have perished and the choosing of Israel would not have been realized.

What was the dispute between the "Joseph" of 5662 and his brethren, the great Torah leaders? These, our brothers, great leaders, rabbinical giants of Israel, men of holiness and piety, evaluated the future from the standpoint of a peaceful and tranquil and satisfied present, when the communities of Brisk, Mohilev, Khasilev and Lubavitz were still intact...Therefore, they believed that joining together with Western European Jews who were generally non-observant and not overly pious, would be dangerous for Judaism.

...But within the Joseph of 5662 there gnawed a dark foreboding of something terrifying, an apocryphal vision of catastrophe, of cataclysm, of tempest and imminent destruction...The Joseph of 5662 instinctively sensed that the relative tranquility, peace, quiet and security in which his great brethren lived was only a phantasm...The Joseph of 5662 unconsciously sensed that it was forbidden to rely on a continuation of the status-quo, that great changes were about to occur in Jewish life for which we would have to be prepared. He sensed the advent of an era when there would be no yeshivot in Brisk, Vilna, and Minsk; when America would be turned into a place of Torah; and when Israel, the State of Israel, would become the core center of Torah.

...In the controversy between Joseph of yore and his brothers thousands of years ago, God decided in accord with Joseph's interpretation of the historical process. In our days, the Creator of the universe similarly decided that the "law" will be as the Joseph of 5662 had predicted--in accord with the view of him who had little faith in the future of East European Jewry and who dreamed of another land and other conditions.

I would like to ask a simple question: what would the yeshivot and Torah scholars rescued from the Holocaust--these burning embers taken from the fire--have done if the Joseph of 5662 had not trod a path for them in the land of Israel, and had not made possible the transplanting of the Tree of Life of Lithuania and other lands in the Holy Land?

...

I was not born into a Zionist household. My parents' ancestors, my father's house, my teachers and colleagues were far from the Mizrachi religious Zionists. They too held, "why meddle in the secrets of the Merciful One?" My links with the Mizrachi grew gradually; I had my doubts about the validity of the Mizrachi approach...

If I now identify with the Mizrach, against my family tradition, it is only because, as previously clarified, I feel that Divine Providence ruled like "Joseph" and against his brothers; that He employs secular Jews as instruments to bring to fruition His great plans regarding the land of Israel. I also believe there would be no place for Torah in Israel today were it not for the Mizrachi. I built an alter upon which I sacrificed sleepless nights, doubts, and reservations. Regardless, the years of the Hitlerian Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the accomplishments of the Mizrachi in the land of Israel, convinced me of the correctness of our movement's path.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Kol Dodi Dofek (The Voice of my Beloved Knocks), 1956, translated by David Z. Gordon

SIX KNOCKS

Eight years ago, in the midst of a night of the terrors of Majdanek, Treblinka, and Buchenwald; in ‎a ‎night of gas chambers and crematoria; in a night of total divine self-concealment; in a night ruled ‎by ‎the devil of doubt and destruction who sought to sweep the Lover from her own tent into ‎the ‎Catholic Church; in a night of continuous searching for the Beloved — on that very night ‎the ‎Beloved appeared. The Almighty, who was hiding in His splendid sanctum, suddenly appeared ‎and ‎began to beckon at the tent of the Lover, who tossed and turned on her bed beset by ‎convulsions ‎and the agonies of hell. Because of the beating and knocking at the door of the ‎mournful Lover, ‎the State of Israel was born.‎

How many times did the Beloved knock on the door of the Lover? It appears to me that we ‎can ‎count at least six knocks.‎ First, the knock of the Beloved was heard in the political arena. From the point of view ‎of ‎international relations, no one will deny that the rebirth of the State of Israel, in a political ‎sense, ‎was an almost supernatural occurrence. Both Russia and the Western nations supported ‎the ‎establishment of the State of Israel. This was perhaps the one resolution on which East and ‎West ‎concurred [during the Cold War era]. I am inclined to believe that the United Nations was ‎especially ‎created for this end — for the sake of fulfilling the mission that Divine Providence had ‎placed upon ‎it....Listen! My Beloved Knocks!

Second, the knock of the Beloved was heard on the battlefield. The tiny defense forces of ‎‎[the ‎State of] Israel defeated the mighty Arab armies. The miracle of “the many delivered into ‎the ‎hands of the few” materialized before our eyes, and an even greater miracle happened! ‎God ‎hardened the heart of Ishmael and commanded him to go into battle against the State of ‎Israel. ‎Had the Arabs not declared war on Israel and instead supported the Partition Plan, the State ‎of ‎Israel would have remained without Jerusalem, without a major portion of the Galilee, ‎and ‎without some areas of the Negev...Listen! My Beloved Knocks!‎

Third, the Beloved also began to knock on the door of the tent of theology, and possibly this is ‎the ‎strongest beckoning. I have, on several occasions, emphasized in my remarks concerning the ‎Land ‎of Israel that the theological arguments of Christian theologians to the effect that the Holy ‎One has ‎taken away from the Community of Israel its rights to the Land of Israel, and that all of the ‎biblical ‎promises relating to Zion and Jerusalem now refer in an allegorical sense to Christianity and ‎the ‎Christian Church, were all publicly shown to be false, baseless contentions by the ‎establishment of ‎the State of Israel. One must have a broad familiarity with theological literature ‎from the time of ‎Justin Martyr down to the theologians of our own day to comprehend the full ‎extent of this marvel ‎by which the central axiom of Christian theology was shattered. ... Listen! My Beloved Knocks!‎

Fourth, the Beloved knocks in the heart of the youth which is assimilated and perplexed. ‎The ‎period of hester panim (Divince concealment) in the 1940’s brought confusion among the Jewish masses ‎and ‎especially Jewish youth. Assimilation increased, and the urge to flee from Judaism and the ‎Jewish ‎people reached its apex. Fear, despair, and ignorance caused many to forsake the ‎Jewish ‎community and “climb aboard the ship,” to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord ‎‎(Jonah ‎‎1:3), just as Jonah sought to flee God’s presence. A seemingly unstoppable tidal wave ‎stood over ‎us and threatened to destroy us. Suddenly, the Beloved began to beckon to the hearts ‎of the ‎perplexed, and His beckoning, the establishment of the State of Israel, at least slowed the ‎process ‎of flight. Many who were once alienated are now bound to the Jewish State with ties of ‎pride in its ‎mighty accomplishments. ... Listen! ‎My Beloved ‎Knocks!‎

The fifth knock of the Beloved is perhaps the most important. For the first time in the annals of ‎our ‎exile, Divine Providence has amazed our enemies with the astounding discovery that Jewish ‎blood ‎is not cheap! If the antisemites describe this phenomenon as being “an eye for an eye,” we ‎will ‎agree with them. If we want to courageously defend our continued national and ‎historical ‎existence, we must, from time to time, interpret the verse of an “eye for an eye” literally. ‎So many ‎‎“eyes” were lost in the course of our bitter exile because we did not repay hurt for ‎hurt. The ‎time has come for us to fulfill the simple meaning of “an eye for an eye.” (Exodus 21:24) ‎Of course, I ‎am sure everyone recognizes that I am an adherent of the Oral Law, and from my ‎perspective ‎there is no doubt that the verse refers to monetary restitution, as defined by ‎halakhah. However, ‎with respect to the Mufti and Nasser I would demand that we interpret the ‎verse in accordance ‎with its literal meaning — the taking of an actual eye! Pay no attention to the ‎saccharine ‎suggestions of known assimilationists and of some Jewish socialists who stand pat in ‎their ‎rebelliousness and think they are still living in Bialystok, Brest-Litovsk, and Minsk of the year ‎‎1905, ‎and openly declare that revenge is forbidden to the Jewish people in any place, at any time, ‎and ‎under all circumstances. “Vanity of vanities!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) Revenge is forbidden when it ‎is ‎pointless, but if one is aroused thereby to self-defense, it is the most elementary right of man ‎to ‎take his revenge.‎ The Torah has always taught that a man is permitted, indeed, has a sacred obligation, to ‎defend ‎himself. With the verse, “If a burglar is caught in the act of breaking in” (Exodus 22:1), the ‎Torah ‎establishes the halakhah that one may defend not only one’s life but his property as well. If ‎the ‎thief who comes to take the property of the householder is capable of killing the ‎householder ‎‎(should the householder not comply with his demands), the householder may rise up ‎against the ‎criminal and kill him. For good reason the Torah relates that two of its great heroes, ‎Abraham and ‎Moses, took sword in hand to defend their brethren: “And when Abraham heard ‎that his kinsman ‎was taken captive, he led forth his retainers” (Genesis 14:14). “And when Moses ‎saw the Egyptian ‎smite a Jew … he struck down the Egyptian” (Exodus 2:11–12). This behavior ‎does not contradict ‎the principle of loving-kindness and compassion. On the contrary, a passive ‎position, without self-‎defense, may sometimes lead to the most awesome brutality. “And I will ‎gain honor from Pharaoh, ‎and all his hosts, his chariots, and his horsemen. And the Egyptians will ‎know that I am the Lord” ‎‎(Exodus 14:17–18). God did not seek honor and recognition. He wanted ‎Pharaoh, Moses’ ‎contemporary, to know that he must pay a high price for his edict that “Every ‎male child born shall ‎be cast into the river” (Exodus 1:22). His present desire is that the blood of ‎Jewish children who ‎were slain as they recited the eighteen benedictions of the daily [Amidah] ‎prayer shall also be ‎avenged. When God smote the Egyptians, He sought to demonstrate that ‎there will always be ‎accountability for the spilling of Jewish blood. At present, it is necessary not ‎only to convince the ‎dictator of Egypt [Nasser], but the self-righteous Nehru, the Foreign Office in ‎London, and the ‎sanctimonious members of the United Nations, that Jewish blood is not cheap. ‎Therefore, how ‎laughable it is when they try to persuade us to rely on the declaration of the three ‎Great Powers ‎guaranteeing the status quo. We all know from experience what value can be ‎attached to the ‎pronouncements of the British Foreign Office and the so-called friendship of ‎certain officials in our ‎State Department. In general, how absurd is the request that an entire ‎people be dependent on ‎the kindnesses of others and remain without the ability to defend itself. ‎Public and private honor is ‎dependent upon the possibility of defending one’s life and one’s honor. ‎A people that cannot ‎defend its freedom and tranquillity is neither free nor independent. The third ‎of the phrases of ‎Divine redemption is “And I shall redeem you with an outstretched hand and ‎with great ‎judgments” (Exodus 6:6).Thank God we have lived to see the day when, with the help ‎of God, ‎Jews have it within their power to defend themselves.‎ Let us not forget that the poison of Hitlerite anti-Semitism (which made Jews fair game to all) ‎still ‎permeates this generation, which looked with equanimity upon the horrible scene of ‎the ‎suffocation of millions in gas chambers as a normal event that need not be challenged. ‎The ‎antidote for this venom that poisoned minds and dulled hearts is the readiness of the State ‎of ‎Israel to defend the lives of its citizens. Listen! My Beloved Knocks!‎

The sixth beckoning, of which we should also not lose sight, was heard at the time of the ‎opening ‎of the gates of the Land of Israel. A Jew escaping from an enemy’s land now knows that ‎he can ‎find refuge in the land of his forefathers. This is a new phenomenon in the annals of our ‎history. ‎Up to now, when a Jewish population was uprooted, it wandered in the wilderness of the ‎nations ‎without finding shelter and habitation. The shutting of the gates in the face of the exiled ‎caused ‎total destruction for much of the Jewish people. Now the situation has changed. When any ‎nation ‎expels its Jewish minority, the exiled now direct their steps to Zion, and she, as a ‎compassionate ‎mother, absorbs them. We are all witnesses to the settlement of Oriental Jewry in ‎Israel over the ‎last several years. Who knows what would have been in store for these brothers of ‎ours in the ‎lands of their origin if not for the State of Israel, which brought them to her in planes ‎and ships? ‎Had Israel been born before the Hitlerian Holocaust, hundreds of thousands of Jews ‎could have ‎been saved from the gas chambers and the crematoria. The miracle of the State tarried ‎somewhat, ‎and in the wake of its delay, thousands and tens of thousands of Jews were taken to ‎the slaughter. ‎Now that the hour of hester panim has passed, however, the possibility ‎exists for Jews who ‎are pried from their homes to take root in the Holy Land. This should not be ‎taken lightly. Listen! ‎My Beloved Knocks!

THE OBLIGATION OF TORAH JUDAISM TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL

What was our reaction to the beckoning of the voice of the Beloved, to the munificence of ‎His ‎loving-kindness and miracles? Did we get out of our beds and immediately open the door, or ‎did ‎we continue to rest like the Lover [in the story of the Song of Songs], and were we too lazy to ‎get ‎out of our beds? “I have washed my feet, how shall I soil them?” (Song of Songs 5:3).‎

All the trembling and fear for the geographical integrity of the State of Israel, all the suggestions ‎of ‎our enemies which are directed at territorial concessions by the State of Israel, and all of ‎the ‎brazen demands of the Arabs for boundary changes are based on only one fact: the Jews have ‎not ‎populated the Negev and established hundreds of settlements there. Had the Negev been ‎settled ‎with hundreds of thousands of Jews, even Nasser would never have dreamed of the ‎possibility of ‎rending it from the State of Israel. Wide and unpopulated expanses constantly and ‎perpetually ‎endanger the tranquility of the State. The Torah has already emphasized this notion ‎when it states, ‎‎“You shall not be allowed to quickly destroy them, so that the wild animals will not ‎over whelm ‎you” (Exodus 23:29). The fact that the Jews have conquered the Negev is not enough, ‎its ‎settlement is what is important. The great sage Maimonides ruled that the first sanctification of ‎the ‎Land of Israel was not a lasting one because it was the result of a military conquest, which ‎was ‎annulled by the violent attack of an enemy whose army was vast and armaments numerous, ‎who ‎conquered the Land and took it from us. The second sanctification of the land, which was ‎carried ‎out through occupation and settlement by Divine sanction, through toil and sweat, was ‎never ‎annulled.

The sanctity that is based on the settlement of the Land is, simply stated, for now ‎and for ‎all time! We are terribly guilty for this gross negligence. American Jewry could have ‎certainly ‎accelerated the process of settlement. Yet, why should we examine the faults of others ‎and place ‎the responsibility on the shoulders of nonobservant Jews? Let us admit our own faults ‎and confess ‎to our own derelictions. Among the Jews of America, Orthodox Jews bear the most ‎blame for the ‎slow pace of the conquest of the Land through settlement. It was for us, the loyalists ‎of Judaism, ‎to heed the call of the Beloved more acutely, and to respond to it immediately with ‎extraordinary ‎effort. ... Logic dictates, then, that when the Jewish community was given the opportunity to ‎return ‎to its Land — which had withheld its treasures from foreigners and stored them for us — ‎Orthodox ‎Jews should have hastened to perform so great a mitzvah, to plunge with joy and ‎enthusiasm into ‎the very midst of this holy work: the building and settling of the Land. However, to ‎our regret, we ‎have not reacted that way. When the “desolate one,” which longingly waited for us ‎from era to ‎era, invited us to come and redeem her from her desolation, and when the Beloved ‎who watched ‎over the desolation for almost nineteen hundred years, and decreed that during this ‎time no tree ‎should grow, and no wells should fructify the Land, beckoned at the door of the ‎Lover, we the ‎Orthodox Jews — the Lover — did not bestir ourselves from our beds to open the ‎door for our ‎Beloved. If we had contiguous settlements throughout the Land from Eilat to Dan, our ‎situation ‎would be very different.‎

Let us publicly and frankly confess: we complain about certain Israeli leaders and their ‎attitude ‎toward the values of our tradition and religious practice. The complaints are justified. We ‎have ‎serious charges against the secular leadership of the Land of Israel. However, are only they to ‎be ‎blamed, and are we as faultless and pure as the heavenly angels? Such an assumption is ‎without ‎foundation. We could have extended our influence and done something to shape the ‎spiritual ‎character of the Land if we had but hurried to awaken from our slumber and open the ‎door for the ‎Beloved who is knocking. I fear that we Orthodox Jews are still enveloped in sweet ‎slumber. If we ‎were to establish more religious kibbutzim, if we were to build more housing for ‎religious ‎immigrants, if we were to establish an extensive system of schools, our situation would ‎be ‎completely different. Then there would be no need to come forward with complaints against ‎the ‎leaders of other movements. ...The Religious Zionist movement especially has to content itself with ‎paltry sums. ‎Due to lack of funds, the movement cannot function appropriately. ... When one calls a rich Jew and asks him to give to a ‎just cause, he ‎answers, “I am going to Florida, and this year I have decided to stay in a luxury hotel, ‎and I don’t ‎have the wherewithal to give you what you requested.” What did the scholar tell the ‎King of the ‎Khazars? “You have embarrassed me, King of Khazars! … And our saying ‘worship at His ‎holy hill’ ‎‎[Psalms 99:9] is but the chirping of a starling” (HaKuzari 2:24). Do we not hear in ‎our ‎trembling over the safety and tranquility of the Land of Israel in our day, the beckoning of ‎the ‎Beloved who begs the Lover to let Him in? He has already been beckoning for eight years, and ‎still ‎He has not been properly responded to. Nonetheless, He continues to beckon. To our ‎good ‎fortune, our inherited Land has become more beautiful. The Beloved has not shown the ‎Lover any ‎favoritism, but He has compassion for her. The Beloved beckoned for only a short ‎moment that ‎night and disappeared, yet with us He has exhibited extraordinary patience. It is ‎eight years that ‎He has continued to beckon. Hopefully, we will not miss the opportunity!!‎

‎

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Community, Covenant, and Commitment

I agree with you that there is a third halakhic approach which is neither parallel to the position of those “whose eyes are shut” and reject [the significance of the State] nor the belief of those dreamers who adopt a completely positive stance to the point where they identify the State with the [fulfillment] of the highest goal of our historical and meta-historical destiny. This third approach (which is the normative one in all areas), I would allow myself to guess, would be positively inclined toward the State, and would express gratitude for its establishment out of a sense of love and devotion, but would not attach [to it] excessive value to the point of its glorification and deification.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Emergence of Ethical Man

For [Rabbi Yehudah Halevi and the Ramban], the attribute of kedushah, holiness, ascribed to the Land of Israel is an objective metaphysical quality inherent in the land. With all my respect for the Rishonim, I must disagree with such an opinion. I do not believe that it is halakhically cogent. Kedushah, under a halakhic aspect, is man-made; more accurately, it is a historical category. A soil is sanctified by historical deeds performed by a sacred people, never by any primordial superiority. The halakhic term kedushat ha-aretz, the sanctity of the land, denotes the consequence of a human act, either conquest (heroic deeds) or the mere presence of the people in that land (intimacy of man and nature). Kedushah is identical with man’s association with Mother Earth. Nothing should be attributed a priori to dead matter. Objective kedushah smacks of fetishism.