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Tree of Brothers
Meeting with the Rabbi Uri Amos Sherki
Show no' 1- The Task of Israel
Hello and welcome to our program "A Tree of Brothers"
Today we will discuss the task of Israel, the unity of Israel
and the connection between Israel and the Nations of the World
With us today is Rabbi Uri Amos Sherki
Hello and a blessing
Sitting with us we have Asaf Elron and Tomer Edgar
hello
We will begin with our first question.
We would like to hear about the task of Israel
You ask me about the task of Israel,
and I think that you spoke appropriately in that you said "Israel" and not "the People of Israel"
because I think that, according to the teachings of Rabbi Kook,
the term "people" is only metaphorical in relation to Israel
We act in history like a "people"
because all public groupings of humanity are called such.
But actually, when we look at our metaphysical roots, as it were,
we constitute a type of spark from the upper realms that wonders throughout history in the form of a "people".
If you are asking me about the task of the People of Israel
I would say that we are a kind of memory card for all of humanity.
One thing that is very clear
that the great thinkers already noticed at the beginning of the 20th century, even the end of the 19th century
they said that the civilizations are mortal.
That is, peoples appear, civilizations arise, and then they disappear
Each time they contribute something, some relic, to human civilization
Sometimes we have a feeling that history is hopeless, that it lacks meaning
I would say that the central innovation that we brought to this general process of history is that
humanity has a direction. History has meaning
And it could be said that we are "doing a favor"- this is a bit pretentious, but nonetheless true
we are doing a favor to those different civilizations by retaining the impressions of their actions within our collective consciousness
In other words, we are bit of ancient Egypt, we are a bit of Assyria, a bit of Babylon
a bit of Greece, a bit of Ishmael, a bit of Western Europe, we are all of these
All of this receives meaning through the People of Israel, and also through, of course a meta-historical bond
Wow. You've flooded usů Now we'll need to ask a lot of questions
So, basically you've made a distinction between a physical "people-hood", that which exists in the material world as a people,
the connection between individuals, and between something deeper, something metaphysicalů
This raises the question, what is the connection between the metaphysical aspect of Israel, if there is such a thing, and the physical aspect?
That is, how is this expressed in a material way, that we have become a nation, as people?
I would say the following: The idea that there might be some uniting factor in all of the cosmos, of a divine presence in existence...
I would say that these ideas are invited by the very nature of human thought
After all, mankind always sought out some connection with a hidden world, or with some world that gives meaning
so that it could be said that the demand for the appearance of Israel in history is in fact natural, even if it was concealed.
That is, I don't know if the Sumerians knew that they would give birth to Abraham
and that he would give birth to Israel.
In the end, however, the demand that there be a nation that exist as a sort of living organic center of humanity in general
I think that this demand is ancient
and you can find the roots of this idea even at the earliest stages of the appearance of Man
Perhaps, even before this
Let's say this: Throughout history we have done many things, we've made a big mess, you could say.
We were almost always present at those centers where the civilizations came into being
That is, as human civilization came into being in Egypt, we were there
When human civilization centered in Greece, we were there.
When human civilization was Europe, we were there.
There is, it would seem, some kind of tropism, some pull within the People of Israel
that brings it to relocate itself or be pulled towards those centers of culture
In that sense, we not only passed through Europe, or through these other different civilizations
we were full partners in creating this culture.
That is, Judaism played an integral role in the formation of western civilization, which is the dominant culture today
In that sense we also have an obligation- a debt- to that culture
which we both helped to design and which helped to design us.
Actually, all of those statements that Israel introduced morality to the world, and all statements like thatů
I understand. It could be said, in a na?ve fashion, that "everything comes from Judaism".
That morality comes from Judaism. That wisdom comes from Judaism, And so on.
I would say that this is somewhat laughable
for what would you do if suddenly someone came from Mars, who had never heard of the People of Israel?
I would say these things must be taken in proportion
From a historical perspective we constituted, I would say, a very important center
But we must remember something very, very important
G-d created the gentiles as well. G-d created the world.
Franz Rozenzweig once said this very succinctly: G-d did not create religion, He created the world.
Within G-d's world there is interaction between the center ľ for we could see ourselves as the focus if we want
but we must see that there is interaction between the center and the periphery.
If we think that everything comes from the center, then there is no periphery
Clearly it is much more alive, much more real, to see things as Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi in his book The Kuzari says
Israel is like the heart in the limbs, among the nations. I think this is much truer.
Could you perhaps make some order regarding the timeline
about the task of Israel as you said throughout the First Temple period, the Second Temple period, Exileů
Certainly, these things are very important
History received its structure, you could say, through the People of Israel
You can see this through the challenges- the value-based challenges- with which we were confronted throughout history
The challenge of the ancient world, you could say, was how to cope with mythology
Mythology or what we called idol worship, but is in actuality much wider than this- it is a very rich worldů
Human consciousness was focused on knowledge of the divine by way of all of the divisions within mythology
but in the end they were dealing with knowledge of the divine
The question that stood at the fore in ancient times was not "Is there a G-d or is there not?" Not at all.
The question was "Who is G-d?" This is a much deeper question.
And the question surrounded through which human identity the connection between the Creator and the created would reach realization
I would say that this was the struggle between the gods of Egypt and the G-d of Israel
which came to be expressed in the death of the firstborn, "I shall pass judgment on all the gods of Egypt"
And naturally, according to the ways of the ancient world, G-d, the name we refer to as "Hashem"
appeared in human civilization- perhaps even in our own eyes- as the local god of the Jews
That is, that which the biblical critics so love to emphasize, as though it were some great discovery
does not in fact present any difficulty according to the traditional stance of the Kabbalists for example
In truth, Hashem appeared as the national god of Israel, despite the knowledge held by the prophets and the people, that He was also Creator of the world
As such, a relationship developed between, for example, King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, or Ophir, or Egypt, and so on.
We find a state, a kingdom, to which people came from all corners of the world to receive inspiration
I would say, in the words of Rabbi Kook, that we are speaking here of 'holiness of the general society'
That is, the nation, as a collective, is in essence a vessel for the appearance of the divine
And of course, through its culture. The book Song of Songs which is both a song of love and holiness expresses this atmosphere
However, we could say, that in a certain measure the individual person was not a partner in this
That is, we see that so far as the people is concerned, in the day to day lives of the individuals, in a person's life plan, the details
paganism retained its hold, and we see its results in the destruction of the First Temple
as a consequence of deterioration in the living fabric of the nation then.
On the other hand, the Second Temple period, if we are speaking of this, actually expresses a period where the idea of the collective is shattered.
This is the beginning, from a historical perspective as well, of the appearance of the various religions and philosophies of the world
Those spiritual paths that came to supply meaning to the life of the individual
I would say, that while in the First Temple period, for both the world as a whole and for the People of Israel
the "individual" had not yet been born, a person did not see himself as a private being, rather he saw himself as a phenomenon of some public entity
during the second Temple, what is called the ancient world, not the very ancient world, but that of classical Greece, for example
the focus was on the search for meaning for the life of the individual
The individual asks himself "Who am I?" "What am I?" "What will happen to me after my death?" "Will my soul remain?"
Questions concerning immortality of the soul and the afterlife become very central questions
Resurrection and so forth
Here we find a very interesting trend towards excessive individual righteousness
This is what the Talmud means when it says that during the Second Temple period there were many pious people of many good deeds
However, the price, or the shadow, as it were, of this great light was baseless hatred
That is, if I am righteous and you are righteous, then it stands to reason that we will be in competition one with the other.
We apparently will also hate one another.
And this is what destroyed the Second Temple
And then throughout the Exile, our entire identity was placed in hibernation
We began to dream about who we were, but we ceased to fulfill a real function in the historic process
So that today we find ourselves, you could say, after a very long parenthetical period, during which we stepped down from the stage of history
ceased to act as a nation, and began to believe that we were only a religion among the religions
This is what happened during the Exile?
Yes, this is what happened during the Exile
And today, we are beginning to wake up, after a long hibernation
I would just like to return to what you said so that it is clear
During the First Temple period, as far as I understood
there was a gap between the prophets, or whoever was at the summit, the people of G-d, and the simple folk?
I would say rather between the kingship and the simple folk
That is, holiness was present in the Temple, in the king's palace, perhaps among the bands of prophetsů
in the collective experience of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, most certainly
However, a person's life plan was connected to the earth
and so too to the paganism that was connected to working the earth of the simple man.
So, the simple man also understood the Jewish G-d, Hashem, to be another, perhaps greatů?
Yes, as the national god, for whom we have some esoteric knowledge perhaps that He was also the Creator of the world.
As opposed to the prophets and the kingship which understood moreů
The universal dimension, certainly
O.K. And the Second Temple period during which there was a breakthrough of the individual
through which you arrived at baseless hatred
Actually this came then as a rebellious reaction, it would seem, to the authority that came before
If I become some kind ofů
In truth the kingship was never restored
In the end, we were subject to the yolk of great empires, the Persian Empire, then the Seleucid and Ptolemeic Empires
Even the Hasmonean kingdom, with all of its glory
even insofar as defining its political identity was forced to take the Seleucids and the Romans into consideration
That is, we could say this was not the politically glorious time of the nation
Even when the Hasmonean rulers were powerful, there was already a very large exiled community
That is, the Jewish existence came to be expressed through multiple communities.
O.K. And one moment before I go forward
To the Third Templeů
ůalmost to our own days. A beginning as it wereů
What reason was there for us to go to sleep as it were, during the period of the Exile?
You know...
In the Book of Genesis it says that our father Jacob said to Esau, "May my lord pass before his servant"
The Talmud says that Jacob sent to Esau the "popira"
that is, the special purple garment representing kingship
That is to say, he gave political rule over to him
There is apparently some value in the fact that not only we are the ones managing world affairs
It is necessary for all of the dimensions of mankind's identity to develop
especially the technological and philosophical dimensions, which are the forte of Edom
And therefore, from the point of view of divine providence
I would say that we were prepared for a situation where it was Edom who was running the affairs of the world
We even sometimes fall in love with such situations, to my despair.
And is this something positive? Do we thereby acquire similar tools? Or is this not the task of Israel at all?
As one could always say ľ and I don't like to use such terms- but they are popular
It is a matter of "before the fact" and "after the fact".
That is, after the fact we say that this is so, but before the fact we would not have done it so
OK, but this is the reality! And the reality is that we also learned, from Esau, how to use the sword.
We learned, from the Nations of the World, to set up the IDF, for example
To set up an economic system, and so forth
We have a need, as it were
to receive a stamp of approval from the Nations of the World for us to get permission to return to the family of nations
This is what we did in the Balfour Declaration, and in the UN vote on the Partition of Palestine, and so on.
I don't know of this is what you are saying, but perhaps many might understand what you say in such a way
it seems that you say that the entire world was created for Israel, and Israel is not meant to serve the entire world
or all of the other nations lack value in and of themselves, and they do not deserve to live, and so on and so on.
We learned from Edom how to use the sword, but the Edomites themselves don't really have any valueů
This is very interesting, for this is exactly the opposite of what I said
I will explain to you why what you said is so important and why I am very happy that I was misunderstood
Because we many times think through rubrics from which it is very difficult to free ourselves since they are so comfortable
And this is especially so in the secular Israeli public sphere, but also with the religious community
There are patterns of thought that developed and which we imported from Europev
and it is very easy to discuss the Israeli reality by way of these rubrics.
For example, the claim that Judaism is a form of racism.
And that actually the gentiles are not important.
Or that all you have in the world is religiosity, and so on.
But if you were to listen exactly to what I said, you would have noticed that I said the exact opposite.
That perhaps Israel is not important, but that the gentiles are.
That is, if you look at the manner in which Abraham was chosen, for example
of whom it was said "and all of the families of the earth shall be blessed through you", that is this is the goal.
And if I say that Israel is like a heart among the organs of the body, the question could be asked
does the heart have any importance without the organs of the body?
Is this not a form of organic life?
This reminds me that I was at a convention, of the Torah world
that discussed the relations between Israel and the nations.
And two scholars sat next to me, one to my left and one to my right.
Apparently they arranged it like that on purpose.
Each of us was expected to explain what "the People of Israel" is.
One explained that actually Judaism is a form of cosmopolitanism.
It is humanism. Judaism and humanism is more or less the same thing.
Let's ignore a few annoying facts, but it is basically humanism.
The second scholar sitting beside me said Judaism is a form of aggressive racism.
It is hatred of the gentiles. That is more or less what he said, and I am paraphrasing.
Then they asked me saying Rabbi Sherki, perhaps you can tell us what you think.
Or tell us what Rabbi Kook thought, for they saw me as a representative of his approach.
I said, Judaism sees things as organic.
And in an organism you do not talk about who is more important and who is less important, because everything is in essence one Being.
Also, the Maharal of Prague, in his book Teferet Yisrael
in the first chapter, discusses the question of who is normal in this world.
Who fits Nature better?
His conclusion, essentially, is that the normal, natural man is the gentile.
Therefore it must be small.
That is, the point of contact with the light, the contact between the transcendent and the imminent must be exceedingly minute.
For if there is too much light, all will be burnt. Just like in a camera.
If the People of Israel was to constitute let's say, 90 percent of humanity
this would bring about a kind of spiritual paralysis of the technological development.
Therefore, I would say actually the opposite of that which you attributed to me.
But thank you very much for the misunderstanding.
So maybe from here you can detail the task of Israel today.
Who are we today? Wow, this is a big question.
I would say that we are, and I think that all of the segments of our society would agree with me
we are the object of international de-legitimization
This is a wonderful thing. All of the world is against us.
This is a classic thing and even sounds a bit paranoid.
And I always asked myself, what should a paranoid who is right do?
That is, a paranoid that really is being chased by everyone!
What should he do? This might even be the state of the Jewish people.
Everyone is chasing after him, and so he is paranoid, but he is right!
This an almost irresolvable problem!
But I would say that humanity exhibits a kind of hidden demand.
There is always the foam on the surface of the water, from the media
and then there are the larger cultural movements that stand behind this foam.
What do they really want from us?
Are we so evil that we control the Palestinians? Is that it?
Anyone who is truly aware of the matters realizes that there is something so aggressive, so disproportionate
as opposed to what is happening in North Korea for example
that we have to understand that something about us raises some question.
We prefer not to hear this.
We prefer to turn a deaf ear to our task, and therefore we simply don't understand what they want from us.
There are, for example, attempts to explain who we are to the nations by the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and some other groups
who are busy day and night trying to explain that the State of Israel is a beautiful country
that the Jewish people is a good people.
How so? For example, when you go on a plane you get a pamphlet at the airport explaining
what you should say when abroad so as to prove to them that we are really OK.
That we drive cars and don't ride camels
That we invented the Cherry tomatoes and the disk on key.
And that we are in essence a proper western country
Not only that, we send people to Haiti when there is a disaster
And also, the minorities among us enjoy full equal rights
Really, we are good!
We fulfill the expectations of the western world
It is as though the world does not know this, and if we explain this to them then they will love us
That is in fact the fundamental assumption underlying the Israeli discourse on this subject today
And I allow myself to doubt the value of these things, despite the fact that it is very possible that some of these things might be accepted
I would add another matter
In the pamphlet that they hand out, they present several historical dates
They explain to the Israeli tourist that without our past there is no future
So they start with a number of dates in history that explain "who I am"
The first dateů Do you want to guess what it is?
1948?
No, don't be so pessimisticů
It is 1917, the Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration is presented as though it were the birth of our national identity
Why didn't they at least take the World Zionist Congress? 1897?
This is because the Zionist Congress is still somewhat gall
But the Balfour Declaration is what the gentiles said! If the gentiles said it, then it must be OK
This is our demand
This is a form of very deep cultural enslavement prevalent in Israel public diplomacy today
and I think we have to understand what is being talked about
So what should be, then?
Yes, we are speaking at length, but I think it is sometimes important to make the pointů
We need to know what we as a nation represent for the collective subconscious of the world
I am speaking both of the Western world and of the Islamic world
and to a certain if lesser extent to the world of the Far East
But the Western world is, in the end, the inheritor of the Christian identity
Even when it ceases to be religious in large part, we represent for them, for the instinctive reactions of their collective subconscious
the very entity that, according to the New Testament, was disqualified from being the center of history, in the end
Just as one of the leaders of an extreme leftist anti-Christian party once asked one of my teachers
saying "Ok I don't believe in all the bull of the church and all of that, it doesn't speak to me, but why did you crucify him?"
That is in the end, the myth continues to exist beyond the religious belief
And we need to understand that for the world the establishment of the State of Israel represents a metaphysical scandal at one level or another
That is, here all of the foundations of Western civilization were placed in doubt, and I will explain why
On the one hand, we engendered a biblical event in the heart of the modern era
In the middle of the 20th century a biblical event took place
We thought that the Bible belongs to the past
Now we see that it belongs to the present
Not only that, but it occurred according to the Jewish reading of the Bible
This then raises a much more poignant question: Perhaps the Jewish reading of the Bible is correct
Now, I would say that there was a measure of exoneration on this matter at first because of the Holocaust
The Holocaust was like Jacob limping from his thigh, as it were
And so even though Esau hates Jacob, at that moment he felt mercy for him
As it says there in Genesis he then "kissed him with all his heart"
They were willing at that time to accept the State of Israel as the refuge state for the Jewish people. But, don't exaggerate
Now, the Six-Day war, you could say, reshuffled the deck
Suddenly, the Jewish people is not only running away from anti-Semitism, but also makes the decision to conquer the Temple Mount, Jerusalem
and in essence we enter here a period of waiting
I remember the Six-Day War, as a child, you could say that the entire world stood amazed and said to itself
if the Jewish people did this thing, this is a sign that the Jewish people has something to say
And since then, humanity has been waiting
What do you have to say to us? And we don't want to say
We say, no we are like you! We like going to night clubs just like you, and so on
And so the world becomes disappointed and says
wait a second, thatĺs what you made this whole mess for? Then give back the territories!
They are not yours! That is, you disappointed us, you deceived us
You could say that the de-legitimization of the State of Israel
despite all of the terrible aspects of it - which I do not ignore- also includes a type of unrequited love
We expected that you would have something special to say to us, and you don't say it
You refuse to say it. This can be found both in the secular and the religious communities
The secular public is convinced that it is here to be the little Switzerland of the Middle East
and the religious public is convinced that it now has the opportunity to pray at the graves of holy men, and that's it
The idea that there is in fact a universal message that emerges through the Word of God that comes out from Jerusalem- that
unfortunately, could be expected, but has disappeared
Both disappeared and unheard
Here, through the State of Israel, through the history of the People of Israel, the possibility of renewing the prophetic culture
The prophetic culture includes all aspects of life
It includes the individual, the collective, the universal, and I would even say the cosmic
Just as Rabbi Kook in Orot HaKodesh writes about the 'four songs':
The private song of the individual, the national song of the individual, the song of all mankind for the individual
and the cosmological song of the individual, which together comprise the song of Israel, which can also mean the "song of God" and so forth
And I would say, if the interactions between sectors in our own society have a task
it is that each of us must recognize not only where I differ with the other- which is in itself important for I must know where
I differ- but I also need to know what you have to contribute to me, and what I have to contribute to you
As opposed to the term used in religious circles today of "bringing those far close"
I think we need to speak of bringing "hearts together" I think this is a totally different matter
Bringing the far close assumes that I am in the right place and I will help you, poor soul
to get close to me, to be like me, since I am the ultimate human ideal after allů
On the other hand, when bringing hearts together there is a fundamental assumption that it is not for no reason that God made you different from me
You have something to add to me, and I have something to add to you
Let's together advance towards the ideal, towards divinity if you wish to call it such
In the end, the unity between the various parts of the nation should give birth to some new type of human who knows to hear the Word of G-d
And I am very wary when using such expression because these terms like the "word of G-d"
and so on are still understood in our world according to the limiting religious connotations
But in fact, as Franz Rozenswieg once said, God is not the head of the local religious council of the cosmos
God is the Creator of all
And He is revealed in all; in political dimensions, in cultural dimensions, in religious dimensions, and in universal dimensions
Thank you very much Rabbi Sherki
Thank you very much
Thank you Asaf, Thank you Tomer
Thank you to those watching