The vast majority of Jews today support the state of Israel. However, the reasons differ quite a bit. The movement that made the modern state of Israel was 19th century secular nationalism. To this day, Jews that are secular support it as a safe place for Jews to live. There are some ultra-Orthodox Jews who oppose the state of Israel since they claim that a Jewish state can only be established as a Torah based theocracy. There are some religious Jews who support the state of Israel but think its not part of the Messianic puzzle. That’s the view of Rabbi Asher Meza.
However, at the bottom of it all, there are religious Jews who think that the modern secular state of Israel was created by a sovereign act of God acting on a promise to his chosen people. This view puzzles me to no end. I’m not a Jew so I don’t have a dog in this race but I am religious and Jews and Christians share a common text which is the Old Testament or what Jews call the Tanakh. In the clip above at 1:31:00 Rabbi Tovia Singer says that the state of Israel exists because God put it there.
Let’s analyze the facts. It’s the chosen people, in a specific geographical area. This is where the evidence stops. The borders of Israel aren’t the biblical borders. The system of government is a secular democratic one as opposed to a theocracy. Theocracy is biblical and democracy is not. It functions according to secular law and not Torah law. If it did start following Torah law, Tel Aviv would quickly lose its reputation as one of the worlds most LGBTQ friendly cities. I hate to break it to the LGBTQ community but they don’t fair too well in the Torah, whether they’re Jewish or not.
Now, I recently talked to a religious Jewish Zionist and he told me that God creates and destroys all nations. Okay, I agree with this, but that would make the state of Israel no different than Moldova, Algeria, or the Philippines and that doesn’t fit too well into this romantic view that the state of Israel is a special creation of God. I pointed this out to him and then he went down a different route. He said that this is the first phase of the restoration and eventually it will become the promised kingdom of Israel. I mentioned the country is over 70 years old and the government is no more Torah based than in was when it was founded and it doesn’t look like its going to go in that direction anytime soon.
Traditional Judaism has never taught that a secular state has to be enacted and will eventually be a Biblical state. It’s never been that the people need to come and make the sundae then a prophet or messiah will come and put the cherry on top.
I’d like to hear from religious Zionist Jews who think that the modern state of Israel is a special creation of God. Knowledgeable religious Jews have commented on this blog before. If they fall into this category I’d like to hear from them. However, any Jew is welcome to answer.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.