Judaism, Zionism, the Temple, and Apologetics

I was recently watching a YouTube video.  It was an apologetics lecture given by a prominent Orthodox Jewish Rabbi.  In the question and answer period someone in the audience asked if they should accept support from Evangelicals who are hardcore Zionists.  A legitimate question for the Jewish community I suppose.  He said to accept their support but don’t go to events put on by CUFI and similar groups.  He said that the state of Israel is there because God wants it to be there.  I can only laugh at some statements.

Basically before the State of Israel, most religious Jews opposed Zionism and most Zionists opposed Judaism.  Most Jews today, whether they’re religious or not support Israel.  Most Orthodox Jews, with the exception of a handful of ultra-Orthodox groups support the state of Israel.  Oh well, to each their own.  This doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

However, we can actually take this and work it into our apologetics.  Orthodox Jews will tell Christians that their religion is the religion of the Old Testament.  The only deficiency is that they can no longer offer sacrifices since there is no Temple.  Without getting into the details, this isn’t true but for the sake of argument, we can go along with it.

Jews cannot build another Temple because the only real estate they can build it on is occupied by a fancy piece of religious Islamic architecture called the Dome of the Rock.  This is an important religious site for Muslims and Israelis know that demolishing this building will put them into a holy war with over a billion Muslims.

If you ask an Orthodox Jew why haven’t the Jews built a Temple in a different location such as Tel Aviv, Rome, Athens, Cairo, or any other city, you’ll get the classic answer.  The answer is that there is only one place where the Temple can be built and that is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  A good question to ask is, would God support a project to build a Temple in an alternative location?  They will clearly say no.

Now comes the question about Zionism.  We then have to ask if God endorses a secular Jewish state in the land of Israel that is not based on Torah values.  I just thought of this argument today and I’m kind of ashamed that I didn’t think of it sooner.  I obviously knew all the details but I only recently put them together into this argument.

Regarding Torah values, the modern state of Israel is not based on them at all.  Democracy isn’t supported in the Old Testament.  It is true that in the Old Testament, many people in the Kingdom of Israel including monarchs were engaging in evil.  A good example is all of the Baal worship going on in the time of Elijah.  However, regardless of this the law of the land was still the Torah.  This is important to remember.  If one says that Israel is illegitimate because of depravity of certain Israelis that would be wrong.  For example, the fact that Tel Aviv is considered one of the most homosexual friendly cities in the world wouldn’t be an argument against the legitimacy of Israel since the ancient Israelites in the true Kingdom of Israel behaved far worse at times.

Basically this argument resurrects an old Orthodox Jewish argument against Zionism.  The argument is not against the Jewish religion so I suppose it’s not technically religious apologetics.  It’s just an interesting observation that I’ve made.  I intend to use it in my next discussion with a Jew.  Let me know in the comments section if you try it out yourself.