The specter of a Jewish theocracy in Israel is raised from time to
time by people who are alarmed by the inroads that the Orthodox
establishment seems to be making into the country's body politic.
The prospect of a Jewish Iran, ruled by crazed rabbis of the sort
who gave Yitzhak Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, their blessing
before the act, and who cherish the memory of Baruch Goldstein, who
murdered 29 Muslims praying in Hebron, is indeed nightmarish. But I
believe that the prospect for its materialization is scant.
The "Islamic Republic" in Iran has major precedents, under some
post¬caliphs and the sultans, down until the end of the
Ottoman Empire. A par¬allel, though not identical, development
took place in Christianity, when the conversion of Constantine and
the symbiosis created between emperors and patriarchs set the
pattern of the Christian state religion, until the American and
French revolutions.
There is hardly any such precedent in Judaism, despite the seeming
testimony of the Old Testament. Even on the biblical evidence, the
ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah were pagan, polytheistic
states, in which Yahweh was worshipped as the supreme deity, but
which also recognized and tolerated the cults of Baal, Anat, the
Asherahs, the "Queen of Heaven" (apparently the Babylonian goddess
Ishtar) and of Tammuz (a Babylonian god too). That is why almost
all the monarchs of the two kingdoms were denounced by later
Yahwist chroniclers for "doing evil in the eyes of the Lord."
The Background
Jewish monotheism, as we know it today, was apparently founded and
developed in Babylonian exile (although there does seem to have
been prophetic precursors of the monotheistic idea such as Amos,
the first Isaiah and Jeremiah), and was carried back to Canaan by
the returnees to Zion. In Canaan they established an exclusive
reli¬gious community under the rule of the Persian kings,
which continued under the Hellenistic empires. The first truly
Jewish state was established by the Hasmoneans after their
successful rebellion against the Seleucid empire. Although the
whole of Palestine was forcibly converted to Judaism after the
Hasmonean rulers conquered it, the new Jewish state, born out of
revolt against Hellenism, began immediately to develop Hellenistic
traits, even to the point of influ¬encing the ways that the
rabbis interpreted the Torah itself. As a result, the devout
Pharisees began to withdraw from the "sinful" state and to object
to the very fact of Jewish sovereignty, preferring the direct rule
of Rome to the rule of the Hasmonean-Herodian dynasty.
It is true that in Halachic literature, particularly in Maimonides
and in the writings of Don Yehuda Abarbanel, there is much
theorizing on the nature and constitution of the ideal Jewish
state, ruled by the Halacha, as described in Gershon Weiler's
important (and deliberately neglected) book, The Jewish Theocracy.
But this is strictly theoretical and millennial writing. In actual
practice, then, there has never existed a "Halacha state," as there
have existed, and exist even now, states governed by Muslim law
(such as Iran and Saudi Arabia), so that there is neither a
practical nor a traditional model for such a state.
Some Zionist thinkers tried to argue that the closed Jewish
religious community (the Kehilla) in the Diaspora, living under the
protection of the gentile temporal authorities, was in reality "a
miniature Jewish state." But this is a false analogy. These
communities (which developed from the Roman corporations of the
late Empire and preserved in the "millet" system of the Ottoman
Empire) indeed often had a large measure of autonomy. They thus
maintained their own legal systems, extending to jurisdiction in
civil affairs between members of the community, but much less as
regards criminal offenses, communal taxation powers and even
col¬lection of state taxes (like the Catholic clergy). On the
other hand, they never participated in political and military
affairs, stood largely apart from the intellectual life of the
larger community, and after the Renaissance, also refrained from
having anything to do with "gentile science." This was so even in
medicine, wherein medieval Jews were prominent theoreticians and
practitioners (namely, again, Maimonides).
Orthodox Opposition to Zionism
Zionism appeared as a revolt against this subordinate, communal
sta¬tus, by aspiring to gain for the Jews full political
expression as a collective. It is highly significant that the
leaders of the Orthodox community reac¬ted with vehement
hostility to this proposed translation of the supposed¬ly
"miniature state" into an actual political state. The great
majority of the ultra-Orthodox Jews still oppose Zionism.
In the enclosed religious community one can choose not to come into
contact with the world, except in limited permitted areas. A state
cannot avoid such contacts. In the final analysis, this is the true
reason for the oppo¬sition of most religious people to the
peace process. Not that they oppose peace per se, nor because they
are so enamored of "Greater Eretz Yisrael," but because of their
fear that if peace comes, the beleaguered situation of Israel,
which kept it in a sort of "ghetto," will be replaced by an open
soci¬ety in which all their position and bargaining power will
evaporate.
Even the attempts to fuse Zionism with religion, as exemplified in
the program of Mafdal (the National Religious Party), are now
beginning to retreat. Instead of participating in the secular
Zionist state and submitting to its authority, like the original
religious Zionists, they tend to reject state authority and revive
the state-flaunting authority of the rabbis, thus unconsciously
seceding from the state into their own enclaves. Rabin"s assassin,
Yigal Amir, did commit his crime on the basis of his nationalistic
convictions, but seemingly did not dare to proceed with the act
without rabbinical blessing. On the face of it, this implies a
danger of a terroristic religious takeover. In reality it means a
flight from real politics.
No Prospect of Theocracy
It is well known that two parallel processes are now taking place
in reli¬gious circles in Israel. One is complete
secularization and abandonment of religion, apparently mostly among
people who have served in the army and as a result came in contact
with the outside secular world. The other is a transition to a
completely Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) mind-set, relin¬quishing
nationalism altogether and withdrawing into the sequestered
religious community.
I venture to guess that if there ever was a chance that an offer be
made to the religious camp in Israel to take over the country - it
would have dropped the offer with horror. They wouldn't even know
how to begin to tackle such a situation. They never did really
think about international politics seriously. They would have had
no serious foreign policy line to steer by. They wouldn't know what
to do in a million other ways. Throughout their existence they
lived as specialized guest communities in gentile societies who
took care of all the serious business of running a state. In Israel
they were always borne by the State and fed on it for their own
purposes, ignoring its broader interests and that of its
population, and don't have any idea how to deal with them. All the
problems of capi¬tal and labor, of military and political
balance, of scientific and economic planning, are beyond their ken
and understanding. They excel only in the arts of negotiation, of
petty politicking and of squeezing the public coffers in their
favor. It is my belief that if and when peace comes, they will
quick¬ly wither and shrink back into their enclaves. The
prospect is not of a theocracy, but of constant petty harassment,
intrigue and political black¬mail. This is their unique
contribution to Israeli life.