Dr. Michael Livni
"The Zionist Revolution" – a response to A.B. Yehoshua 
May 14, 2005
(Israeli Reform Zionist Think Tank held Kibbutz Nachsholim)

A. B. Yehoshua’s in-depth remarks cast a wide net.  If I am to relate, as a Reform Zionist, to the meaning of the “Zionist revolution” for our movement in the ten minutes allocated, I can only cover a number of points and I have to forego the nuances. For this I apologize in advance. 

With regard to every Zionist movement including Reform Zionism, I am definitely prepared to accept the term “revolution” as you use it -  “a radical change in life priorities, values, social ideology and political structure.”  We are speaking about a vision of an alternative way of life  - an alternative Torat Chaim. 

Secondly, you say: “a program, a direction, a platform for a new way of life...”   I add that without a program of action the vision simply remains a dream.

And above all, the realization of the vision requires a critical mass - even if it is a small mass - of people, passionate and devoted, who work to actualize that vision-guided way of life. And inevitably, because the Zionist enterprise is an enterprise of human beings the success will only be partial. 

 There are three preconditions for Reform Zionism as a Zionist movement of value change (as distinct from a pro Israel reform organization, as distinct from a federation of Progressive Jewish congregations)

1.	Vision  “Where there is no vision the people become unruly”
 (Proverbs 29:18)

2.  An action program that reflects a path in the realization of the Reform Zionist vision as a way of life (Torat Chaim) - both in the State as a Jewish and democratic State and at least among Reform (Zionist) Jews in the Diaspora.

3. Bearers of the vision, soldiers, whose self-realization is in shlichut  (mission) to the idea, chavurot of men and women in kehillot kodesh (holy communities) which constitute both a way of life and a path to the vision. 
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Until the end of the Nineteen sixties the various streams of the Labor Zionist movement determined values, norms, and frameworks for their actualization. Hebrew land. Hebrew language. Hebrew labor. Social justice based on the equal worth of all humans.

From the end of the Sixties and on, we have witnessed a revolutionary development within religious orthodox Zionism. Their vision: a Greater Israel by means of settlements. 

The Reform Zionist movement, both in Israel and abroad, is only just beginning to realize the necessity of crystallizing a comprehensive Zionist vision together with educational instrumentalities and frameworks for a way of life to realize that vision. 

During the last generation, the hope that we placed in Reform Zionism has been fulfilled only very partially. Reform Zionism functions in Galut - whether it is physically in the Golah or whether it is in Israel. As a consequence there is no space, no “sterile area”, as you call it, for the development of a Zionist leadership which can change a way of life and values.

Our leadership is organizational and “establishment”. The patterns of leadership, whether in Israel or abroad, are those of the professional Jews, Rabbis in the main. However, in Judaism, when we speak of Torat Moshe, more than anything the medium is the message. Professional Jews in general tend to be priests of the existing order and not prophets (Moshe) of a different revolutionary social ideology. 
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And now for your vision - the separation between religion and nationality.

I cannot accept your analysis of Jewish and Zionist history. As I see it, the Zionist movement is one of the responses of the Jewish people to the modern age. 

The modern age (characterized by the passing of traditional societies) caused a discontinuity in the history of our people.  Indeed, modernity constitutes the major discontinuity in the social structure of humanity as a whole. We will not be able to ignore this fact. 

 In our national home, the Zionist revolution must develop viable ways of life against the backdrop of modernity’s ills.  Within contemporary society these ills express themselves in relationships between individuals and between individuals and the Divine. However, we must relate to this universal crisis of humanity through the unique prism of the People Israel. 

I cannot accept the thesis of the separation of religion from nationality that you prescribe in order to continue the Zionist revolution. Recall the words of Ruth to Naomi, “Your people are my people (peoplehood). Your God is my God (belief).” (Ruth 1:16)

That is the symbiosis and we cannot do without it. I assume that we are all repelled by the way they are connected in the laws of the State of Israel but let us not throw out the baby with the murky bathwater.

The Zionist movement had two very different roots and we are obligated to differentiate between them.

The political Zionism that Theodor Herzl founded aspired to solve the question of the physical existence of the Jews. The State of the Jews sought to “normalize” the Jewish people. 

It seems to me that you say: It is enough for us to be Hebrew  speaking Goyim in our historic homeland. However, in my opinion this is  a prescription for the disappearance of the Jewish people under the current conditions of cultural globalization. From my point of view, your position is post- Zionist and is an ironic paradox for us as Reform Jews - your suggestion is classic Reform Judaism in reverse. *

On the other hand, the cultural Zionism of Ahad Ha’Am claimed that the purpose of Zionism, the challenge, was to ensure the continued creative continuity of the Jewish people everywhere. The Jewish State as distinct from a State for the Jews was to be an instrument for furthering this aim. The purpose of the State is not to normalize the people. On the contrary, its purpose is to make it possible for the people to renew its culture as a unique people and in particular to establish an infrastructure where the prophetic stream of Judaism can re-emerge in a garb suitable for our times.

According to this (prophetic) model, Judaism constitutes an 
ongoing revolution and cultural Zionism was to be its spearhead. The cultural Zionism of the chalutzim  demanded  Tikkun - transformation of the individual, the people and the world in the prophetic spirit - all this in socialist clothing.  The pioneering Labor Zionist thinkers were aware that a far-reaching program was necessary in order to bridge the double chasm which opened up as a result of both two thousand years of Galut and the current breakdown of traditional society. 

“We dared to start from the beginning because we came to continue the way.” wrote Avraham Shlonsky. 

And as A. D. Gordon wrote:
“We created an idiom for the nature of our country by using the phrase - Man in the image of God. This maxim has had its effect on human existence...Now we are about to create a new concept for the nature that lives within us. We say: ‘a nation in the image of God.’ It is at the root of our idea, our (national) renewal and redemption.  This is the basis of the idea of ‘Nation Man’”.

In the cultural Zionist vision  which is essentially infinite, there is no place for the classic definition of secular Jews - i.e. ethnic Jews who have nothing holy guiding them. Nor is there a place for “religious” Jews who are guided only by the observance of the ritual mitzvot and that without any particular kavanah. 

There is definitely a place for “free” Jews, (yehudim chofshiim) - free from Halakhic authority. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century this was how that handful of Chalutzim who attempted to lay the foundations for a national home based on a certain value system saw  themselves

This we must know: the “free Zionist Jews” had faith. They believed in an infinite vision and were prepared to invest their personal energies for the sake of its realization. This was done within a day to day reality often difficult to bear. The ultimate test was the ability to establish instruments and frameworks for living which would constitute a Torat Chaim, a way of life expressing the value world of their Zionist vision. 

The kibbutz was an attempt to establish a holy community of “free Zionism”.

However, in its revolutionary praxis “free Zionism , for example that of the chalutzim, threw out the baby with the bath water. It did not inculcate attachment and commitment to the symbols of our heritage. Above all, “free Zionism” failed to identify the God Idea (the eternal Thou, in Buber’s words) as a focus for the strivings of Tikkun - transforming the individual, the people and the world. 
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In order to continue the Zionist revolution, it is not “religion“ that we must deal with.  Rather, we must deal with Jewish-Zionist faith. In any case, the word, “religion” was forced upon us from outside of Judaism. I do believe that it is within the power of Reform Zionism (if we allow such a movement to arise), to make a unique contribution to the synthesis between Jewish-Zionist faith and Jewish nationhood. Reform Zionism will be able to formulate a democratic cultural Zionism with faith at its center. 

The challenge for Reform Zionism is to fill the empty space that free Zionism has left behind. A malignant secularism that is in fact idolatry has entered this empty space. 

As I have said, we will be able to meet this challenge only if we have a vision, an action program, and groups that take upon themselves the shlichut of realizing a Torat Chaim that expresses that vision. 

Thank you and  may we all succeed.       
Michael Livni

*Classic Reform negated nationhood as integral to Judaism.  A. B. Yehoshua negates religious culture as integral to Jewish nationhood.