1. There is a fundamental confusion in the modern discussion about Judaism and the State of Israel. Because Jewish political circumstances changed dramatically over thousands of years, people assume that Judaism itself changed with them.
2. It did not.
3. The Torah remained the same. What changed were the circumstances in which particular Torah laws could be applied.
4. Understanding this distinction is essential to understanding Jewish history, exile, Jewish sovereignty, self-defense, and the modern State of Israel.
Part I: A Torah Nation in the Land of Israel
5. The first period begins with יציאת מצרים — the Exodus from Egypt.
6. The Jewish people emerged from Egypt not simply as individuals sharing a religion, but as a nation under the authority of Gd and the Torah. After Sinai and forty years in the wilderness, they entered ארץ ישראל — the Land of Israel.
7. Biblical Jewish national existence was fundamentally different from the modern concept of a secular nation-state.
8. There was land, national leadership, Torah courts, laws governing national affairs and warfare, the בית המקדש — Temple — and commandments specifically connected to the Land.
9. During the periods of the First and Second Temples, many Torah laws operated within institutions that no longer exist today.
10. Some commandments required residence in the Land. Others required the בית המקדש, the Sanhedrin, properly constituted Jewish courts, national authority, or other specific halachic conditions.
11. The Torah also contains severe laws concerning עבודה זרה — idolatry — warfare, capital punishment, and particular ancient nations.
12. These were never simply licenses allowing an individual Jew to decide whom to punish, attack, expel, or kill. They existed within a detailed Torah judicial and national structure.
Part II: Destruction and Exile
13. The Torah itself never presented Jewish possession of the Land as an unconditional political entitlement.
14. The Torah and the Prophets repeatedly warned that abandoning the covenant could eventually result in national catastrophe and exile.
15. Both Temples were destroyed. Jewish sovereignty disappeared, and the overwhelming majority of the Jewish people eventually lived outside the Land.
16. But the Torah did not disappear with Jewish sovereignty.
17. One of the extraordinary accomplishments of the following centuries was the preservation, clarification, transmission, and application of תורה שבכתב — the Written Torah — together with תורה שבעל פה — the Oral Torah.
18. Halacha preserved precisely what Jews remained obligated to practice and what could no longer be practiced without the Temple, Sanhedrin, Jewish sovereignty, or other institutions required by Torah law.
19. A Jew living in Germany or Hungary centuries ago remained governed by exactly the same Torah as his ancestors.
20. He could keep Shabbos, observe kashrus, study Torah, give tzedakah, establish Jewish communal institutions, marry according to Jewish law, and fulfill the commandments applicable to his circumstances.
21. But he could not simply establish biblical criminal courts, declare biblical national wars, or exercise governmental Torah powers for which the required institutions no longer existed.
22. Judaism had not changed. The circumstances of Jewish existence had changed.
Jews Never Completely Disappeared From the Land
23. The Jewish relationship with ארץ ישראל did not suddenly restart with modern Zionism.
24. Jewish communities continued to exist in the Land throughout the centuries of exile. Their numbers fluctuated enormously because of war, persecution, disease, economic circumstances, expulsions, immigration, and changing rulers. At certain times communities were substantial; at other times they were extremely small.
25. The precise number is secondary to the larger point. Jewish attachment to the Land never disappeared simply because Jewish political sovereignty disappeared.
26. Jews prayed toward Jerusalem. They mentioned Jerusalem and ציון — Zion — continuously in their prayers. They mourned the destruction of the בית המקדש. Jews traveled to the Land and settled there whenever circumstances allowed.
27. There is therefore an important difference between Jewish presence and attachment to the Land and Jewish political sovereignty over the Land.
28. The first continued throughout exile. The second disappeared.
1948: Political Sovereignty, Not Biblical Sovereignty
29. The establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948 dramatically changed Jewish political circumstances.
30. For the first time in many centuries, millions of Jews would eventually live within a sovereign state possessing a government, army, police, borders, intelligence services, taxation system, and the practical ability to defend a large Jewish population.
31. That was an enormous historical and practical development. But the nature of that development must be understood correctly.
32. One useful analogy is to think of a modern state, in a limited sense, as a very large corporation. Imagine Israel as something like IBM. A successful corporation must manage itself, develop its products, market itself, attract capital, protect its assets, plan for the future, and produce value for those it serves. A successful state likewise develops its economy, maintains infrastructure, protects its territory, builds international relationships, and attempts to provide security and prosperity for its citizens.
33. In this respect Israel belongs to the same modern political world as Sweden, Norway, the United States, or other sovereign countries. Different countries use different economic systems and possess different resources, but each attempts to manage its national assets and institutions for its population.
34. Israel therefore functions first as a sovereign political and legal entity. Its government has direct governmental obligations toward its citizens and residents under its jurisdiction.
35. A Jew living in New York does not receive Israeli voting rights, ordinary Israeli government benefits, police protection, or the normal rights of Israeli citizenship merely because he is Jewish. His ordinary civil protection comes from the United States. Likewise, a Jew living in London, Paris, or Toronto normally lives under the civil authority and protection of the country in which he resides.
36. Israel certainly has historical connections with Diaspora Jews and may assist Jewish communities abroad. But that is different from the ordinary legal relationship between a government and its citizens.
37. This distinction is essential. Israel can properly be described historically and politically as a Jewish state or as a state created as a national home for the Jewish people. But that does not automatically make it a Torah Jewish state.
38. It is more accurate for the purpose of this discussion to distinguish between a modern state associated with and created principally for the Jewish people and the Torah nation described in Tanach.
39. The first is a modern political and legal entity. The second was a covenantal national structure governed through institutions established by Torah.
40. The modern State of Israel is not the twelve tribes living within the Torah governmental structure of ancient Israel.
41. Its citizens include Jews and non-Jews. Its non-Jewish citizens possess citizenship and civil rights. Its parliament, courts, army, police, bureaucracy, and other institutions operate principally as institutions of a contemporary nation-state.
42. The establishment of that state did not automatically recreate the Sanhedrin, the Davidic monarchy, the בית המקדש, prophecy, or the judicial structure necessary for many biblical national laws.
43. A modern government cannot simply declare those institutions restored because Jews again possess political sovereignty.
The Contradiction of Secular Biblical Sovereignty
44. Here lies one of the great contradictions in the modern argument concerning the State of Israel.
45. The ancient Jewish relationship with ארץ ישראל described in Tanach belongs to the history of a people whose national existence was inseparable from Torah.
46. Biblical Israel was not a secular state populated by people who happened to have Jewish ancestry. Its national story was built around the ברית — covenant — between Gd and the Jewish people, Torah law, prophets, the בית המקדש, and Divine Providence.
47. Yet many of the founders of modern political Zionism were secular Jews influenced by nationalism, socialism, liberalism, capitalism, and other modern political movements. They were not attempting to restore the complete Torah society described in Tanach.
48. Nevertheless, one of the most powerful arguments for modern Jewish sovereignty looks backward thousands of years: “This was our land. Our ancestors lived here. We are returning home.”
49. That creates a theological contradiction when biblical history is used selectively.
50. If the biblical relationship between the Jewish people and the Land is invoked as an absolute religious title to the territory, the covenant surrounding that relationship cannot simply be removed from the discussion.
51. One cannot invoke יהושע — Joshua — while ignoring the Divine command under which יהושע acted.
52. One cannot invoke King David while removing the Torah structure surrounding David’s kingdom.
53. One cannot claim the biblical inheritance as absolute religious authority while simultaneously treating the biblical covenant governing that inheritance as irrelevant.
The Conquest of Joshua Was Not Ordinary Nationalism
54. ספר יהושע — the Book of Joshua — illustrates the difference.
55. יהושע did not study ancient history, determine that his ancestors had once lived in the Land, organize an army, and independently decide that this gave him authority to conquer it.
56. The biblical account describes something entirely different.
57. The conquest occurred following the miraculous Exodus from Egypt, revelation at Sinai, Moshe’s leadership, forty years in the wilderness, explicit Divine commands, prophecy, and repeated supernatural manifestations of Divine Providence.
58. The authority came from Gd within the biblical Torah system.
59. Remove those elements and one has removed the very framework through which the biblical conquest was authorized.
60. Modern nationalism and biblical conquest are therefore not interchangeable concepts.
Orthodox Judaism and the Modern State
61. There are Orthodox authorities who see particular religious significance and Divine Providence in the return of large numbers of Jews to ארץ ישראל and the establishment of Jewish political sovereignty. Other Orthodox authorities understand the State very differently.
62. But seeing Divine Providence in a historical event is not the same as granting individuals the authority to recreate biblical warfare.
63. The existence of a Jewish government does not transform an ordinary Jew, soldier, politician, or prime minister into יהושע, King David, the Sanhedrin, or a biblical Torah court.
64. Nor does historical attachment to a particular territory, standing alone, give an individual the right to take another human life merely to acquire that territory.
65. Historical land claims and preservation of human life are two separate questions.
Pikuach Nefesh Did Not Begin in 1948
66. The clearest example is פיקוח נפש — preservation of human life.
67. Suppose a Jew suffers a serious medical emergency on Shabbos.
68. Shabbos is one of the foundations of Jewish existence. Nevertheless, when human life is genuinely endangered, Shabbos is suspended to perform what is necessary to save that life.
69. Where does this law apply? Everywhere.
70. The Jew living in medieval Germany was governed by it. The Jew living in Hungary was governed by it. The Jew living in Baltimore is governed by it. The Jew living in Jerusalem is governed by it.
71. Geography does not create פיקוח נפש. A Jewish government does not create it. Political sovereignty does not create it.
72. The Torah creates it.
73. The same principle applies when Jews face a genuine threat of deadly attack.
74. Halacha does not necessarily require a person to wait until a murderer has already succeeded before taking protective action. When a sufficiently serious danger to life exists, preventative measures necessary to protect life may be permitted or required.
75. If protecting life requires actions normally prohibited on Shabbos, Shabbos may be suspended because of פיקוח נפש.
76. Nothing about this principle began in 1948.
What Changed Was Capability
77. This explains what actually changed with modern Jewish sovereignty.
78. A Jewish community living under a foreign government might have possessed almost no ability to defend itself. It depended upon the police, army, laws, and goodwill of whatever government controlled that territory.
79. Sometimes that protection existed. Sometimes it catastrophically failed.
80. The modern State of Israel gave its population something profoundly different: organized governmental, military, police, and intelligence capabilities capable of defending millions of people.
81. That is an enormous practical difference.
82. But it is a difference in יכולת — capability, not a change in Torah.
83. The State did not invent the Jewish obligation to preserve life. It provided organized governmental means through which its population could protect itself.
Land and Life Are Two Different Questions
84. This distinction becomes especially important in discussions of military action.
85. There is a fundamental difference between saying, “Human beings are in mortal danger and must be protected,” and saying, “This territory historically belonged to the Jewish people, therefore human life may be taken merely in order to possess it.”
86. These are not the same argument.
87. Protecting people from murder is one question. Acquiring territory because of a biblical or historical claim is another.
88. If military action is genuinely necessary to protect people from a deadly attack, its justification can rest upon the obligation to preserve life and defend people from danger.
89. That principle exists whether the endangered Jew lives under a Jewish government or a non-Jewish government.
90. A secular incorporated state does not create a new Torah principle simply because a large part of its population is Jewish.
The Palestinian Question
91. This distinction is especially important when discussing Palestinians and the West Bank.
92. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict involves competing populations, national aspirations, territorial claims, security concerns, terrorism, settlements, borders, political sovereignty, and decades of political decisions.
93. Jews and Arabs lived alongside one another in the territories after 1967 under circumstances that changed substantially over the following decades. The Intifadas, terrorism, Israeli military responses, Palestinian nationalism, settlement expansion, failed negotiations, and competing political ambitions fundamentally altered those relationships.
94. Whatever political solution one supports, these questions should not simply be reduced to: “The Torah says Jews possessed this territory thousands of years ago, therefore biblical laws of conquest operate today.”
95. That conclusion does not automatically follow.
96. Territorial and national conflicts occur throughout human history. Irish and British history provides one example. Russians and Ukrainians living across changing political boundaries provide another. Different peoples can inhabit the same geographical region while maintaining conflicting historical claims and national aspirations.
97. These become questions of sovereignty, borders, government, security, and political power.
98. The presence of Jews does not automatically transform such a political conflict into a biblical Torah war.
99. At the same time, when Jews face an actual danger to life, the question changes. Protection from terrorism, invasion, murder, or another genuine deadly threat concerns preservation of life.
100. The two questions must not be confused.
Political Sovereignty Is Not Torah Sovereignty
101. A state can possess political sovereignty without possessing biblical Torah sovereignty.
102. Israel can maintain borders, collect taxes, issue passports, maintain an army, arrest criminals, defend its citizens, negotiate treaties, develop its economy, and conduct the ordinary functions performed by other sovereign governments.
103. Those powers arise from the practical reality of modern political sovereignty.
104. They should not automatically be confused with the Torah authority exercised within biblical Jewish national life.
If Biblical Jewish Government Returns
105. According to the theological framework developed here, if a future era arrives in which Gd authentically restores the institutions and Divine authority necessary for biblical Jewish national life, then the Torah laws applicable to those restored circumstances will once again operate within their proper framework.
106. That would not mean Judaism had changed again.
107. It would mean the circumstances had changed again.
108. The commandments did not disappear during exile. The conditions necessary for exercising particular national commandments disappeared.
109. If those conditions are authentically restored through the Torah’s own framework, the applicable laws would again operate according to legitimate Torah authority.
110. Individuals cannot create that authority themselves simply because they possess political power.
One Torah, Different Circumstances
111. This brings the entire history together.
112. There was a period when the Jewish people existed as a Torah nation possessing institutions through which national Torah law could operate.
113. There followed a long period during which Jews lived throughout the Diaspora without those institutions.
114. Throughout those centuries, Jews continued living according to the same Torah.
115. Jewish communities also continued living in ארץ ישראל, sometimes in larger numbers and sometimes in tiny communities. Jewish religious attachment to the Land never disappeared.
116. Then, in 1948, Jewish political circumstances changed dramatically.
117. A modern sovereign state was established. Eventually millions of Jews lived under a government possessing the ability to defend them.
118. That changed Jewish political power. It changed Jewish military capability. It changed the ability of Jews living within that political entity to organize collectively for physical protection.
119. It did not change the Torah.
120. The Jew in Germany, the Jew in Hungary, the Jew in Baltimore, and the Jew in Jerusalem remain governed by the same fundamental Torah.
121. If life is endangered, פיקוח נפש applies.
122. If Shabbos must be suspended to save life, Shabbos is suspended.
123. If people face a genuine deadly attack, the Torah permits or requires appropriate protection according to halacha.
124. But possessing a parliament, army, flag, borders, successful economy, and internationally recognized government does not by itself restore the Sanhedrin, the Temple, prophecy, the Davidic monarchy, or the biblical institutions governing Jewish national warfare.
125. That is the distinction that must remain clear: Jewish historical attachment is not the same as modern political sovereignty. Modern political sovereignty is not the same as biblical Torah sovereignty. Acquiring territory is not the same as protecting human life.
126. The State of Israel may be a powerful and successful modern state associated with the Jewish people. That is a political and historical reality. It is not, merely because Jews established and govern it, the restoration of the Tora
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The Purpose of the Jew in the Diaspora
1. My personal understanding of the purpose of the Jew during the last 2,000 years begins with a simple historical reality: the Jewish people lived primarily as a homeless and stateless nation. By “homeless,” I do not mean that Jews were constantly wandering or that they could not remain in one country for generations. A Jewish community could live in the same country for 200, 300, or even 500 years and establish homes, businesses, synagogues, schools, cemeteries, and deep local roots. Yet Jewish history repeatedly demonstrated that such permanence could disappear. Large Jewish populations were expelled, persecuted, massacred, forcibly converted, or compelled to migrate from one part of Europe to another, throughout North Africa, and across the Middle East. There were exceptional communities with extraordinarily long continuity, but the broader historical experience was one of mobility and insecurity. A country could be home for centuries without becoming the permanent national home of the Jewish people. That is what I mean by the Jewish condition of being homeless and stateless throughout the long exile. Even today, I do not view the modern State of Israel as defining the religious purpose of the Jewish people. It is a sovereign state and a refuge for Jews, but statehood itself does not define Judaism or Jewish values.
2. The purpose of the individual Jew is the preservation of the kernel of Torah and mitzvos — תורה ומצוות. A Jew may preserve that inheritance because he believes in Gd, believes in Torah, follows the traditions of his parents and family, or understands himself as part of the historical continuity of the Jewish people.
3. At the same time, every individual possesses free choice — בחירה חופשית. Throughout the long exile, Jews converted to Christianity or Islam, assimilated into surrounding societies, or simply stopped identifying themselves with Judaism. Beginning especially with emancipation in Europe and the development of Reform and Conservative Judaism, increasing numbers of Jews created different relationships with traditional Torah observance.
4. This raises an important question: what does Jewish identity mean when a person’s maternal ancestry may be entirely Jewish while Torah and mitzvos have played almost no role in the family’s life for generations?
5. From a traditional Torah perspective, if such a person is Jewish according to halacha — הלכה, he remains a Jew. But that does not mean that everything he chooses to believe, finance, support, or accomplish becomes an expression of Judaism merely because a Jew is doing it.
6. This distinction has become particularly important over the last century. Many people who are Jewish by birth have become, culturally and practically, citizens of the broader world. They may devote themselves to whatever causes they consider worthwhile. A wealthy Jew may donate hundreds of millions of dollars to universities, museums, medical research, environmental causes, endangered animals, the arts, or countless other causes.
7. He is free to do so. It is his personal choice. But the fact that the donor happens to be Jewish does not automatically transform his philanthropy into a Jewish religious act or make the cause an expression of Judaism.
8. There is therefore a fundamental difference between what a Jew does and what Judaism teaches a Jew to do.
9. If Judaism is invoked as the justification for an action, institution, movement, or charitable undertaking, then the relevant question must be whether that undertaking advances the obligations, values, and continuity of Torah and mitzvos — תורה ומצוות. Otherwise, we are simply attaching the word “Jewish” to the independent choices of individual Jews.
10. A secular philanthropist named Goldstein or Goldberg who chooses to build an arts center is, in this respect, no different from any other philanthropist making the same choice. His ancestry does not make the building an expression of Torah Judaism. It represents his personal priorities.
11. Judaism cannot logically be defined as everything that Jews happen to believe, finance, create, or support. Jews have held virtually every political, philosophical, economic, and cultural position imaginable. If every activity performed by a Jew becomes “Jewish,” then the word Judaism eventually loses any definite meaning.
12. Judaism, in its traditional meaning, is rooted in Torah — תורה, its commandments, obligations, and the historical transmission of those teachings from one generation to the next. Individual Jews remain free to accept that inheritance, neglect it, or walk away from it. Their personal choices, however, do not redefine the inheritance itself.
13. For an Orthodox Torah-observant Jew, Torah is not vague about the purpose and direction of his wealth. His money is not viewed merely as private property with which he occasionally performs acts of generosity. Wealth is a blessing — ברכה, and Torah establishes priorities for its charitable use: first strengthening those closest to him who are in need, then supporting poor and struggling Jews, supporting Torah institutions — מוסדות התורה, Torah education, and strengthening the observance and continuity of Torah and mitzvos — תורה ומצוות wherever help is needed.
14. The principle is to identify weakness within the Jewish people and strengthen it according to the priorities established by halacha — הלכה. This does not mean that Judaism is communism or that a person’s wealth ceases to belong to him. A person retains ownership, responsibility, judgment, and free choice — בחירה חופשית.
15. He may choose to spend his money differently. But once the question becomes, “What does Torah direct an observant Jew to do with the portion of his wealth devoted to philanthropy and tzedakah — צדקה?” Torah provides a hierarchy and direction. It is not simply whichever cause the individual personally finds attractive.
16. The Torah structure begins with those closest to a person. His family responsibilities come first according to their needs and the halachic hierarchy. Parents, children, relatives, and those dependent upon him cannot simply be ignored while he searches for distant causes carrying greater prestige.
17. If his immediate family is financially secure, the circle expands outward: poor Jews around him, the poor of his community and city, Jewish education, Torah institutions, and then Jews elsewhere, including Eretz Yisrael — ארץ ישראל. The principle of עניי עירך קודמין — the poor of your city take precedence expresses the basic concept that responsibility begins close to home and then expands outward.
18. The purpose is not merely to relieve physical poverty. It is also to preserve and strengthen Jewish continuity, Torah learning, Torah observance, and the institutions that allow Jewish families and communities to continue living according to Torah and mitzvos.
19. This creates a nagging intellectual conflict for a person who proudly says that his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were Jewish and therefore strongly identifies himself as Jewish, yet believes that contributing to the physical, cultural, or secular world automatically becomes an act of Judaism simply because he is the donor.
20. Jewish ancestry may explain why the donor identifies himself as Jewish. It does not establish that every philanthropic decision he makes is therefore an expression of Judaism.
21. If he chooses to build a museum, a university building, an arts center, a library, an environmental project, or to preserve animals or forests, that may be a worthy personal, civic, humanitarian, or cultural choice. He has every right to make that choice.
22. But the Jewish name engraved on the building does not itself give the project Torah significance. From the Torah point of view, it remains a secular endeavor unless there is an independent Torah reason for supporting it. The identity of the donor does not change the nature of the activity.
23. That is the crucial distinction: Jewish identity does not automatically turn a personal preference into a mitzvah — מצוה.
24. If a person wishes to act specifically as a Jew and wishes to invoke Judaism as the justification for his philanthropy, then Torah must have a voice in determining where that philanthropy goes and what its priorities should be.
25. Otherwise, the person is exercising ordinary personal freedom. He is spending his wealth according to his individual values, interests, emotions, ideology, or taste. He is entitled to do so, but it should not automatically be presented as Judaism.
26. There is therefore no contradiction in saying that a Jew is completely free to support secular causes while also saying that those causes are not necessarily part of his Jewish religious obligation. Free choice and Torah obligation are two entirely different concepts.
27. Torah does not confiscate a person’s wealth, nor does it eliminate his ability to decide how he wants to live. It establishes priorities and obligations. Whether the individual follows them remains part of his free choice.
28. That is why wealth itself creates responsibility. A person blessed with significant resources possesses the ability to strengthen people, families, institutions, and communities that are weak. From a Torah perspective, the blessing carries responsibility with it.
29. The Torah-oriented purpose of philanthropy is therefore not primarily prestige, public recognition, naming rights, or participation in fashionable causes. It is to direct resources toward the responsibilities Torah places before the individual: supporting those closest to him, strengthening poor and struggling Jews, sustaining Torah institutions, supporting Torah education, and helping preserve Torah and mitzvos for the next generation.
30. A person’s Jewish ancestry is important because it connects him to a people and an extraordinary historical chain. But ancestry alone does not define the actions Judaism requires from him.
31. This brings us back to the fundamental distinction. Judaism is not whatever Jews happen to do. Judaism is the Torah structure that tells Jews what Jewish life is supposed to be.
32. Every individual remains free to accept that structure, partially follow it, reject it, or spend his wealth according to entirely different priorities. But intellectual clarity requires calling each thing by its proper name: personal philanthropy is personal philanthropy; Torah-directed tzedakah is Torah-directed tzedakah. They should not be confused simply because the person writing the check happens to be Jewish.
