A rabbi who recognizes the miracle that is Israel

Prayers for the Welfare of the State & for the Welfare of the State of Israel by Rabbi Avraham Steinberg. Publisher: Yad Harav Herzog/ OU PRESS; 1st edition, 2012.  179 pages. Price: $18.95 Rating ****

By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel
Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

CHULA VISTA, California — As we approach the Jewish holiday of Tisha’ B’ Av (The Ninth of Av), we need to think about the great dangers our people in Israel face. The real enemy is seldom the enemy who lurks at the outside; the real enemy is the enemy from within.  During this tragic period of Jewish history, we contemplate how we lost our homeland. Indeed, many of the ethical issues that our ancestors neglected to observe remain problematic even for today’s time.  As  I mentioned in a previous post, human beings have the power to undo God’s miracles. Without a doubt, the greatest miracle of modern Jewish history is the return to our homeland–Israel. Yet, there are many religious groups within Orthodoxy who cringe at hearing such words.

Anyone who has ever attended a Chabad or a Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) synagogue will notice an important omission in the services: the Prayer for the State of Israel is never chanted. By the same token, neither one will recite a prayer for the country either.

The fact that they don’t recite these important prayers ought to be a moral concern to every Jew who is living today in Israel and in the Diaspora. You see, the Haredi and the Chabad have never recognized the State of Israel, which they believe is illegitimate—because the Messiah did not establish it.

Of course, not all Orthodox rabbis think alike when it comes to Israel. Some of them are very outspoken and supportive of the Jewish State of Israel. Others disparage Israel at every opportunity as seen with the Neturei Karta in Israel.

Not all rabbis in Israel are fanatical and intolerant in their world and religious views. One rabbi in particular, Rabbi Avraham Streinberg stands head and shoulders above most of his religious contemporaries. He addresses this problem in his excellent and succinct book,Prayers for the Welfare of the State & For the Welfare of the State of Israel: Sources and Halakhot.

Rabbi Avraham Steinberg is no stranger to any student of Jewish Medical Ethics. He has been one of my favorite Israeli Orthodox scholars for a number of decades. His work in Jewish Medical Ethics—especially his recent Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics (translated by Fred Rosner)–makes him one of the most important scholars in this field of our time. Rav Steinberg’s positions in rabbinical law have shown his adroitness and mental elasticity.  Rav Steinberg received many prizes, the most significant one – the Israel Prize in 1999.

Rabbi Steinberg serves as an advisor in medical issues to the most prominent and authoritative Rabbis worldwide. His book is timely, for he rearticulates a message that many Israelis seldom hear from their rabbis: the rebirth of Israel represents “the first flowering of our redemption” (pg. 7). He adds:

  • Others deny this significance; some of them doubt whether these events are in keeping with the view of the Bible, the Prophets, and the Talmudic Sages regarding the beginning of the final redemption, and some because of certainty that these events are not at all in keeping in any way with the beginning of the redemption  . . .

He goes on to compare the debate over the religious significance of the State of Israel to the Tower of Babel narrative in Genesis 11. Wisdom is never monological; rather—truth is multifaceted; the veracity of truth lies in its ability to produce unity that accommodates all points of view.

Steinberg provides an importance litmus test about the nature of disagreements and predicate their reasoning upon political and emotional considerations rather than an investigation of the original rabbinical texts. Unfortunately, “The Prayer for the State of Israel has descended from a purely halachic and ideological question to the  political and emotional realms, and has sometimes even been attended by verbal—and even physical violence” (pg. 10).

When one considers the animus that we have witnessed among the Haredi and Hassidic groups in Israel today, Rabbi Steinberg’s sobering book  conveys a compelling message: Religious Zionism still has a valuable role to play in the ingathering of our people. I believe the reader will find Rabbi Steinberg’s arguments sober.

The author cites many notable scholars who believed that the return of the Jewish people to Israel represents a watershed event of Jewish history, which would never be possible where it not for the help of Divine Providence.

One quote cited by one of the Vilna Gaon’s leading disciples is especially poignant:

  • During the period of the ingathering of the exiles, the Evil Force will become stronger. The main desire of the Evil Force is to uproot the truth … The Evil Force knows the goal is redemption of the truth and sanctification of God, which will occur with the ingathering of the exiles and the rebuilding of Jerusalem (as mentioned above). The Evil Force also knows that as the footsteps of the Messiah progress, so too will the power of impurity cease … He therefore girds himself with all his strength to wage his battle to uproot the truth and every good deed that leads to the sanctification of God …
  • Many of the Torah-scholars, too, do not realize or understand that they are guilty of the sin of the spies, using all types of spurious claims … and we are upset that a number of Torah scholars do not know or understand that which our Rabbi [the Gra] wrote, that when the ingathering of the exiles occurs, the Evil Force will increase its power … and that is what our Sages meant when they said, “In the era of the Messiah’s coming, truth will be lacking and impudence will increase.” (pg. 148-149).

The lone criticism I would offer is that the author should have explained how the Vilna Gaon himself participated in sending hundreds of his disciples to settle the Holy Land in his time. Anyone interested in reading about this topic should obtain Arie Morgenstern’s excellent book, The Gaon of Vilna and His Messianic Vision. (Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2012).

Rabbi Steinberg has once again sanctified God’s Name at a time when religious zealots have seized political and religious control of the Holy Land. We can only pray that sincere minded people will take the advice that Rabbi Steinberg offers in this small but lucid book.

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Rabbi Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista.  He may be contacted at michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com