Morning meditation on political Zionism:
The political component to Zionism is not Jewish sovereignty over the land.
According to Jewish tradition, the Creator was, is, and forever will be the sovereign over this land and all lands. We are just migrants, tenants granted the right to reside here and the responsibility to live with the land’s sanctity and natural sensitivity to injustice.
What political Zionism seeks to promote is Jewish autonomy.
The freedom to rule ourselves according to our laws and values, without external oppression, persecution, or pressure to participate in a supremacist social hierarchy.
Jewish people believe that the Creator brought us to this land in order for us to exercise that freedom, in safety, security, and holiness. Over the millenia our ancestors lived, prayed, and died in this land, our traditional culture was born and flourished in its mountains and its plains, its coasts and its wilderness.
But land – protected space – is just a precondition for full autonomy.
Full autonomy, according to Jewish tradition, finds expression in lawful self-governance. The בן חורין autonomous individual is the one paradoxically bound by the laws of the Torah. As a nation, full autonomy is found in our laws.
“The tablets were inscribed with autonomy”
Physically returning to the land is inarguably necessary.
Mentally healing from the exile is essential.
But the political goal of the re-establishment of Israelite civilization in the land of Israel is the reassertion of Israelite autonomy – and that comes through the establishment of a fully-functioning lawful society.
“There is no sanctity except in the Laws”
In the merit of our rejoicing in both the Torah and the return of our captive brothers to the embrace of our national family, may we merit to achieve full autonomy in this land in the establishment of a lawful, just, and holy society dedicated to the liberation and elevation of all sentient beings through the civilizational program of our sacred Torah. You know, political Zionism. 😉