This is an article written years ago by a well known Rosh Yeshiva. Comments by a not-well-known-not-Rosh-Yeshiva [although he is looking for a well paying job] at the bottom:
Jewish social history is to a large degree a product of the tension between two opposing forces. There is, on the one hand, a deep desire by Jews to maintain their identity and cultural and religious heritage. On the other hand, the dictates of survival create an opposingly deep desire to mimic the culture of the surrounding nations.
Historically, there have been two ways by which this conflict has been resolved. One is a begrudging adjustment to the realities of the times while maintaining a commitment to the genuine Jewish ideals. For example, clothing and language assimilation, mingling with non Jews in the market place, studying the culture of the non-Jews even within the framework of Torah education, have become common place. These are basically an adjustment of externalities, without changing the internal Jewish values. Although none of these would exist in an ideal Jewish society, Diaspora is not an ideal situation.
The other form of solution attempts to remake the Jewish nation and there by strikes at the fabric of the Jewish people. The Reform, Haskala, and Conservative movements, for example, attempted to redefine Judaism by investing it with foreign values.
The most blatant and successful of the second sort of compromise in modern times has been secular Zionism. This movement was conceived by Herzl as an attempt to "normalize" the Jewish people by making them acceptable to the non-Jewish nations around them.
In Herzl's diary (Shocken Books, p. 35) his initial vision of the solution of the Jewish problem had the entire Jewish population of Vienna converting en masse to Christianity in the central square of the city. His Das Judenstaat portrays the Jewish state he foresaw as consisting of a Jewish high society which spoke German and attended the opera. 1]
Except for a few scattered rabbinic voices, Jewish leadership as a whole saw Herzl's Zionism as a threat to Jewish survival. The spiritual giants of the times-Reb Yitzhak Elhanan, the Hafetz Haim and Reb Haim Brisker- refused to enter into a partnership with it.
They saw the underlying motives of Zionism for what they were: an attempt to remake the Jews in the image of the non-Jew. Only Religious Zionism believed it could reach a modus vivendi with Zionism. To be sure, it abjured any compromise of the second sort which would tamper with basic Jewish values. But Religious Zionism believed-absurdly, as it turned out-that it could join with secular Zionism to achieve a compromise of the first sort, where the substance would remain and only externalities would change.
Zionism succeeded dramatically, rallied the nation around it, and ultimately achieved its goal: a sovereign Jewish state in the land of Israel. Religious Zionism saw in this success a vindication of its path. The State was the instrument of God in bringing glory to the Jewish people. It was the aschalta digeula - the beginning of the ultimate redemption - and everything associated with it was ipso facto sacred and had to be supported. 2] Those who refused to do so, even if they were recognized Torah authorities, were branded sonei Yisrael-enemies of the Jewish people. 3]
To be sure, there were problems with this view. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrant children were forcibly removed from their Judaism by a militantly anti-religious state. An entire nation grew up without knowing what Shma Yisrael meant and educated to despise those who did. The Bible was emptied of its religious content and converted into a bible of miltarism and socialism. Nevertheless, to the Religious Zionist the momentousness of the aschalta digeula era required that an eye be winked at all of this. 4]
As for the explicit Torah warnings that forgoing mitzvot will cause the Holy Land to spit out its inhabitants and that refusing to serve God will effectuate the warnings recited morning and evening that va-avadetem mehera - you will be banished from the land, all became irrelevant. For reasons never explained, it was believed that in the aschalta digeula era the rules are changed. The land of Israel no longer spits out sinners; there would never be a third destruction. 5]
Today it is clear that secular Zionism is a deep failure 6], fully exposed to be what it set out to be: an agent for the redefinition of Judaism. It not only lacks concern for Jewish values, it lacks concern for the integrity of the Jewish nation (Russian immigration is by conservative estimates 50% non-Jewish); for the Jewish land (it delivers on silver platters to its enemies); and even for its citizens (it willingly jeopardizes the lives of 100,000 Jews settled in Judea and Samaria) 7]. Zionism has been shown to be not only a failure in terms of Judaism and the Jewish people; it is even a failure in terms of its own goals: the creation of a secure state for Jews. 8]
It is also clear today that Religious Zionism erred in propping up secular Zionism and that its theology, which guaranteed permanent Jewish dominion over the Land of Israel, is seriously marred. 9]
For one thing, it must finally lay to rest the absurd notion that a movement like secular Zionism, determined to make Jewry "kekhol hagoyim (like all the nations)" can be a positive force for the Jewish people. 10]
Religious Zionism must make an abject soul-reckoning. Its must recognize that its definition of Judaism is really the same as that of all of religious Jewry and diametrically opposed to those of the secularists. It must open its windows to the spiritual leadership of gedolei Yisrael who articulate what the Torah has to say about Jewish goals.
It is time for Religious Zionism to remove its blinders, to stop mouthing discredited platitudes and cliches, to look honestly at itself and at the State of Israel, to divorce itself from its disastrous marriage with secular Zionism, to take courageous steps to join with other believers in God and Torah, and to seize the opportunity to create authentically Jewish lives on this precious Land without compromises of either the first or the second kind. 11]
One of the signs of greatness is to admit failure. In the midst of the present-day madness of secular Zionism, Religious Zionism has a chance to claim greatness for itself.
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1] Herzl - to be fair, he dropped the really really bad conversion idea. See here and here.
2] Nobody in their right mind ever said that "everything" the state does is sacred has to be supported.
3] Who is he talking about? Who said that if one has religious objections to Zionism he is a Sonei Yisrael??
4] Terrible accusation! "Wink an eye" at forcibly taking away Torah from Jewish children?? Chas Vi-shalom. לא היה ולא נברא.
5] See here.
6] It failed but it also succeeded. The success is the 7.76 million Jews who live in a physically and spiritually thriving State built [with Hashem's help] by the Zionists. Another success is an incredibly powerful army [with Hashem's help] who protect us from the 70 Muslim wolves who surround us on all sides.
7] Not fair. It has great concern for the lives of its citizens. For that we have an army.
8] More secure when we were subject to endless persecution in Eastern Europe and had no means of defense.
9] Why is it marred? It IS hopefully permanent. Jews rule today and will until very soon Moshaich comes.
10] See footnote 6].
11] All Jews of all Hashkafos should do soul searching because we all have a LOT to fix. Not the least of which is שנאת חינם everywhere. Either open hatred or at least total apathy towards the well being of fellow Jews. There is not a word of self criticism of his own community in this article.
