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A nation or a religion?
As Jews, we are both!
RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Lech Lecha/Genesis 12:1 - 17:27
God establishes two covenants, on two different occasions, with the Jewish people - the first in this week's Torah portion, and the second right after the revelation in the Book of Exodus.
The first covenant stresses lineage and land: "On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, 'To your offspring I assign this land ...' " (Genesis 15:18). This covenant established the Jewish nation.
The second covenant is about laws: "Then he (Moses) took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, 'All that the Lord has spoken we will faithfully do' " (Exodus 24:7). This covenant established the Jewish religion.
The covenant of Abraham stresses our national identity, the land promised as our home, the fact that all future descendants are parts of one extended family. Generally speaking, a nation - in effect, a distinct ethnic group - is dependent upon a national homeland with clearly defined borders, as well as a national language. In contrast, the second covenant in the book of Exodus stresses religious legal commitment. The people are required to accept the Torah, the law of Moses, the religion of Israel. This religious structure transcends any particular land or region.
Are we chiefly a nation, bound together by a common blood-line? Or are we primarily a religion, bound together by a group of laws? Which of the two - nation or religion - is of greater significance is the subject of a fascinating difference of opinion between two great Jewish religious thinkers of our generation, Rav Abraham Isaac Kook and Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik. And their disagreement echoes an earlier difference of opinion between Maimonides and Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi.
Soloveitchik calls the covenant with Abraham the "covenant of fate," since no one asks to be born to a particular set of parents, nor is anyone queried as to with which nation he wishes to be identified. And he calls the covenant at Sinai the "covenant of destiny." By choosing to follow a prescribed set of laws and customs, we turn our fate into destiny, declaring our willingness to live - and even suffer - for the sake of a particular ideal and lifestyle.
Kook speaks of an internal covenant and an external one. The first, the covenant with Abraham, is the internal one, since the feelings of the heart link an individual to another individual of his/her family/nation. The covenant of Sinai is an external covenant. A person who keeps such commandments as Sabbath observance, synagogue attendance or sitting in a sukkah is very much involved in the external, tangible world of Torah commandments.
Maimonides saw the sanctity of Israel as linked to a life of Torah and mitzvot, and therefore Soloveitchik, a Maimonidean, would claim that the higher covenant is the covenant of destiny, the covenant of Sinai. But Kook, who follows more in the footsteps of Rav Yehuda HaLevi, believes that the sanctity of Israel comes from what he calls segulah, our inner "chosenness," the fact that we're descendants of Abraham and Sarah.
When I first started out as a rabbi, there was one elderly gentleman who, after each Friday night service, would confront me with heretical questions on the portion of the week. He was a classic maskil, an "enlightened" Jew who didn't believe in keeping any laws.
Since he was quite learned, our conversations often took close to an hour - which caused my wife, baby daughter and guests to become rather impatient. After a few weeks, I asked him in a rather exasperated tone: "If you don't believe, and apparently my answers don't satisfy you, why do you continue to come to shul?" He responded almost in a patronizing tone, "I may be a heretic, but that doesn't make me a gentile."
We are a religion as well as a nation; we are tied together by laws, no matter where we live, and there are Jews who feel familially connected, no matter how little of Jewish law they practice. We must reach out to every Jew in love and acceptance, and strengthen ourselves as much as possible in every aspect of our Jewishness.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Efrat, Israel.
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