Was Israel's Founding the Beginning of Messianic Times?
On Parshas Vaera and the controversy over a redemption that may have already begun
The accompanying shiur is available on the Orthodox Union's parsha learning app: All Parsha.
When God introduces Himself to Moshe, he makes a promise.
There will be slavery in Egypt, God says, but I will take the Jewish People out of enslavement with an outstretched hand.
Notably, four different languages of redemption are used. In one verse, God uses the terms hotzeisi (והוצאתי), hitzalti (והצלתי), and gualti (וגאלתי). In the next verse, God uses the term, lakachti (ולקחתי).
These four verbs have become memorialized in the Passover seder—each of the four languages of redemption parallels a different glass of wine we drink at the seder. The Talmud Yerushalmi is explicit about this, even though the Talmud Bavli never explicitly states why we drink four cups of wine at the seder.
Of course, the following verse includes a fifth term v’heiveisi (והבאתי). Some have convincingly argued that this is the basis for the Kos Shel Eliyahu, Elijah’s Cup, at the Seder—the fifth cup corresponding to the fifth language of redemption.
Why do we have so many languages for redemption? It certainly would’ve been easier to have one—the Pesach Seder could have been a lot more sober. And secondly, why don’t we drink the fifth cup? We have the corresponding language of redemption, so why is only the fifth cup not drunk?
And finally, the response of the Jewish People to Moshe’s report of God’s promise is simply shocking. They don’t listen. Why would they resist?
The Torah explains that they were too overburdened with hard work. But still—Moshe brought redemptive tiding from God that they will be redeemed. Surely even a hard day at work should not prevent the Jewish People from celebrating such news? How can it be that they did not listen to Moshe?!
To understand all of this let’s examine the enduring question of how to describe the establishment of the State of Israel.
On Monday, September 20, 1948—four months after the establishment of the State of Israel—a small article ran entitled “Tefillah L’Shalom Medinat Yisrael”—“A Prayer for the Peace of the State of Israel.” The article provided a text for a standard prayer for the State of Israel. With some minor variations, this is the same prayer used in synagogues today. The prayer, as the article notes, was written by the Chief Rabbis of Israel—Rabbis Yitzchak Herzog and Ben-Tzion Uziel—with a thank you to the famed Hebrew poet S.Y. Agnon who, as the Chief Rabbis acknowledge in the article, helped edit the final text.
The prayer at the time and in many ways to this day remains controversial.
The State of Israel is referred to as “reishit tzmichat geulateinu”—the beginnings of the flowering of redemption.
Was the establishment of the State of Israel really the beginning of redemption?
When the Chief Rabbinate in Britain, led by Rabbi Israel Brodie, composed their own prayer for the State of Israel they omitted these words. In fact, most siddurim at the time did not include the prayer of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. The term itself—reishit tzmichat geulateinu—was seen by many as theological hubris and somewhat foreign, as the phrase does not appear anywhere in Tanach or Talmud.
As Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter notes in his introduction to the Koren Mahzor for Yom Haatzma’ut and Yom Yerushalyim, the phrase seems to derive from the writings of Rav Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel.
Rav Kook never uses the exact phrase, though he includes versions with slight variations—reishit tzmichat yeshuot yisroel, reishit tzmichat geulat ameinu. In a fascinating 1917 letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, Rav Kook thanks him for his instrumental role in securing the Balfour Declaration from Britain’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, which announced British support for “a national home for the Jewish People.” Rav Kook thanks him for the “realization of our national longing” and describes the declaration as tzmichas keren yeshuas yisrael, the flowering of the substance of Israel’s salvation.
Even within the Zionist world, the phrase was not accepted by all—religious anti-Zionists, which we will have to discuss at a different time, obviously objected to it.
In 1968, the Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote a letter to his friend, a fellow Chabad chassid, Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin. It is almost criminal that we don’t have a comprehensive biography of Rav Zevin (he and Rav Menachem Kasher are two figures for whom we desperately need biographies). Rav Zevin was the first editor of the Encyclopedia Talmudit as well as an outspoken Zionist leader. The Rebbe reached out to him, noticeably approaching the sensitive subject very delicately and sensitively, discussing the idea that the State of Israel represents the beginning of redemption.
“When two people connect,” the Rebbe wrote to Rav Zevin quoting their mutual friend and fellow Chabad chassid Zalmen Shazar, third President of Israel, “they should try to find common ground that unifies them rather than emphasize their differences.” Still, the Rebbe explains, he finds the term atchalta d’geulah to describe the State of Israel as dangerous. The Rebbe invokes previous false Messiahs as a cautionary tale for people to think of before they immediately describe the establishment of the State of Israel as messianic.
Rav Zevin took a different approach. In his classic work Moadim B’Halacha, he has a section on contemporary mourning for the land of Israel. When he mentioned the State of Israel he adds, ashreinu sh’zacheinu, how praiseworthy that we have merited such! Interestingly, as Rabbi Dr. Jacob J Schacter notes in his classic article, “Facing the Truths of History,” these lines were exorcised in the 1981 Artscroll English translation.
Questions of the messianic nature of the State of Israel continue to simmer. Following the narrow victory of Israel during the Yom Kippur War, many Zionists began to question if in fact the state could be characterized as messianic. The anxiety and vulnerability surrounding Israel after the Yom Kippur War felt more exilic than redemptive. In a fascinating 1974 exchange in the journal Sh’ma, Rabbis Shubert Spero and Norman Lamm, both Zionists, debated the merits of messianic expectations for Israel.
“A second confession that I urge upon those whose guilt is now exposed,” Rabbi Lamm writes, “Al Chet—for the sin of premature Messianism.” Specifically referencing the phrase at’chalta di’geulah, Rabbi Lamm cautions against “theological hubris” that leads to “a cockiness about Israel’s power.”
Rabbi Shubert Spero did not back down. He writes:
When the State of Israel was established in 1948, many of us believed that we entered an era of at’chalta di’geula—the beginning of Messianic redemption. Our conviction that we are now living in an era of incipient Messianic redemption was strengthened and confirmed by the wars of 1956 and especially 1967. And the recent Yom Kippur War did nothing to shake our belief.
Rabbi Lamm responded to Rabbi Spero’s article by clarifying that he doesn’t deny that Israel could be the beginning of redemption, he just doesn’t know. As Rabbi Lamm writes:
I must make clear that I do not deny that ours is an era of incipient Messianic redemption. What I am saying is that I do not know whether it is or not, and that I challenge the certainty of those who assert such superior knowledge. I consider it spiritually presumptuous to declare, without benefit of prophetic inspiration, that we are privy to divine secrets. God’s plans are known to us only retrospectively.
Rabbi Ari Berman, current president of Yeshiva University, wrote about the exchange between Rabbis Spero and Lamm in a Tradition article entitled, “Religious Zionism: Moving History Forward.” Rabbi Berman correctly notes that their debate is not just about the State of Israel but how we should relate to historical consciousness in general. Is it part of the Jewish responsibility to listen and decipher God’s messages as imparted through history itself?
Rav Kook was certainly convinced he saw God’s redemption before his eyes. In a moving 1918 letter he writes to his student Moshe Seidel, “Yes, the beginning of redemption (atchalta di’geula) is certainly going and unfolding before us.”
Such positions are not a surprise coming from Rav Kook. But perhaps the most surprising voice who emphatically believes in the messianic nature of the State of Israel is Rabbi Herschel Schachter, Rosh Yeshiva in Yeshiva University. In a lengthy article written in his work B’Ikvei HaTzon (#32), Rav Schachter, couched in characteristically traditional sources, writes explicitly that the State of Israel is the atchalta di-geula—a term he notes that does appear in the Talmud (Megillah 17b), as opposed to reishit tzmichat geulateinu.
We are promised, Rav Schachter explains based on the words of the Ramban, that there will only be two destructions—the destruction of the First and Second Temple. This promise applies, he explains, to established Jewish governments as well. So the State of Israel, we are promised will never be completely destroyed. Redemption, in some form, has begun.
Redemption is not binary.
Between the world of exile and redemption, there is a space in between. This is why, Rav Baruch Halevi Epstein explains in his Torah Temimah, we have four languages for redemption. As Rav Epstein points out, the Talmud Yerushalmi doesn’t even use the term “four languages of redemption” but rather “four redemptions.” Because even the ultimate redemption unfolds in stages, a process. We used these terms to establish the four cups of wine at the seder to recognize that each stage along the process—even without the ultimate redemption—is worthy of celebration and recognition.
The Jewish People, however, could not imagine this process of redemption. They were impatient, as Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch explains. The intensity of their slavery prevented them from having the bandwidth to bear a slowly unfolding redemption. They were so mired in exile, Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk explains in his Meshech Chochmah, that they could not even imagine the promises of redemption.
This is perhaps why the fifth word used for redemption is only memorialized in the Cup of Elijah. Only when Elijah arrives and confirms that the final redemption has arrived will we finally be able to drink from the fifth cup as well. Until then, we take solace that the process has begun, we pour the fifth cup and await Elijah to finally drink.
Shabbos Reads — Books/Articles Mentioned
Mysteries of the Magical Fifth Passover Cup (II): The Great Disappearing Act, Leor Jacobi
Politics and Prayer - Jewish Prayers for the Government and State of Israel, Joel Rappel
“The Beginning of the Flowering of Redemption,” Jacob J. Schacter
Medinat Yisrael: Through a Torah Lens, Jewish Action
Facing the Truths of History, Jacob J. Schacter
Religious Zionism: Moving History Forward, Ari Berman
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Fascinating, thanks.
> Is it part of the Jewish responsibility to listen and decipher God’s messages as imparted through history itself?
In Michtav Me'Eliyahu, Rav Dessler z"l provides a partial answer to this question. When Haman issues an edict calling for the destruction of the Jews, the Jews look to the events of history and ask: "What was the 'cause' of the decree?" Was it Mordechai's refusal to bow, "[o]r was it that nine years previously some people had ruled leniently and – for the best of motives – disobeyed a rabbinical injunction forbidding them to partake of Achashverosh's banquet, their motive having been to avoid endangering the lives of Klal Yisrael?"
Rav Dessler writes that it seems obvious that Mordechai's action was the cause, "and how can anyone deny the evidence of his own eyes? But the truth was otherwise. What appeared to be the indisputable evidence of the senses was in fact an illusion created by the yezter ha'ra". The cause of the edict was actually the event of nine years previous.
I derive from this teaching that, yes, history can provide lessons on behavior and consequences, but also that we're incredibly biased by our own existence within history. If we intend to "decipher God's messages in history", we should only do so with the extraordinary skepticism of our own conclusions.
Thank you for this series! 🙏 I don't know how you find time for it with all of your many projects.