RSRH asks if the new freedoms granted the Jews in his time are beneficial or detrimental to Judaism’s mission. While these new rights offered economic and social opportunities, perhaps this created too much closeness to the outside world and would pull Jews away from their mission.
To answer, Hirsch cites verses in Yirmiyahu (29: 5-7) telling the Jews going into the Babylonian exile to seek the peace of the city where they are exiled and pray for it. This shows that isolation and rejection are not essential conditions of exile.
It is possible to attach ourselves to our host state without harming the spirit of Judaism. Our past independent statehood didn’t define us as a nation rather the state and the land provided a tool to further enable fulfilling the Torah. The Jewish people exist as a nation without its land and while in exile is joined to other nations. (Ultimately, God will reunite the dispersed Jews on their land and the Torah will be its constitution. This is what we hope for. When that happens, the Jews will serve as a model society as was the original intent of granting the land of Israel to the Jewish people. All of mankind will then unite for one purpose; elevating the blessings of life to serving God. Until that time we should not work towards the goal of forming a state on that land.*)
How inspiring it would be if Jews in the diaspora were a living example of justice and kindness to all around them during times of prosperity. Yisrael, thriving financially and peacefully, using its God-given blessings to live a higher, moral life, would serve as an educational model to inspire the pleasure seeking, self indulgent societies surrounding them to aspire for higher meaning!
Perhaps harsh experiences Jews suffered in the Middle Ages were training periods to prepare us for easier times. First we were taught that materialism isn’t needed to serve God. During better times we were given material blessing and peace to bring us to a higher level; uplifting all that we have.
Therefore, it is everyone’s duty to make use of the newly granted opportunities available to prosper. It is also the community’s duty to lobby for its civil rights. Years of oppression and the lack of these rights have dulled our spiritual development and forced some members to enter fields of work that compromised their character and mission.
Emancipation is good for the world at large. It brings all of mankind a step closer to the final stage of history, when all people will be equal brothers, children of the same God.
For Yisrael, emancipation is only good if the wealth and freedom we attain is looked at as a new challenge – to make use of wealth and freedom not as an end to themselves but as means to a higher goal. If Yisrael has so little left of its spirit that upon being granted these, it abandons its mission and pursues pleasure for pleasure’s sake, emancipation will be cause to grieve.
We must allow the Torah to fill out lives with its spirit and live as Jews were meant to live. Then we will welcome emancipation as it offers us new opportunities for accomplishing our task and realizing our ideal.
* I often wonder what Hirsch would say nowadays, when the State of Israel is now home to half the Jews in the world, before this ideal has been fully realized. (GS)
