The Challenge of October 7: Part 2 – The Intellectual Challenge

However, there is a philosophical backbone to Israel which started as a semi-socialist country with a vibrant agricultural sector and a European-German intellectual core that includes historical, scientific and cultural departments of the strictest standards. Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and Haifa’s Technion were both modelled on the German university and the other universities that have been established since then were formed on the same model.

There were exciting new subjects being pioneered, notably Gershom Scholem and Jewish mysticism and there was dialogue between many of the rabbis and these intellectuals, many of whom were trained in traditional yeshivot even if they no longer practiced halakhic Judaism. Gershom Scholem was in conversation with Chief Rabbi Avraham Kook (a person he called one of the few true contemporary kabbalists) and others. Shai Agnon, later a winner of the Nobel Prize for literature was a leading voice whose modernist fiction straddled both worlds.

But intellectual life was not found only in Jerusalem’s university and yeshivot – it was spread throughout the country in the new kibbutzim and towns that sprung up over the decades. Many of the pioneers – halutzim – were learned men and women in their own right and the first Kibbutz, Dagania, had its share. One was A.D. Gordon, a Tolstoyan thinker who wanted to turn the country into an agricultural idyll. Another resident of that first kibbutz, a wonderful poet known simply as Rachel the Poetess (Rachel Bluwstein), was a believer of the school of thought that, like Gordon, thought physical labor as liberating to the soul.

But as more kibbutzim were established to the softer Tolstoyan socialism of Gordon was added the harder scientific brand of Marx and Engels and the economic; social and pioneering success of these early kibbutzim along with their ability to “produce” great soldiers led to the acceptance of Marxism as the godfather of many of these socialist communities as well as the Histadrut trade union. Both the Tolstoyan and Marxist ways lasted well into the end of the 20^th century. In the 21^st century there is still a “romantic” view of Tolstoyan rural life and a neutral or often positive view of Marxist socialism.

The other major influence was that of Spinoza – the renegade Jewish philosopher who was excommunicated by the Amsterdam Jewish community but went on to be, arguably the most influential philosopher of his times. His radical rationalistic view of the world extended not only to his original Biblical analysis but also to the most complex of emotions such as love – in his greatest work, The Ethics. We see Spinoza’s influence in the universities today as an attempt to assume the irrationality of anything not scientifically proven (except that which supports their ideology as in Yuval Hararri’s foolhardy bestsellers). Spinoza is seen as a model of the rebel, honest, heretical Jew and his life is seen, ironically, as saintly in the academic world. It would be safe to say that his influence extends to the religious world too, as a bogeyman against whose heresies one must fight.

Although post-modernism is supposed to be the ultimate challenge to rationalists like Spinoza they are in fact, his grandchildren here in Israel as they take his critical abilities to challenge any and all truths as simple narratives to be adapted, or not. Even the Jewish fundamentalist world has succumbed to the post-modern narrative as they reject the very concept of historical truth and accept only their own fundamentalist narrative of history, as currently believed. As a narrative they have no problem changing it to match whatever is their political need – at the moment.

Something similar has happened in the religious-Zionist camp where the rabbis and academics have accepted this envelope that surrounds intellectual debate. The Tolstoyan idyll is combined with the tought of Rabbi Abraham Kook in many of the new farms that are being established to this day. While Marx himself is not accepted, the socialist dream of equality is often the basis of the economic “thought” of these rabbis.

Even in the arts, leading writers are more political than literary, art is seen to need to “challenge” and not beautify and architecture is more brutalist than anything else.

October 7 has changed all of this in Israel even if the intellectual, political and cultural classes have not yet caught on. Faith in the old guard across the board has been eroded as the intellectual infrastructure that the country counted on failed completely. Not only was it not able to deal with the pointed failures of October 7^th but it encouraged the value-less ideas that led up to that failure. In the post October 7^th world there were almost no intellectual, religious or artistic responses that tried to deal with these failures but, like the politicians and generals (which we will get to later in another piece), they looked back to justify their own mistaken views and prophecies. There have been attempts to deal with them of course, but they all lapse back into old, tired arguments.

The Israeli intellectual classes have not even been able to think through the rabid antisemitism that has enveloped their own world except to return to the same old cliches and complaints which usually blame their political opponents. This has been true across ideological and religious camps.

There have been exceptions of course. Two rabbis come to mind – Rabbis Ya’akov Madan and Tamir Granot – the latter who lost his son in battle and the former whose son lost both legs, also in in the war. They have challenged the fundamentalists in the religious camp, the secularists of the left and the right and their own religious-Zionist colleagues in an attempt to come to terms with what happened three years ago.

If there were three main secular thinkers, on the religious side we can look to three 20^th century rabbis and one who was still active in the 21^st century who have dominated the religious thought of the country – Rabbis Avraham Kook, Joseph Soloveitchik and Avraham Karelitz, also known as the Chazon Ish as well as Rabbi Ovadia Yoesf, who, arguably changed the religious and political life of the country through his authority and charisma in the Israeli Sephardi (Jews from Arab lands) community. Jewish tradition by its nature allows great flexibility in re-interpreting past statements to fit the times so there is hope that new and bold ideas can be teased out of these great thinkers.

There need to be better intellectual models than Marx and Spinoza and while Tolstoy was the artist par-excellence his philosophy of history in “War and Peace” and essays leaves much to be desired. Marx of course should be persona non grata for all freedom loving peoples, especially Jews. Spinoza was a revolutionary thinker but one who, despite the “Theologico-Political Treatise” has nothing new to say in the post-October 7 world. As for the Rabbis mentioned earlier, the current dominant interpretations will need to be overcome in order to breathe fresh air into these communities.

To us it seems that the vast majority of people in Israel are ready to move on from the current idols but the question remains will the universities, filled with thinkers who are afraid to face up to their own failures and afraid of losing their international status, find enough bold people to create a new intellectual framework to help the country move forward or will they be left behind and made to be irrelevant to those they are meant to teach and serve? Will the Rabbis, also cloistered in their own four walls be able to look past their previous modern dogmas to forge a way out of the ethical and religious morass formed by the disaster of October 7?

What does the country need intellectually and theologically to move forward? If the old thinkers needed to come to terms with the end of exile and then a post-Holocaust world, today’s thinkers need to help us face the main challenges of the post October 7, morally, spiritually and intellectually. Settling the land is still important but that in an of itself does not protect us. Learning Torah will help us and according to some, will help defend us but it also allows us to run away from the reality that is around us. Studying the great books, creating new narratives not found in history or reason or depending only on our reason did not stop the profound reintroduction of antisemitism in the academy and around the world.

In short – October 7 challenges not only our peace of mind and way of life, it challenges the very foundations of our intellectual and religious lives that were shattered that Shabbat and Simchat Torah morning. Each and every one of us can find the errors of those we never agreed with, but only a bold and creative thinker can re-examine his or her old, mistaken ways.

However, we need to understand where to start on the intellectual and theological journey and there is one thing that needs to be the center of our post-October 7 philosophical, ideational and theological quest. That one thing is the centrality of the “people of Israel”. Tradition calls it “clal Yisrael” and we need to understand that that must be a focus of our thought. All countries and all peoples have a natural sympathy for the pain of their fellow countrymen, or ethnicities but for the Jewish people, so small and so at risk of destruction in every generation that pain always feels existential.

This is a theme that will follow us in our following essays, but it is something that can unite the various thinkers. This is not a call for unity of ideas or a false political unity, but rather that the thoughts and ideas that come from each thinker needs to focus on the betterment of Jews as individuals and Jews as a people and not on the sectors they strive to represent. Maybe the sectorial thinking was necessary to build the country into what it was (or maybe not) but it is clear that the post October 7 Jewish world has changed and brought challenges that need to look beyond the factions that are at the center of the contemporary Israeli and Jewish life.

We claim now that no single Jewish thinker or group has the good of “clal Yisrael” in mind when they plan their future thoughts and actions. This is as true of the Reform movement as it is of Chabad. It is as true of the American Hasidic and non-Hasidic fundamentalist worlds as it is of the modern Orthodox. In Israel it is as true of the religious Zionist world as it is of the Israeli fundamentalist-Haredi as it is of the secular intellectual world.

What is required is an honest, creative and bold assessment by thinkers in all streams. That is not to say they all must agree on the solutions, but the cynical claim to speak for the Jewish people while really pushing for the success of their own group needs to end.

In the diaspora the explosion of antisemitism needs a solution focused on the Jewish people without the excuses we give to the antisemites for being antisemitic – this or that policy, this or that religious commitment. Bret Stephens opened up a new dialogue on antisemitism and that is a start – but it must go much further and much deeper. We too have proposed a modest way of dealing with this evil – but that too is just a start.

We await the honestly, creativity and boldness necessary to bring the country, the Jewish people and the world into the post-October 7^th world. We say the world, because the antisemitic reaction to October 7^th is not only a threat to the Jewish world, but also a threat to the free world. The intellectual climate in Israel is not conducive to solving the post-October 7^th country as it has become politicized beyond recognition. A de-politicization of all intellectual and theological streams and a concentration on “clal Israel” is the only way out of the mess they, we, have all created.

It is not just the generals and the politicians that failed, but the Rabbis, Professors, writers and artists that have failed along with them.