Guest Author: The Pagan Idol of Identity vs the New Word from Jerusalem
By Dmitry Radyshevsky, PhD
We exhaust ourselves explaining why fighting Hamas in Gaza is not a genocide and how the IDF goes to unprecedented lengths to avoid harming civilians. You cannot defeat irrational faith (that Jews are evil) with facts.
To win, we have to first explain ourselves, and only then – to the world, what mission we are here for. And no, it is not to be “a free nation on our own land.” We should not try to defend Israel’s right to exist – to have our own “place under the sun” as all other nations. We are not like all other nations.
The Almighty has performed the unprecedented,historical miracle of resurrecting the dead bones of the nation of Israel and restoring them to the Land of Israel for a purpose. And this purpose is enormously bigger than providing a safe refuge for the Jews. As our Prophets foresaw long ago, Israel exists for a universal purpose: for transmitting to nations the new levels of understanding God and His purpose (His Name) about humanity. As Isaiah put it: “For out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
Thus, to obtain lasting security, we, the people of Israel, must first understand ourselves – what is this new word of the Lord? We have to hear it (Shema!) behind the noise of events, discern,internalize, implement – and share it with the world. Only that will bring us and the entire world true Peace, with the acceptance of the rule of Law.
Our sages have left us hints: this new word of the Lord is the new level of consciousness balancing Hesed and Gevurah: “mercy and truth have met, justice and peace kissed each other” (Psalm 85:11). In modern terms, it is the harmonious fusion of Democracy and Tradition,Freedom, and Holiness. The clash of their distorted extremes, so painfully evident in Israel itself, has locked humanity in the desert.
Israel is called to “make these ways straight” (to paraphrase Isaiah 40:3) – for itself and the world. Let’s unpack it. The post-liberal West embodies a distorted freedom: the new paganism of worshipping human rights for any perversion (masqueraded as “human rights”), with foolish belief in human ability to change the basic laws of nature created by God. This global project can be called Man Without God, or modern day paganism. The Islamist East saw this “end of history” illusion, a triumph of sin, and offered instead a distorted holiness: literal and savage enforcement of 7th-century religious laws with utter contempt for human life and dignity: God Without Man.
Israel is resurrected to show a true alternative: Man as a Partner of God. Exactly because Israel is called to expose these global temptations, Red and Green, Left and Islamists, make this weird unholy alliance against Zionism.
Hatred of Israel by both seems irrational. It is impregnable to facts, to our public diplomacy because it’s rooted in the deepest darkness of the psyche: to prove to themselves and the world that they are virtuous . . . in spite of the thin voice of their own consciousness (God) whispering to them that they are actually evil. Since you cannot openly hate the invisible God of Israel, you openly hate (Freudian “repression”) His visible representatives – the nation of Israel.
Consciousness/God is an ultimate“oppressor.” This is why Zionists are “oppressors” of Palestinians. Our sages nailed it long ago: Sina biglal ha-Sinai (hatred because of the Sinai Revelation). Israel is not killing “Palestinian children”. By reminding them of God who looks at their souls, not their sound-bites, Israel kills the childish hope of Reds and Greens that they can dupe the God inside them. That God (and the world) will consider them good if they will not change the internal – their soul (it’s a hard fight) – but fight to change the external: Trump, ICE, Israel, etc.
By the very fact of its existence, by being the reminder about the Creator, Israel ruins in the souls of millions of Westerners and Muslims a hope for an easy ride: being simply proud of who they are by birth: black, brown, gay, Muslim, Palestinian – being proud of their identity, making an IDol of their ID.
The way of Jerusalem requires hard work: changing oneself first, taking moral responsibility,and rejecting the illusion of a quick fix. “Wokeism” offers a quick fix by allowing every impulse; radical Islam offers a quick fix by suppressing via Sharia any human passions and channeling them into Jihad: you can unleash your inner animal and rape and rob “infidels” with impunity, blasphemously yelling that it is for Allah’s glory. Idol-worshipers of both quick fixes of the Reds and the Greens – hate Israel because Israel represents the true path – a life of disciplined freedom under the Almighty. By attacking Israel, the ignorant Islamists and their equally ignorant Western apologists are blocking the very project designed to bless all of humanity: a restored Israel bringing moral clarity, true peace, and spiritual prosperity to the world.
Israel is called to demonstrate a modern, civilized, democratic model where free citizens voluntarily choose holiness: to live in sync with God’s commandments – without religious coercion, but out of wisdom and moral clarity. When we in Israel clearly understand this core purpose for which the Almighty has resurrected Israel, the rest – the complete victory – will be just a technicality.
