Idealism and Theology

Ben-Gurion came from the socialist environment and all that idealism, but turned to Zionism. He was revisionistic like the socialists in their mindset, wanting to change the world, harbouring ideals, but was realistic and careful and pragmatic.

On a philosophical level, he understood the problem, if idealism replaces practical objectives. An ideal should remain as an ideal, something theoretical. 

This approach is close to the post-communist thinkers, who were at first zealous socialists, but after disappointment with the movement or the Soviet Union, took a step back and made the distinction between ideals and reality.

Rejected Becomes Cornerstone

Believe it or not, Ben-Gurion was also a theological thinker!

Like Moses Hess, who influenced him, Ben-Gurion took inspiration from the Political-Theological Tractate of Baruch / Benedict Spinoza, a book that was the first to read the (Hebrew) Bible critically, and at that as a political historical book, no more no less.  

Ben-Gurion pieced together a national historical Jewish perspective, continuing Moses Hess, with romantic and nostalgic feelings, combined with humanistic activism - all of which he called the messianic vision, unapologetically, to the anguish of many public intellectuals in Israel.

Post-Liberal Vision

The intellectual critics were against nationalism, afraid of it, ashamed of it, and against mixing anything religious or theological into the political. They thought that was dangerous.

Even though Ben-Gurion had no faith in a realistic messianic figure, and said so. 

Ben Gurion’s messianism was humanistic Jewish nationalism, the enterprise of social structures that are independent, free, safe, and communal “redemption” (in Vision and Redemption, 1958):

The Messianic vision of redemption, the profound spiritual attachment to Israel’s ancient homeland and to the Hebrew language, in which the Book of Books is written, were the deep and never-failing springs from which the scattered sons of Israel in the Diaspora drew from hundreds of years the moral and spiritual strength to resist all the difficulties of exile and to survive until the coming of national redemption. 

In the Messianic vision of redemption an organic bond was woven between Jewish national redemption and general human redemption…

In the Zionist movement we must distinguish between ancient sources, almost as ancient as the Jewish people itself and new circumstances and factors which grew on the soil of the modern era in Europe in the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth.

These ancient sources are the profound spiritual attachment to the ancient homeland and the Messianic hope.

The sporadic waves of immigration from various countries, the visits of emissaries from Palestine to the various parts of the Diaspora, the Messianic movements that arose from time to time, from the period following the destruction of the Temple to the eighteenth century -all these were a real and living expression of the attachment and the longing for the homeland, and the hopes that throbbed in the hearts of the people for national redemption and salvation.

Until the beginning of the emancipation in the nineteenth century, all Jews wherever they were, knew that the places where they lived were only a temporary exile, and it did not even occur to them that they were a part of the peoples among whom they lived, just as such an idea was foreign to those people themselves. 

This feeling of being foreign existed in East European Jewry till the last moment. The Jewries of Russia, Poland, Rumania and the Balkans knew all the time that they were a minority people in a foreign land, and in the eighties of the nineteenth century there began a mass migration from the countries of the East to lands overseas…

What we have to deal with is methods of work and the means of deepening the consciousness of the Jewish mission and Jewish unity. In my opinion these methods are threefold:

1. Hebrew education, the central place in which will be held by the study of the Book of Books.

   
   

2. The intensification of the personal bond with Israel in all forms: visits; investments of capital; education of children, youth and university students in Israel for longer or shorter periods of time; training for the best of the youth and the intelligentsia to fit them to join the builders and the defenders of the country.

   
   

3. Deepening the attachment to the Messianic vision of redemption that is the vision of Jewish and human redemption held by prophets of Israel.

These three elements are the common denominator which can unite religious, orthodox, conservative, reform and free-thinking Jewry, and give Jewish meaning, purpose and significance even to those Jews who will not join in the process of the ingathering of the exiles.

It is these three elements that can serve as a moral and cultural bond between Diaspora Jewry and Israel.

Attachment to Hebrew culture, and first and foremost to the Book of Books, in the original; to Israel; and to the Messianic vision of redemption, redemption both Jewish and human; that is the three-fold cord which can unite and bind together all sections of Jewry, of all parties and of all communities, and — if we will it, it shall never be broken.

Ben-Gurion had a rich and broad historical understanding. He was very aware of previous messianic immigrations and movements and the drive they had.

He conceives of public vision for the Israeli society in terms of continuing the messianic worldview, though in a modern or post-modern fashion.

Dilemma of Pillars

What is nice about Ben-Gurion as positioned here, is that he is a bridge between the Rav Kook and the following interest here in Gershom Scholem. 

The Rav Kook built off of traditional messianisms, and observed the challenges within the new pre-State Israeli society. He had a vision of elements - the 2 elements - the 2 being religious and secular, or nationalist / particular and universal, spiritual and material… and the 3 elements when observing the developing political factions and forces: the holiness / religious / traditional, and the revisionist / realpolitik / nationalistic, and the universal / humanist / liberal. This was a brilliant early observance relevant until today.

As we see above in this article of Ben-Gurion, he is also adapting his ideas to the reality of the new Israeli society - he mentions 3 elements, for unity, and spiritual drive, which is the critical foundation for the Zionist Nation - Hebrew education and the Bible; economic development, building institutions, educational programs; and messianic vision as the philosophy of the people.

Next we take another look at Gershom Scholem, who we discussed in earlier blogs as the introduction to this series, making full circle to this series entirely - and also continuing this immediate discussion of messianism with Ben-Gurion.

Scholem was a historian of messianism and a profound Zionist thinker, but also liberal, so he was kind of split on the messianic nature of the actual Zionist movement and new Israeli state and society.