Efrat, Israel – What has happened to the leadership of Israel, the representatives of our own citizens as well as to the world community, who initially marched into the arena of history as giants of vision and conviction but have now degenerated into discredited, squabbling and scandal-ridden pygmies, shamelessly holding onto positions which their very presence empties of stature and significance?  Where have we gone wrong, and how can we correct ourselves?

I believe the answer lies in a proper understanding of our portion of Behar, but requires an introduction from the very earliest verses of the Bible.  Our Book of Books is universal in its scope, vision and ethos, opening as it does with the majestic words, “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth.”  The Biblical reach goes far beyond Israel and Jew; our G-d is G-d of the universe, and He has created the human being – not only Jew – in His own Divine image. 

Alas, neither Adam nor Noah was ready to accept the Divine morality of the freedom and the inviolability of the human being, or to subject themselves to the personal discipline and delayed gratification necessary for the structuring of a truly moral world.  The delicious fruit and tantalizing wine of the moment were too tempting for each of them…

The Bible continues, and from the three sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Yafet, are derived the seventy nations of the world (Gen.10.11).  They build “a city and a tower whose top extends to the heavens in order to make for themselves a (grandiose) name;” G-d confounds their materialistic and selfish goals by making “babble” of their speech so that they do not understand – and so cannot communicate with - each other, and scatters them all over the face of the entire earth (Gen. 11: esp. 4-8).

And then G-d elects Abram, establishing a covenant with this first Jew, whereby He guarantees him progeny (which will never be destroyed) and the land of Israel (to which Israel will ultimately return); G-d makes Abram into an eternal nation (Gen 15).

However, G-d has not chosen Abram to the exclusion of the world.  Much the opposite, G-d changes Abram’s name to Abraham, from “exalted father” (Av ram) to “father of a multitude of nations” (Avir hamon goyim) (Gen: 17:4,5).  And even before the name change, G-d charges Abraham with the divine mission that “through you shall be blessed all the families of the earth.” (Gen 12:3), since Abraham must found a “holy nation and kingdom of priest-teachers” who will lead the world to morality, peace and redemption.  Israel must become G-d’s entranceway into the world.

Hence, it should not come as a surprise to find that the Bible views Israel as a mirror of - and eventually a model for – the entire world; Israel is the heart, conscience and reflection of the world, as well as the means for the repair (tikkun) of the world.  And so if the three sons of Noah fathered the seventy nations of the world, it makes sense that the three patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – father the seventy souls who came down to Egypt and formed the Jewish nation (Exodus 1:5).  Jacob’s dream ladder is rooted in earth with its “top extending to the heavens” (Gen 28:12), and the midrash on virtually all of the verses of this dream sequence identify the place of dream as Mt. Morah, Jerusalem and the ladder as being the Holy Temple (see Rashi esp on 28:2 and 17), paralleling the ladder and the temple with the tower-ziggurat of Babel.  Indeed, when the Jews are not worthy, they too will be exiled and scattered to all four corners of the world, just as G-d scattered the babbling nations all over the face of the earth.  But eventually the City of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple-tower in its midst will serve as a tikkun (repair) for the Tower of Babel, when its Torah of peace will spread to the west, the east, the north and the south, when all nations rush to it and become united for commitment not for self aggrandizement, but rather for commitment to the service of G-d: “Then shall I transform for the nations one clear speech for all of them to call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him shoulder to shoulder” (Zefaniah 3:9)

Nowhere is our function as model for world more clearly expressed than in our Biblical portion of Behar, where the land of Israel is set up to be worked for six years, granted a Sabbatical (both the land and its owners) on the seventh and when all debts are likewise to be rescinded.  After the seventh Sabbatical, the fiftieth year becomes the Jubilee: “And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and declare freedom for the land and all of its inhabitants; it is a Jubilee for you, when every person shall return to his/her homestead, to his/her family and family estate…”  The Jubilee reflects our national dream – and mission – for world redemption; “the land” in the verse just cited may well refer to the entire land which G-d created together with the heavens, and on which all of humanity must be free and secure.

The founding fathers of Israel – like David Ben Gurion – may not have been observant Jews, they may not even have consciously believed in G-d, but they did believe in the necessity of the Jewish homeland, and they shared in the Biblical vision of our mission to the world.  They understood the necessity of the land of Israel for the future of the Jewish people and of the necessity of Israel’s Ten Commandments for the future of the world.  They were idealists, who were profoundly committed to an ideal greater than they were, and were selfless in their pursuit of this ideal.  Hence, even though the Agranat Commission did not find her responsible for the failures at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, Golda Meir resigned none-the less, deeply disappointed in herself because she believed she had disappointed her nation.  And to the best of my knowledge, our early heads of state all died with very small personal estates.  Their idealism inspired them to give to, not to take from, the government and the higher ideal they served.

Tragically, the present leadership never appeared to have seen Knesset Yisrael – historic Israel – as greater than they were, and never articulated a mission – to themselves or their nation-which was worthy of selfless sacrifice and commitment.  They were often confused as to Israel’s right to be in the Middle East and sometimes seemed to echo Yossi Beilin’s position that his grandfather should have voted for Uganda in Herzl’s World Zionist Congress.  Unless we, the people of Israel, feel strongly enough about our right to be where we are and about our mission to inspire a world committed to freedom, peace and security for all.  And unless we choose leaders who share these goals and ideals, then we just may not be the generation worthy of realizing the dream of the beginning of the sprouting of our redemption.  Hopefully, we are now cleansing ourselves.