CHANUKAH AND THE 'PEACE ACCORDS'

December 5, 1993

While the Orthodox Jew traces his mesorah, or roots, back to Sinai, the likes of Yossi Belin and Shimon Peres trace their philosophical roots back to socialist ideology based on an altogether different 'mesorah'.  Belin and Peres trace their mesorah back through the utopian socialist ideals of Karl Marx, the European scientific enlightenment, and Greek philosophy.  These two 'mesorah's - Torah vs. Greek - had their first confrontation in the period we commemorate with Chanuakah, and they represent diametrically opposing viewpoints of man, history, and the world.  A recent confrontation between these 'mesorah's occurred during the Haskalah, that was a tremendous frontal attack on the Orthodox way of life and belief.

The so-called 'Peace' accords are based on the assumptions of the 'leftist', socialist, Hellenist belief system.  I want to outline some of these beliefs, and show how different they are from the Torah perspective.  Here are some of the Hellinist/Socialist assumptions the peace accords are based on:

1. The Greeks believed that man is essentially reasonable, and if he is educated and enlightened sufficiently, he will see that being good is the right way.  A society merely has to educate and enlighten people, and they will live in harmony and goodness.  Marx said that what is holding back this natural 'utopia' is that there is a class of oppressors who control things and keep the downtrodden oppressed.  Once the oppression is eliminated, then there will be a withering of the state, and the inherent goodness of people will emerge, and they will live in harmony.  To translate this into current day Israel, they feel that the Israeli government is oppressing the occupied  Arab population.  If the Arabs were liberated, educated, and enlightened, then everyone would live in peace, because the oppressive system would have been removed. 

The Torah, however, tells us that people have a strong evil inclination, and that only the love and fear of God can help people be good, and this is an ongoing personal and cultural fight.  Our Sages find it ludicrous that reason and logic are enough to make people good, and history has proved the Sages correct.  Not only did the Russian Revolution not end up in the withering away of the state, but gave rise to the wickedness of Stalin and the Gulag.  Succinctly, the Greek/Socialist viewpoint is naive.  The Israeli Labor government believes that since it is in the economic best interest for the Arabs to have peace, they will be logical and reasonable.  The religious person knows otherwise, that the Arabs will more likely ignore reason and follow their very strong emotional predisposition to anger and violence.

2. The Greeks and the Socialists believed that 'truth' can only be known by observation and scientific inquiry.  They felt that since no one has ever seen a neshama under a microscope, or seen God with a telescope, that any belief in God is unscientific superstition.  That accounts for the extreme condescension and ridicule that the secular Labor wing has for the religious element of Israeli society, especially those 'crazy' enough to live in 'occupied' territory.  They feel that people with 'unscientific religious superstions' - the 'opiate of the masses' - act irrationally, and are the true enemy of the scientific/socialists ideal.  Therefore they feel the only way to deal with the 'religious fanatics' is to ignore them, and make an 'end-run' around them to make 'peace.' 

The Religious person knows that only when people all unite to worship, love, fear, and obey God  will there be peace and harmony in the world.  And they know that God is ever present, even though He can't be seen with the senses, because He exists in a non-physical  realm.  A great deal of 'reality' is not perceivable with the senses, and we have been given the Torah to tell us how to navigate both the physical and non-physical reality.

3. The Greeks and Socialists have always been very sure of themselves, and are confident that they see the truth.  Therefore they have always felt justified in 'speeding up history' by taking drastic action.  Such action has always including letting those who stand in the way be expendable, because they believe the ends justify the means.  They can taste their utopia around the corner, so they won't let people stand in their way, even if it means killing them.  Who knows how much murder has been done in the name of the socialist utopia?  This explains why the 'peace accords' regard the 130,000 Jews living on the 'wrong' side of the green line as expendable.  The leftist/socialists see clearly the 'inevitability' of the 'liberation' and enlightenment of the 'oppressed' Arabs, and they want to speed up history even if that means throwing the Israelis living on the West Bank and Gaza to the wolves. 

The Religious Mesorah, on the other hand, knows that the ends never justifies the means, and that the value of even one life is tremendously sacred.  

The Religious Jews fought this philosphical battle during Chanukah 2200 years ago, and the Religious Jews won.  But the philophical battle has continued in full force till this day.  The real battle in Israel is between these two 'mesorah's, the Religious and the Greek.  The 'peace' accords are but an attempt by those with the Greek philosophy to 'speed up history' and implement their vision of history and man.  The Religious person knows that the Greek viewpoint, however prevalant, is founded on error.  We are now called upon to fight this new Chanukah battle, and we must pray that the Religious Mesorah will again overcome the beliefs of our Hellenized brothers.