A Theology of Rejection: The Haredi Struggle with Zionism and with Modernity

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2017

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The establishment of the State of Israel is one of the most remarkable achievements of the modern era. Never before had a people dispersed throughout the world, deprived of sovereignty for millennia, returned to its ancient homeland to build a thriving country. Who were the leaders and thinkers that helped craft a modern Jewish nationalism for a people so long deprived of self-determination? What moved them? What were their political teachings and key disagreements?

The Tikvah Fund invites you to join Dr. Micah Goodman, Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and CEO and Rosh Midrasha of Midreshet Ein Prat, for a three-part exploration of the writings, legacies, and debates of Zionism’s early thinkers. We will study the teachings of Theodor Herzl, Micha Josef Berdichevsky, Ahad Ha’am, Isaac Jacob Reines, Abraham Isaac Kook, and other representatives of modern Jewish nationalist thought. In doing so, Dr. Goodman will help us see how the founding disagreements within Secular Zionism, Religious Zionism, and Ultra-Orthodoxy can shed light on the spirit of Jewish nationalism and the internal conflicts Israel still faces today.

These lectures were originally delivered at one of the Tikvah Fund’s educational programs for undergraduates. Click here to learn more about our educational programs.

In this lecture, Dr. Goodman takes us on a journey from 18th-century Lithuania to the modern state of Israel as he explores the haredi response to Zionism and the challenges of modernity.

Transcript

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0:00.0	When I study Torah, I am doing two things.
0:09.0	I am escaping the world, and by doing that, I am saving that world.
0:15.0	And if you believe in this double move, can you imagine how inspired you are to study Talmud all day, every day?
0:23.6	The Tikva Fund presents a lecture by Mika Goodman, a theology of rejection, the
0:28.6	Kharedi's struggle with Zionism and modernity, was delivered in August 2016 in New York City.
0:35.6	Dr. Goodman is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem
0:39.8	and the CEO in Rosh Midrashah at Ayn Pratt. He's the author of four books.
0:45.1	The Dream of the Cusari was published in 2012. Moses's last speech was published in 2014.
0:52.4	His award-winning book on Maimonides, Secrets of the God of the Perplexed,
0:56.0	was published in Hebrew in 2010,
0:58.0	and translated into English
1:00.0	as Maimonides and the book that changed Judaism
1:03.0	Secrets of the God for the Perplexed.
1:05.0	Dr. Goodman's most recent book is Ketch 67,
1:09.0	published in 2017.
1:10.9	The Israeli-Haredi community is a very interesting community and a vibrant community,
1:15.4	in a community that's going today as we're talking through a lot of change.
1:19.6	Now, I'm not a sociologist.
1:21.9	I can't speak about change, but I'm speaking about the ideas that are inspiring change. Now, the Haredi society was based on a few great ideas.
1:31.3	The idea that the entire community needs to study Torah.
1:35.3	A second idea, the notion that everything they say is a representation of the Torah.
1:40.3	And finally, the project of isolating yourself from modern civilization.
	...

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