Jewish history, in Cohen’s view, represents the progress of the Jews from a provincial, national entity during its ancient, sovereign period to a higher state of exile and dispersion, in which they may serve as “divine dew among the nations.” This position, upon which Cohen based his opposition to the emerging Zionist movement, was developed further by Franz Rosenzweig. In The Star of Redemption (1919), Rosenzweig posits a role for the Jewish people in the redemption of mankind, a role that has emerged precisely because of the Jews’ rejection of sovereign power and their attainment of an ahistorical life in exile:

By rejecting statehood, and its attendant involvement in “the concerns, the doing, and the struggling of the world,” the Jews as an exilic people have succeeded in achieving the same eternal status which every nation seeks. The nations of the world, however, have sought eternity through the state, which employs law, coercion, and war to create an illusion of the eternal. “The state symbolizes the attempt to give nations eternity within the confines of time,” a fact which puts it forever at odds with the Jewish people, who have already discovered eternity through the exilic model. The state, in Rosenzweig’s view, is nothing less than “the imitator and rival of the people which is in itself eternal, a people which would cease to have a claim to its own eternity if the state were able to attain what it is striving for.”³³

The views of Cohen and Rosenzweig, it must be emphasized, had a powerful influence on Jewish intellectual life, including in Israel. While their arguments were well developed from a philosophical standpoint, it is fair to say that their success was no less the result of a fear that the Jewish people, who had witnessed centuries of racist persecution in Europe, would now themselves come under the influence of that romantic nationalism that had become popular in Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—a fear which to this day continues to charge the debate over the application of sovereign power in the Jewish state. As a young rabbi in Berlinat the time of National Socialism’s ascendancy in Germany and until the eve of the war, Berkovits understood Germany’s radicalization to be the natural outcome of the state-worship which had swept central Europe, and was concerned about what the renewed affection for sovereign power could mean for the Zionist movement. “Woe unto us,” he wrote in Towards Historic Judaism (1943), “if the degeneration of the exile should lead us to a Hebrew nationalism along the European pattern…. Not every form of eretz yisrael is worth the trouble, and many a form could be unworthy of Judaism.”³⁴

At the same time, for the Jews to reject worldly, history-making power when the opportunity presented itself would mean shirking the responsibility they had taken upon themselves at Sinai. Sovereignty was central to Judaism, and could not be written out of it simply because romantic Europeans had put the state at the center of their worldview. How, then, was a Jewish state to avoid the perils of European nationalism? Berkovits’ answer is clear. Sovereignty and nationhood are themselves preconditions, not the end goal, of Judaism. A Jewish state would avoid the dangers of idolizing the state by keeping before its eyes the higher moral purpose for which the Jewish people was founded; by preserving the state’s dependence on Jewish tradition, through which the idea of the “holy nation” would be continuously reinforced and the risks which accompany empowerment kept in check. “The idea of a holy nation is not to be confused with that of nationalism,” he wrote a decade after the establishment of Israel. “The goal of nationalism is to serve the nation; a holy nation serves God. The law of nationalism is national self-interest; the law of a kingdom of priests is the will of God. From the point of view of a nationalistic ideology, the nation is an end in itself; the holy nation is a means to an end.”³⁵

Thus, whereas Cohen and Rosenzweig offered a defense of exile in the name of an ethical vision, Berkovits’ emphasis on morality in Judaism led precisely to the opposite conclusion. The idea of the improvement of mankind, which lies at the heart of the prophetic vision, demands not exile but sovereign empowerment, for without it Judaism cannot offer a true example of how the entire life of man may be dedicated to a higher, divine order. That national sovereignty could avoid the pitfalls of state-worship was acutely evident to Berkovits, who escaped totalitarian Germany and found in the English-speaking democracies a far more successful model. These nations understood sovereignty as the only means to vouchsafe the liberty necessary for human happiness, and their dedication to this higher ideal enabled them to write constitutions and laws which have succeeded in furthering that ideal over centuries. In Berkovits’ view, the idea of the holy nation can serve as precisely such a higher vision for the Jewish state, and in fact must do so if Judaism is to establish itself as a moral force in history.

 

 

If sovereignty is central, however, the Jews’ history of exile and return takes on new significance. Exile is a tragedy not only for Jews deprived of a homeland, but also for a Judaism deprived of the conditions for the fulfillment of its purpose. Exile for Berkovits represents not an improvement that should be balanced against the human suffering it entails, not an “exemplification of the theodicy of history,” as Cohen put it. Rather, it represents nothing less than the derailmentof Judaism itself, which no amount of congregational action or individual piety can make good. “The great spiritual tragedy of the exile,” Berkovits wrote in 1943, “consists in the breach between Tora and life, for exile means the loss of a Jewish-controlled environment.”³⁶ Without sovereignty, Judaism itself is deprived of its creative capacity, its original inner vitality, and is doomed to paralysis and, ultimately, decline.

Why must this be the case? The answer, according to Berkovits, stems from the essential difference between the life of the holy nation in its land and that of a people in exile. As a sovereign people, the holy nation is not a static thing, but a living, creating entity. Faced with new challenges and possessing the power to address them, such a nation constantly struggles to improve its life and laws according to a higher vision. As such, it will of necessity be dynamic and evolving. Because it has the capacity for far greater moral effectiveness than a people in exile, it will dedicate its resources to the articulation, interpretation, and enforcement of just laws and right customs. And its best minds and spirits will be continually directed toward understanding just what it means for a sovereign nation to live in righteousness.

For many centuries, Berkovits writes, Israel enjoyed the conditions necessary for pursuing such a vision. While the Jewish kingdoms of antiquity did not always meet the standards of conduct they had set for themselves, sovereignty nonetheless meant that the idea of the holy nation was a possibility, a dream to pursue. This powerful sovereign dynamic enabled a small people to produce the most influential work of moral teaching in human history—the Hebrew Bible, which depicts, through a variety of genres, the successes and failures of a nation attempting to fulfill the purpose given to it by God. It also enabled the creation of a rich oral tradition, encompassing both law and legend. These great works, in Berkovits’ mind, were produced by a living nation grappling with all the realities of human life, from warfare to public worship to education and economics, and struggling to imbue the fullness of life with sanctity. Even in the first few centuries after the Temple’s destruction in 70 c.e. and the final loss of Jewish sovereignty in the second century, the intellectual habits which had been the product of sovereignty enabled the rabbinic leaders of Judaism to produce the monumental works of the Talmud and Midrash, which possessed such creativity and insight as to become the basis not only of Judaism for centuries on end, but of continued study and reverence throughout the Western world.³⁷