The Art of Being Zionist
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The Art of Being Zionist
It is hard for me to hear a Jew in America say that because my sons learn in yeshiva instead of serving, he is a Zionist and I am not. What makes a person a Zionist? That he supports Israel, believes the Jewish people deserve a homeland, and stands behind the IDF. Fine — that is a real answer, and I respect it. But I live here. My children live here. We raise our family on this soil, pay taxes, and try our best to settle it. How is a man in New Jersey more Zionist than a man in Yerushalayim? Is Zionism only a position, a view — or is it also measured by how you live your life?
There are two questions every Jew needs to ask himself, and the whole fight comes from collapsing them into one.
One: In what way do you protect Zionism? Not “I support Israel.” What did I actually do this year — with my time, my money, my body, my children — for the Jews of Israel?
Two: In what way do you protect Judaism? Not “I’m Jewish.” What did I learn, what did I keep, what did I teach my children?
Both need an answer. Almost nobody answers both. The father whose sons wear a uniform points at question one and asks the yeshiva boy’s father to explain himself. The father whose sons hold a Gemara points at question two and asks the same of him. Both are grading half the exam. This is how a nation tears itself apart while the world watches — and it is why the yeshiva draft is the one issue that keeps this country from ever holding a government together.
The two questions are separate, and each deserves its own honest answer. But they are not equal. For two thousand years Judaism survived without Zionism. Zionism cannot survive one generation without Judaism. This Land is not neutral ground and never has been. It does not tolerate being held as ordinary real estate — וַתָּקִא הָאָרֶץ אֶת יֹשְׁבֶיהָ, the Land vomits out those who live on it without keeping the Torah (Vayikra 18:25).
Now listen to what the world has been saying to us. Of the 6,274 antisemitic incidents the ADL counted in America in 2025, forty-five percent invoked Israel or Zionism. And the sentence comes back on repeat: Anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism. We have nothing against Jews. We have nothing against Judaism. We object to a Jewish state. On campus it gets shortened to “Zionists off our campus.”
It makes no sense. Every nation on earth is permitted a homeland. Every people is permitted safety. Somehow only one people is told that its need for a safe place is illegitimate. It cannot be defended by any principle — and when something cannot be defended by any principle, you are not looking at an argument anymore. You are looking at something else.
A rabbi born in Morocco in 1696 saw this coming. Rabbi Chaim ben Attar spent his life dreaming of Eretz Yisrael and printed his commentary, the Or HaChaim, in Venice in 1742 while raising the money for his aliyah. But to hear what he saw, I first need to teach you one Hebrew word.
I will give a thousand dollars to anyone who can tell me what the word אֶת means in English. It means nothing. תביא את הכסא — bring the chair. It is an arrow, pointing at the noun the verb is acting on. (Ten percent of the time it means “with,” five percent “from.” The other eighty-five percent it means nothing at all. It is pure structure.) Now listen closely.
רְאֵה אָנֹכִי נֹתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה — See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse. No אֶת. And that is strange, because the very next pasuk says אֶת הַבְּרָכָה, and a few pesukim later אֶת הַבְּרָכָה on Har Grizim and וְאֶת הַקְּלָלָה on Har Eival. Two mountains, two ceremonies, two separate objects, each with its own אֶת. But in the opening pasuk — nothing. Just בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה. Not two objects on two mountains. One thing, containing both.
What is it?
The Or HaChaim saw the problem in the dikduk and says something amazing. Moshe had just finished speaking about the Land — “every place your foot treads shall be yours” — and about what happens to those who live on it, depending on whether they keep the laws. So when Moshe says “I am placing before you today,” the word today is precise. What is being given today is the Land. And within that single gift there is a blessing and there is a curse:
וְאוֹמְרוֹ ‘בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה’ — פֵּירוּשׁ: יֵשׁ בַּנְּתִינָה זוֹ בְּרָכָה וְיֵשׁ בָּהּ קְלָלָה… אִם תִּשְׁמְעוּ תִּהְיֶה נְתִינָה זוֹ לָכֶם לִבְרָכָה, וְאִם לֹא תִשְׁמְעוּן אֵין זוֹ לָכֶם כִּי אִם קְלָלָה — שֶׁבְּאֶמְצָעוּתָהּ יִתְקַנְּאוּ בָּכֶם הָאֻמּוֹת וִיאַבְּדוּ אֶתְכֶם מִמֶּנָּה בִּנְקָמָה גְדוֹלָה.
Not two gifts. One. If you listen, this Land itself is your blessing. If you don’t, it is not merely that the blessing is withheld — the same gift becomes the instrument of the curse. And how? “The nations will grow jealous of you and drive you out of it with great vengeance.”
He wrote that in 1742. Read the news.
Ever wonder why in the world the nations would be jealous of us? We have a homeland smaller than New Jersey, shared with Arabs and Christians, while every one of them already has a country of their own. Jealous of what?
The question has no rational answer, and that is exactly the point. This is not an argument. It is the curse of the parasha.
And the word jealous is the key. Rabbi Yitzchak’s famous question at the very opening of the Torah (Rashi, Bereishis 1:1) makes this precise point: the Torah begins with Creation rather than with the mitzvoth so that when the nations tell Israel “you are thieves, you conquered the land of seven nations,” our answer is ready. And our answer is not “every people deserves a homeland.” Our answer is: the whole earth belongs to Hashem; He gave it to whom He saw fit, and He gave this piece to us.
Because if we are here for the reason every other nation is on its land — a people needs a country — then we have entered a competition. We have become one more nation holding territory, and territory is precisely what nations fight over. If we are here as the people who carry the Torah, there is nothing to compete for. No nation can be jealous of a claim it cannot make.
So the only legitimate reason for us to be here is not that we are safe here as Jews. It is that we can live Judaism here, as Jews. So long as the State protects Judaism, the nations have no claim against us. The claim begins the moment the State is only protecting Jews.
You cannot judge Judaism by the Jews. And you cannot protect Judaism by protecting Jews. And here, G-d does not wait even a second to show it. Go back to the verse just before our parsha, at the close of Eikev, the one most people skim: אֶרֶץ אֲשֶׁר ה’ אֱלֹקֶיךָ דֹּרֵשׁ אֹתָהּ, תָּמִיד עֵינֵי ה’ אֱלֹקֶיךָ בָּהּ, מֵרֵשִׁית הַשָּׁנָה וְעַד אַחֲרִית שָׁנָה — “A Land that Hashem your G-d seeks out; the eyes of Hashem your G-d are constantly upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year” (Devarim 11:12).
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov opens Likutei Moharan I:187 with a pasuk most people read as a threat: וּלְךָ ה’ חָסֶד, כִּי אַתָּה תְשַׁלֵּם לְאִישׁ כְּמַעֲשֵׂהוּ — “And Yours, Hashem, is kindness, for You repay a person according to his deeds” (Tehillim 62:13). Read that again, because it sounds backwards. Yours is kindness — because You pay people back? Where is the kindness in being paid back?
Rebbe Nachman: הַיְנוּ שֶׁהוּא חֶסֶד גָּדוֹל מֵאֵת הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ שֶׁהוּא מְשַׁלֵּם לָאָדָם מִדָּה כְּנֶגֶד מִדָּה, שֶׁעַל יְדֵי זֶה הוּא מֵבִין לְפַשְׁפֵּשׁ בְּמַעֲשָׂיו וְלֵידַע הַחֵטְא שֶׁפָּגַם בּוֹ וְלָשׁוּב בִּתְשׁוּבָה — it is a tremendous kindness that He repays a person measure for measure, because through this the person understands to examine his deeds, to know the specific flaw he damaged, and to return.
That is the whole idea. Midah k’neged midah is not the punishment. It is the diagnosis. A consequence that bore no resemblance to the act would be pure pain — you would suffer and learn nothing. A consequence shaped like the act is a message. It is legible. It tells you where to look. A doctor who tells you that you are ill has given you fear. A doctor who tells you which organ has given you a path.
And then Rebbe Nachman says the line that changes how you understand living here:
אַךְ דַּע, שֶׁעִקַּר מַה שֶּׁמְּשַׁלֵּם הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ מִדָּה כְּנֶגֶד מִדָּה הוּא בְּאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל… כִּי שָׁם מְדַקְדְּקִין לְשַׁלֵּם לְאִישׁ כְּמַעֲשֵׂהוּ, מִדָּה כְּנֶגֶד מִדָּה… וְעַל כֵּן הַיּוֹשְׁבִים שָׁם בְּאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשׁ לָהֶם עַל הָרֹב יִסּוּרִין, מֵחֲמַת שֶׁמְּמַהֲרִין שָׁם לְשַׁלֵּם לְאִישׁ כְּמַעֲשֵׂהוּ.
It is harder here. Not because we are loved less. Because the accounting is faster and the resolution is higher. Where His eyes are always on us, nothing goes unnoticed and nothing gets deferred.
And now the piece that should give you chills. Rebbe Nachman brings his proof from the most notorious phrase in the Torah about this Land — the report of the meraglim: אֶרֶץ אֹכֶלֶת יוֹשְׁבֶיהָ הִיא, “it is a land that consumes its inhabitants” (Bamidbar 13:32). That sentence destroyed a generation. It is the classic lashon hara on the Land. And Rebbe Nachman takes the word אֹכֶלֶת apart: its letters are the initials of אַתָּה תְשַׁלֵּם לְאִישׁ כְּמַעֲשֵׂהוּ — “You repay a person according to his deeds.”
The meraglim were not lying. They were misreading. They correctly perceived that this Land holds you to account, that it does not let you coast. They looked at that fact — the exact same fact — and instead of “here, G-d is close enough to answer you immediately,” they said “here, you get eaten.”
Same Land. Same intensity. Same phenomenon. One reading is chesed. The other killed a nation in the desert.
Which is precisely what the Or HaChaim was telling us at the opening of our parsha: בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה with no אֶת. Not two objects on two mountains. One single gift containing both — and which one it becomes is determined entirely by us.
So Zionism, as important as it is, is not yet Judaism. A country can and should be defended. That is what soldiers are for, and I will not say a word to diminish them; without them there is no Land we can call ours. Their courage is real and their danger is real. But a country is not the same as a Judaism. You can hold the ground and lose the reason you are standing on it.
That is what the yeshivos are for. The Rambam writes that Shevet Levi received no portion in the Land and does not go out to war like the rest of Israel, because they were set apart to teach, to carry the Torah, to be soldiers of G-d — and then he adds that it is not Levi alone: any person whose spirit moves him to stand and serve enters that category (Hilchos Shemitta v’Yovel 13:12–13). Chazal said it more bluntly: רַבָּנָן לָא צְרִיכִי נְטִירוּתָא — the scholars do not need the city’s walls to protect them, because they are the protection (Bava Basra 7b).
So ask me again whether I am a Zionist. I will not answer with a position. I will answer with two questions, and I intend to answer both: What did I do this year for the Jews of Israel? And what did I do this year for Judaism in Israel?
