Those who are scheduled to move out of their longstanding
homes, where they were sent by legitimate and legal
government actions, are deserving of the utmost sympathy and
understanding. It is hard and it is tragic, and it is worse
than it need be because there are so many difficult strategic
and political questions about the policy that was adopted by
the government. Sharon himself has never fully explained the
reasons for the unilateral disengagement and what he expects
it to accomplish, making it all the more difficult to accept
it.
Moreover, even if it is theoretically justifiable (though it
remains unclear if it is justified in practice) it always
remains painful to have to part with parts of Eretz
Yisroel.
Sympathy? Yes. Understanding? Yes. But that does not mean
that we will tie an orange band on our wrist or to our
car.
The struggle against the government and its disengagement
plan is a political struggle. As with almost everything in
life as complicated as this, it raises religious issues such
as having to move yeshivas and graves. But these issues arise
within a context that is purely political.
In contrast, for example, the struggle for the integrity of
the graves along the route of the Trans Israel Highway is
religious in nature, though it also raises political issues
as MKs use their weight in the government coalition to try to
influence the company to treat Jewish graves with
consideration. But the basic question is a religious one.
The dati-leumi people who are most involved in trying
to stop the disengagement tend to throw all the various
elements together. It is not clear if this a result of their
own confusion about the issues or if it is a policy decision
on their part to try to sow confusion among their opponents
and potential supporters. They list all the issues and
difficulties involved, without discriminating among them as
to which are critical and which not, and which are political
and which not.
According to their approach, everything that involves the
State of Israel is a religious issue, since the State itself
has religious meaning. This is a central principle of the
religious Zionist movement, and it is one that we reject.
If the Zionist movement in general has religious
significance, it is clearly negative. For many Zionists,
there is an imperative to destroy all of the "old" elements
of Judaism, including the Torah. This was seen by HaRav Chaim
Soloveitchik and HaRav Elchonon Wassermann, among others, and
recently argued by historian Yoram Hazony who showed that the
desire to undermine and destroy the Jewish religion was
consistently apparent in the actions of secular Zionists over
many years.
Orange cloth has become a new symbol of Zionism. On Yom
Ha'atzma'ut it was brought into their shuls along with the
State flag.
The symbols that the Torah tells us to don are tzitzis
and tefillin, which point to Hashem, His mitzvos, and
our relationship to them. As the Seforno says at the end of
last week's parsha (Shelach): "Uzechartem es kol mitzvos
Hashem — remember that you are the servant of
Hashem yisborach, and that you undertook to do His
mitzvos with an oath and a curse."
We measure all our actions by the Torah. This does not just
mean that we check to make sure that the Torah does not
prohibit what we want to do. Rather, our goal is to do what
the Torah wants us to do.
Most of the anti-disengagement values and the political
activity are not taken from Torah sources. They were drawn in
from "broken wells" outside the tradition. It is true that
these elements do not immediately clash with any Torah
principle, but our tradition is to keep ourselves pure. We do
not add anything to the Torah, neither in act nor in thought.
We do not seek a State nor any of its symbols, but only Torah
and mitzvos.
Our exclusive desire is to learn Torah and do the mitzvos
— ad bi'as Go'el Tzedek, soon in our days.
