It is Time for Truth wrote.
“Isn’t it a tragedy to reduced to be subservient to a state ?! Should we have more to offer For the world?!It’s not overly parochial?(Many secular used to claim this as well ) that’s all we are?!
and then
“Those who For Whom The State- D’etat More so the people
become their raison d’etre in sincerity fine there’s what to work with
Wouldn’t it however a tragedy of global dimensions if we exchange the Ends for the means ? raison d’tat”
MrSL answers:
Again, truly truly, you operate at a different realm. I have no training in philosophy — although I did take one course in YU with the late great Rabbi Dr. Walter Wurzburger, ztz’l in Ethics (which as i found out did not have anything to do with Ethics, as I understood it). When he showed me my grade in the course — which i believe was B (perhaps a B+) — he told me — “Here is your grade. Dont tell anyone.”
That being said, I think what you are doing is what i complained about earlier. You are imputing to me and others the Zionism of others. Without any evidence whatsoever, I would suggest that even secular Israelis view their Zionism (or “nationalism”, if you prefer) in some religious framework. Yossi Klein HaLevi in a talk that I went to on Yom Yerushalyim two years ago argued that after 1967 it was clear that the country was now a “religious” country — and would continue to be so. He obviously didnt mean that everyone was going to be Shomer shabbat etc, but a majority now viewed the country as one that was entwined with the religion. The communists are gone. The kibbutzim (at least as they once were) — were gone. Even though i can make a pretty good argument for continuing secular zionism and that it is indeed the only hope for non orthodox jewish survival — I dont believe that your criticism is valid.