Donniel Hartman - Putting God Second: How to Save Religion from Itself

FOR

Michal, Yitzchak, and Talya

A token of my love

A sign of my respect

A prayer that you continue
to find your own religious paths

Rav Huna said in the name
of Rabbi Hiyya bar Aba: They deserted Me
and did not keep My instructions. (Jeremiah 16:11)

If only they had deserted Me but kept My instructions.

Midrash Eikhah Rabbah Ptikha 2

WRITING A BOOK is a deeply personal journey into the depths of ones thoughts, feelings, and words. One of the greatest blessings in my life is that I get to engage in this journey in the company of others who love, support, critique, and inspire me every day. It is a special blessing to be able to thank and acknowledge their role in my life and contribution to this book.

First and foremost my family: my wife, Adina; my children and children-in-law Michal, Noam, Yitzchak, Avital, and Talya; and grandchildren Mia and Sofia. Adina, for whom God can only be first, who keeps God and religion alive in the consciousness of our family. I fight from the inside because of you. My children, to whom this book is dedicated, who are always in my mind and heart, and who are the most significant audience and religious partners I have. The love and care that engulfs our lives is the source of my strength and inspiration. My grandchildren and their gift of infinite joy and love, who energize and fill me every day, and whose world this book hopes to change. My mother, Bobbie, and my father, David zl, my first and most significant teachers and my greatest supporters. The joy of seeing this book in print is diminished by my Abbas death, for though he so much wanted to see it at this stage, it was not to be.

This book was written in the company of a unique community of scholars, teachers, supporters, and students at the Shalom Hartman Institute, where I have been blessed to learn and work over the last thirty years. To the friends and supporters of the institute who provide the foundation and backing every day to enable this remarkable enterprise to thrive, and for the gift to be able to lead it. To my colleagues, individuals of great intellect and kind hearts, who generously give of their time and efforts to challenge, assist, teach, and advise. To think, create, work, and dream in your presence is a gift beyond measure. In particular, I want to thank Avi Sagi, who always makes time to talk, advise, and carefully read and critique everything I write, and Yitzhak Benbaji and Noam Zion for their significant input.

To my students and friends at the institute in Israel and North America, who accompanied me and the ideas of this book over the last ten years, whose religious lives and probing questions shaped every page, and who shared the passion and need to engage in saving religion from itself.

To Bishop Peter Eaton and Imam Abdullah Antepli, who provided critical advice and assistance and encouraged me to write for religious people at large. To David Schnell, who read the first draft and whose laypersons perspective was invaluable. To Or Rose, who offered a hand of friendship at a critical time. To the wonderful people at Beacon Press and in particular Amy Caldwell, who embraced the book and nurtured it with professionalism and love.

And finally, to my editor, Charlie Buckholtz, who turned the ideas into beautiful words and sentences, and who served as my primary hevrutah for every argument, indeed every word. One yearns to be clear and one writes to be heard. Without Charlie, this book would have been neither.

MY BROTHER-IN-LAW WAS killed in the Lebanon War of 1982. Every Memorial Day, for over three decades, my family goes to the Israeli national military cemetery where he is interred. The ceremony is the same every year: it commences with a two-minute siren sounded throughout the country, as everyonein homes, in grocery stores, on the sidewalk, on the highwaysliterally stops and stands in silent attention. At the military cemetery, kaddish, the mourners prayer, is then recited by a family member of one of the fallen; a government representative speaks on behalf of the country; rifles are discharged in a military salute; a trumpet plays a funeral dirge; and a military chaplain offers a traditional Jewish prayer for the dead. The ceremony is simple, solemn, mournful, and raw.

But every year the chaplain recites one line that unsettles me. As he chants the request that God on High will bestow an everlasting peace and rest on my brother-in-law, and all others who died in the service of protecting our country, the fallen are designated as having died al kiddush Hashemin the sanctification of Gods name. My brother-in-law was a decorated hero who endangered his life daily as a deputy squadron commander in the Israeli Air Force. The State of Israel can never repay the debt that it owes him for his contribution to our survival. But what do God and the sanctification of Gods name have to do with fighting for our countrylet alone his death? His plane was shot down by a Syrian surface-to-air missile over the Beka Valley. He was fighting in a war that Israeli society came to condemn. Ultimately, the Lebanon war was judged as having violated our strict principles of limiting the use of the Israel Defense Forces to wars of self-defenseand not the establishment of a new political order in a neighboring state, as was the case in the first Lebanon War.

Soldiers are required to be willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice, without the benefit of historical hindsight. My brother-in-law in the sky, myself as a tank commander on the ground, and tens of thousands of others thought we were fighting to protect our northern borders from terrorist infiltrators. Our inability to know at the time that the war far exceeded this just cause belittles neither the heroism nor the enormity of the sacrifice. Historical hindsight does teach us, however, that my brother-in-laws death was probably not necessary for the security of Israel. It was certainly not necessary for the sanctity of Gods name.

Why is there an intrinsic association between the wars we fight and the will of God? Between protecting Israel and the sanctification of Gods name? It could be that this association is made as a comfort to those left behind. Framing my brother-in-laws death as an act of sanctification, which in turn secures salvation after death under the wings of God, ennobles it with an aura of not only physical but also spiritual heroism.

I wonder, however, if the comfort offered to those mourning the fallen may be outweighed by a potentially greater consequencenot to the soul of my brother-in-law but to the soul of Israel. When we invoke God as our partner in politics, we identify our will and interests as inherently shared by God. But are they necessarily the same? When God is conflated with country, does it serve the moral and spiritual aspirations of Israelor undermine them? Does it challenge Israel to live up to divine standards, or does it co-opt God into the service of human political institutions? In this framework, is God a force for goodfor challenging, prodding, critiquing, and correcting national interests and policiesor does the divine stamp of approval provide religious cover for immoral acts motivated by self-interest?

When our wars are uniformly sanctified, and our fallen soldiers are memorialized as religious martyrs at official state ceremonies, I worry that the reality may be the latter.