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CHAPTER XVII THE NATIONHOOD OF ISRAEL * The theurgic conception of Israel to be replaced by a conception relevant to the modern outlook and political framework-Neither the Nco-Orthodox nor the Reformists have arrived at a formula for the status of Jewry-The Jews forced to rethink the national idea-Nationalism as an instrument of freedom from tyranny-:-.iationhood not to be suppressed but disciplined in the interest of internationalism-The significance of the Balfour Declaration. IN any deliberate endeavor to maintain the continuity of -the Jewish civilization in the face of such challenging conditions as those of today, the first question that comes to mind is: what shall henceforth be the status of Jewry as a collec~ive entity vis-a-vis the rest of the world? Before the emancipation the Jews regarded themselves and were regarded by the rest of the world as a nation in exile. This meant that they considered their sojourn outside of Palestine as temporary; that they retained a sense of unity despite their dispersion; that every local Jewry in relation to the nation as a whole occupied a status analogous to that of the ancient colony in relation to its mother country. But this entire cohception of the Jews as a nation belongs to the theurgic universe of discourse. The term "nation," applied to the Jews by themselves and others, did not convey the same meaning as that which it conveys today, but rather that which is implied in the term "church," in the sense of a collective body of transcendent character or a society called into being and sustained by supernatural intervention. The frequent designation of Jewry in rabbinic literature as Keneset Yisracl, the eccIesia of Israel, points to the emphasis upon the element of supernaturalism as the factor which accounts for the corporate character of the Jewish people. This must not be confused with the modern attempt to identify the Jews *The term "nationhood" is used in these chapters to denote a furm of associated life, "nation" or "nationality" the group which is held together by that form of associated life, and "nationalism" the national idea which approves that form of associated life. 227 228 JUDAISM AS A CIVILIZATION as a religious community. A religious community is less than a nation. A religious community has none of the organizational features and agencies of a nation. A church, provided it is a visible one, or an ecclesia such as the Jews said they were, is more than a nation. It not only has the organizational features and agencies of a nation; it regards them as divinely ordained and supported. We might possibly derive from the traditional theurgic conception of the Jewish nation interesting implications for our own way of thinking, but in its original and uninterpreted form that conception is today entirely inoperative. The reconstruction of Jewish life depends upon the ability of the Jews to evolve a humanist interpretation of the concept "Israel." That achievement is dependent on the ability to realize that a humanist interpretation is bound to constitute a novum in the Jewish ideology. Jews should not expect much aid and comfort from the traditional ideology in their effort to formulate the status of the Jewish people as a natural or historical social formation. Nor should they minimize the wide gap between the traditional conception of "Israel" and the one which they must achieve at the present time. The tendency to treat the gap as non-existent, or even as negligible, will not in the least facilitate the process of readjustment which has to take place in the mind of the Jew, if he is to orient himself anew to his people. It will only prevent the organic synthesis between the elements of the past which are worth preserving and. those in the present which must be accepted. The traditional conception of Israel contributed to the preservation of the Jewish people because it constituted an effective answer to the challenge of the Gentile world. That answer could be expressed only in the theurgic idiom of those days. Then Gentiles took for granted the biblical account of Israel's origin. They admitted that the history of the Jewish people was a phase of the career of God, a phase which was of utmost significance to humanity as a whole. To the Gentiles, Jewry as a whole constituted a nation which God had created and fostered, and which retained its status as a nation despite its rejection of what the Gentiles...

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