A recent post by Alan Brill discusses Rabbi Aaron Samuel Tamares, a 19th century figure who seems like a Torah Im Derech Eretz personality in many respects. Here are some excerpts and a
link to the post. Originally, from Grodno, R' Tamares studied at Volozhin. He was a very sensitive person who focused on the dignity of man and the ways of peace. At first R' Tameres joined the Zionist movement when he saw it as a possibility for liberation of Jews but became disillusioned with it when he came to see it as materialistic and violent.
Brill:
"Tameres was the emblematic image of the rabbi who would seek the leniency for the poor widow who cannot afford another chicken or who allowed an elderly Torah reader to not be corrected to save his honor."
"Rabbi Tameres attended the fourth Zionist congress in 1900 and started his slide away from political nationalist Zionism seeing it as just another form of materialist political machinations and self-justifying violence. He became a life-long pacifist preaching that the way of Torah is ethics, peace, humanism, and spiritual growth. According to Tameres, 'for us, the Jewish people, our entire distinctiveness is the Torah and Judaism; the kingdom of the spirit is our state territory.' Tameres called himself 'the sensitive person' who feels the pain of the world.'"
Some quotes from Rabbi Tamares:
We approved the naturalistic outlook... that it throws the
primary blame for war upon the class that holds power. For however much the
ugly clay of war may be imbedded in the hearts of the mass of people, yet those
who busy themselves with this nice material, moistening and shaping it for
their goal and bringing it to completion—these are surely “the ruling classes.”
Regarding Zionism:
From that point on the children of Israel became “political,”
and the Torah became merely a kind of constitution, similar to those
constitutions from “cultured nations” that we today know all too well: on
paper, drafted and signed, but in practice, the complete opposite. Corruption
begets corruption. The corruption of the ethical sense, which followed in the
wake of the invasion from without by the spirit of “political nationalism,”
soon brought them to request that a king be set over them also, “like all the
nations surrounding them.
The Jews remember always that their God is the God of Truth and
Justice who shattered the yokes of their oppressors. They must plant deep in
their hearts absolute faith in the power of Truth and Justice to triumph
finally…this idea, when firmly rooted in their hearts, will itself serve to
defend them from all violent and lying persecutors.
Every single human being on the face of this earth was created
and endowed by the Lord with the capacity to look after his own life….and to
worry about death and perishing; each was created for his own sake. The breath
which the Lord breathed into the nostrils of Rueben is for the sake of Rueben.
It is for him to live and exist and not be a bloody sacrifice for the sake of
someone else.
The culture of creation in the Book of Genesis: Life, tangible
life, the life of the blood and the spirit, this is the need which must first
be sought. The life and secure existence of the individual: these are the basis
of life on this earth; from them all comes, and in them all is included!
This is the implication of “I am the Eternal” that concludes the
mandate, “You must love your neighbor as [you love] yourself” (Leviticus
19:18). Look toward the Eternal, toward the Source of all existence, the First
Cause, and you become aware that you and your neighbor are equal in God’s eyes;
that insight validates the commandment. The power of Torah to incline human
beings toward the good derives from its putting us directly in touch with the
Creator of all, the Source of goodness and generosity, thus rekindling the
spark of our Divine awareness.
Even a cursory examination of the singular purpose our nation is
destined to fill, namely, the purpose of spreading Torah, can cause the
hypnotic power of nationalism to dissipate, and we can gaze without fear into
the eyes of the nations who are so proud of their territories and monarchies.”
Since National Territories have been the cause of mass slaughter, a crucial
mission of Jews in the world is to prove, by example that a people can survive
and thrive without a National Territory. There is an alternative to survival by
the sword.
The Jew will always seek to return to Israel and live there;
Israel is vital and extant in his memory and in his very veins, it is this
Israel which he has preserved in his memory at all times, it is this Israel
that he yearns to see with his eyes…. Between this ancient Zionist yearning and
the new Zionist yearning lies a chasm of difference, both in theory and in
practice, both in the reason for this yearning and in its goals.
The political Zionists yearn for a land upon which our nation shall be “a
nation like all other nations”—whereas our people yearn for a land upon which
our distinctiveness from all other nations shall be further emphasized…The new
Zionism hopes to revive in Zion what ostensibly died in exile: Namely, they
wish to create in this Jewish homeland and in the heart of Jews, this coarse
feeling of sovereignty, of which they had been divested in exile.
The blog post shares an interview with Everett Gendler, a translator of R' Tamares' writings and a pacifist himself, who explained R' Tamares' encounter with Zionism as follows:
"Later, at age 31, Tamares attended the fourth Zionist Congress
in London in 1900 as a delegate. He was appalled to find what he saw not so
much as a movement to liberate people but a movement to liberate territory.
After a year of silently absorbing this discovery, he found the courage to
denounce Zionism publicly because he saw that its goal was to be another
European Nationalist Movement, rather than follow the Jewish mission of Torah
and ethics. This independence of spirit and his fresh outlook you find
throughout his writings."
Full post here:
