The widespread controversy following Shas' decision to join the World Zionist Organization reflects the astonishment at efforts to legitimize cooperation of the chareidi community with the secular nationalist establishment. The underlying worldview of chareidi Jews is that there can be no coming to terms with heresy. The shock with which the recent move of Shas was received points to the trepidation truly G-d-fearing Jews feel toward any undermining of the foundations of our beliefs.
Gedolei Yisroel urged Yated Ne'eman to voice strong protest against the decision, which shows disdain for the basic consensus and underlying foundation of chareidi Jewry during the past hundred years. Our rabbonim used unusually harsh terms in describing Shas' shameful decision, which undermines the foundations of the Torah concept of strictly avoiding the Zionist establishment and its ideology, which steered Am Yisroel off the path of Torah. "A disgusting move that has no parallel," was how they expressed it.
"According to Torah law you may not enter the World Zionist Organization," the Chazon Ish told Poalei Agudas Yisroel, "and I doubt if [even] Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah has the power to permit it" (Pe'er Hador, I, p. 92).
When in 5698 (1938) a proposal was raised for Agudas Yisroel to collaborate with the Mizrachi movement on religious matters, as part of efforts to uphold Torah laws in the future state, Agudas Yisroel published a declaration stating, "Clearly, as long as the Mizrachi [movement] is a part of the World Zionist Organization, there can be no discussion of any permanent union between the two movements" (Kovetz Igros Achiezer, I, p. 306).
Ever since the Zionist movement's founding, our rabbonim instructed chareidi movements and their representatives not to take part in any meeting or cooperation with declared Zionist institutions, whose driving aim is to plant Zionist and nationalist ideas thereby creating a "new Judaism" divorced from the foundations of emunoh and halacha. When the Mizrachi movement decided to join the WZO and rebel against gedolei hador (saying they had their own rabbonim who permitted it), they separated themselves from the chareidi public and turned into a hybrid, compromise movement. The results are plain to see: they do not even exist in name any more having become the "Jewish Home" party.
If Shas does not come to its senses, they are essentially issuing an open declaration that they have decided to follow in the footsteps of the Mizrachi movement. Have they decided to assume that image, with all it entails?
Every Jew with yiras Shomayim understands that Zionism, in essence, is a bitter and cruel enemy of faith and of the keepers of Torah. The Zionist idea, which holds Am Yisroel can be sustained without Torah relying instead on "national symbols" and the trimmings of "the Jewish heritage," undermines the foundations of the Jewish faith. This is without even considering all heretical ideas that were attached to this central concept of destroying Yiddishkeit and rising up against the Kingdom of Heaven, such as personal self-redemption and provoking the nations of the world. In general, the values of Zionism and nationalism, like other non-Jewish concepts such as liberalism and humanism, to name a few, pose an existential threat to the Jewish people, and therefore our rabbonim zt"l and ylct"a, declared war against them.
Over 120 years ago, in a letter dated 19 Elul 5659 (1899) (printed in Kovetz Michtavim, a collection of letters by gedolei Yisroel), Reb Chaim Brisker wrote that it is surprising that there are observant Jews who still fail to recognize the evils of Zionism. If one does not understand this on his own, he wrote, what can we say to persuade him?
"I read his other remarks regarding the `Zionist cult' that has recently united strongly, and I am not ashamed to say I do not know how to find a way to counter them. Unknown malignant figures, each in his own respective location, including some who have become well known in this matter, have already declared their goal and publicized that their intent is to uproot the foundations of the Jewish religion. Towards that end they also intend to try to fill the positions of power and community control in all Jewish communities in order to foster their aim, and they have made all this known and revealed their thinking in periodicals. What more can we add in this regard? Would our remarks be any more convincing than theirs after they have said and revealed the matter themselves?"
He goes on to wonder at those who held joining forces and finding a "common language" with them would achieve certain positive aims. "It is beyond belief that after they have revealed their malevolent intentions openly there are still straight thinking people who are willing to join them. This leads one to wonder about the entire Diaspora — how could they allow these ideas to gain a foothold and even receive backing, while it is known that they will cause the masses to sin?"
HaRav Elchonon Wassermann Hy"d, warned against the illusion of finding any linkage between the keepers of the Torah and figures representing nationalism and heresy. He also warned that eventually any idea in this vein would wind up like the Mizrachi movement, which put itself to shame in the eyes of those it sought to flatter and win their favor.
"We must let those who agree to this know that they are causing the masses to sin and are desecrating the Name of Heaven, for there is no longer any distinction between them and the Mizrachi movement," he wrote. "Go forth and learn from the end of the Mizrachi movement, whose task was always to provoke yirei Hashem in order to flatter the wicked. And what became of it? "False witnesses are held in contempt by those who hire them." ... they became despicable and lowly even in the eyes of the wicked they bowed down to..." (from Kovetz Michtavim)
Gedolei Yisroel have spoken out against Zionism as a denial of the foundations of Yiddishkeit and determined there is no possible dispensation to justify recognizing the nationalist idea or its lexicon. "Zionism, which was clothed in idealism and spirituality," the Chazon Ish wrote to HaRav Wassermann in 5695 (1935), "has drawn in its wake heretical education and other non-Jewish ways and idolatrous vanities, and those who enter into their company at first, later start worshiping their idols, which touch on all aspects of life" (Kovetz Igros, 111).
In his book Maasei Ish, HaRav Tzvi Yabrov quotes HaRav Moshe Sheinfeld in a piercing letter written in 5721 (1961). "I had the privilege of frequently spending time under the wing of our holy rabbi, the Chazon Ish, and from him I acquired my worldview that Mizrachi poses a greater danger than Mapai!" he wrote.
"It seems to me that this sense is not subject to debate, and all of those who are truly G-d-fearing always feel instinctively what they should avoid and what they should bring closer, as if a spirit from the Heavens was cast upon them," wrote the Chazon Ish to Vilna in 5695 (1935), two years after settling in Eretz Yisroel. "... I know of almost no disputes among the Torah faithful in these matters. All those who are inclined to bring them closer where we push them away should be considered suspect, based on the chareidi instinct" (Kovetz Igros, II, 75).
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We must learn the lessons for ourselves, as Maran HaRav Shach wrote: The true Torah hashkofoh, as Torah knowledge itself, is as hard to acquire as golden vessels, and as easy to lose as glass.
If we let down our guard and do not constantly protest that we have no part of false ideologies, we are liable to find ourselves faced with surprises like this recent one. We must let our voices be heard by those who violate the norms of chareidi Jewry, but we must also be sure that we hear them ourselves, lest we also be affected by the blurring of the lines of the Mizrachi and those who follow their lead.
