But he is influential in his own right, as joint head of the modern Orthodox Yeshivat Har Etzion in Judea, a popular destination for British students that has inspired a number to enter the rabbinate. An English translation of his commentary on the haftarot, Netivei Nevua (“Paths of Prophecy”) is being worked on.
Rav Lichtenstein, who came to Israel from the USA as a child in 1971, tacks to the more modern strand of religious Zionism whose voice has been somewhat eclipsed in recent years by the more militant, messianic variant. He does not reject the principle of territorial compromise, although right now he believes Israel has no Palestinian partner to talk peace with. He has condemned settler violence, even expressing the fear that it could “cause us, God forbid, to forfeit our claim and privilege to the land”.
And while that violence might not reflect the values of the religious settler movement as a whole, he worries that too many have learned to live with it in their desire to see possession of the land.
More generally within Israeli society, he is concerned that force has come to be celebrated as a value – which, he said, speaking to the JC during his last visit, would have been “inconceivable maybe 40 or 50 years ago”.
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While resorting to force may at times be justified, he nonetheless cautions against reliance on might to solve every problem, citing a midrash in support. When Jacob prepares for the fateful encounter with his brother Esau for the first time after their rift of many years, “the rabbis say… there are three techniques – doron [gift], tefillah [prayer] and milchamah [war],” he explained. “If you go to war, you have to pray to God and you have to present a gift, [which] to translate, means diplomacy.
“My feeling is that certain parts of the Israeli government believe in milchamah; some believe in tefillah, like the Charedim; some believe in milchamah and tefillah, like the religious Zionists; but they belittle diplomacy. Diplomacy is not seen as an option. I think it is near-sighted.”
Just as the IDF reviews its operations to learn lessons for the future from a military standpoint, so he believes it should do so from an ethical one. When he did his military service, the ethical issues were simpler – war involved army against army. Now with asymmetric conflict in densely populated areas, soldiers fight in a more complex arena. “What’s happened since 1987, since the first intifada, no longer is the Israeli army fighting the Syrian army, or the Egyptian army, it’s now terror in the local population and the differentiation between combatant and civilian is very fuzzy,” he said.
But he is clear that there is a need to show “greater sensitivity” amid the destructiveness of war. “Even if you feel it is justified, you should feel pain. Even if an army commander decides it is unfortunately necessary to demolish a building or to bomb a certain area, it should pain you. You should feel the suffering,” he said.
He has been critical of what he sees as the “romanticisation” of war by some rabbis speaking to Jewish communities abroad, who stress the heroism, resilience, the solidarity of Israelis but gloss over the trauma and tragedy.
“Devastation and destruction are antithetical to the Torah’s goals, to God’s goals,” he said. “The world was created to be developed and built up. Tanach says this clearly.”
War “may be a necessary evil but it’s evil… it’s a tragedy for you, it’s a tragedy for the other side, it’s a tragedy for God. “I think part of the message we have to get across to communities abroad is even if it was necessary, it’s a tragedy. It is not something we want to celebrate or glorify.”
While he understands that people “often don’t have the patience or the willingness to look at the other side,” he sees it as the role of education to try to instil that sensitivity.
“Educators are uncorrupted optimists,” he said. “You believe in the long run that things will change and things will be better. If you are not an optimist, leave education.”
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To hear the Jewish Ethics Project’s podcast interview with Rav Lichtenstein, Can Power Remain Moral, click here
