While praising Jonathan Sacks’s “brilliant” and “eloquent” Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence, Shlomo Riskin nevertheless faults the author for arguing that “Abrahamic monotheism should be understood . . . as a profound social and theological critique of the politicization of religion.” Such a view, writes Riskin, goes too far, ignoring an important element of the biblical message and threatening to undercut the religious case for Zionism (free registration required):
As careful readers of the Hebrew Bible as different as the early-modern Protestant thinkers described by Eric Nelson in The Hebrew Republic and the [19th-century] head of famed Volozhin yeshiva, Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin, have argued, there is a biblical ideal of a constitutional nation-state which is integrally related to the Abrahamic vision. Indeed, only such a political enterprise can fulfill that vision of a monotheistic community devoted to compassionate righteousness and moral justice. It is the kingship of God that underwrites human freedom and justice, but these values must be enforced and defended by human beings. In short, Sacks seems uncomfortable with an Israel that actually succeeds in its Abrahamic mission of convincing the families of the earth to accept the moral and spiritual truths of monotheism. . . .
Religion may be able to survive without power, but it will be unable to redeem without power. Power may corrupt, and absolute power may corrupt absolutely, but powerlessness corrupts, too, for it necessitates accommodation with, and sometimes even surrender to, evil.
We [Jews] will never be able to fulfill our Abrahamic mandate to redeem the world if we remain powerless. This was the original mission of Israel, and the purpose for which we returned to Zion.
Read more on Jewish Review of Books: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/2130/religion-and-power/