by Arie Lova Eliav / Varda Books
New Heart, New Spirit confronts the ethical and moral values of the Bible in the context of the critical situation that Israel and Zionism are facing. It has sprung from the profound concerns of an Israeli Jew who fears for the fate of Zionism and Israel. The bonds of personal and national ethics that linked Zionism with the best of biblical values are now weakening—in some circles, to the point of cutting off the People of Israel from its sources of life. Zionism is becoming defiled. A considerable number of Zionists have abandoned the pure wells of the Prophets in favor of the muddy precipitates at the bottom of our glorious tradition. Instead of continuing as a movement of life and peace, justice and freedom, equality, brotherhood, and mercy, Zionism is in danger of turning into a movement that glorifies war while allowing internal social injustice, love of power, and hatred of aliens to flourish unchecked. Most frightening of all, extremist forces are attempting to justify—and even to glorify— these negative values by extracting and distorting fragments of Biblical verses. For example, those who choose dominion over a “Greater Israel” rather than territorial compromise leading to peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors constantly invoke “Holy Words” to justify their position.
It now seems that the Bible—along with the entire Jewish tradition founded upon it—has been imprisoned by extremist factions in Judaism, Zionism, and Israel. These factions each claim to be the sole authorized interpreter of the Bible and of Judaism and seek, by virtue of their “exclusive” nature, to convert members of Israeli society to their cause.
The Bible is not only the cornerstone of Judaism. It is a universal asset, an integral part of the history of civilization. Without it there can be neither Judaism nor Jews. Without it, for that matter, neither Christianity nor Islam could have been founded. This means that most of human culture and history would have been vastly different and severely impoverished had the Bible not been written.
The Bible is a work of exalted religious and moral revelation. But it is also a compendium of rules and laws, a continuous history of the People of Israel, and a chronicle recording the creation of the world and the roots of humanity. In it are books of prophecy and poetry, wisdom and philosophy; its lines are set with symbols, legends, mysteries. Yet, above all, it is a book of ethics, an appeal to peace and social justice among the nations and all humankind.
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New Heart, New Spirit focuses on seven universal ethical values expressed in the Bible and considered by this author as cardinal: the sanctity of life, justice, freedom, equality, brotherhood, mercy, and peace. These values closely resemble the seven attributes of goodness defined in Jewish tradition and prayer: peace, goodness, blessing, life, grace, lovingkindness, and mercy.
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This book is an outcry and a challenge to [the xenophobic movements focused on “holy wars,” power, land, and blood]. Its author’s intention is to represent the ranks of Israeli humanists who are attempting to rescue the Bible from its captors and to set it and its values free again in Israel. It is an attempt to raise anew the banner of human values— Jewish and universal—sanctified in the Great Book.
free ebook New Heart, New Spirit: Biblical Humanism for Modern Israel