What A Vote Cannot Decide

By: Rabbi Moshe Taragin

Hashem is unlike anything in the world He created. No physical description captures His essence. Whenever we describe Him, we rely upon approximations, using metaphorical language and images that the human mind can comprehend. Hashem exists beyond human comprehension.

Of all the creatures on the earth, Hashem created us differently. He bestowed on us traits that distinguish us from the rest of creation: self-awareness, complex emotions, cognitive speech, creativity, imagination, empathy, dreams, and rules of civility.

Chief among these qualities is our free will. We can choose between right and wrong. Hashem implanted within us a moral instinct to distinguish good from evil. He also revealed His will to help us navigate a complex world.

The gift of free will lends consequence to our actions. Since our moral choices are not predetermined, we alone bear responsibility for them. We suffer our failures just as we celebrate our achievements. Our freedom gives our lives moral significance.

We are grand because we are free.

Our free will also lends us dignity. Our choices aren’t merely the products of hormones or instincts. We consider different possibilities, weigh their merits, and determine our course of action. We shape our lives through decisions rather than surrendering to forces beyond our control. This ability to choose makes us similar to Hashem, the ultimate Free Being.

However, alongside our freedom, we also desire belonging. Absolute and unrestricted freedom is lonely. We crave interaction with other human beings. We desire love, friendship, family, community, and, of course, a covenant with a Higher Being. Our lives feel more meaningful when we stretch beyond our solitary and free existence and enter into relationships.

Our communities also convey and reinforce values. We choose relationships with people who share our core values. They lend our lives meaning and purpose.

Throughout our lives, we balance freedom with belonging. Belonging to a larger framework demands that we surrender some autonomy. Relationships carry expectations. Societies demand basic norms of behavior and create laws to govern them.

About seven hundred years ago, this balance began to shift. In antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages, freedom was severely limited. Society was largely feudal, and people occupied the social position into which they were born. For security and order, people were subservient to monarchs or noblemen who dictated their lives but offered nominal protection. Freedom and dignity were compromised for survival.

With the advent of the Renaissance in the 14th century, we began a grand journey toward greater freedom and, with it, the potential for greater human dignity.

The Renaissance emphasized human beings as the masterpiece of Divine creation, atop nature’s hierarchy. The Scientific Revolution took freedom one step further by democratizing truth. Truth was no longer dictated by a select few who claimed a monopoly over it. It could be discovered through universal methods of inquiry, available to everyone.

Taking this journey toward greater freedom one step further, the 18th century Enlightenment emphasized the natural rights of mankind, rights that were given to us by G-d that no government could seize, even for the sake of broader goals of security and order.

Eventually, the defense of natural rights led to Constitutions that enshrined these rights into law. Individual freedom and human dignity now enjoyed legal protection against the arbitrary exercise of power.

Alongside political freedom came financial freedom through capitalism and free-market economies. No longer was economic potential limited by social station or rank. People could chart their own financial destinies and pursue opportunities made possible by economic independence.

With mankind’s greater political and financial freedom, he was able to rationalize and think for himself. Morality was increasingly shaped by individual conscience rather than religious dogma, allowing moral judgments to differ from person to person.

This growing freedom to think and believe independently also extended to the world of emotions. Romantic art and literature brought emotional freedom. People were no longer expected to express emotions in conventional forms or about prescribed subjects. The Romantics taught us that beauty and meaning discovered in ordinary experiences can produce emotions just as valid and profound.

Across six centuries of social evolution, humanity achieved greater freedom. The individual, once confined by inherited structures and established authority, now enjoyed extraordinary autonomy to determine the course of his own life.

As people increasingly defined their own identities and values, personal satisfaction became the measure of their commitments. Relationships and obligations were judged by what they offered the individual, making them easier to abandon when they demanded sacrifice.

Greater freedom expanded our ability to define ourselves, but weakened the bonds which once gave our lives stability, direction, and meaning.

In Israel, we are blessed to live inside a living narrative. Our lives are anchored by shared history, strong communities, enduring commitments, and a covenant binding us to Hashem and each other. While much of the Western world emphasizes individuality and personal choice, Israel remains a society in which shared values and purpose remain strong social ties. Despite our differences, we still view our lives as part of a larger whole. Much of the hostility directed at Israel from liberal Western Europe stems from discomfort with a people that unabashedly share a national story and shared historical destiny.

I am writing these thoughts on the eve of the elections in Israel. Every vote is an expression of the individual freedom and dignity which humanity has struggled for centuries to achieve. However, as we celebrate our democracy, we must also recognize the dangers of unrestricted personal freedom. The rise of individualism has brought with it a crisis of identity. Our shared Jewish identity provides an anchor against this growing crisis.

We are part of a community of Jews who returned to our homeland to undertake one of history’s most ambitious projects. We are part of a long heritage of Jews who dreamed of returning to this land. We are also responsible to future generations of Jews who will judge how we navigated one of the most challenging periods in Jewish history.

We have inherited more than a country. We have inherited the dreams of generations who never lived to see Jewish sovereignty restored. They dreamed of freedom, but they also dreamed of the Jewish future that freedom could make possible. We owe them more than a free society. We owe them a Jewish future worthy of their dreams. 

Rabbi Moshe Taragin is a rabbi and educator at Yeshivat Har Etzion (Gush). Find his latest book, Echoes of Rashi: Bereishit, at MTaraginBooks.com.