452 A History of Judaism
fourth century, and many centuries had been spent in the development
of appropriate theology for states that needed at times to impose order
on subjects and to oppose enemies by force. The rabbis, accustomed to
seeing the state as an external force to be placated and occasionally
thwarted, had evolved no such notions. No treatment evolved in rab-
binic Judaism equivalent to Christian doctrine about what constitutes a
just war. The rabbis in late antiquity and the Middle Ages discussed the
rulings in Deuteronomy in terms either of historical reconstruction or of
messianic speculation. More concrete issues of the right to proportion-
ate self- defence and the requirement to intervene to help others in peril
were confined to discussions in the context of criminal law. In the 1160s,
Maimonides had produced a systematic presentation of rabbinic
theories of war in a substantial section of the Mishneh Torah entitled
‘The Laws of Kings and their Wars’, but issues such as the acceptability
of pre- emptive military action remained quite unclear. When partial eman-
cipation in nineteenth- century Europe gave to some Jews the opportunity
of military service, rabbinic opinion was divided on the morality of vol-
untary enlistment. Similarly, although rabbis have been much involved in
the intense debates within Israeli society over the morality of territorial
expansion and relations with Palestinians, the arguments have been
couched either in terms of the special role of the land of Israel in Judaism
or on the basis of general human decency.^19
Israel was and is a secular political state, but from its foundation a
‘Status Quo’ was agreed between its first prime minister, David Ben
Gurion, and leading rabbis within it. Under this agreement, the Sabbath
and Jewish festivals were established as public holidays. All public insti-
tutions are required to serve only kosher food, state schools are allotted
either to the national secular or the national religious stream, and issues
of personal status for Jews, such as marriage and divorce, are subject to
the jurisdiction of rabbinic courts recognized by the state. The state rec-
ognizes the authority of two chief rabbis, one Ashkenazi and one
Sephardi, adopting a practice instituted by the British in 1920 during the
Mandate period in imitation of the chief rabbinate of the British Empire
(although the authority of the Sephardic chief rabbi, known as the
Rishon leZion, ‘First in Zion’, went back further into Ottoman times in
the nineteenth century). Elected for a term of ten years by a large elec-
toral assembly of rabbis and representatives of the public, the chief
rabbis have generally been sympathetic to the essential aims of the state,
with some, like Shlomo Goren, who served as chief rabbi from 1972 to
1983, having a decisive impact on religious aspects of state policy.