The Mechilta midrash as adapted in the Passover Haggadah teaches that the Torah speaks in several educational voices to people of varying dispositions. It speaks to four different "sons." One is wise, one is wicked, one is simple, and one does not even know how to become part of the conversation.
These four archetypes uncannily correspond with today's models of political engagement with Israel.
The heart and mind of the wise son is filled with pride about Israel. He (and she) knows that at 70, Israel is a strong, prosperous and admirable country, with moral backbone and a long list of achievements. He understands why surveys suggest that Israeli society is the 11th happiest on the globe, and he is overwhelmingly optimistic about Israel's future.
He asks all the time how he can contribute to the country and make it grow even stronger diplomatically, economically and militarily. He feels privileged to be part of Israel's historic resurgence, to serve in the army and even to pay taxes. He revels in Israel's biblical landscapes and high-tech skylines. He is also determined to fix various ills and fault lines in our society, because he knows it is possible.
He sits at the Passover Seder filled with gratitude and expectations of even greater things to come. He expresses a sense of solidarity with all Israelis and Jews everywhere, and invites them to join, next year, in rebuilt and united Jerusalem!
The wicked son, meanwhile, thinks that Israel is an evil country, where racism, apartheid and dictatorship have taken root. He supports boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. He thinks the "occupation" is corrupting Israel's soul and views the legitimacy of the Zionist enterprise as tenuous. He uses his perch (at a university or at a so-called human rights NGO), along with his (usually weak) Jewish bona fides, as a battering ram to weaken and isolate Israel.
He dismisses Israel's accomplishments, and ignores Israel's many contributions to regional and global security, to health, science and to the arts, and to the moral structure of the Western world. He is oblivious to the beauty of Israel's unique blend of modernity, tradition, nationalism and family values. He knows only how to attack.
He asks: What is this Zionist service to you, and he excludes himself from the community and denies the foundations of our faith.
Our response? Blunt his teeth. Reject his vile approach, without hesitation. He is not part of our journey of redemption. Alas, he is like the many Jews who assimilated in Egypt, stayed behind at the Exodus, and were rubbed-out of Jewish history.
The simple son is a confused soul, who obsessively insists on seeing two equal sides to every equation, including the Arab-Israeli conflict. Both parties are evenly to blame, he feels, and both sides need to compromise (with the overwhelming onus to pay for peace falling on the more powerful Israel).
His ultra-liberal affinities make him uncomfortable with solid avowals of historical rights, rigid theological claims, or firm strategic assertions. He gives Israel some benefit of the doubt while he is himself consumed with doubts.
Consequently, he is ill at ease with U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, even though the restoration of Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem has been a Jewish dream for 2,000 years and a fixed Israeli diplomatic goal since the dawn of modern Zionism. He is similarly embarrassed by Vice President Mike Pence's crystal clear speech to the Knesset, which characterized the Jewish link to the Land of Israel as unassailable and paramount.
He frets about reactions on the Palestinian street to Trump's corrective diplomacy. Instead of helping to knock some realism into Middle East politics, he naively devotes himself to raising funds for the poor Palestinians who live under Hamas' thumb in Gaza.
And thus you shall say to him: With a strong hand the Lord took us out of Egypt, from the house of bondage. There is no reason to waver in our commitments to the Jewish national project. It comes before other liberal commitments. There is no reason to be embarrassed by Israel's strong hand.
As for the son who "does not know how to ask," the challenge is to find ways of getting him to care. You must initiate him.
This "son" apparently knows little about Judaism or Israel and is not sure he needs to. He is the "American Jew" featured in a recent Pew poll who is Jewishly illiterate and poorly prepared to defend Israel, or even to care about it and other keystones of identity.
He needs to be drawn onto a Birthright trip, into a NCSY seminar, or to a Young Judea summer camp. He needs to be exposed to Israel's dynamic music scene, rich academic world, global humanitarian efforts, wise security architecture, responsible and impressive youth.
He needs to be taught Jewish self-esteem and nationalist self-assurance, both of which are key components of the modern Jewish-Israeli identity, alongside basic knowledge of Jewish religious creed.
Then, and only then, might he also "receive the blessings of the Lord from Zion, and see the good of Jerusalem, all his life."
