Zionism Does Not Prove Hashem's Existence
It's more inspiring than that
Recently, someone dropped a comment on one of my posts, offering what they considered "the strongest proof for Judaism: the return of our people to our land."
They even came armed with verses:
Zechariah 8:4-5: "There shall yet be old men and old women sitting in the streets of Jerusalem, every man with his staff in his hand because of his age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in her broad spaces."
Yirmiyahu 31:5: "Once again shall you plant vineyards in the hills of the Shomron."
And they weren’t done yet. They hit me with the history of the Shomron: "It was essentially desolate of Jews for over 2000 years. Such a prediction must have seemed fantastical to those hearing it even in the early 1900s. Yet Hashem has brought us back to our land to be a nation once more."
I’ve heard this argument so many times I could probably recite it in my sleep: “What other nation returned to their homeland after 2,000 years? It must be God!”
But honestly? That’s not how I see it. At all.
The True Story of Zionism
For 2,000 years, Jews prayed and prayed and prayed some more. We begged God to bring us back to Israel. Every single day, three times a day, we asked Hashem to blow his huge shofar and gather us back from our exile. And what happened? Absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. Two thousand years of exile, despite all the heartfelt prayers.
So, what finally changed? Was it God swooping in to save the day? Did Mashiach finally come to redeem us? Nope. It was people.
The return to the land wasn’t a divine miracle; it was the result of human effort. Zionism wasn’t just a secular movement—it had to be a secular movement. It was a rebellion against the whole idea that only God could bring us back to the land. Secular Zionists said, loud and clear: “We’re done waiting. We’ll do this ourselves.”
Predictably, most religious Jews were really against Zionism and its attempt to create a Jewish state in Israel without waiting for God. It's only after the movement was successful that some religious people turned around and said “Look at that! It's proof that our religion is right!”
The Power of Human Action
Zionism is kind of like medicine. For thousands of years, people prayed to God to cure diseases like malaria. How did that go? Spoiler: malaria stuck around. It wasn’t until humans got their act together—figured out how mosquitoes work, developed vaccines, and implemented public health measures—that malaria started to disappear.
But here’s the biggest chutzpah: once the vaccines are invented, religious people often turn around and thank God for them. Like, really? God had nothing to do with it. It was human effort, scientific research, and a lot of trial and error. In the battle between hishtadlus and bitachon, it's hishtadlus that does all the heavy lifting while bitachon tries to take the credit.
Zionism is the same story. God didn’t return the Jewish people to Israel. Zionism was a political movement, not a divine miracle. Two thousand years of praying got us nowhere, and then—finally—humans stepped up and made it happen.
If anything, the fact that praying didn’t work is the biggest proof that God isn’t involved in our lives. When something does happen, it’s because we make it happen.
To paraphrase: “B’koicheinu v’otzem yadeinu asinu es zois”—with our own strength and effort, we accomplished this.
About Those Prophecies...
Now, let’s talk about the Nevi'im and their prophecies. People love to point to them as proof of divine intervention, but let’s be real—this is the textbook definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Judaism is a religion that has spent thousands of years obsessed with the loss of the land and the promise of eventually returning to it. It’s been drilled into our heads for generations. So, is it really that shocking that, when the opportunity arose, people acted on it?
Prophecies like these don’t prove anything supernatural. They’re more like a really long-term to-do list that some very determined people, secular people mind you, decided to check off themselves instead of waiting for God to step in.
Zionism isn’t proof of God’s involvement in history—it’s proof against it.
Think about it: If God really wanted us back in the land, why didn’t He just... do it? Why make us wait 2,000 years? Why let us sit around praying and crying for centuries? When something finally changed, it wasn’t because God opened the heavens and said, “Alright, it’s time.” It was because humans got tired of waiting and took matters into their own hands.
Zionism is like that moment when you realize your Uber isn’t coming, so you just start walking. When you get to where you need to go, it’s pretty bizarre when people tell you to now thank the Uber driver who never showed up.
I'm honored that a comment I wrote while waiting at a bus stop in Jerusalem yesterday inspired a post. For future reference, I'm just one man, you needn't refer to me as "they", "he" will suffice. It is true that for thousands of years many Jews thought that the redemption would come immediately in one moment. They ignored the many sources saying it would come gradually, such as the Talmud Yerushalmi Berachos. The question is, now that it has appeared to have begun in a non miraculous manner, can we see God's hand in it? The more I study it, the more I say yes. Putting aside the miraculous wins of Israel in 1948 and 1967, there are so many details of the story that are so astounding yet most people do not know of them.
For example, do you know that the Balfour Declararion was not supported by most Jews? Most Jews at the time did not support Zionism. So how did it come to be? By Rav Kook's urging. He had just happened to have been in London during WW1, since he just had happened to have left The Land of Israel shorty before the outbreak of the war to go to an Agudah Convention in Europe and was stuck there. Then somehow he made it to London. The British Parliament, seeing Rav Kook as a traditional Jew, felt it right to ignore the opposition of those assimilated Jews who opposed Zionism. But wait, didn't most religious Jews also oppose Zionism? Why couldn't they come to testify against it? Because they were mostly in Germany and Austria-Hungary, who were at the time enemies of England! To me, this story represents the hand of God in history.
Your last section about prophecies totally contradicts the first part and proves that it was God. Who is least likely to believe in and care about and try to fulfill these prophecies? The secular. Yet they were the unwitting messengers of God to bring Jews back to Israel, against all odds.