by Prof. Paul Eidelberg

In A Jewish Philosophy of History: Israel's Degradation and Redemption, Prof. Paul Eidelberg unites three disciplines — politics, philosophy, and science — in reader-friendly language.

Since its first printing in 2004, dramatic events have occurred in the world which further confirm Israel's current degradation, but which also point to Israel's ultimate redemption. After a candid analysis of Israel's degradation, Eidelberg sets forth a comprehensive remedial program. He reveals the flawed mentality of Israel's ruling elites as well as the inherent flaws of Israel's system of governance, both of which hinder a renaissance of Hebraic civilization. Eidelberg sees this renaissance as essential for overcoming the clash between of the West, now mired in relativism, and Islam long trapped in absolutism.

Eidelberg explains that Judaism is not a religion so much as a verifiable system of knowledge. Citing the works of eminent physicists from Einstein to Hawking, he reveals the convergence of science and Torah. He then sets forth the world-historical program of the Torah. But what is most remarkable, he shows how philosophers, scientists, and empires since the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE, have unwittingly facilitated the Torah's world-historical program! He concludes by elucidating the basic principles of Hebraic civilization, precisely what mankind needs to avoid the scourge of Western Nihilism and Islamic Jihad.

334 pp. including Appendix, Index and Bibliography. Paperback.
ISBN 0-9719388-9-X                                                             $22.95              

From the PROLOGUE

...It so happened, however, that the existential threat confronting Israel prompted me to write two other books, one concerning the flawed mentality of Israel’s political and intellectual leaders, the other concerning Israel’s political system, whose fragmented character prevents the government from pursuing a coherent and resolute national strategy against Israel’s Arab foes. But now the time had come to weave the threads of that Jewish philosophy of history I had seen two decades ago, especially in view of Israel’s current degradation and the despair of so many Jews regarding Israel’s future. Time to show that this degradation is but a necessary stage of Israel’s Final Redemption.

Paul Eidelberg (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is an internationally renowned political scientist. He is the author of ten books on American and Jewish statesmanship, the Israel-Arab conflict, and Jewish philosophy. He is the co-founder and president of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy. Professor Eidelberg now lives in Jerusalem.

Accordingly, Part I of this book is addressed to an analysis of Israel’s malaise and what must be done to overcome it. Chapter 1 discusses Israel’s degradation resulting from three basic failings: first and foremost, the government’s Secular Zionism, which formed the intellectual foundation of Israel’s rebirth in May 1948; second, the government’s failure to exploit the victory of the Israel Defense Forces in the Six-Day War of June 1967; third, the government’s signing the Oslo or Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles of September 1993.  

Chapter 2 discusses the “Arab problem.” It sets forth a national strategy addressed to two interrelated dangers: (1) the danger posed by Israel’s Arab citizens who identify with their kinsmen, the so-called Palestinians, and (2) the danger of an Arab Palestinian state, whose inhabitants are openly dedicated to Israel’s extermination. The chapter shows how these two dangers can be overcome by a rigorous application of democratic as well as Jewish principles. 

Chapter 3 discusses the political dimensions of the “Jewish problem.” It shows that Israel’s basic dilemmas—including the threat to its existence—are largely the result of its flawed legislative, executive, and judicial institutions. The chapter offers a program of institutional and other reforms that will simultaneously make Israel more Jewish, more democratic, and more capable of overcoming its internal and external dangers.

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 discuss the psychological dimensions of the “Jewish problem.” Chapter 4 shows that Israel’s ruling elites suffer from a pathological syndrome which I call “demophrenia.” This syndrome glues them to the suicidal policy of “territory for peace,” a policy that entails the establishment of a Palestinian state in which an entire generation of Arab children exalts homicide bombers. Underlying this syndrome is the doctrine of moral relativism, which renders all “lifestyles” equal. Relativism, which permeates all levels of education in the democratic world, has eroded Jewish national pride and makes Israel’s political elites incapable of dealing effectively with the country’s internal and external enemies. Chapter 5 refutes this doctrine. It thus provides the basis for refuting, in Chapter 6, modern psychology. Virtually every school of modern psychology posits the primacy of the emotions in opposition to Judaism, which affirms the primacy of reason.

Chapter 7 discusses the Convergence of Science and Torah and reveals Judaism as the religion of reason. We read in the Midrash: “God looked at the letters and words of the Torah and created the world.” This reminds us of Plato’s cosmological dialogue the Timeaus, where the “Demiurge” looked at the eternal Ideas and formed the heavens and the earth. But Plato’s Demiurge is a craftsman, not a creator.  He fashioned the visible universe from a preexisting, formless matter; he did not create that “matter.” There is no creatio ex nihilo in Greek philosophy. Thanks to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, however, creatio ex nihilo has become the reigning cosmology of science. This confirms the account of creation in Genesis 1:1 and lends credence to the idea that the Torah is the “DNA” of Nature and History. Obviously this idea also makes a Jewish philosophy of history possible—the subject of Part II of this book.

Chapter 8 sets forth the World-Historical Program of the Torah, the fulfillment of which requires the Chosen People.  The concept of the Chosen People is clarified in terms of history, philosophy, and science. The chapter advances the iconoclastic idea that Jerusalem, not Athens, is the source of philosophy, that Judaism is a comprehensive and verifiable system of truth. This is a necessary precondition of fulfilling the goal of the Torah: to eliminate all forms of idolatry on the one hand, and to promote the universal recognition of ethical monotheism on the other. Suffice to say here that idolatry is the worship of any created thing, including the products of the human mind. Idolatry therefore includes (1) the postulation of any physical entity, law, or process as autonomous or independent of God; and (2) the belief that any scientific theory fully comprehends reality or that any political ideology or system of government formulated by man is wholly adequate for the physical and spiritual happiness of mankind. Obviously there are more or less primitive and more or less refined forms of idolatry.  

We start in Chapter 9 with the pre-Socratic philosophers, some of whom flourished at the time of the destruction of the First Temple and were apparently influenced by Jews. The pre-Socratics undermined belief in the Homeric gods by depersonalizing the “forces” of nature. As a consequence, they left nature lifeless and human life meaningless. Enter Plato and Aristotle, two of the greatest legislators of the human mind. As will be seen in Chapter 10, Plato and Aristotle deified human reason and developed an organic and teleological conception of nature that provided norms of how man should live. The demise of Zeus and the Greek pantheon followed. But it took Christianity—“a spark from Zion”—to apply the coup de grace to Greek and Roman polytheism.  This is discussed in Chapter 11, where we show that Christian antinomianism and the separation of Church and State planted the seed for the eventual ascendancy of secularism in the modern world.

Chapter 12 reveals the world-historical function of Islam as well as that of the United States and how both are unwittingly contributing to Israel’s demise as a secular democratic state, but therefore the ultimate ascendancy of Hebraic Civilization. This chapter also demonstrates that Islam and the West are involved in a clash of civilizations, the former based on a decadent religious absolutism, the latter based on a decadent secularism.

As will be seen later, the arch-priest of secularism is Machiavelli, the father of “Modernity”—the subject of Chapter 13. This chapter shows how Machiavelli’s new political science subverted the Greco-Christian tradition and left man without any morality. Two movements emerged from Machiavelli—nurtured, of course, by his philosophical successors: the undisguised egoism of Individualism and the covert egoism of Statism. Armed by an ethically-neutral science, these two isms clashed in the two World Wars of the twentieth century. Those wars, which revealed the moral bankruptcy of Western civilization, led to the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, the rebirth of Israel.

This fact, together with the decadence of the West and Islam, calls out silently for a renaissance of Hebraic Civilization, the essence of which is discussed in the concluding chapter.

An Appendix contains my edited version of an essay written by Dr. Zimmerman showing that Israel’s rebirth is the result of providential laws of history pointing to Israel’s Final Redemption.