Likud - Is it Just a Tactic?

A few months ago I was sitting in the back of Moshe Feiglin's car, on the way back from a little shindig I had helped organize for Manhigut at a charming home in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Katemon. A few minutes into the ride, I decided to ask him the following question. "Moshe, how many people do you think really understand the depth of what you're trying to do?"

"It's hard to tell," he answered me. "Even within Manhigut Yehudit, not everyone really gets it."

Given that, I will try to explain, to the best of my own incomplete understanding, the depth behind the movement.

There are many that see the phenomenon of Manhigut Yehudit in Likud as an interesting tactic. Some faithful Jews love the idea of joining the major party in the National Camp and see it as ingenious. Other faithful Jews see it in the opposite light, namely a waste of energy and resources, divisive, and pulling away much needed support for sectorial parties like National Union. When someone from the former camp tries to convince someone from the latter to become a member of the Likud Party, he might say, "Join! It's the only way we can win!" The other responds with a tactical answer, as in, "That won't work. You're dreaming. If Feiglin takes over Likud, it will disintegrate."

If you look closer at this exchange, you'll notice that there is no ideological debate going on. There is no difference of opinion, principle, or outlook. No - not because both of them are right on the money ideologically. In fact, both of them are completely missing the point.

To understand why, let's look at it from the opposite perspective - the Left Wing.

When whatever politician is leading the country tries his best to come to a "Peace Agreement" with the Arabs, his brain no doubt goes through flips as he surrounds himself with an arsenal of advisers and consultants, thinking, meditating, obsessing over how, exactly, is he going to make this Peace Agreement work. He tries Oslo, oops. The problem with that one was X. He backtracks a bit and thinks about Wye. Oh well, the problem there was Y. We can fix that. Let's go for a Road Map. Oh fiddlesticks, problem Z - but we're getting closer now, running out of letters in the alphabet and all. How about Disengagement? That should definitely work. What?! No - no, the answer is we have to have a demilitarized...agree on the final status first...maybe Geneva...

The problem with the Leftist, from Beilin to Peres to Sharon to Bibi, is that he's all about tactics. Which combination of giving away land, what exact steps are required, how PRECISELY do we have to do it to make it work? All of his tactics will fail, because there is no ideology behind what he is trying to do. All there is...is fear. Fear of a "demographic problem," fear of starting a war, fear of international condemnation, fear of this and that. But nothing drives him forward in the positive sense. Only backward.

If we, the faithful public replete with Jewish identity, are to descend into solely tactical arguments about what steps, precisely, we have to make in order for "our side" to "win," then we are no better than the Left.

But then, isn't joining the Likud Party a tactic? How else can one explain it?

In my opinion, though joining the Likud party superficially can be termed a tactic, it is so much deeper than that. To win this war, we need not tactics, but belief in ourselves and in God. We have to understand that this is not about "our side" finally "winning." It is about the Jewish People as a whole. We must internalize that we, the believing public, are not second class citizens, that we can no longer leave the country to the faithless elite, and that we have a God-given responsibility to lead the Jewish People, because no one else will. To believe that, we have to accept, on faith, one crucial thing, and that is this:

When, God willing, Moshe Feiglin, or another man like him, sits at the head of the National Camp, whether that party's name is Likud or not, the people of Israel will follow him.

When a faithful Jew makes the claim that if one of us actually heads the party of the National Camp, that party will disintegrate, he is essentially saying this: No one will ever follow our lead. Nobody believes in us.

Joining the party of the National Camp is not just a tactic. It's a statement. A statement that we, the believing public who knows where this country must go, not only believe in God. We believe in His people. We believe in ourselves, that we must lead, and that we are no longer second class citizens.

I leave you with one last question. Can it actually work?

The answer: If we, as a People, believe that we are ready to take the torch of leadership, if we say it, loud and clear to the rest of the Nation, "We're ready for this, and we can do it," then not only can it work. It must. For if we are ready, God will give us our chance to prove it. That's how Jewish history, as a metaphysical reality, works.

But there's only one way to tell the Nation that we are, indeed, ready. We must join them. In this particular historical reality, that means we must sign up for Likud.

If we lead, they will follow. And if we build it, they will come. Bimehera beyamenu. Mamash.