Quotes from Yoram Hazony

Proverbs is in many respects a work on ethics, presenting arguments concerning the manner in which moral precepts relate to life and the good; Job investigates the reasons good individuals (and, by implication, good nations) should suffer catastrophe; Esther seeks an account of how God's will works in political circumstances in which one sees nothing but the decisions and deeds of human actors; and so forth.

The fact is that man's mind is limited, and his understanding only partial. The biblical narrative makes this point unequivocally with respect to Moses, in reporting that he could not see God's face, but only his back.59 And it was no less true of the other prophets of Israel, who saw things in different ways because each of them was limited in his understanding, and to his own point of vantage.60

Thus, the Jewish empowerment entailed in creating a Jewish state was not merely a matter of guaranteeing external, physical security of the Jews. Ultimately, its aim is to provide an internal security of the soul, which is the indispensable precondition for the emergence of a noble, uniquely Jewish character and civilization.

The nationalism I grew up with is a principled standpoint that regards the world as governed best when nations are able to chart their own independent course, cultivating their own traditions and pursuing their own interests without interference. This is opposed to imperialism, which seeks to bring peace and prosperity to the world by uniting mankind, as much as possible, under a single political regime.

If the relationship between man and God were supposed to consist of man's acceptance of a paragraph of propositions that "raises among ourselves no other questions," there would be no sense at all in God's promising that if man inquires and seeks, he will be told "great things" that had until now been hidden.

It is a premise of Enlightenment liberalism that the only legitimate purpose of government is to enable individuals to make use of the freedom that is theirs by nature.

the purpose of the biblical editors, in gathering together such diverse and often sharply conflicting texts, was not to construct a unitary work with an unequivocal message. It was rather to assemble a work capable of capturing and reflecting a given tradition of inquiry so readers could strive to understand the various perspectives embraced by this tradition, and in so doing build up an understanding of their own.

What is created is a space in which a certain discourse arises, and a search for truth that is, in effect, unending.61 The reader who takes up the Hebrew Bible is thus invited and challenged to take up a place within this tradition of inquiry, and to continue its elaboration out of his or her own resources.

An order of independent nations would permit diverse forms of self-government, religion, and culture in a "world of experiments" that would benefit all mankind.

The new world they envision is one in which liberal theories of the rule of law, the market economy, and individual rights—all of which evolved in the domestic context of national states such as Britain, the Netherlands, and America—are regarded as universal truths and considered the appropriate basis for an international regime that will make the independence of the national state unnecessary

Suffice it to say that the God of Israel loves those who disobey for the sake of what is right, and is capable of being pleased when a man has used his freedom to wrestle with him and to prevail, so long as the path on behalf of which he struggles ultimately proves to be the right one in God's eyes.

Recognizing that the reasoning individual is far more likely to be carried away by some worthless passing fashion than he is to discover a new and valuable truth, they prefer to uphold ideas and behaviors that have been tested for generations and have stood their ground. And where they introduce alterations, they do so according to the method of constructive reasoning.

This same conviction that one has grasped the ultimate political truth and that all must now accept it likewise characterized Lenin's thought and Soviet imperialism during its entire seventy-year course. And it appears again in our own time in the doctrines of European Union, which finds no satisfaction in the rule of one nation, but seeks constantly to impose an ever-greater uniformity on all nations in accordance with the political truths its bureaucrats regard as universally evident.

It is the biblical stories of dissent and disobedience, then, that give us the courage to wrestle with man and with God where we must.149 Such a posture is the only guarantee that the Mosaic law itself, whose interpretation is in the hands of men, will continue to serve as an expression of justice and of God's will.

British and American concepts of individual liberty are not universals that can be immediately understood and desired by everyone, as is often claimed. They are themselves the cultural inheritance of certain tribes and nations.

Thus conservatives seek to undertake repairs in such a way as to increase the weightiness and importance of the edifice of traditional institutions in the eyes of the public, thereby strengthening it even as alterations are introduced. The techniques for doing this are well known. Conservative leadership tends to introduce repairs, wherever possible, by means of limited shifts in the extent to which the respective elements of the tradition are honored.

Unfortunately, there is much mediocre philosophy in circulation, and so one sometimes hears it said that There is no such thing as a family, only the individuals who make up the family. This is analogous to the claim that There is no such thing as a table, only the atoms that make up the table—which we also hear on occasion. But in reality, there are not only atoms and molecules. There are also tables.