American Zionism: The Solution to America's Mental Health Crisis

It's so zany, it just might work.

(Early Zionists Working the Land)

G-d has a funny sense of humor. 

He has this way of bringing together such seemingly impossible things that one has to laugh at His brilliance.

In the 20th century, there were two great leaders. One hated cigarettes and banned smoking them in his presence, never drank alcohol, and was known as the kindest dog owner in the world. The other smoked 6 feet of cigars a day, drank a bottle of champagne with lunch, and was known as the most drunken buffoon in the western hemisphere. 

And it was this drunken buffoon who saved the world from the temperate vegetarian, Adolf Hitler. 

So when I tell you that Zionism, the most despised ideology in America, is the solution to all of her problems, understand that this is where I am coming from. 

Anyone who knows me knows that there are two issues that I care about more than any other: Zionism and Mental Health. 

As a mentally ill Zionist Poet, it may seem convenient that I just happen to think that one issue solves the other, and it is.

Zionism is a very strange and a very simple political philosophy. It is the belief that we can build the nation of our ancient dreams with our own hands in the land of our ancestors. 

In the past three hundred years, there are only two political philosophies that have produced successful nation-states: Zionism and Scottish Social Contract Theory, the philosophy on which this great country is built. 

I believe there is a reason for this.

Both Zionism and Social Contract Theory believe in the strength and the sanctity of the individual. Both are built on the idea that the individual members of a nation have agency as individuals within that nation. And both understand that there is a natural tension between the individual and the nation. 

It is one of the fundamental problems of being human.

I do not like being alone, and I do not like other people. 

And that is why man enters into a social contract, but he does so grudgingly.

At least, that is the case with the social contract posited by Locke. 

But the social contract posited by the Zionists is very different. 

In the Anglo-American social contract, everything is about the preservation of private property.

But in the Zionist social contract, everything is about the preservation of the living community. 

Because Zionism was forged in the fires of antisemitism, its founders understood that private property could not be protected if the community was in danger. 

However, the only danger to private property that the Anglo-Americans could imagine was tyranny and theft, the idea that the entire living community of a population could be under threat was impossible to conceive. 

But the Jews were always under siege.

In the back of the Mahzor, in the Martyrology section, I read a piece about the Jews of Blois. Who, when the blood libel was cast against them, attempted to bribe the notoriously greedy count. They offered him 180 pounds of gold up front, all of the wealth that they had, and 180 pounds in futures, all of the wealth they would have to come. 

That happened 900 years ago, but there are stories just like it from every decade of Jewish life lived on every continent and in every country. 

(A fresco of a blood libel painted by the monk Adam Swach (1668-1747) at the cathedral basilica in Sandomierz, Poland.)

Therefore, the Jewish individual, at his most individualistic, understands that his entire life is wrapped up with the life of the community. That he cannot live if his community dies. 

And this is as true for all men as it is for the Jews. 

The founding fathers of America could not have fathomed that we would be living in an age where teenagers are massacring other teenagers, and the only public discourse we can seem to have is about guns.   

Last night, 140 Americans committed suicide. The same the night before that, and the night before that, and the night before that. 

Our best high schools and universities are quietly covering up the fact that our best and brightest are killing themselves every year. 

Some by suicide, some by overdose.

The children of America are crying out for a purpose to their lives, and they are being given nothing but politics and pornography. 

In my lifetime, we have legalized online gambling, legalized marijuana, and legalized subscription pornography, but we have done nothing to address the epidemic of emptiness that haunts this country like a banshee. 

The most unsurprising element of the campus encampments last year was how popular they were: that was the first time most of those kids had ever been told that they were a part of a community, part of something bigger than themselves.

That thing happened to be antisemitism and the community happened to be a death cult, but the yearning is the same. 

People need community, and they need to feel like their life matters to someone else. 

In Israel, everyone knows that the person sitting next to them could be the person who saves their life, and, if called upon, they might be needed to save theirs. 

When you feel that way about your countrymen, you and your country thrive together. 

But you can’t spell America without ME and I. 

We have become a nation of the self, wrapped up in a technological solipsism that is slowly driving us all insane. 

While the campus campers displayed a strong desire for community and kinship, they also displayed an almost preposterous level of narcissism and self-centeredness. 

And, truly, I feel bad for them. 

Imagine how shallow their lives must be if their basic understanding of the world is so flawed.

Imagine how little nuance they understand if they see the world through oppression-tinted glasses. 

Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire because he cared more about a cause he didn’t understand than he did about his own life. What does that say about where these kids are at? 

My heart breaks for them, more than it does for the Jewish students they torment. 

The Jewish students on American campuses right now are under siege. They are being denied the fun and carefree college experience they were advertised. They have been forced to grow up quickly and look out for one another.

And their lives will be infinitely better for it. 

The crucible that they are in right now will teach them more about the right values in life than anything else could. 

While their peers are ditching class to barricade libraries, they are learning what it truly means to be a Zionist. 

The cavalry is not coming. The schools are not going to do anything. The Hillels cannot protect them everywhere they go. 

The Jewish students are on their own, and look at how much they are thriving. 

Like the Kibbutzniks of old, they are building everything with their own two hands. They are creating organizations, building communities, and speaking out – they are doing meaningful things as members of their community. 

Their peers, by contrast, are trying to tear the very fabric of the American community apart. 

So what we need is an American Zionism, a new political philosophy that ties man’s need for community to his need for freedom. 

There is a difference between a “freedom from” something and a “freedom to” something. 

In America, we are free from almost everything, but perhaps we have become so free as to be free of any salient reason for living. 

As someone who was raised in the decadence of 21st century America, I can say first hand that it is soul crushing. 

We have so much comfort and convenience in our lives that our lives have lost all meaning. 

And there is only one cure for a life that is too comfortable – dirty hands. 

Spread Love, Spread Light, 

Am Yisrael Chai

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