אתם עדי, נאום השם
Last Wednesday, Stephen Hawking, one of the most famous scientists in the world, passed away. His contributions to science have greatly impacted the world which we live in now, and his courage with which he faced his disease became an inspiration to so many. I truly admire his perseverance!
Hawking, on the other hand, had an ambivalent relationship with the State of Israel. He visited Israel many times, he participated with the Israeli scientific community and had a cordial relationship with the Hebrew State. But in the last 10-15 years years, this has changed. Hawking was no longer a great friend of Israel, but rather a participant in the BDS movement, an “anti-Semitic” organization that promotes not only the boycott of the State of Israel but also, albeit surreptitiously, its disappearance.
In 2013, for example, Hawking decided to boycott a conference held in Jerusalem in honor of the 90th anniversary of Shimon Peres, the former Israeli president. This attitude of Hawking provoked indignation in Israel and much of the Jewish world. The organizers of the conference wrote, “The academic boycott is, in our opinion, scandalous and improper, certainly for someone [like Hawking] for whom the spirit of freedom is based on his human and academic mission. Israel is a democracy in which all individuals are free to express their opinions, whatever they may be.The imposition of a boycott is incompatible with an open and democratic dialogue “.
And although many musicians and artists have previously refused to visit Israel, Hawking was the first scientist of his stature to openly support the boycott movement towards Israel. Many accused him of absolute anti-Semitism and others of cynicism, since the computer system through which Hawking could communicate worked on a chip designed by the Israeli team of Intel.
Why did Hawking become such an enemy of Israel?
Some newspapers write that this new negative attitude towards the Jewish state was due to the influence of Noam Chomsky, a very important scientist, founder of modern linguistics. Chomsky is a Jew, but an atheist activist, and infamous for his visceral antagonism and opposition to Israel.
This might be a valid reason…
In the next lines, however, I would like to contribute a personal idea about another possible reason for Hawking’s new anti-Israelism.
I had the opportunity to read many of Hawking’s works when I wrote my book “Awesome Creation”, where I deal with the biblical narrative of Creation vs. the Big Bang and other cosmological theories. In the first chapter, in a footnote I quote one of Hawking’s most famous expressions, in his “Brief History of Time” (1988) where he says that when modern scientists would be able to formulate the unified theory of physics, then we would be able to ” know the mind of God.” With that note I point out the arrogance of this statement and I compare it to what Bil’am (Balaam) declared. Balaam was the only man in the Bible who attributed himself to knowing the Divine Mind (although the Tora shows that Bil’am was not even able to understand the mind of his donkey …).
Now, although what Hawking said about God was arrogant, it was clear that Hawking DID believe in God (or at least he was an agnostic). But his belief changed over the years, perhaps due to his personal tragic disease. Hawking became a very influential voice for atheism when he published his book “The Great Design” (2010), which states that it is not necessary to invoke God to justify the existence of the universe. “There is no God”, he said, since “the laws of gravity may have created the universe without God’s intervention.” Now, explaining the origin of the laws of physics, is obviously as difficult as explaining the origin of the universe. Hawking’s statement, which Rabbi Jonathan Sacks categorized as an intellectual “fallacy”, would sound childish and almost silly, since it assumes that physical laws, gravity etc., pre-existed the appearance of the universe, and were not created , designed, calibrated, etc. But because Stephen Hawking was saying so, these superficial ideas that denied God’s intervention in the act of Creation gained some credibility…
Anyways, what I would like to analyze is another point. The relationship between “not believing in God” and the “opposition to the existence of the State of Israel,” particularly in modern Western society.
The Tora and especially King David in his Psalms, identified the enemies of Israel with the enemy of God. The existence of Israel, our miraculous departure from Egypt, the incredible journey of three million people through the desert, the providential conquest of the promised land, and especially the inexplicable survival of Israel in a hyper-hostile diaspora for almost two thousand years, can only be explained as a miracle or a series of miracles. If Israel exists, it is because God exists. But if Israel disappears, one could doubt His existence (ח”ו) .This concept was beautifully formulated by the prophet Yesha’ayahu who said (43:10): אתם עדי, “You – the Jewish people – are the witnesses, the living testimony of My existence. “
And what was true for 1900 years, became infinitely more true since 1948, when miraculously the same people who were systematically “exterminated” only three years before, were now establishing their own state in their original homeland. Something absolutely unprecedented !! Their children returned from all the countries of the world, fulfilling literally the oldest prophecies of the Bible. Israel fought against countless enemies, ALL her neighbors, in a ratio of 0.5 against 100 ! The countries that are antagonistic to the existence of Israel are rich, have the largest oil reserves in the world, and enjoy the support of 99% of the countries of the world. Israel is currently the only country on the planet whose existence is explicitly threatened, the only country permanently condemned and demonized by the United Nations…and despite all this, far from being a country in a state of emergency, corruption or desperation, Israel is a military, cultural, economic and technological “superpower”. Far from being a country where its inhabitants live in a permanent state of fear, tension and depression due to the dangers that they face, Israel is according to the new 208 statistics the 11th happiest country in the world! (USA ranked 18th)
THERE IS NO WAY to explain or justify the existence, survival, prosperity and happiness of Israel in a non supernatural manner, intelligent and informed people know it. And I think that this is why many people who do not believe in God, who are intelligent and well informed, resort to the last line of psychological defense that helps them sustain their atheism; demonizing Israel and directly or even indirectly, seeking its destruction.
When Hawking, Chomsky, Soros and many other atheist activists become the “irrational” enemies of Israel, they confirm once more the words of Yesha’ayahu: that our existence is a miracle. And that the people and the state of Israel, are the irrefutable testimony of the existence of God.
