By Rabbi Josh Wander

It is relatively easy to get the Jew out of exile. Buy a ticket, pack the suitcases, board an airplane, and a few hours later you can be standing in Eretz Yisrael. But getting the exile out of the Jew is considerably more difficult. Two thousand years of galut did more than scatter us geographically. It created habits of thought: dependence upon foreign rulers, discomfort with Jewish sovereignty and, perhaps most deeply, the instinct that our security ultimately depends upon maintaining the favor of the nations among whom we live.

We witnessed a remarkable illustration of this mentality this past week. The Satmar Rebbe publicly condemned those who suggested that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani harbors ill will toward Jews. Certainly, accusations against anyone should be based upon evidence. But the irony is difficult to ignore. Mamdani has become one of America’s most prominent political critics of Israel, yet within a community ideologically opposed to Zionism, cultivating a relationship with the political leadership of New York can appear entirely natural, while recognizing Jewish political sovereignty in our ancestral homeland remains deeply problematic.

At almost exactly the same time, prominent Satmar businessman Yoel Landau held a historic meeting with the Gerrer Rebbe. A video of their conversation subsequently circulated in which the discussion reportedly turned to whether it would be permissible to fight the State of Israel through international institutions, including The Hague. The exchange was interpreted by some as opening the door to financing efforts actively opposing the State. If that interpretation is accurate, this is far more than another disagreement over Israeli government policy.

The Hasidic dynasty of Ger historically followed a very different practical path from Satmar sect. The Torah leaders associated with Agudas Yisrael chose participation in the political institutions of the Jewish state. Their representatives entered the Knesset, negotiated with governments, fought for Torah interests and secured resources for their institutions. They certainly disagreed with Zionism and many policies of the State, but they nevertheless chose to work within Jewish sovereignty rather than wage war against it from outside.

There is nothing illegitimate about fiercely opposing the policies of an Israeli government. Israelis do it every day. Haredim, Religious Zionists, secular Israelis, Arabs, leftists and rightists demonstrate, lobby, vote and attempt to bring down governments whose policies they oppose. That is politics. But appealing to foreign governments or international institutions to act against the State of Israel itself crosses a fundamentally different line. It takes an internal dispute and deliberately places it into the hands of the nations.

This is where intellectual consistency becomes unavoidable. If your representatives sit in the Knesset, negotiate coalition agreements, control ministries, receive government budgets and exercise political power through the institutions of the State of Israel, then you are participating in Jewish sovereignty whether or not you embrace Zionist ideology or sing Hatikvah. You cannot treat the State as legitimate when negotiating billions of shekels for schools and yeshivot, yet reject its legitimacy when its government makes decisions you oppose. Conversely, if your theological position is that the Jewish state is fundamentally illegitimate and should be fought before the nations of the world, then accept the consequences of that position. Do not sit in its parliament, negotiate for ministries or demand government funding. One cannot enjoy the benefits and political influence of Jewish sovereignty while simultaneously encouraging outsiders to undermine that sovereignty.

There is a striking biblical precedent for precisely this kind of contradiction. On Har HaCarmel, Eliyahu HaNavi confronted a nation attempting to straddle two incompatible positions and declared: “עַד מָתַי אַתֶּם פֹּסְחִים עַל שְׁתֵּי הַסְּעִפִּים? אִם ה׳ הָאֱלֹקִים לְכוּ אַחֲרָיו, וְאִם הַבַּעַל לְכוּ אַחֲרָיו” — “How long will you keep hopping between two opinions? If Hashem is God, follow Him; and if Baal, follow him.” Eliyahu demanded consistency: stop trying to stand on both sides at once. The comparison is obviously not between contemporary Jews and worshippers of Baal, but the principle is unmistakable. You cannot simultaneously affirm and reject the same authority whenever convenient. If the State of Israel is legitimate enough to sit in its Knesset, wield its political power and accept its funding, then fight your political battles within it. If you genuinely believe Jewish sovereignty is illegitimate, then have the courage to live consistently with that belief.

In this narrow sense, and however twisted I believe their broader ideology to be, Neturei Karta are at least consistent. They do not merely talk the talk of rejecting the legitimacy of the State; they attempt to walk the walk. They reject participation in Israeli national elections and significant forms of state assistance because accepting those benefits would contradict their ideological position. I profoundly disagree with their rejection of Jewish sovereignty, and certainly with those who embrace Israel’s enemies in order to demonstrate it, but there is an internal logic to saying: if I reject the authority of this state, I cannot simultaneously demand a share of its political power and treasury.

That principle also suggests an intellectually consistent alternative for anyone who genuinely cannot recognize the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty. Israel already distinguishes between citizenship and permanent residency. Those who voluntarily reject Israeli citizenship on ideological grounds can live as permanent residents, enjoying the individual rights and protections afforded by the State without claiming the national political rights that accompany citizenship, most importantly voting for the Knesset. What makes no sense is simultaneously rejecting the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty while demanding the political privileges that sovereignty provides.

This is precisely where the deeper problem of galut emerges. For nearly two thousand years Jews learned to appeal to kings, governors, princes and presidents when we had disputes. Often there was no alternative. We had no army, government or sovereign institutions of our own. Appealing to the ruler was the political reality of exile. But a survival mechanism developed during two thousand years of statelessness becomes profoundly destructive when carried into an era of restored Jewish sovereignty.

Perhaps this is precisely what Chazal meant when they taught, as codified by the Rambam, that there is no difference between this world and the days of Moshiach except “שעבוד מלכויות בלבד” — “subjugation to the kingdoms alone.” The Rambam teaches that the Messianic transformation does not require the natural world to suddenly change. What changes is the condition of the Jewish people: we are no longer subjected to foreign rule. But ending shi’abud malchuyot requires more than possessing a flag, an army and a parliament. We must stop thinking like a subjugated people. If, after Jewish sovereignty has been restored, our instinct when confronting our fellow Jews is still to run to foreign rulers and international tribunals to intervene against them, then perhaps the physical shi’abud malchuyot has ended while its psychological remnants remain deeply embedded within us.

Today, millions of Jews once again live under Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael. We have a parliament, courts, police, an army and institutions through which our disagreements can be fought. They are imperfect because they are human institutions, and Jews have every right to struggle passionately to change them. But there is an enormous difference between fighting your fellow Jews over the direction of our country and recruiting the nations of the world to fight the Jewish state for you.

Perhaps that is one of the most stubborn remnants of galut: the feeling that the address for solving Jewish problems still lies somewhere outside the Jewish people. When we dislike what the Jews in Jerusalem are doing, we turn toward New York, Washington, Brussels or The Hague. The ruler changes, the palace changes and the language changes, but the psychology remains frighteningly familiar. We may have left the court of the poritz, but too often we continue searching for a poritz to solve our problems.

The debate is therefore much bigger than Satmar, Ger, Neturei Karta or Agudas Yisrael. It forces us to confront a deeper question: Do we actually believe that Jewish history has changed? Hashem has brought millions of Jews back to their ancestral homeland. Hebrew has returned as a living language. Jerusalem is once again the capital of a sovereign Jewish state. Jewish soldiers defend Jewish cities, Jewish farmers work Jewish fields and Jews once again bear responsibility for governing themselves. We prayed for this reality for two thousand years.

Yet rebuilding Jewish sovereignty may prove easier than rebuilding the Jewish sovereign mindset. Airplanes can bring Jews home in hours, but they cannot erase two thousand years of exile from our consciousness. Perhaps this is one of the great challenges of our generation and one of the necessary stages of Geula. We have succeeded in getting millions of Jews out of galut. Now comes the considerably harder task: getting the galut out of the Jew.