Manhigut Yehudit - Jewish Philosophy

Jewish Philosophy

Moshe Feiglin has defined Jewishness as primarily being a culture and people, not merely a "religion", citing that the Torah refers to Jews as "Am Yisrael" or "The Nation of Israel". (It should be noted, however, that unlike other proponents of similar philosophies, such as Reconstructionist Judaism or Humanistic Judaism, Feiglin still stresses full adherence to Orthodox law. Furthermore, this is no major novelty in Orthodox Judaism; a casual perusal of Rabbinic literature will leave no doubt that the Jewish nation is just that – a nation created to demonstrate God's mastery and involvement in the world. The only question has been, in galut, are Jews to themselves attempt to restore practical Jewish statehood or not. Only since the Enlightenment era has the notion arisen, through Reform Judaism, that Jews are "Germans of the Mosaic persuasion", i.e. only a religion and not a people.) In an interview, Feiglin strongly criticized the "modern" tendency to view Judaism through the prism of "only" being a religion, going so far as to link the practice with one of the biggest villains in Jewish tradition, Haman:

...But in fact the concept "religious" is one taken from other cultures – mainly Christianity – and is totally unsuited to Jewish culture. The first person to use this concept was Haman the Wicked. '…and they do not observe the King's religion,' Haman said to Ahashverosh, in order to justify his version of the Final Solution. Christianity, which separated religion from life, created the concept of religion in its Western connotation, with which we are familiar. But Judaism isn't a religion. Judaism is a culture, a nation, a country, the Torah. It is a complete way of life, an important part of which is the observance of Mitzvot."

Manhigut's mission statement, as expressed by co-founder Shmuel Sackett is "Turning the state of the Jews into the Jewish State." Its ultimate vision and goal is to, in the words of the daily Aleinu prayer, "perfect the world in the Kingdom of the Almighty". All of the organization's newsletters end with this statement.