Jewish Life, Spring 1974
Ed. Note: Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan briefly served as editor of Jewish Life, the precursor to Jewish Action, in 1974. During his tenure, he wrote the following editor’s note, which was published amid the Watergate scandal and the Arab oil embargo. In response to the US’s support for Israel during the war with Egypt and Syria, Arab oil producers halted exports to the US. This resulted in soaring gas prices, long lines at gas stations and a major economic downturn.
Oil, Providence and Israel
If a generation ago, someone would have suggested that the economies of the United States and the great European powers might depend on a Halachic question, he would have been considered mad. Yet, this past winter, this proved to be exactly the case.
If size or population were the sole criterion, Israel would be counted as one of the more insignificant nations of the world. As the birthplace of the Bible, it might have stirred some interest, but it would never be the focus of world concern. There is one factor that makes Israel the center of international politics—and that is the fact that it is surrounded by a veritable sea of oil. Since its birth, Israel has been at odds with the Arabs, who control a very large percentage of the world’s oil supply.
Of late, the Arabs have been learning how to use oil diplomacy as a weapon. As a result, any conflict in the Middle East is felt by all the great oil consuming nations, who depend on the Arabs for the bulk of their energy supply. Therefore, any movement that Israel makes vis-a-vis the Arabs has reverberations throughout the industrialized world.
During the past winter, the settlement of the Middle East stalemate, and hence the flow of Arab oil, was greatly dependent on Golda Meir’s ability to form a viable majority government. One of the major obstacles was the Religious Block (Mafdal), who would not join the government until the question of “Who is a Jew” was cleared up in a manner conforming to Halachah. Until what was basically a Halachic question could be resolved, it seemed that the oil taps would remain shut, and that the great powers would have their thirst for oil unassuaged. Thus, in a sense, the economies of the great industrial powers—for a while at least—were dependent on a question of Halachah.
We often say, “the Torah is the blueprint of the world,” and that “the whole world depends on the Torah.” This is one time when we were actually privileged to see this in practice.
Another teaching closely related to this is that “Eretz Yisroel is the center of the world.” In ancient times, this was literally the case, since Israel was the only land bridge between the Eurasian and African continents. If one wanted to cross over from Eurasia to Africa by land, the only way to do so was to pass through Israel. In many ways, it was Israel’s geographic position at the crossroads of civilization, that put her in contact with every major culture of the ancient world.
In modem times, this geographic position is no longer that crucial. As if in compensation, another factor has suddenly come to the fore. It is the fact that Israel’s neighbors control the bulk of the world’s oil supply, which guarantees that every great world power will once again take a strong interest in events in that area.
But the more we think about this, the more an important question comes to mind. Why is all this oil found just there? Why did Divine Providence—for this cannot be mere coincidence—place the world’s energy treasures right at Israel’s doorstep? Pondering this question is enough to convince even the skeptic that we are somehow witnessing a drama whose script was written a very long time ago.
The question becomes all the more striking when one realizes that our century—the one in which the State of Israel was re-established—is, and will remain, the one which is the most dependent on oil as a source of its energy. A century ago, coal was the main energy source, while in the century to come, it will most probably be either nuclear or solar energy. It is precisely at the moment that the drama is being played that oil is playing its most important role.
There may be some of William James’ proverbial “tough minded” individuals who will fail to see the hand of G-d in all this, but they will have to be very tough minded indeed.
Frank Wills
Anyone who has ever seriously given any consideration to the tides of history knows of those pivotal events, often unrecorded, upon which the fates of empires and civilizations are decided. It is often a relatively minor decision on the part of an obscure individual that ultimately changes the world for centuries to come.
The prime example of this was the Egyptian slave who refused to be seduced by his master’s wife. He was falsely accused of attempted rape and, as a result, imprisoned. In prison, he came in contact with Pharoah’s butler, and thus, Joseph eventually became the prime minister of Egypt, and in this capacity, saved the greatest civilization of the ancient world from being decimated by famine. Closely intertwined with this was the emigration of Jacob and his family to Egypt, leading to the drama of the Exodus and the birth of the Jewish people. All of this resulted from a relatively “unimportant” decision on the part of a lowly slave.
In the past year, the shape of national—and ultimately world—history, has been shaped largely by a decision of Frank Wills, a security guard at 2600 Virginia Avenue in Washington, D.C. If he had not noticed a piece of tape over a lock, or had neglected to report it, the country today would not be rocked by the national trauma named for the building he guarded: Watergate.
Our sages teach us that every act that an individual does ultimately has reverberations that will affect mankind as a whole. Besides this, who knows which events will be pivotal in shaping world history. Providence has allowed us to be witness to one such pivotal event—the decision of Frank Wills—and the world is trembling at its outcome.
As this is being written, the fate of the Presidency, and ultimately of the United States as a whole, is hanging in the balance. Whatever direction this ultimately takes, the government will remain scarred and disrupted for decades to come, it is a situation unprecedented in modem history, and for this very reason, no one can predict just how cataclysmic its effects will be. And as President Nixon himself has pointed out many times, we are also at a pivotal point in world history—with Europe, Russia, China and the Middle East in the balance—and therefore, the outcome of Watergate and the impeachment trial will have unprecedented effects on the world as a whole.
Much of what happens in the next few decades—and perhaps for a much longer time—will depend on the decisions of one individual—President Nixon himself. At this most fateful time in world history—and ultimately in Jewish history as well—it would be well for us to ponder the verse (Proverbs 21:1), “The king’s heart is in the hands of G-d. . . . He turns it wherever he wills.”
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