Question
1. What is Authentic Judaism? What is considered Orthodox today was not Orthodoxy in the 1700’s. Religious Zionism is rather new on the scene, and Hasidism is probably less than 250 years old. Satmar claims to be authentic and would probably argue that your Yeshiva does not represent Judaism at all.
2. If the Tanakh is written primarily for Jews then how in the Messianic Era is the knowledge of the God of Israel meant to be spread throughout the Nations?
Answer
1. The best way to see authentic Judaism is by going back to the original: simply open a Tanach! You will see there that all of our forefathers worked for a living, served in the army, spoke Hebrew, lived as religious Jews in the Jewish State, in the Land of Israel. In other words, they lived exactly religious Zionism. What you wrote that “Religious Zionism is rather new on the scene” is only true regarding the rejuvenation of original Judaism, after almost 2,000 years of exile Judaism, which everyone agrees is temporary and not the authentic. The God Who runs History has clearly decided that it’s “time to come home” to Israel, and revive the original Judaism, which also encourages modernism, computers, medicine and making proper use of all the discoveries that the God of History gives us in every respective generation. BTW, Satmar is just another branch of hassidut which, as you wrote, is only about 250 years old.
2. We see that the God Who runs History wanted Tanach eventually to spread to all of mankind. That doesn’t mean to obligate all gentiles in 613 mitzvot, but that the eternal ideals, morals, priorities, and importance of the People of Israel are positive common denominators for all mankind.
