תורה שבעל־-פה: קריאה פואטית-־פרפורמטיבית בהגותם של ישעיהו ליבוביץ ועובדיה יוסף

Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Ovadia Yosef delivered talks to diverse audiences for many years, leaving thousands of hours of audio and video recordings available for review. In research on philosophical writings, the prevailing approach is that speech-oriented events are “occasional layers,” while the examining of written materials is the primary way to understand a worldview. The article challenges this assumption and proposes a new method for examining Zionist political theology based on an examination of the performative expressions of political theology. The sensitive examination of Leibowitz and Yosef’s oral teachings, as presented in the article, emphasizes, in particular, the performative poetics of oral teachings. In his talks, Yosef attributed the success of the State of Israel to divine intervention characterizing the entirety of sacred history, while Leibowitz described the state as a political phenomenon with no connection to divine intervention. To separate theology from Zionism, Leibowitz chose outrageous and ironic formulations such as “we are fed up of being ruled by goyim”; Yosef, on the other hand, chose parodic and agenda-inspired formulations that subjugate Zionism to divine providence. But despite the obvious differences in content and performance, there is a surprising similarity between the professor from Riga and the Rishon LeZion from Baghdad when it comes to their attitude towards Zionism: the article reveals that both saw it as a positive instrument for organizing the lives of Jews and opposed the claim that Zionism and the state necessitate the reorganization of a theological system that regards the state as “The nascent flowering of our redemption.”