ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to demonstrate the ability of rabbinic Judaism to accommodate to modem political and economic institutions. The modernization potential of traditional rabbinic Judaism as actualized in the life of the religious Zionist federation (rkf) settlements. Max Weber identified motivational and structural traits in biblical Judaism that had a significant influence on the formation of the Protestant ethic. The chapter attributes the successful performance of the rkf to a rationalizing ethic embedded in rabbinic Judaism, an ethic that reinforces the national and socialist values shared by the rkf and the secular kibbutzim. The chapter consider the religious ethic from the phenomenological world of the rkf members, as reflected in their ideological literature; corroborates its cogency by empirical evidence; and connects it causally to the institutionalized action of the rkf members in the political and economic spheres. The rkf developed a religious subculture which incorporated the central values and norms of Jewish nationalism and of socialism within the orthodox framework.
