Utopia Found

We have looked at the Greek concepts that became a blueprint for Utopian ideals, and we have suggested strongly that the Greek Utopias were modeled after stories about the first Utopia, the Garden of Eden. We have described what was arguably then the second example of a Utopia in the real world modeled by Moses in the Wilderness from what he knew of the Garden and what he was taught by God. I also make the claim that this social experiment continued in the Land of Israel for the next 3-400 years. Under the rule of Judges, again, the Guardians who held everything together, every Tribe, The Producers who also provided the Auxiliaries or defenders of the Land, maintained their own community with all bound together by their belief in God and His Laws and instruction as taught by the Levites in every community. This also became a strong influence on the Greek philosophy, especially the philosopher Pythagoras, who is believed to have studied with the Jews and might have been taught by Jeremiah or his student Baruch, created the third example of a real-world Utopia. We then moved to the Renaissance and Middle Ages and found several examples of others writing their own versions of Utopia but never putting them into practice.

So far then, we've been talking mostly about imaginary utopias—ideal societies described in books. But what happens when people actually try to build utopia in the real world? For an answer, we can look at one of the most successful utopian experiments in history: the kibbutz movement in Israel.