Q&A: Several Questions
Several Questions
Question
Hello Rabbi, I have several questions:
A. The Rabbi’s view about separating religion and state is well known. I heard the claim that if we separate religion from the state, it will create a non-Jewish majority in the country (apparently because of the definition of who is a Jew), which is certainly a danger from every standpoint, including security. Is that true? What is the answer?
B. Regarding crime in the Arab sector, and regarding the Bedouin—what should be done? What should be done about illegal Bedouin construction? Is it right for the state to pay for establishing Bedouin towns and schools?
C. The Rabbi surely knows the Talmudic passage that says that if the world were to stop studying Torah, the world would be destroyed, as it says: “If not for My covenant day and night, I would not have established the laws of heaven and earth.” Is that true? How can one know that it is true? It is something with no indication. And in general, people say that if we add more Torah and commandments, then the world will also become materially better—that is, fewer wars, diseases, and so on. What does the Rabbi think about that?
Thanks in advance
Answer
A. I didn’t understand. Separating religion from the state is not the same as separating nationhood from the state. Do all the countries in the world where the state is separated from religion fall apart? The Law of Return can certainly remain, where “Jew” is understood in some national sense and not in a religious sense.
B. This is a question unrelated to the first one. Obviously crime must be fought, and education and all their other needs must be addressed. They are citizens of the state. What is the question here? They should receive reasonable treatment like every other citizen. No more and no less.
C. I have no idea, and in my opinion nobody has any idea.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t see what is sarcastic about it. The criteria are, for example, what you wrote. Defining a nation is fluid by its very nature, and it is made up of various characteristics, such as language, culture, shared history, and so on.
But the Rabbi himself has written in many places that the concept of a Jew has no meaning without the religion within it—that there is no such thing as a Jew other than according to the religion’s definition.
Judaism is a religion, or a nation defined through religion. But anyone can come along and propose a national-cultural definition as he wishes. It will of course have no value dimension whatsoever, and it also does not continue Judaism in its traditional sense in any essential way. There is no value in speaking Hebrew, reading Amos Oz, and eating falafel.
Separating religion (more precisely, the Written Torah) from the State of Israel means that the State of Israel is a state like all other nations, with nothing Jewish-Israeli about it. Jews exist everywhere. The Law of Return is nonsense. Calling Arabs Israelis is like calling a Jew an Ishmaelite.
This approach stems from a distorted conception of the Torah; apparently this approach is inevitable among those who do not learn anything from the Torah.
The laws of the Torah pertain to the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. A state should belong to the people and not to a mixed multitude, as the rabbi here is trying to argue as part of a globalist mixed-multitude worldview.
I also do not understand this answer. The Jewish nation defined through religion—the classic Jewish nation, what people mean when they speak about the Jewish nation—is precisely what we do not want to separate from the state of the Jews, the State of Israel. How are we supposed to do that by means of a definition of a Jew that is not according to Jewish law? Why this insistence on separating religion and state even in this special case of the Law of Return and not separating the Jewish nation from the state? This insistence of the Rabbi is beyond me. It is really cognitive dissonance.
Thank you very much, Rabbi. Just regarding section A: what kind of national sense could that be? That they read Amos Oz? That they know songs by Yehoram Gaon? That they eat falafel? (Written sarcastically so the question will be clear, and not, Heaven forbid, out of disrespect…) What kind of national sense could be used?