The Rise and Fall of Bennett and Their Implications (Column 486)
This morning (Friday) I read Rabbi Daniel Sagron’s column (I believe he once used to polemicize and get very angry with me on this very forum) about the soul-searching the national-religious public ought to do after Bennett’s fall and the breakup of the Yamina party. In brief, his claim is that the root of the problem is the hyphen between “religious” and “national.” He explains that (religious) nationalism has no chance unless it rests on religiosity (and is not merely tied to it by a hyphen), in the path of R. A. I. Kook. I thought this is an interesting claim, and it gives me an opportunity to discuss this important issue.
Already here I must clarify that my use of the hyphen is the opposite of his. For me the hyphen reflects an essential bond between the two sides, precisely what Daniel Sagron preaches. I argue that one should abolish the hyphen precisely because it is important to cancel the dependence between Zionism (and other values) and religiosity. The difference in terminology, of course, is unimportant; it is the debate lurking behind it that matters—and that is the subject of this column.
Between Religious-Zionist and Modern Orthodox
In the series of columns on Modern Orthodoxy (475–480, skipping 479; and now this column joins as well) I tried to define this concept and to distinguish it from “dati-leumi” or “religious-Zionist” (for my purposes here these are synonyms, and it would be good if they were “synonymous” in further senses too). I claimed there that under the heading “Haredi” two independent claims are concealed: 1) opposition to Zionism; 2) opposition to modernity. Consequently, we must distinguish between two groups within the non-Haredi religious world: 1) those who espouse Zionism (what is that, really?) but do not necessarily adopt modernity. The core of this group is the hardal (Haredi-nationalist), or what Sagron calls “dati-leumi.” They champion religious and halakhic conservatism, yet champion Zionism. 2) those who espouse modernity but are not necessarily Zionist. These I called Modern Orthodoxy (which of course can be Zionist, and usually is).
I defined Modern Orthodoxy by characterizing the halakhic arguments it raises (a conservative exegesis based on values, and not merely facts). I explained that at the basis of its outlook stands its attitude to modernity and modern values. They are willing to integrate into their halakhic and religious worldview values whose source is external, without apologizing and without presenting lame vortlach to explain to us that the source of such values (like democracy, following the majority, equality, human rights, and the like) is the Torah. It seems that even within these groups one can distinguish between modern-Orthodox with a hyphen, for whom modernity has religious value, and Modern Orthodoxy without a hyphen, which combines the two systems but does not see modernity as a religious value.
It is important for me to clarify that, in my view, there is no room to hold any values whose source is not the will of God. This is not philosophically tenable (see column 456), and it is also not legitimate halakhically and theologically (it is a kind of idolatry in partnership). And yet for the Modern Orthodox, the source of these values is not in Torah sources (Scripture or Hazal) but in a person’s conscience, which is of course influenced by the landscape of his homeland. He assumes that this is God’s will for him, but he does not derive it from sources given to us from above. Therefore there is always in the background some hyphen, but it connects to God’s will and not to the Torah or religiosity in its particular sense. Anyone who holds any values is necessarily religious. Admittedly this is a universal religiosity that believes in a philosophical God and not necessarily the full sense of theism.[1] Therefore, for me there is no hyphen here. I am obligated to the commandments by virtue of what is written in the Torah, and obligated to the will of God because it seems to me that this is what He wants. Between these two there is no direct connection, and that is the absent hyphen.
The Current Watershed in the Religious Community
I noted there briefly (and elsewhere at greater length) the political distortion that exists in the religious community, which has been divided for about a century between religious-Zionists and Haredim. The religious community sees the political watershed around the Zionist axis, as if the state did not arise already 75 years ago and as if there is still a debate about whether to establish it and whether to cooperate with it. This debate burns hot to this day, as though we are at the beginning of the process, and it is what distinguishes between the various political parties that represent the religious public. Note that in fact there is no difference regarding the state between the one and the other. At most it is a different sentiment. But for some reason everyone sees this as the relevant watershed around which the debate in the religious public is supposed to rage, and around which the different religious identities are supposed to coalesce.
But the real watershed that today actually cuts through the religious community is precisely the second axis: modernity. The real debate is not between Zionists and anti-Zionists but between modern and anti-modern, or between liberal and open versus those who are not. But for some reason in Israel the idea of Modern Orthodoxy fails to take root, and therefore we are repeatedly thrown back into a discussion of “dati-leumi” or “religious-Zionist” versus “Haredi.” Thus it happens again and again in elections for the Chief Rabbinate (see my comments here), where even regarding them there is great confusion and fog. People speak as though the struggle is whether the chief rabbi will be Zionist or Haredi, whereas the struggle should be whether he will be modern or anti-modern; a liberal and open rabbi or a conservative rabbi. It is important to understand that this axis is not at all parallel to the Zionist axis. On the contrary, most of the religious-Zionist rabbis who are candidates for chief rabbi are conservative Haredim in every respect (aside from one blessing and a few chapters of Psalms on one day of the year). Their attitude toward women and personal-status issues, and toward halakhah in general, is very similar to that of Haredi rabbis. In my impression, precisely among Haredi rabbis and dayanim you can sometimes find a more liberal attitude, but that requires examination. Moreover, the Haredi candidates for chief rabbi (certainly those currently serving, Rabbis David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef) act regarding the heter mekhirah roughly as a religious-Zionist rabbi would, and they even say Hallel on Independence Day (it seems to me not only during their tenure as chief rabbis). So what was so bad about their being elected? Why did the lamentations rise after the election results were known? Because they have a rather conservative attitude to halakhah—but in that respect they are very similar to most of the other candidates, including the religious-Zionists. The struggle there was not between Haredim and Zionists but between conservatives and liberals. Needless to say, the conservatives won, as always here.
So too in politics. There as well the ideological sparring takes place around the Zionist axis, while the more important and significant axis is the modern one. Think for a moment: what is the difference between the hardal and the Haredim? To the best of my judgment you will not find such a difference even under an electron microscope (aside from the color of the kippah and that one blessing, as noted). So why do they have different parties? In what way is Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party different from the Haredi parties? On which issues do they vote differently? Perhaps there is some small thing, but I wouldn’t go to war over it. It is no wonder that politically they always go together (and for some reason are called the “right”). Likud speaks of a “Zionist coalition” and of anti-Zionist elements in the coalition, while its coalition is based on elements that define themselves as non-Zionist (an empty definition). Even regarding budget allocations, conscription, conversion, the Chief Rabbinate and decentralizing its powers—their positions are very similar. So why are there two different parties here? Mere inertia—and of course interests of power and status. Both sides have an interest in perpetuating this distortion, because both are built upon it. Without it they have no existence.
My claim is that for many years there has been no political representation for Modern Orthodoxy in Israel. Admittedly, this outlook also in itself has not taken deep root here, but in my opinion that is only a matter of identity. Many people hold it, but since there is no leadership and no orderly religious program to legitimize it, they themselves do not identify as such. Intuitively it is clear to them that the religious-Zionist model is “theirs,” even if they do not identify with it in every last detail. If you ask such a person about his religious identity, he will answer that he is “dati-leumi,” not “modern-religious.” Thus a collection of completely Haredi rabbis, like Rabbis Yaakov Ariel, Druckman, and the rabbis Tau, Lior, and Melamed, have become the “elder rabbis of the religious-Zionist camp” and the leaders of the religious-Zionist public—which includes within it Modern Orthodoxy as well. Real hocus-pocus, all conceptual confusion. A collection of Haredi rabbis whom most of the public (bar a small minority) does not believe in and certainly does not practically follow, are repeatedly crowned as the spokesmen of the religious-Zionist and modern public. It always reminds me of the “notables” of an Arab village or a development town of Moroccan Jews. In Tel Aviv there are no “notables,” only the public and its elected representatives; but in the religious and traditional society—and certainly in Arab society—there are “notables.” Their hallmark is that they do not need to be elected. They have heaven-granted status, and everyone must recognize them as such. This is the result of the conceptual—and therefore also sociological—absorption of Modern Orthodoxy within and under the “dati-leumi” heading. Attempts to extricate themselves, like the Mamad movement or Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah, have failed again and again politically and socially. As noted, in my view this is not because there is no such public, but because there is no such identity.
Religious-Zionist hardal propaganda has succeeded in embedding in the public its false and mistaken assumption that the religious world is divided between religious-Zionists and Haredim. Everyone else are “laitim” (i.e., not truly religious, and certainly not a third model). Thus there remains no space for the Modern-Orthodox niche of a more open and liberal religiosity that is not “lite.” One that believes in a religious model alternative to those two. Today there is no political and social expression for the third way between religious-Zionism and Haredism, which is their great success and our colossal failure. This failure stems from conceptual vagueness and from following the habits and the flawed education we received. Hence my deep conviction in the importance of a conceptual and intellectual analysis of these phenomena, for without it they have no existence. Many people hold these positions, but so long as they do not define them and place them on the map and grant them religious legitimacy, they will have no political and social expression, and they will not succeed in influencing and changing.
Back to Bennett
I think the secret of Naftali Bennett’s success in recent years was that he managed to express the modern-religious sentiment. He himself may merit the label “lite” (I do not know him; this is my impression), and he is not a great lamdan in halakhah and Judaism; therefore he did not formulate and define for himself the concepts he was advancing. This is also why the Haredi rabbis of the religious-Zionist public had (or once had) significant influence over him. He too is a product of their education, and he has internalized the feeling that they are the leadership and they are the ideal model, even if I (Bennett) myself am not really there. But it is apparent in his discourse that at least subconsciously that is where he is aiming, and this comes to fruition with Bennett’s activism and his extrication from the religious-Zionist party into the broader political arena, all the way to the prime minister’s chair and his broad coalition.
I think that is the secret of his success. Many followed him because they understood that he represents—albeit not consciously—a rather broad position that until now lacked significant representation. He connected more easily with secular Israelis, something the classic religious-Zionist model has been trying to do for years without success; and that is because classic religious-Zionism is led by Haredim. They cannot create a real connection with secular people. How many people like Ayelet Shaked will be prepared to vote against conscripting Haredim and for increasing budgets to yeshivot and the continued Haredi parasitism, merely because some men in black tell them to do so?
A modern party that opposes Haredi and hardal conservatism can more easily form coalitions with secular Israelis who want tradition and a stronger national and religious identity—but not Haredi (which usually goes with a political-diplomatic right). And we have not yet spoken about a coalition with Arabs interested in decent coexistence with the State of Israel. Together with the liberal left, these constitute a real threat to the religious-Zionist conception that sees the state as the embodiment of Judaism and Torah—the throne of God in the world. Therefore it is clear that the one who prevented forming such a coalition—even though it involved a pragmatic Arab party (Ra’am, with whom Likud was already prepared to cooperate) and even though there was no possibility of a religious-right coalition without it, meaning that by this “they are delivering the state to the left,” Heaven forfend—was none other than Bezalel Smotrich and the Religious Zionism party (aptly named; it indeed represents religious-Zionism, as distinct from Modern Orthodoxy). Such a coalition is impossible from the religious-Zionist perspective, but entirely possible from the modern perspective (whose Zionism is not religious and which does not see the State of Israel as a halakhic-religious Jewish issue). The problem is that Bennett does not know how to define all this for himself; therefore he himself dwells in a fog that drags him again and again to the conventional discourse. He tries to justify himself in terms of the conventional discourse and does not understand that he must generate an alternative discourse.
The Struggle Against Bennett and What He Represents
It is no wonder that the struggle against Bennett and what he represents rose to insane levels at the stages when it seemed that he was succeeding in rallying a public around him and in escaping from Haredi rabbinic control into the political arena. The Haredi rabbis leading religious-Zionism, and their political agents, understood that the Bennett phenomenon might pull the rug out from under the greatest propaganda achievement in Judaism of the last two hundred years, and give expression to a very broad public that does not really stand behind them—despite their repeated attempts to explain to it that it does. It is no wonder that they began to deploy against Bennett and his colleagues the same propaganda and incitement they have been deploying for years against Modern Orthodoxy (“neo-Reform,” “lite,” leftists, enemies of Israel, the New Israel Fund and the European Union, delivering Israel to the left and to the Arabs and to the Muslim Brotherhood), in order to forcefully erase him from the map. They raised every possible claim against him, from the threshing floor and the winepress alike, and portrayed him as the greatest traitor in human history—while all the mistakes he made were also made by others whom they themselves support (in my opinion from far less worthy motives). Every foolishness of his was presented as a threat to Judaism and Zionism and the destruction of the state. A Holocaust.
The reason for this hysterical and wild assault is very simple. Bennett is the greatest threat to Haredi hegemony and to perpetuating the Zionist axis as the watershed in the religious community. In this sense the Haredi parties and the religious-Zionists have a shared interest, since both feed off this propagandistic distortion and therefore promote it together. If the public suddenly understands that most of it is neither with these nor with those—what will become of them?! If the public realizes that it is being pulled to one of two sides when in fact it belongs to the silent majority in the middle, those sides might disappear from the map, or at least lose their ongoing control over the public. No wonder the hysterical and violent demonstrations began, incessant harassment and threats, social ostracism (not being called to the Torah in synagogue, not being handed a glass of water, not inviting the prime minister to Mercaz HaRav on Jerusalem Day), and other such niceties. This was directed at every member of Bennett’s party who dared remain and show loyalty to him and his path, but first and foremost at Bennett himself. They concocted against him claims from the threshing floor and the winepress, true and untrue. They turned him into the most corrupt, money-hungry politician this place has ever seen—while in the background stands their longtime friend Netanyahu (who truly is the most corrupt, but that does not bother them in the least). It was a propaganda machine from which Goebbels could have learned a significant chapter, run by the corrupt and mendacious Bibi in cooperation with the Haredim, and no less with the Haredi rabbis and functionaries who lead religious-Zionism. In short: the Haredim and Bibi against Bennett. The confused religious public, most of which does not belong to them, did not understand this. It was misled to think that Bennett deviated from the path and therefore betrayed religious-Zionism. That is of course true, because he embarked on a different path—but that path is entirely legitimate and worthy. Only the forces of darkness will not allow us to recognize this. Their very lives depend on it.
There were politicians who held firm against this incitement, but there were also those who broke. I was very angry at Idit Silman and other weaklings like her, though she was presented by Smotrich’s Haredim and by Bibi as the glory of “repentance.” Her ridiculous, demagogic, self-contradictory lies were granted the status of a splendid doctrine and admirable courage. Well, I understand that it is indeed hard to stand firm against your educators and teachers and path-setters—the ones you yourself grew up on. They are the ones who explained to you how important it is to be religious-Zionist, and they are also the elder rabbis of the religious-Zionist camp to which you too belong, and who are you, a gnat from the swamp, to stand up to them?! Who can stand and honestly draw conclusions when it is revealed to him that his educators deceived him, that the beliefs on which he grew up and for which he struggled are foolishness, and that his revered leaders are cheap demagogues?! The long-running propaganda bore (rotten) fruit, since many in Modern Orthodoxy failed to free themselves from the feelings of inferiority and the belonging to religious-Zionism that were instilled in them from their earliest childhood. One who is not a philosopher or a serious Torah scholar or thinker can hardly stand up to incessant propaganda telling him that he is betraying the Jewish heritage, violating halakhah and the fundamental Zionist tenets, and destined for Gehenna. How can someone like Bennett or Silman contend with statements made “in the name of the Torah and halakhah,” when he is a halakhic ignoramus and a fledgling student of the rabbis, who has always been taught to listen to rabbis—those who determine what the Torah and halakhah say?! These are the ideas you grew up on and imbibed with your mother’s milk. An ordinary Jew cannot stand against that.
Conclusions
Seemingly the conclusion is that, at least at this stage, Bennett should have recruited rabbis and thinkers—people with the ability to conceptualize and articulate an alternative political and religious doctrine. These might not be impressed by religious-Zionist (i.e., Haredi and hardal) propaganda and demagoguery, and perhaps could free themselves from the flawed education they received and from the concepts embedded in them within it. But he chose and appointed functionaries, and these likely could not withstand such assaults—certainly so long as they lack ideological, intellectual, halakhic, and religious backing.
Still, I assume that even had he appointed intellectuals and rabbis, the Haredi-hardal onslaught would have been directed at them; and even if it failed to break them, it would have broken the wider public that votes for them. There we are speaking of simple people who want to be faithful to the values on which they grew up. Therefore, even if thinkers had been appointed, the propaganda would have broken their electorate. So I very much doubt even that would have helped.
The lesson is that one must begin with theory and with education on the ground: to develop a conceptual system that presents an alternative to Haredi propaganda on its two wings (Haredi and religious-Zionist), one that will give spiritual and intellectual backing to the stirrings of the heart of a very broad public that currently fails to find an answer. Contrary to what many think, in my opinion such a public very much exists—and it is very broad. A significant portion of the Haredi public and of the public that defines itself as religious-Zionist actually belongs here. But until there is a doctrine and leadership to represent it, it will fail to organize and to find political and social expression. There will be no such religious identity. That is the nature of a religious society: even if widespread views exist within it, so long as they lack recognized religious-rabbinic leadership and a theoretical-theological program, they will not surface and will not hold water. Incidentally, so it is with the “blue-collar” current in the Haredi community, which many believe in but which fails to organize because it lacks a doctrine and recognized religious-rabbinic leadership. So too with Modern Orthodoxy, which today belongs unawares to the religious-Zionist public despite the stark opposition in their outlooks. Thus the instinctive sense of home and loyalty of the Modern Orthodox turns toward religious-Zionism, and the watershed remains the Zionist axis. Instead of understanding that this silent majority stands opposite the Haredi pole that includes both religious-Zionists and Haredim, we continue yesterday’s struggles between religious-Zionists and Haredim.
The main point with which it is important to begin is a war on conservatism. Conservatism is the chief tool used by Haredi propaganda. We were accustomed to a certain religious model, and it is so deeply embedded in us that we lack the ability to truly free ourselves from it. Even when we no longer believe in it, we cannot say so honestly to ourselves and out loud. Religiosity is almost a synonym for conservatism, and it is very hard to free oneself from it. To free ourselves from the destructive grip of Haredi politicians and rabbis on religious-Zionism, we must first and foremost shake off the commitment to what we were educated into. It is no accident that there is a pedagogical ideal of saying “I am religious because that is how I was raised.” In my eyes this is a grave and distorted statement. The correct statement is: I am religious because this is what I believe—even though that is how I was raised. The conservatism that sanctifies traditional religiosity merely because that is how we were raised is what preserves the models, outlooks, and leadership to which we grew accustomed. That is what must be targeted first.
Back to Daniel Sagron: Abolishing the Hyphen
Sagron’s article is what prompted me to write this column. There are some flaws in his words and also some correct points. I agree with his analysis that the root of the Bennett phenomenon is the abolishing of the hyphen (in his terms: establishing the hyphen), i.e., placing Zionism not on a religious basis. Bennett represents a group that is Zionist and religious, but there is no hyphen between the two. But this concerns the Zionist axis. How is it related to my remarks about Modern Orthodoxy? This takes me back to column 477. In a note there I pointed out that religious-Zionism with a hyphen is a non-modern Orthodoxy, whereas religious Zionism without a hyphen is, in essence, a Modern-Orthodox conception.
Religious-Zionism bases its Zionism on inner-Torah values. Conquest and settlement of the land are Torah values, and from its perspective that is the sole basis for Zionism. In this sense there is no conservative midrash that is based on external values here, but an interpretation (perfectly reasonable) of Torah and halakhic sources. By contrast, religious Zionism without a hyphen espouses the Zionism of Ben-Gurion: values, identity, and national aspirations—not only because that is what is written in the Torah (though that too is true), but also because the Jewish people has the right to join the springtime of the nations and establish a state of its own. Therefore it has no problem forming coalitions with secular Zionism, and does not see it as the “Messiah’s donkey.” That is precisely what is happening in our politics today with respect to coalitions.
For my part, as one who holds such a position, Zionism stands alongside faith and religious-halakhic commitment, but does not necessarily derive from them. I do not see the state as the realization of the prophets’ vision (because I have no idea whether it is), but as a blessed phenomenon in and of itself, without any connection to redemption and the fulfillment of commandments. It is not the “footsteps of the Messiah” (ikveta d’meshicha) and not the “beginning of redemption” (atchalta d’ge’ulah), but simply a state in which I wish to live and in which I have a right to do so. Therefore I also have no great expectations regarding its religious conduct, and accordingly no great disappointments with it. I explained there that such a conception is, in essence, that of Modern Orthodoxy, for it adopts an external value (nationalism), not necessarily because its source is in the Torah or Hazal, but by virtue of the fact that I identify with it (and am explicitly and openly influenced by the environment in which I live and act). For me, as a Modern Orthodox Jew, that suffices for taking it into account in my practical and even religious conduct.
In the 1950s a group of journalists from abroad conducted a poll among intellectuals, asking why they are Zionists. Yeshayahu Leibowitz told them: because we are fed up of the Goyim. The Ponovezh Rav held a rather similar view. He was wont to say that he is a Zionist like Ben-Gurion; he too does not say Hallel and does not omit Tachanun on Independence Day. Beyond the joke, to the best of my understanding there is an important idea here: the Ponovezh Rav was a secular Zionist, but did not see it as a religious matter. Such a conception is a thorn in the side of the Haredim (his yeshiva students repeatedly tried to take down the flag he used to hang on the roof on Independence Day; so the journalist Dov Genachowski z”l, who sat there next to him, told me) and of the religious-Zionists. Neither is prepared to recognize values outside the Torah. The Haredim see Zionism as a movement that promotes external values and therefore reject it; the religious-Zionists see it as a movement that promotes religious values. But neither is prepared to accept a Modern-Orthodox conception that is willing to advance values from outside the Torah—modern values.
Incidentally, because of this flaw, quite a few people in the religious-Zionist public without a hyphen—who actually mean to say that they espouse Modern Orthodoxy—speak in the usual discourse and try to explain that their values are drawn from the Torah. Thus various “enlightened” figures from the religious left explain to us that democracy is a Torah value; equality, attitude to the other, feminism, attitude to the non-Jew, peace—these are all Torah values. Well, that is not very convincing (excellent vortlach for seven blessings). It is hard for the public to accept, and rightly so, that purely by coincidence what you happen to believe is precisely what you find in the Torah (as opposed to everyone else who does not find it there). It is clear to everyone that these values are not drawn from the Torah in their case, but are external values to which this group is committed. So why this strange discourse? Where does the confusion come from? Why not say it honestly? It turns out that they too have unconsciously internalized the assumption of their opponents on both wings (Haredim and religious-Zionists) that everything must begin and end with the Torah. As I said: when there is no ordered theology and halakhic doctrine to ground the matter, conceptual confusion arises that ultimately leads to political failures as well.
Sagron sees Bennett’s fall as evidence that he has no public—that a Zionism without a religious basis cannot endure and therefore does not really exist. But his words concern that very public “that is not.” It is the public that elevated Bennett to power and brought about his success. On the contrary: until Bennett, religious-Zionism was in a protracted political decline, and he was the one who took it out of it, at least temporarily. So it is not true that there is no such public. On the contrary: the conclusion is that such a public definitely exists, and it is even much broader than you imagine. However, it does not succeed, and cannot succeed, politically—because without an orderly doctrine it cannot honestly withstand the pressures exerted on it from all sides. One who was educated and led and accustomed to the idea that they are the bearers of God’s word in the world, that there is nothing outside the Torah, and that “the Torah is them,” will not be allowed to see that this education is power-driven propaganda founded on falsehood. Such a person cannot stand against the propaganda machine I described, of which Sagron’s article is a part (and also a product).
Regarding the disintegration Sagron describes, I fully agree—though it is entirely exaggerated to say that there has been none like it. The political disintegration of the religious-Zionist public is a monotonic process that has been going on for a very long time, and Bennett was actually a temporary exception to it. This disintegration is not because of Bennett but despite Bennett. Those who cause it are those who have been in the arena long before Bennett and after him as well—namely, the Haredi leadership of religious-Zionism (Sagron’s colleagues). It is true that there is a loss of direction, and in my view this is a recurring expression of the fact that the core strength of the religious-Zionist leadership lies in destruction and fragmentation. It destroys and insists on its right to continue destroying and fights anyone who tries to repair. Therefore this process has been happening for many years—long before Bennett.
For many years, the representation of religious-Zionism in the Knesset has not been proportional to its electorate, since multitudes of voters go to other parties (and that is not necessarily bad; I too am such). Any phenomenon that succeeds in creating an alternative to the disintegration that this leadership itself caused—i.e., that gathers some of those voters back into the fold of a religious or traditional and national party—will be nipped in the bud by the very machine of destruction and propaganda that it itself operates. It is a bit strange and unfair, in my eyes, to blame those who come to repair the ruin you yourself have wrought—and that you yourself perpetuate by fighting them.
Sagron’s conclusion is that we must bury deep the theory of the linking hyphen. I fully agree—but not in his sense. He proposes as an alternative a theory in which there is only religiosity, and nationalism (and modernity) are at most its derivatives. I, however, claim that both should remain side by side, and indeed there should not be a hyphen connecting them. Moreover, his conclusion is odd to me: if he means that the hyphen should be buried politically because there is no demand for it in the public—well, it has been buried. But as I explained, the politics of recent years indicate that there definitely is such a public. If he means that this public must give up the hyphen (i.e., leave a theological world in which there is only Torah), in my view the conclusion is the opposite: there is a broad public that fits this, and we must create a theological doctrine to back it. What is being done today is to bury it in a donkey’s burial. The breakup of the party that (unsuccessfully) represents it does not mean that we must bury the hyphen (in his sense), but that we must grant it authentic and stable political expression. If anything, we must bury the propaganda machine that Sagron himself is party to.
A Word About Religious Parties
I have written more than once that I do not see great value in the existence of religious parties. In my view they bring much more harm than benefit, and almost every vote of theirs runs counter to my views (they exist mainly to promote coercion). My words here are written because the political phenomena accompanying these parties reflect processes that are important to consider.
My remarks here are not intended to save the political representation of the religious public and the religious parties, for in my eyes all that is of little value. My remarks aim to explain why it is important to build leadership and a theological and halakhic doctrine that will provide a theoretical basis and also social (and perhaps political) expression for a significant portion of the religious public that in our day is mute and silenced (by its own fault, of course). It is proper to conclude by directing the blame in the right direction. The guilty are not the rabbis. I assume that most are “captured children” within the outlook they themselves educate toward and were themselves educated into. They probably truly believe their nonsense. The blame is ours. So long as we continue to be foolish, to be led astray by the propaganda into which we were raised, and to submit to it—we ourselves are to blame for the rotten fruits it grows. We must not lodge complaints against anyone but ourselves.
[1] Admittedly, this is not really deism, since we are speaking of a God who demands and commands.
Discussion
I didn’t understand. Rabbi Yoel is not conservative (though he does present all his values as if they come from the Torah). Beyond that, an example one way or the other doesn’t matter when we’re talking about the overall picture.
Don’t you think this column is a bit postmodern? That is, your claim is that the rabbis basically want to preserve their hegemony and their power, and therefore they set up a propaganda apparatus in order to attack Bennett. It sounds a bit like a conspiratorial argument that ignores the claims against Bennett.
I wrote that they probably really do believe their own nonsense. But the intensity of the propaganda, the destructiveness, the stupidity, and the inconsistency in it clearly indicate a deliberate and malicious scheme. And even if it’s subconscious, they still should have understood and stopped it.
In general, Marxism attributes everything to schemes instead of dealing with arguments and positions. But when you deal with the arguments and see that there is nothing to them, you are allowed to conclude that hidden motives are at work here.
To the Rav-Mad—
A. It seems to me that Ido Fechter speaks explicitly like you. Maybe you should join up with him and found a political movement.
B. This is a bit petty, but I think that when people like Daniel Sagron say that nationalism stems from the Torah, they don’t mean that it implements the Torah’s commandments, but rather the Torah’s overall thrust. And where is that thrust written? It isn’t written; rather, they assume that this is God’s will, very much like you. The difference between you lies in the awareness that this isn’t written in the Torah (you are aware of that and he is a bit less so), and in the values themselves that, in your view, God wants (freedom versus coercion and the like).
If you know, from your days of dogmatism (if you ever had such days), paragraph 20 in Orot HaTechiyah, about holiness, nationalism, and universality, which contradict one another, and the general holiness that includes them all—this is an idea similar to yours.
C. It is well known that Religious Zionism is made up of students of Rabbi Kook and students of the Gush and the like, and that in recent years the political representation has leaned toward students of Rabbi Kook. But it seems to me that the old Mafdal was דווקא a kind of modern Orthodoxy of Torah and labor side by side.
To Chaim—Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun is absolutely not conservative in my view.
Postmodernism does not posit a theory of power. That belongs to neo-Marxism or the progressives. Postmodernism is closer to post-structuralism, which the Rav-Mad loves so much: that there is no way to reach truth and that everything is constructed. But not steering people in order to control the other.
P.S. The criticism of the choice of the Chief Rabbi depends on how you view the position. If you view him as the state’s chief religious official, then I don’t think his attitude toward the state matters. But if you view him as someone who is supposed to lead the State of Israel from the religious side, it’s a bit strange to appoint a person who opposes the state to such a position.
In my humble opinion, the reason what the rabbi calls modern Orthodoxy (which is not what exists in the U.S.) did not become a political and ideological movement is simply that many of the people the rabbi sees as sharing a common denominator are just “lite.” I know you’ll say that this is just conservative demagoguery, but really look at the public you’re talking about. Most of the time, these are people who are not scrupulous about minor and major commandments alike (of course not all of them are like this), and halakhah is not at the forefront of their minds. Maybe the rabbi will דווקא find what he is looking for in the Haredi public; it may be that there are more serious and liberal people there (I say this as a hypothesis—I don’t know enough).
With God’s help, eve of the holy Sabbath, Chukat, 5782
Far be it from Leibowitz to say that ‘we’re fed up with the gentiles’; you can find in him ‘every bad trait,’ but a xenophobe he was not. What Leibowitz said was: ‘We are fed up from being ruled by goyim.’ He said it in English, and he translated it into Hebrew: ‘We are fed up with being ruled by gentiles.’
As for Bennett: Bennett and Smotrich are two sides of the same coin. The same two guiding principles animate both of them: A. We (= Religious Zionism) are fed up with being led by the secular. Religious Zionism needs to lead the country. B. I am the leader worthy of leading the country, I am the commander who will cry “Follow me!” and lead everyone.
By contrast, I prefer the classic “Mizrachi-nik” outlook, as beautifully expressed by Dr. Yosef Burg. We do not have to ‘stand at the head’ and be ‘the commander.’ Happy are we if we can be the ‘hyphen’ that connects—strengthening ourselves in Torah while also integrating into action, and thus creating connections. We will try to bring the world of Torah closer to Zionist activity, and we will try to bring the distant nearer and strengthen their bond to their heritage, and little by little the old will be renewed and the new sanctified.
Someone who wants to be the nation’s leader must constantly examine whether the ‘led’ want his leadership, and he may come to a bitter disappointment when he discovers that he is ‘a king without a people.’
By contrast, one who proceeds patiently finds himself and his circle, in the perspective of decades, having more and more influence. One need only see how the world of Torah has grown stronger in quantity and quality. Even among the secular public, interest in heritage and tradition is increasing. How many religious people are now in key positions in security and politics, in the economy and science, in law and education.
Bennett’s failure lay in his attempt to hitch a ride on the political representation of the religious-Zionist public, which sees importance in advancing religious education and Torah institutions and the Jewish identity of the state. This is the unique turf that no other party will take care of. It would have been better for him to integrate into the Likud and climb upward without marking himself out at age 30 as head of the state. Perhaps Bennett was fit to lead the Likud and the state after Netanyahu, ‘but the fruit ripened too soon’ 🙂
In short: leading a nation, and especially a nation of opinionated Jews, requires the ability to connect patiently with broad publics in order to create as broad a consensus as possible. Perhaps דווקא Ayelet Shaked, who has finally been freed from Bennett’s forceful method, will be more successful in advancing things through broad connections.
With blessings, Yekutiel Shneur Zahavi
I feel that for quite a while now I’ve been looking at all this from the outside. It just doesn’t interest me all that much—if someone wants to form a leadership, let him form one; if people want a party that fits what they think, let them establish such a party. There are rabbis or secular people who say sensible things, and I’m interested in hearing what they say, and there are those who bore me. I don’t see any need for some leader or other to tell me what to think or to “formulate a coherent doctrine” for me. On most matters I don’t have a coherent doctrine, and I’m fine with that; each issue on its own merits, and I see no need to organize all my views into one whole, even if that means my worldview is frayed at the edges. In my view, the very attempt to set up such a person is conservative and futile. I see the anti-thinking and hysterical discourse on the radical right and the radical left, and although it creates the feeling that I have no “political home” anywhere, it also makes me not want such a home. Such homes tend to become prisons, and prisons—quite apart from their lack of freedom—are really boring places.
A. In my view, we have opposite tendencies despite the similarity. I have no interest whatsoever in making Torah and halakhah more accessible and friendly. That is not my motive, and in my opinion it is an illegitimate motive. In any case, I have taken the theory upon myself. Politics will remain for others.
B. What he wrote is what I have written both in the columns and here.
C. The old Mafdal were just plain Mizrachi-niks without any real theory, and with a huge inferiority complex toward the Haredim (and of course without any basket of rabbinic leadership of their own).
In what sense do today’s Chief Rabbis oppose it?
Many of the “lites” are pushed there because of the labeling. They don’t find a systematic basis for their worldview.
Why doesn’t the rabbi join up with Rabbi Ilai Ofran, who is also dissatisfied with the religious party (he has a podcast about it), and with all the opposition rabbis in modern Religious Zionism such as Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah, Siach Yitzhak, and maybe some modern Haredi rabbi like Yehoshua Pfeffer? It requires consideration.
The rabbi himself said that there is a huge public that is modern, and I also agree that there are many, so you rabbis mentioned above are to blame, because those people—if they saw rabbis with a coherent doctrine—would want to vote for it, including little me, who has been crying out for a lack of an alternative for quite some time. By the way, regarding the issue of a modern Haredi rabbi, I recommend that the rabbi keep away from that idiotic bunch Beit Midrash Anshei Chayil; they are a gang of hacks, etc., after I saw their video that the rabbi was in, etc., and the matter is obvious.
I, in the name of all my modern Haredi brothers, ask the rabbi: give us an alternative already, right now.
Sincerely,
Men of truth and faith
I sign every word. The question is how do you get many more who feel this deep down but don’t know how to conceptualize it, to receive legitimacy for their path and their opinion? Once the two big parties were a union of these and those and those, and of the non-partisans. I’m talking about the party of the non-partisans, which will throw to the winds all the various partisans who rule our lives. For that, political and social organization is required.
As I wrote, I don’t join up with anyone because I am not a political operator. In the past too, I refused to join all the rabbis’ organizations that approached me, because I do not agree to have people speak in my name as a collective.
I don’t understand, for heaven’s sake, how the rabbi wants a political movement to arise without broad rabbinic support, just as the rabbi himself wrote.
As for A, see for example here: https://m.ynet.co.il/articles/byk2ugn95
I oppose every word (not the facts, but certainly the value judgment).
Support is one thing, and organizing into a rabbinic group is another.
And of course we are talking about officials, religious NCOs responsible for supplying the state with wine for kiddush and an eruv.
So let the rabbi organize support, in a bunch of political hacks.
No, rabbi, no!!
Let’s ignore the completely mistaken political analysis in my humble opinion, and deal with the main point. I don’t know how much the rabbi has studied and knows the school of Rabbi Kook, but to call this school conservative is simply a mistake! Rabbi Kook was all innovation and development; he saw stagnation as one of the gravest maladies there is. And therefore, the fact that rabbis like Rabbi Tau perhaps today also represent conservative values makes it, in my view, a bit simplistic to say that their worldview is conservative—certainly when you speak of rabbis like Melamed and Druckman. Maybe you should meet with them and understand their worldview.
P.S. A note on politics: almost all the rabbis (Tau, Druckman, Eliyahu, and others) fell, like you, into error in their thinking about Ra’am. Luckily for us we had a worthy representative in the Knesset (Smotrich) who understood / knew that Ra’am’s trend is nationalist and not civic. And today everyone already knows that he was right and that he saved us.
If you’re not conservative, start with seven clean days.
It’s interesting how one detail escaped the notice of the writer and the other commenters: Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party differs from the Haredi parties in that it was the only one unwilling to sit with Arabs (except for the representative of Rabbi Tau)—whereas the Haredim see the Arabs as their natural partners. That is an enormous difference, worlds apart. Because this is Zionism. This is loyalty to the Jewish people. And it was a difficult dilemma. And Smotrich was right and judged correctly. It turned out that even the modern religious public (to which I too belong) has no loyalty to the Jewish people. Luckily I voted for Smotrich in the last election (I realized Bennett would go with the left in order to be prime minister, though I did not imagine he would go with the Arabs as well).
This “missing detail” is explicitly written in the column. But it apparently escaped your penetrating Jewish eyes. It was probably not deep enough for them.
Correction: that they (the Arabs) are the Haredim’s natural partners… And on the contrary, the writer of course did notice the fact that Smotrich refrained from sitting with them, but not because of God’s throne in the world (since the representative of that view דווקא was willing to sit with the Arabs—the representative of Rabbi Tau), but because he believes that the State of Israel should be the state of the Jewish people. And that the Arabs belong to an enemy people (and therefore it makes no sense to sit with them and for any government to rely on them. No matter what they declare—that the state does indeed belong to the Jews). For my part, I would not even be willing for a government to arise that relies on a party of a diligent German minority that enjoys the fruit of its labor (why should there even be such a party?), loyal to the state, serves in the army, efficient, and paying more taxes than everyone else. Jews need to learn to cooperate.
Not on the conceptual level, but on the behavioral level, Elishiv Reichner describes Rabbi Amital as a modern Orthodox man in the book he wrote about him. He too was fed up with the Mafdal.
I find it astonishing that you were angry at Silman. Someone who signs a document with that man in the early morning hours in order to secure her future is a tiny little politruk who follows only her own eyes and her own heart after which she goes astray. There are no values there and no thoughts about betraying what she was raised on.
That man won. Let us hope the legal system or health reasons bring about his downfall. Better still if it happens in the coming elections.
“It is a pragmatic Arab party (Ra’am).”
Requires investigation; see:
A. Dr. Mordechai Kedar on the failed experiment with Ra’am
B. The Wikipedia entries:
* “The Muslim Brotherhood” (as is known, Ra’am is the “southern branch” of the movement in Israel).
* “Hamas” (on its founding)
* “Taqiyya”
A. The Haredim and Smotrich go right because the division between right and left really is—in our region—between old Jewish conservatism and a new horizon (which is, in my opinion, blessed only theoretically, but in practice is likely to create a great rupture. It is a very problematic issue and this is not the place).
B. The “knitted” crowd chooses to crown its conservative rabbis because they still retain feelings of esteem for Torah (not that they always know how to identify it). Don’t worry—it will run out within a generation.
C. Everyone else is labeled “lites” because those who are not such feel that they are less willing to invest in the religious-Jewish values specific to Judaism, whether that is true or not—not the place here.
I corrected the mistake immediately (it took me a few minutes to notice the mistake and also to write the correction), but indeed this is a significant difference between Religious Zionism and the Haredim. Perhaps Smotrich believes in God’s throne in the world, but he is also someone who studied history and has a historical outlook: that Jews cannot rely on or trust anyone but themselves—shared fate (that is what I have and I project it onto him). Going with outsiders is betrayal of the Jewish people living here. And I, as a modern Orthodox person, am now beginning to cast very serious doubt on myself and to wonder whether values from outside the Torah are really genuine values (that people who hold them actually believe in them). They (the values) are in general basic decency that preceded the Torah (or perhaps simply reason), but in and of themselves they do not endure (if there is no Torah, there is no decency. Meaning that people who wave their banners are people of falsehood).
It seems that modern Orthodox people (and all the more so secular Ashkenazim, including right-wingers, certainly the left) have no loyalty to the Jewish people. Their own interest will always come first. The main problem with Bennett is that he fawned over the media and replaced almost all his values in order to remain prime minister. The progressive left leads the liberal left (there is still such a thing), while the liberal right flatters the left in general and is led by it, and the modern Orthodox try to ingratiate themselves with both of these (out of long-standing feelings of inferiority, the legacy of the Mafdal), and are led by them. The non-Haredi, non-Hardali Ashkenazi public is simply not loyal to the Jewish people (probably without being aware of it, because of the progressive leadership that denies loyalty to any collective whatsoever). The ego of the individuals who make it up is what leads them. Not that the Haredim have no ego, but the Torah dictates to them—to their leaders—loyalty to the Jewish people. That is probably the real reason the Haredim do not enlist—they understood that this is not really the state of the Jewish people. They understood that they are alone in their fate, and that the rest have no loyalty to them. The Hardalim still do not understand this. Or they have faith, like the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in the other Jews here. They understood that they are alone in their fate and the rest have no loyalty to them.
You have to shorten it.
I honestly feel that life is too short to waste on searching for legitimacy. It’s not that I’m completely above such things; I too have opinions I’m less inclined to share because I don’t want to argue, or sometimes don’t even want to be labeled this way or that. But broadly speaking, it just doesn’t seem that important to me.
Hasidism too was, at the beginning of its path, an innovative, vibrant, rebellious movement (whether one agrees with it or not). What remains of it is leftovers, in every sense.
Saving people from mistakes (including their own) is not a search for legitimacy, but tikkun olam and service of God.
Which Yoel of the two did you mean?
Why are the distinctions only conservatism and Zionism? True, both the Haredim and the national-religious are conservative, but saying Hallel on Independence Day is really not the only practical difference stemming from Rabbi Kook’s teaching, in whose path the rabbis you mentioned walk. Even if that is how it appears in the extreme form אצל Rabbi Tau, in the end this is an approach that touches all areas of life, very different from the Haredim.
In addition—it seems to me that the truth ought to be said—there already are such non-partisan formations: they are called “Yesh Atid,” “Blue and White,” and all their cousins that spring up overnight and tend to win over ten mandates in every election campaign—what are called center parties. People tend to look at them with contempt because supposedly they have no ideology, and they gather into themselves people who supposedly have no common denominator (secular, religious, leaning left, leaning right, and so on), when in practice one could say that their main common denominator is what is called sakhiyut in popular slang. They are reasonable people who want to live reasonably, and for that purpose are willing to make reasonable compromises; there are also a few things they are less prepared to give up, but in general barricades do not look good to them. They are not sophisticated thinkers, and yes—they don’t have a coherent doctrine, certainly not as a collective. That isn’t very impressive, but maybe it’s all that is needed in order to be able to run this country instead of trying to turn it into God’s throne in the world or a libertarian or socialist paradise of one sort or another. People who have no patience for utopias. In my humble opinion (truly humble and not merely as a figure of speech; I simply can’t bring myself to take interest in these matters), such an approach was also part of the glue that held together Bennett’s supposedly strange government (apart from “anyone but Bibi,” which in my view is a highly worthy and justified glue).
That’s something else. You spoke about searching for legitimacy, and that’s what I answered 🙂 In any case, I tend to hope and think that reality is smarter than attempts to describe and frame it. All the descriptions portray a torn reality in which it’s impossible to live together and we’re all heading to doom, but on the face of it reality ultimately does make it possible. The things that matter to me are freedom of thought and freedom of speech; as long as they exist, life finds a way, as Jurassic Park said.
A. On the face of it, Rabbi Fechter’s method (in addition to his tendency) is indeed the opposite. בעקבות the columns on modern Orthodoxy I began reading Rabbi Fechter’s book that was mentioned there (Judaism on the Spectrum), and at the end of the introduction he writes:
“‘In this work I will try to show that delving into the depths of halakhah’s consciousness, in its most primary sources—Written Torah, the Mishnah, and the Talmuds—reveals that what is perceived in our day as a modern consciousness is in fact the foundational basis of halakhah itself. Therefore there is no need to renew or invent anything in it in order to reconcile it with modern consciousness. All that is required of us is to reach out and draw forth the approaches relevant to us that already exist within it. Thus we will ground modern halakhic consciousness on the very foundations of halakhah itself and preserve its continuity, and thus also prove that the halakhic consciousness commonly accepted today in many parts of Orthodoxy is not halakhah’s original path but a distortion of it. Modernity is not halakhah’s enemy but its best friend. Those who oppose modernity in the name of halakhah, those who detach it from real life and from the contemporary world, are in fact its greatest enemies.’”
If one can understand Fechter’s approach in general terms from the above paragraph (I haven’t yet read enough to understand his method and claim and his use of the term modernity), then it is clear that it is one of the targets of criticism in the present column, and is hit by direct fire in the opening words “By the way, because of this failure.”
Bin-Nun. I don’t know the other one.
I can’t think of any practical difference. Certainly not more than between other Haredi streams.
There is no such thing as “Rabbi Kook’s school,” and therefore it is pointless to hang so much on slogans and written sentences. I am speaking about the schools of actual reality.
As part of your source-study research, I suggest you look into the platform of Smotrich and the Haredim: among other things they support stoning Sabbath desecrators and adulterers, lowering heretics into a pit and not raising them out, killing Amalekite infants, and more and more.
It is also worth checking the Christian platform, according to which one should turn the other cheek—so who spoke of murder and persecutions in the name of Christianity?
Wiseguys who quote platforms simply do not understand what they are talking about. Movements and groups are not judged by their platforms but by their practice. Judaism too, Christianity too, and Ra’am too.
Even if I agree with most of your words, what is infuriating (and puzzling, because it is evident that you are anything but indifferent to the phenomenon) is the fence-sitting approach you take:
The conceptual ordering itself is important and welcome.
And then comes an appeal to the public, lashing it for not organizing in accordance with this ideological understanding and definition (which truly stands as the common basis for the individuals who make it up)—without offering or pointing to a process and to a person or group that would serve as standard-bearers.
I am sure it has not escaped your notice that most revolutions and political and national changes happened not only because ideologies and ideas were formulated, but only after a leader arose (who often, not coincidentally, also numbered among their thinkers) who united under him a sufficiently large public that cared, and set in motion a systematic process to implement them.
Therefore it is puzzling to hear how on the one hand you complain about the lack of organization under the relatively common characteristic you defined, pinning the gap on the absence of intellectual-philosophical leadership (which would found it as a system and not as an undefined supplement to other defined systems—until then this public will be liable to buy the propaganda that makes it feel second-class, lite, etc.)—and on the other hand you sit on the fence and do not propose (or move) yourself to take a practical position and not merely a philosophical one. The complaint arises דווקא from familiarity with your columns and your activity. Had this been a person who keeps away from practice, fine; but it seems to me that the need in question is no less than volunteering in an improvised civil guard in Lod during the riots—a fine personal example that also shows a willingness to roll up one’s sleeves when the situation requires it.
It seems to me therefore that founding a system and leadership (activist, even if not parliamentary for the moment) would have been the expected step. Yet from the column and your replies to questioners it sounds as though you do not see such an obligation, and are waiting for some messiah to take your ideas and implement them. Why?
Not that I fail to recognize the necessity of thinkers and ideological infrastructure. But you surely understand that if only yesterday you conceptualized the definition and along with it the aspiration to make it into a system (and not merely an “absence of system,” as stated)—it is somewhat strange to expect that by tomorrow someone will arise and inflame the masses around it (after all, you too speak in the end about organization and not only a worldview).
I do not see how this approach of yours differs from that of the public about which you complain (even if, out of politeness, you include yourself) for not internalizing that its method is a method and not the lite fringes of those without a method.
On the contrary. The public did its part by voting for Bennett and not for Smotrich, for example. (Or stayed home, etc.) Those who folded under pressure were only those “wimps” on the board, on whom the pressure was applied—not the public that sent them.
If I decide to read Rabbi Michi’s article, may his glory rise, with great seriousness—and indeed that is fitting—
then it follows that all the pursuit, the slanders, the harassment, and finally those who broke under it and in practice brought about his downfall (2 from his party, part of the religious community, and 61 minus 2 = 59, obviously that was the end) were due to the fact that he is religious and part of the religious community.
In other words: the religious people brought down the religious prime minister only because he was religious (and in fact symbolized the possibility of being religious without subordination to the accepted institutional mechanism).
Now a question:
I, the undersigned, argued all along that they (the religious) were persecuting him because he was religious.
Did they also vilify the police commissioner, as much as they could (again, the religious), mainly because he was religious? (Beyond what one would expect from ordinary Bibism.)
And did they also vilify the religious attorney general, as much as they could (the religious), mainly because he was religious? (Likewise beyond what is expected from ordinary Bibism.)
Likewise the head of the prosecution, Shai Nitzan, and religious Supreme Court judges, and presumably also a religious chief of staff when there will be one, and every state executive office.
If you are religious and do your job as you should, will you be persecuted mainly by the religious establishment?
In the past I understood that attorney Weinroth was asked by his friend, then president of the Supreme Court Justice Prof. Barak, to submit his candidacy for a judgeship on the Supreme Court, and he refused.
And apparently the reason was that he would suffer mainly in his shtiebel because of the rulings,
and he preferred to live normally and not suffer.
In fact Bennett suffered mainly from his own shtiebel, exactly as the late Weinroth foresaw.
[An incidental point, though it came out long; I saw the comment and remembered an incident. At a certain period, as a young lad, I tried my hand at baking cakes for the family, and I would leave behind me a trail of dirty dishes. My mother saw the situation once and twice and then composed a little refrain that went: “One who prepares and doesn’t clean up is as though he didn’t prepare at all.” Of course I argued against her fiercely, for after all I had done the work of preparation, so why and wherefore should I also do the cleaning work? Does someone who stopped eating garlic also have to go back and stop eating amba? At first I thought she meant that cake is unnecessary, and that she preferred a clean kitchen without cake to a dirty kitchen with cake in it. The practical implication being that if it had been decided to make a cake, say for Shabbat, then surely the one who worked to prepare it has his reward with him and his labor before him, and is not also obligated in the burden of cleaning. Therefore I waited for an opportunity when they would ask me to prepare one, and I rushed to prepare it and leave everything dirty. Great was my astonishment to hear the familiar refrain “You prepared and didn’t clean—so it’s as though you didn’t prepare” come out of the mouth of the high priestess. At once I stuck out my thumbs and returned to my pilpul as above, and also wondered how it became as though I had not prepared, and what is the meaning of this “as though.” Do people say to a man: one who called Grandma but in the morning did not get up for prayer is as though he did not call Grandma? To this day I puzzle over the intent of the saying. Is it a conception of the task as a whole, and since the task is incomplete, no points are awarded? Or perhaps merely a tactic to gain cleaning and simplify the division of tasks. Or perhaps one who knows he will clean will dirty less. Or perhaps it is more pleasant for a person to clean nine of his own messes than one mess of his friend. Or that baking is a nice and easy task and not comparable to the other labors of a servant. And in the end, of this they said: do not seek what is too wondrous for you; what you are permitted, reflect upon; you have no business with hidden things (cleaning me up).]
Exactly.
https://toravoda.org.il/%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%97-%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%97%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%9B%D7%98%D7%A8-%D7%A0/
Look here at what he wrote.
For example: “These disputes divide Zionism, in a general cross-section, into two—Religious Zionism and modern Orthodoxy.”
Hello, you wrote: ‘Think for a moment: what is the difference between Hardal and Haredim? To the best of my judgment you will not find such a difference even under an electron microscope (apart from the color of the kippah and one blessing, as stated).’ In my humble opinion there is a very great difference on the question of the attitude to the secular sphere. You will hardly find Haredi boys taking matriculation exams, whereas even among the “Hardalim” you can count on one hand institutions where they do not sit matriculation exams at some level or other. As a consequence, among the Haredim there are masses of relatively older kollel men, whereas even in yeshivot like Merkaz or Har Hamor you will find only a few older kollel men. Even one who remains in kollel does so for a small number of years until he goes out to act in the world, whether in a Torah profession, and one who is not suited goes out to work. The difference of course stems from the Zionist value—which regards involvement in the secular sphere for the sake of building the land as a commandment. And likewise from the Zionist understanding that sees something wrong in sitting with folded arms and engaging only in Torah while expecting things to fall from heaven, and that assigns value to the desire to act and influence the world. This seems to me the watershed. “Liteness” is a byproduct and price that Religious Zionism pays for its involvement in building the land and in secular life. People who go out from the world of Torah, on the one hand it is harder for them to guard and be exacting in commandment-observance, but on the other hand they feel that their activity in the secular world also has an element of mitzvah that compensates for and justifies the religious price. Haredim of course do not agree and do not accept that possibility. No wonder that modern Orthodoxy can flourish in the U.S., since without it a religious person cannot justify involvement ab initio (not for livelihood) in the secular sphere. In Israel, by contrast, Zionism and Religious Zionism are what provide that justification, and therefore there is no need to reach the districts of modern Orthodoxy (which one must admit is at least perceived as farther from original Judaism).
Attached is the platform of the Religious Zionism party. I skimmed it quickly and did not find any trace of what you attribute to them. Perhaps it escaped my notice—I would appreciate a detailed reference to at least one source.
https://zionutdatit.org.il/%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%A2-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A4%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%94/
Full disclosure: I have no problem whatsoever with these things, after the establishment of the Sanhedrin and the restoration of our judges as of old, speedily in our days. It is God’s command, and I am a servant of the Holy One, blessed be He (or at least trying…).
I assume you understood my point. Their platform is based on the Torah and halakhah, and there the determinations are very unequivocal. If you judged them on the basis of those determinations, you would not get very far. The example of the Christians and the other cheek makes this very clear (there is no political party platform there).
As for being a servant of the Holy One, blessed be He, the Sages too were His servants, and nevertheless they did not exactly implement things literally. This is precisely what I said: there is a difference between formulating a principled and theoretical platform and actual practice, and my claim is that groups should be examined through practice and not through the platform.
These are general characteristics and by no means unequivocal. More and more Haredim are taking matriculation exams, and fewer and fewer Hardalim are doing so. This is really not a principled difference. Valuing the secular sphere is an empty slogan, like many other slogans by which one can distinguish them. The question of what happens in practice is the important one, and there there is no difference. There are Haredi groups too in which the number of kollel men is small, so even the proportions are not a significant difference.
Indeed, a very similar analysis. And still, the difference remains in place.
Indeed, one of the rabbi’s most bizarre columns. It’s all conspiracies of the rabbis; it’s not at all about the greatest fraud in the history of Israeli politics by a mile, the destroyer of the basic democratic idea, and one dangerous chunk of a megalomaniac. Head-grabbing emoji!
What about the batei midrash in Religious Zionism that do not descend from the loins of the students of Rav Tzvi Yehuda (Merkaz and Har Hamor), such as Yeshivat HaGush and Yeshivat Ma’ale Adumim?
It seems that they provide what you want, and these two yeshivot have, after all, produced Torah scholars and daughter yeshivot from within them (you were a ram in one of them… in Yeruham, which is a kind of daughter yeshivah of the Gush).
It seems there is a rabbinic-yeshivah alternative that you are seeking and that you claimed in the article is not to be found.
In our many sins, you give far too much credit to my understanding… You claimed that if they come to power they will stone Sabbath desecrators and adulterers, etc. (At least that is how I understood it; if not, please correct me.) In their platform I found no trace of this. True, the legal adviser of “Yamina” went to great lengths arguing that a platform does not bind a party in the Knesset, but still I assume they will not stone anyone before the establishment of the Sanhedrin and the restoration of capital law, so for the time being everyone can relax…
It would never occur to me to compare myself to the Sages, but they really are not relevant to the discussion. They lived under foreign rule, or Sadducean rule (except for short periods), and naturally were limited in their ability to institute Torah law. Nevertheless, sometimes they implemented things not literally but with even greater stringency (like that man who rode a horse in the days of the Greeks, and Shimon ben Shetach who hanged eighty women in one day, and more). I have no clear model of a state according to the Torah (greater and better people than I are afraid to approach the work of formulating it). All I said was that in principle I have no problem with stoning Sabbath desecrators and adulterers if the Great Sanhedrin should see fit after the Holy One, blessed be He, restores our judges as of old, speedily in our days. I assume that both Religious Zionism and the Haredim understand that even if a miracle happened and they received an absolute majority in the Knesset, these things are not practical today. From my acquaintance with some of them, they are quite sober.
In short, it is not proper to put into the mouth of a political opponent what he never said, merely because you estimate that that is what he thinks. (And if he did indeed say it, I would appreciate a reference.)
Dear Mordechai. You are not nearly as foolish as you present yourself. I didn’t say they would stone people if they came to power. I said exactly the opposite: that despite the platform they would not stone anyone even if they came to power.
But wondrous are the ways of tendentious blindness.
Does military service not count?
Not at all. It exists partially in both populations.
You are simply defining the foundations of the national-religious public differently, and consequently all the rabbis you mentioned are Haredim according to your method.
The answer from the other side would be simple: Religious Zionism is not defined in relation to modernity (necessarily), but in relation to Zionism. According to that criterion, which seems to me more widely accepted, the aforementioned rabbis are national-religious in the fullest sense.
And a word about today’s beloved slur “Hardal”—you can go right and left with explanations, but that term was originally coined by people who, to put it gently, were not scrupulous about minor and major commandments alike, and saw in front of their faces the mirror of someone who is actually committed to halakhah. That mirror was very unpleasant because it put them in the position of seeming not okay. So what do they do? Invent a pejorative. It’s not that I’m lax (and of course I’m not accusing you of this, but in the common sense that’s usually the case)—he’s Hardal! Now one can go back to being a gentile with a kippah and the conscience is quiet.
The claim that the difference in matriculation (and employment-realization data) between graduates of Religious Zionism, the Hardalim, and the Haredim is not something clear-cut surprises me. The data regarding the Haredim are quite clear and come up in every internet argument touching on economics and the Haredim. I haven’t seen similar claims raised regarding Eli or even Har Hamor.
The attempt to say that because the boundary between the publics is blurring, therefore there is no difference, would be like my claiming that because the boundary between the Orthodox and traditional public has blurred, there is no significant difference between them (and this whole column here is built precisely on the dispute over accepting halakhot as the exclusive source of values).
And since I think this is related, I’ll be a bit pedantic and correct that Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef does not say Hallel on Independence Day even now.
I don’t know whether to think you didn’t read what I wrote or that you read it and didn’t understand. I don’t know which interpretation is less flattering.
I did not define the national-religious public differently. I define it exactly as you do. I only argued that this is part of Haredism (because the question of Zionism is meaningless, certainly nowadays), and that the watershed should be around modernity, not around Zionism. That is, modern Orthodoxy versus Haredism. Along that line, the people I mentioned all belong to Haredism.
Therefore the label Hardal, regardless of its origin, is apt and precise. They are Haredi (that is, anti-modernity) and nationalist. All this was written and explained in the column itself, of course. The fact that you label and generalize wrongly does not constitute a supporting argument for anything.
The above analysis would have been 100 percent accurate had Bennett been called Shibi Reichner or Shmuel Shetach. But what can one do when the life story of the former prime minister shows that he is more of a hitchhiker looking out for his own résumé than an ideologue who came to implement his coherent doctrine for the benefit of the voters. He never had a coherent doctrine—but he did have ego.
Bennett resembles someone who acts according to American motivation books. The sky’s the limit: you can enlist in Sayeret Matkal, marry a beautiful secular woman, become a hi-tech millionaire, and then think about the next step. Climb Everest? Film a blockbuster? Become prime minister? Bennett chooses the third option and for a while toys with the concept of the Israelis’ party (for all that is good, against all that is bad—behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity). After that he thinks things over and carries out, quite literally, a stock-market takeover of the shell of the Mafdal.
All this not in order to breathe some new ideological spirit into the sails of Religious Zionism, but to advance himself, at whatever price. That is the reason for the placement of Eli Ohana, for the brotherhood pact with Lapid, and for the zigzags before, during, and after the last elections. Obviously there is room for some utopian party in the spirit of Yeshivat Har Etzion and leftward, but Bennett mainly has hot air and bells and whistles.
Well, a second time: they disagree with your assumption that the significant line of division is around modernity, and all the more so they disagree with the claim that the Zionist question is irrelevant.
There is a dispute over the attitude to the state and its institutions, whether we are in redemption, etc., which entails substantial questions such as military service and more.
You have the right to maintain otherwise, and in your division the rabbis in question are indeed Haredim, but it seems to me that most of the public does not define them that way precisely because it disagrees with you about the initial definition of the watershed.
As for Hardal—the first time I saw this term it was around those who would not agree to hear women singing live, which even the greatest liberal rabbis prohibited.
In the core curriculum of Har Hamor it is not customary to teach English to children, and the results are accordingly: low matriculation rates and preservation of the children in the Haredi model for the next generation. The only escape route is through the army, but that is true of regular Haredim too.
Perhaps my tendentiousness blinded me, but for heaven’s sake, our dear rabbi, where in the Religious Zionism platform do the things you attributed to them appear? (What they will do with their platform when they come to power is another point.)
Every time you translate your faith-based doctrine into politics, it is simply, with the necessary differences, a negative image of the Haredi “Da’at Torah.” Intelligent people, with an orderly and important doctrine (yours admittedly more innovative and original), who force their Torah onto specific political moves out of deep unfamiliarity and often deep misunderstanding as well. I say this in praise, because both they and you are occupied with matters far more important than the twists of politics and all the filth that goes on there—but in the final analysis, expressing an opinion without acquaintance is not serious.
Naftali Bennett the wretched, for example, when he was concocting rotten deals with Yair Lapid while swearing the opposite by everything dear to him under every fresh microphone, was not exactly driven by all the noble descriptions here, but far more by cynical, unrestrained megalomania, and that is a good organizing principle for all the other interpretations.
Forgive me, truly forgive me because I am insignificant compared with your thought, but when you write about politics it is generally simply embarrassing to those familiar with the subject. You will surely delete this, but it was important to me to unload it anyway.
It seems you are “familiar with the subject”; can you describe what you mean?
Does your being in the know mean that you surf the standard news sites and swallowed the propaganda from your side in its standard form, or are you exposed to secret and special information known only to a select few besides you?
Do you really not understand, or are you not reading what I write?
It appears in the Torah and halakhah, which are certainly their platform. I used this to illustrate the distortion involved in examining platforms instead of practice.
It is a bit strange to me that someone who reads my words worries that I would delete this comment. Why would I delete it? Do I not allow criticism of my words here? I protest this wild and baseless slander.
As for the matter itself, nowhere did I write that this was Bennett’s motivation (although I do indeed think so, despite the dark “deals” you describe here. But I am not dealing with Bennett the person, but with the processes he reflects). I said he succeeded because he picked up on that sentiment, and a significant portion of his voters expected him to act in those directions. Bennett the person’s intentions do not really interest me, and I did not deal with them either. As stated, I am using the political processes as a demonstration of ideological and social processes.
If this is the kind of embarrassment you feel when reading my other writings in the field of politics, then I am completely calm. I assume that in those other places too you simply do not understand what you are reading. Perhaps someone who is too immersed in politics has his understanding clouded and suffers from poor reading comprehension. That is part of the mess you mentioned there.
With praise-sermons like these, one does not need condemnatory ones.
Michi, I don’t think there are modern Orthodox people who would explicitly admit that some of their values come from another legal system that is not the Torah—alongside the Torah or subject to what they think it permits. Because, as I wrote, that sounds to many like a slippery slope to idolatry in partnership. For if every holding of some value not appearing in the Torah is based only on human reasoning, it follows that we are enslaving ourselves to our own intellect, our own intuitions, and God’s will is not at the center.
Even those who say that some of the modern values do not contradict the Torah explain it by saying that they had a basis, at least in the form of a permission within the Torah, and until the modern period they were not relevant. It is clear that the fundamentalists, historically, numerically, and mathematically, have the upper hand. That is, one can say that most of the great rabbis of Israel were fundamentalists. Or alternatively they explain that even if natural morality must be taken into account, this is on the basis of statements of our Sages such as “basic decency preceded the Torah” and “had the Torah not been given we would have learned modesty from the cat,” and the like. But again, they present it as though this were a completely intra-Orthodox dispute, connected to interpretation and so on.
Not that I personally think it is idolatry or against God’s will to hold additional human values—again, in situations where they do not clash with the Torah. For which of us does not do this? Even the average fundamentalist, in the end, will love his son, his wife, his country, his family, first of all out of natural feelings and a sense of commitment. Even the average fundamentalist is horrified by acts of rape, for example, both because of the sexual prohibitions and because of simple human compassion.
Rather, the question is the weight this takes on once a person spends so much time trying to be 100 percent modern and 100 percent Torah-observant, a servant of God—and I know this is not your direction, but more that of a few rabbis like Beni Lau, for example. There is a scent of self-deception and intellectual deception in the air. For such a person convinces himself that there is no contradiction or clash, no dissonance at all, in his very position.
But my main point is that I do not think such modern Orthodoxy exists even abroad in large quantities. For even its representatives that were brought to Israel in the past—Aharon Lichtenstein, the Gush rabbis who are his descendants, for example, Beit Hillel, some of whom are his students—will tell you that every value they hold is Torah-based, and that were it not written there they would not hold it. “The rabbis of Haskalah” are the only historical group that explicitly declared itself committed to two systems of law. And I don’t think they have any spiritual or biological descendants left.
It’s strange that this is what you came up with about Bennett. If anything, the fake American here is Bibi, judging by his life story. He even married a non-Jewish woman and afterwards a mentally ill woman. And he betrayed each of his wives too, if I’m not mistaken. And how did he make his money? From fake, and more fake, and much more hidden than revealed.
Simply speaking, Bennett worked hard his whole life and did everything he knows how to do well. And the best thing that came of it was that he managed to get rid, a bit, of the hitchhiking juggler, the illusionist Bibi. The first one who had the courage and resourcefulness. A Nachshon.
No reason whatsoever to impute flaws in motivation, and it isn’t relevant.
Correction—each of his wives, if I’m not mistaken.
Hahahahahahahaha. “Does murdering Jews only because they are Jews not distinguish between Nazi Germany and the Palestinians (who want Jews because they settled in a land they claim is theirs)? Not at all. It exists partially in both populations (there were also Nazi Germans who killed Jews only because they were ordered to, and not because they were Jews).” That is about the equivalent of the nonsense you wrote here.
There certainly are such people. How many there are is another question. Moreover, even those who do not admit it refrain only because they are not aware of the option of holding two systems of values simultaneously, but in truth that is their actual state. Because of the intensive preaching, many people who I think hold this position are not aware of it even inwardly. In my opinion there are very many כאלה.
By the way, holding two systems of values is not idolatry in partnership unless one of them is unrelated to God. But if both are related to Him, there is no problem at all. I have explained this more than once, and also in this very column. When I speak of holding values outside the Torah, that does not mean a value system outside God. Those are two entirely different things.
About that it was said: one does not conduct oneself with fools. If self-confidence were an argument, our condition would be grim. Think again, and it seems to me that even you will be able to see the foolishness in your comparison.
It is more accurate to distinguish between religious conservatism and practical religiosity.
There are many who dislike conservatism, and on the other hand also distance themselves from modernity when it goes too far.
In the reality of life here in Israel there is no place for a party (emphasis on a party and not private life) of modernity as an ideology, for if it is ideological then by definition it will go to an extreme place with modernity and will have a coherent doctrine in the name of “religion,” as is happening today on the left.
At most there is room for representation that is less ideological and more tactical and practical vis-à-vis secularity, in the sense of “Give me Yavneh and its sages.”
There are many, many questions on the table that modernity has no answer for, or else gives ridiculous answers and grants approval in the name of religion to all kinds of phenomena. In short, the root problem of conservatism and ideological modernity comes from the same place.
By contrast, practical religiosity knows how to distinguish between the ideal and the actual.
And in fact this was the role of community leaders in every generation: to manage the practical side, while the rabbis provided ideology as a guiding line, only in recent generations this has gotten somewhat mixed up.
Trying to give an example of the distinction between practical religiosity and modern religiosity:
Suppose that on the government table there is a proposal to inculcate “family values” according to a secular progressive worldview.
Then the modern religious person will try to give it approval on the grounds of accepting the different and the bizarre and other nonsense.
The conservative religious person will wage all-out war against it.
Whereas the practical religious person will ignore the charged, ideological issue and try to minimize damage in terms of the scope of the program and its details.
(The Haredim, in a certain sense, are both conservative religious and practical religious; as with the draft law, they oppose it under every green tree, and on the other hand they send their representatives to committees so that they can try to minimize damage.)
Hello,
I hope it’s not too late to comment (some family matter came up and caught me).
First of all I have to point to a column I once wrote on this idea of yours,
Back then, eight years ago, that was the first time I encountered this argument, and it outraged me. But today I actually think you are very right, and that the fault line is entirely what you describe. On the practical plane these issues are much more relevant and have consequences for life.
But on the plane of thought and ideas, I still think the root lies in the classic division.
In the Haredi view, nothing essential changed with the return to the land. The same form of life as in exile.
In Rabbi Kook’s view, the return to the land is a return to biblical times; it is an aspiration to connect halakhah and aggadah, and thereby to change the whole world of halakhah from one end to the other (Rabbi Shagar claimed that this was Rabbi Kook’s most radical innovation). It is an aspiration to see all the historical, philosophical, and cultural processes as part of one complete and comprehensive historical movement of building the people of Israel, as Rabbi Kook described in Lamahalakh HaIdeot.
It is true enough that the practical implication of Rabbi Kook is recognition of the secular world, and therefore the Mizrachi people latched onto him and thereby were influenced by the secular, and therefore Rabbi Tau made an about-face and is trying to re-establish everything from scratch. But Rabbi Tau still remains completely faithful to Rabbi Kook’s fundamental conception.
According to this conception, we have a historical role to build a kingdom of priests, not to focus on the four cubits of halakhah. The meaning is that one builds Torah scholars in order to advance the nation religiously, and when that happens it will be possible to return to the Temple, prophecy, the connection of halakhah and aggadah, and the like. This is Rabbi Kook’s vision.
The essence of Rabbi Kook’s innovation is rooted in the world of Kabbalah, for Rabbi Kook innovated an analogue to the writings of the Ari according to which the meaning of the order of emanation is seeing human creativity as part of the divine process. In this way Rabbi Kook dealt with philosophy and the Enlightenment through distinctly kabbalistic ideas. In this Rabbi Kook differs from the Vilna Gaon and the Ramchal, in whose path the Haredi world walks, who saw the analogue in God’s providence in the world and not in human creativity.
True, at the moment it is Haredi, even more closed than the Haredim, but this is a temporary state. Its overall trend, that of the Hardalim, was and remains Rabbi Kook’s trend.
If one uses the national-religious outlook to provide approval for Western values, then you are completely right that the Hardalim are no different from the Haredim, and therefore the national-religious public needs to organize and grow leadership confident in itself and in its path. But one who understands that the entire purpose of establishing the state is to build the Third Temple—and that this is the heart of our dispute with the Haredim, who wait for it to descend from heaven—and that the approval of the secular world is the practical matter but not the heart of the dispute, is very pleased with the existing situation and is simply waiting until we reach the stage where the religious people internalize that the state is built and all that remains for the next generation is to focus on preparing for the Third Temple, each in his own way.
First, “but Bibi” is not an answer to Bennett’s exploits. Bibi has many shortcomings; I would be happy to see him retire from political life, if only because of his relatively advanced age. Second, a person’s actions (any person’s) are to a large degree a function of his origins, his education, and even his outward appearance.
Bibi, who was to a great extent born with a gold spoon, or at least a silver spoon, in his mouth, never had to prove anything to anyone. His career, with its ups and downs and betrayals of wives and voters, looks fairly natural. Bennett, by contrast, strove to prove to himself and to those around him that a rather short little fellow can enlist in an elite unit, that the son of Anglos belonging to the Reform community can become the darling of the settlers and the elders of the Mafdal, and so on.
When a leader is driven by Napoleon syndrome, that is dangerous in itself.
I apologize from the depths of my heart for my tendentious blindness, which prevented me from attributing to you a willingness to use such tricky arguments.
With his last wife, Bibi repented and stopped cheating.
The late attorney Dr. Weinroth did not fear his shtiebel, but his conscience and the accounting he would one day give before the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. He said this in very explicit words.
I had the privilege of knowing some of the Weinroth brothers (including the late Yaakov) as upright and righteous people (one of them represented my mother, may she live, for a token fee against the state that outrageously and disgracefully robbed her of her meager pension). Comparing their fear of Heaven to the fear of the shtiebel among the members of “Yamina” does them a great injustice.
With God’s help, 5 Tammuz 5782
To Tirgitz—greetings,
It seems to me that one who prepared a cake, which is among the duties of the mother (for baking is one of the seven tasks a woman does for her husband), thinks that בכך he helped his mother and spared her effort. To this your mother rightly replied that the effort of cleaning the dishes and the kitchen exceeds the effort of preparing the cake, so the cake-maker did not spare his mother any effort.
On the contrary, the mother’s labor in cleaning up after a man who bakes is much greater, since a woman does the baking and cooking in an orderly way, without the whole counter and kitchen turning into ‘the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah’ and into chaos and void. Even the very work of preparing the cake gives the woman a ‘joy of creation’ that brings great emotional satisfaction—unlike dealing with dirt and ‘mess.’
And perhaps for this reason washing the house and dishes is not counted among ‘the seven tasks a woman does for her husband’; on the contrary, the Sages said: ‘A woman is not made a madiach (one who causes to stray), for it is said: “Men have gone out and led astray”’ 🙂
Therefore it is good for a man to take upon himself the burden of washing and checking the lettuce, or to make himself a steaming cup of tea. And if nevertheless his soul desires to bake and cook, let him learn to do so in a clean and orderly fashion.
With the blessing ‘support and kitchen for the righteous,’ signed, Kalman Chana Zeldovsky
The example you gave shows that your distinction is empty of content, or that you are attacking a straw man. A modern Orthodox person does not automatically adopt every modern value. He merely allows himself to do so, if the value seems correct and worthy to him. Someone who simply adopts whatever is around him is just a wimp.
As for your description of Haredism too, there is room to discuss it, but this is not the place. True, they are pragmatic, but this is not a different conception, only a way of conducting themselves. I am speaking here about conceptions, not tactics.
Rabbi Kook’s theories are indeed different, and they concern Zionism, which perhaps also affects religious conceptions (a certain modernity). That has no implication nowadays, and therefore this is a branch of Haredism. Perhaps they are waiting, as a halakhic matter for messianic days, for a different model to be realized, so perhaps there is a difference in the future utopia of the two groups. For our practical purposes there is no difference between them. I assume you will find Haredim too who will tell you that their Haredism is practical, and that their utopia also includes sciences and additional values. As long as this has no practical bearing on us, they can be very open and liberal—except that the generation is not yet worthy. This is Haredi modern jargon.
Beyond that, your analysis is identical to mine and I completely agree with it (though of course with a different conclusion).
What a patronizing and distorted attitude toward people who started from nothing and built themselves with their own hands.
Bibi is allowed because he is above the people, half a god. But an ordinary person? Who is he to dare succeed at our expense? We won’t allow it.
Not worth responding to at any other time; the problem is that you’re not the only one raising this marvelous argument today.
Michi’s article is a classic example of lack of intellectual integrity.
Michi talks about how mainly the Haredim and Hardalim were against Bennett.
Michi is invited to read about the giant demonstration “for the survival of the government” in the days before Bennett’s final decision.
For the readers’ information—altogether only about 2,000 people (a few hundred) came to the pro-government demonstration.
Where are all the religious people who are not Haredi or Hardali?
Why didn’t they come out into the streets in their tens or hundreds of thousands?
I suggest the article’s author examine himself before publishing such nonsense.
My father chastised you with whips…
Indeed, I’m just not sure this is a matter for messianic times. The Temple is an inseparable part of the universalist vision spoken of by Rabbi Sacks and Rabbi Cherki, and changing the form of study is also an inseparable part of it. The future, the messiah, is already completely just around the corner.
Our rabbi, may he live long, is right. Whoever rails against our savior Bennett, may his glory rise, is Hardali at least in his heart, even if his outward appearance is different. Proof of the matter: Nir Orbach and Idit Silman, who have already been touched by Hardalism in their inner being.
And vice versa: people with a large kippah, tzitzit hanging out, and a long beard, who support Bennett, are not infected with Hardalism—an instance of ‘the generation of the messiah, where he is evil outside but good within’ 🙂
With blessings, Gilad Chaya Gavrihu-Groshinsky
With God’s help, 5 Tammuz 5782
Even someone who is not scrupulous about minor and major commandments alike, and even someone who defines himself as “secular”—it is possible that he has a positive connection to Torah and its sages, that he honors rabbis and loves rabbis.
There was a religious man who left the Jewish Home because of the ‘control of the rabbis,’ and there was his ‘secular’ partner who, although forced to leave by her senior partner, nevertheless praised the wise advice of the rabbis with whom she loved to consult.
It seems that Bennett’s retirement returns “Yamina” to the public that turns affectionately to the right, toward tradition and toward rabbis. Matan Kahana and the like will find themselves, like Elazar Stern and Kinley Tur-Paz, men of Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah whose war against ‘religious extremism’ takes precedence over their right-wingism—they will find their place in “Yesh Atid” and the like, while lovers of Torah will find themselves once again in “Yamina,” which will aspire to greater connection with the Torah-oriented public.
With blessings, G.Ch.G.
It should read: Matan Kahana loves Torah no less than the lovers of Torah you are talking about. He is not fighting religious extremism. He is fighting religious corruption, and he will do nothing against halakhah. He is a religious, upright person, no less observant than many others, etc., and his intentions are for the sake of Heaven.
I also read things you wrote in the past against the kashrut reform. For your information, the decision-makers in the Rabbinate today on matters of kashrut are not rabbis, but bureaucrats. Even so, their decisions are final regarding very substantive matters in kashrut and its procedures—decisions that are not necessarily halakhic and substantive, and that cause no small amount of damage, both to kashrut and to your own pocket.
Even if there are one or two flaws in the reform that have not yet been solved, it comes from a good place that wants to solve difficult problems that exist today.
In many places in the world there is no “Chief Rabbinate,” and still Jews who want to eat kosher eat under excellent kosher supervision. The institution of the Rabbinate is not the ultimate guarantee of the quality of kashrut.
Of course Matan Kahana loves Torah, and therefore he took the trouble to ‘save it’ from the rabbis, and therefore, God willing, he will merit a place of honor in the only party whose leader wrote a book of musings on the Torah portions—namely “Yesh Atid” 🙂
However, I spoke of ‘one who honors rabbis,’ of those who love to incline their ear to the words of rabbis and enjoy from them counsel and wisdom even if they do not agree with them in everything, as opposed to one who saw the rabbis as a burden and therefore dismantled the Jewish Home; and as opposed to one who thought to dictate to the rabbis of Israel the procedures and halakhot of kashrut and conversion.
About the fraudulent kashrut reform that Kahana tried to dictate—according to which the final decisor in matters of kashrut would be an official appointed by the minister of religious affairs who would be called ‘the supervisor over kashrut in the Chief Rabbinate’ in order to mislead the consuming public, and the opening of certifications to organizations with a business interest that will lower the level of kashrut and increase its cost—I elaborated in column 427 on the privatization of kashrut, and this is not the place to expand.
Following the discussion there, I suggested to the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Lau, a proposal that he accepted: to improve the level of kashrut in the religious councils by establishing regional rabbinical courts for kashrut that would instruct and guide the local kashrut departments and thus raise the professional level of kashrut, and also strengthen public trust in the system. Rabbi Lau passed my proposal on to the minister of religious services, and as expected, ‘Kahana station does not answer’ 🙂
All that remains is to hope that in the upcoming fifth elections we will merit a ‘minister of religious services’ instead of a ‘minister of dictated religion’ 🙂
With blessings, Gilad Chaya Gavrihu-Groshinsky
The rehabilitation of “Yamina” under the leadership of Ayelet Shaked will allow the coexistence of two political homes for the two shades of the national-religious public. The Torah-oriented public will find its place in Smotrich’s “Religious Zionism” (together with “Otzma Yehudit,” “Noam,” and Haredim), while religious, traditional, and right-wing secular people will find their place in the renewed “Yamina.”
If Ayelet Shaked overcomes the residues of the past and also brings back Amichai Chikli, and attracts to her the “Jewish Home,” there is a good chance that both parties will succeed. It would be desirable for Yamina too to hold a membership drive and create an elected leadership that will bring stability and public trust.
With blessings, Y.S.Z.
For those who have strong opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu and/or to the hegemony of the Chief Rabbinate—there is a place in “Yesh Atid,” “Blue and White,” “New Hope,” etc. But it is proper that they take into account that the Biden administration will exert heavy pressure to move toward a Palestinian state. Therefore they should ask: what is preferable? The removal of Bibi and the Chief Rabbinate, or preventing the establishment of a terrorist state in the heart of our land?
With blessings, Y.S.Z.
Indeed, as the writer of the post said, a distorted propaganda machine from which Goebbels could have learned a great deal.
Or was that a joke?
Indeed, today statements were published (on the Arutz 7 website) by Ofir Sofer and Yariv Levin, who do not trust the sincerity of Ayelet Shaked’s return to the “right-wing bloc” and suspect that she will continue in Bennett’s path and join the left and the Arabs. We shall see; perhaps the future will clarify for us whether there really was a ‘turning of a new page’ here.
With blessings, Y.S.Z.
And perhaps, as long as things remain unclear, it is better for the moderate religious, traditional, and right-wing secular public to “play it safe” and find their political home in Likud.
With God’s help, 6 Tammuz 5782
However, from the article by Michael Hauser Tov, ‘Shaked believes Kara and Pinto will remain in Yamina, and seeks to be the deciding factor in the elections’ (Haaretz 2/7/22), it appears that the option of joining a left-wing government is alive and kicking—the same lady in the same dress 🙂
With blessings, Yekutiel Shneur Zahavi
It may be that Bennett understood that he would not be able to withstand Biden’s pressure to advance the peace process; it was preferable for him that the ‘honor’ of making ‘painful concessions’ fall to Yair Lapid, and that responsibility not be laid, in the public’s eyes, upon Bennett who ‘retired at his peak.’
Perhaps he also hopes that during the election period there will not be heavy American pressure for concessions, lest that damage the political strength of the left, and in the meantime we will gain a few months during which American pressure will not be exerted in full force.
However, one must fear that slowly and behind the scenes Lapid and Gantz will agree with the Americans on reviving the ‘peace process,’ and if, God forbid, they manage to form a stable government, then the ‘peace process’ will gain destructive momentum, God forbid, may the Merciful One save us.
With blessings, Itai Shiloach Langzam-Kimmel
“But simply a state in which I want to live, and I have the right to do so.”
I feel a point is missing in your doctrine; perhaps you wrote about this elsewhere? Is there, in your view, no halakhic obligation at all to live in the Land?
A. Not in the state, but in the Land of Israel. And even there it is not necessarily a commandment but rather an enabling condition for a commandment (because only here is it possible to fulfill the commandments dependent on the land).
B. It seems to me that I was precise and wrote that even without the religious value I have a right to live in the state where I want. That does not mean there is no value, only that it is unnecessary in order to ground our support for the state and for Zionism.
So why is it דווקא conservative rabbis like Yoel Elitzur and Yoel Bin-Nun who support Bennett and lament his departure?