The Third Identity (Column 500)
This coming Shabbat, an essay of mine—based on Lesson 10 in the series “Innovation, Conservatism, and Tradition”—will be distributed in synagogues and online, and will also be included in the Makor Rishon newspaper. Following that lesson, several listeners asked me to publish and circulate a summary because of its importance and timeliness. The festive column before you—the 500th on this site—is a refined summary of that lesson.
The column appears here in the usual site format, but I have also attached a PDF of the designed booklet beforehand, so anyone who wishes can read it there or of course print it.
I would be grateful if each of you would share the essay (as a link and/or as a file) far and wide by any means—Facebook, WhatsApp, and other media. One can agree that this discussion is very important and necessary, regardless of the identity one chooses for oneself and regardless of agreement with my claims.
Naturally, everyone is invited to respond in the comments at the end, as is customary on our site.
Click here to download the booklet
Loading…
The Third Identity
An Ideological–Political Manifesto (but decidedly not partisan) on Identity and Ideology
- Why does the modern-religious identity have no political expression, even though it has quite a few supporters?
- Is this connected to the fact that the line dividing camps in the religious world is drawn precisely on the question of one’s attitude to Zionism?
- Is that line still relevant?
Prologue
Not long ago, an unknown chapter of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It tells of the Little Prince’s visit to the State of Jacob on the ten-thousandth Independence Day of its founding. “What are you arguing about all the time?” he asked in wonder when he saw groups of gray-haired people arguing on every street corner. On the clothes of half of them was a black emblem, and on the other half—a white one. “We, the black-haired and the white-haired, are divided over whether the State of Jacob should be established,” they answered. “But it has existed for ten thousand years already, and it seems you all relate to it in exactly the same way,” the Prince wondered. The blacks explained to him: “No one is willing to betray the education they received, the foundational values of their group, and the role models on which they were raised. As blacks we are obligated to oppose the whites,” and of course, the whites said the reverse.
Over the years—the Prince discovered—after everyone’s hair, black and white alike, faded and turned gray, hesitant voices of citizens occasionally arose suggesting they define themselves differently. Not as “blacks” or “whites” (since in practice there were no longer such people), but as “greens.” This is no wonder, he told himself, for after the State of Jacob has been established, it is far more important to care for vegetation than for the hair color of its citizens. But this, he learned, greatly frightened the elders of both the black and white communities. Both feared that the new and sensible idea would take root in citizens’ hearts and many would abandon the sacred path of generations. “The Holy One, blessed be He, placed counsel in the heart of each,” and “they all agreed as one” (Megillah 9a): instead of abolishing the futile polemics between blacks and whites, they decided to intensify them even more. That way, every citizen would understand the importance of clinging to their original identity, black or white, and fight for it without betraying their values and their camp. The blacks would adhere even more to their blackness and the whites to their whiteness, and thus the green identity would be cast aside in a corner as an unwanted utensil, with no need to fight it. An external enemy, they all understood, silences every internal quarrel and rebellion.
Immediately, stirring anthems were composed, platforms and ideas were updated, campaign materials were prepared, soldiers were enlisted, and the battle commenced. The blacks explained that the whites were accursed heretics, and the whites declared that the blacks were absolute apikorsim. Both sides founded parties, formed coalitions, shouted in the squares, waved “the teachings of our rabbis in which we were raised,” and so on. Needless to say, the success of the new-old policy was tremendous: the green thoughts that had sprouted here and there in people’s hearts disappeared entirely. Many citizens perhaps remained “green” at home but were black-and-white in public, and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad. This of course astonished our little prince, for the more he listened to both sides and their arguments, the more he understood that most of the population on both sides, deep down, actually identified with green thinking—and that there was, in fact, no significant difference between the platforms of the black and white parties (apart from the direction in which the money flowed).
But very soon it was made clear to him that his innocent questions interested no one. Each side continued to explain to him, with deep inner conviction and with a touch of disdain for anyone who “doesn’t grasp the spirit of things,” that the other side (the “other side” – the white, or the black) was betraying the tradition, and that they were not prepared to betray the values in which they had been educated and the role models who bear the torch of faith—black or white—as handed down on Mount Kilimanjaro thousands of years ago. And they certainly would not do so in the name of a modern, fashionable notion with no clear “Kilimanjaro” source: the color green. “What is the color green anyway? It’s nothing but light black or dark transparent. On our film there is only black or white,” they kept telling him.
In the end, the Prince understood he had nothing to look for on this strange star, and he flew off in his shattered plane toward more reasonable planets: that of the drunkard, of the old king, or of the lamplighter…
The Watershed Line
And now to the moral.
The watershed line that has divided the religious community in Israel for over a hundred years is the Zionist vs. anti-Zionist line. The ideological and sociological divisions within the religious community occur around this line: parties, ideas, arguments, budgets, communities, educational institutions, yeshivot, marriages, newspapers, literature, and more are all split between the tags “religious-Zionist” and “Haredi.” Around this line disputes rage, parties are built, and fundamental religious identities are defined.
But it is not hard to see that this line has little practical meaning today. There is currently no significant difference between religious-Zionists and Haredim in their attitude toward the state, apart from reciting Hallel on Independence Day and the color of one’s kippah. Everyone wants the state to succeed (perhaps for different reasons), and everyone participates fully in its governance. Certainly none of the mainstream Haredi stream longs for its destruction or failure. Even clear differences such as military conscription or attitudes toward the judicial system have been narrowing in recent years, with Haredim already enlisting and participating themselves in the legal system. And in general, it is worth reminding ourselves every so often of the happy fact that the state has existed for some time, and therefore the debate that divided the religious community roughly a century ago—whether to establish it or not—or even whether to support or oppose it, is anachronistic. Today it has almost no practical implications.
If we try to detach from the surrounding noise and think for a moment about what truly occupies us—and what should occupy us—these days, we quickly reach the conclusion that the main questions under public discussion in the religious community, the principal disputes that cut across us, are not about Zionism, but about issues of religious liberalism, the place of religion in the public sphere, and modernity. The questions currently debated in public and political arenas concern women’s equality, the Western Wall framework, conditions of marriage, the Chief Rabbinate (its monopoly over conversion, marriage, and kashrut), religious coercion, the policies of the rabbinical courts, attitudes toward LGBTQ people, individual rights, the attitude toward the foreigner and toward other Jewish streams, and the like.
Thus, the difference between the two communities—Haredi and religious-Zionist—in their attitude to Zionism has lost most of its significance. The differences between them today are mainly vis-à-vis modernity, not Zionism. And yet, paradoxically, the identity watershed that still divides the religious community is precisely the line between religious-Zionists and Haredim, not the question of modernity. This situation leads to an even more absurd result. As noted, with respect to modernity there are broad, deep public disagreements, and it seems as though these are waged between Haredim and religious-Zionism. But on the ground you will hardly find any difference between the conduct of Haredi parties and that of religious-Zionist representatives. To see this, I suggest a thought experiment: think of an issue that came before the Knesset in recent years where there was a difference between how the Religious-Zionism party (by its current name) voted and how a Haredi party voted. Even if you find such a random example, I suspect you will find no fewer examples distinguishing Degel HaTorah from Agudat Yisrael or Shas, or Belz from Gur. No wonder, then, that proposals occasionally surface for the Religious-Zionism party to fully join the Haredim.
So where and how does the public debate in the religious community about liberalism and modernity find political expression? It turns out that modern-religious positions currently have no political expression.[1] All the existing religious parties act in a Haredi manner. Needless to say, this is absurd. Not only is the existing identity watershed (Zionism) irrelevant; the relevant identity line (modernity) doesn’t exist—at least not politically. Has the time not come to wake up and update the dividing lines between religious identities in our day?
Definitions
To understand the root absurdity, we must step back and begin with the concepts. Under the label “Haredi” shelter two distinct ideas: opposition to Zionism and opposition to modernity. Therefore, at least conceptually, non-Haredi religiosity ought to be divided into two subgroups: religious-Zionist and modern-Orthodox. Although modern-religious Jews are usually Zionists, it is important to understand that, at least conceptually, these are two different ideas. Modern-religious identity can be non-Zionist, and religious-Zionism can be conservative (i.e., non-modern).
One can hardly deny the connection between Zionism and modern influences (the Spring of Nations, the right and aspiration to sovereignty and national expression, and perhaps also democratic values). Yet the idea and ideology of religious-Zionism, at least as expressed today, are usually grounded in internal Torah considerations: collective responsibility of Israel, the mitzvah to settle and conquer the Land, bringing the Messiah (atchalta de-ge’ulah), and so forth. There is almost no central religious-Zionist rabbi or thinker who argues against Haredi anti-Zionism in the name of modern values (How can you deny modern values like nationhood, democracy, etc.?!), and almost no one—certainly among today’s rabbinic and political leadership of religious-Zionism—bases his own commitment to Zionism on modern values. Therefore, religious-Zionism does not necessarily presuppose modernity. Conversely—and this may surprise you—modern-religious identity need not be Zionist. There are (mainly abroad, but also in Israel) observant Jews who oppose Zionism (more precisely: oppose a secular state) yet hold modern, liberal views. Conceptually, then, these are independent ideas.
On this simple analysis we would expect non-Haredi religiosity to comprise two groups: (1) religious-Zionists, who support Zionism on a religious (not modern) basis. These can of course be conservative in their approach to halakhah and tradition. (2) modern-religious Jews,[2] who advocate liberal and modern values and a significantly greater adaptation of halakhah to changing reality. Commitment to these values does not require a Zionist position, and it is not necessarily grounded exclusively in halakhic and Torah-based arguments. We saw that the religious-Zionist (with the hyphen) supports Zionism on religious grounds, and in that sense is not necessarily modern, since his Zionist values are not based on external (modern) values but on Torah considerations. Likewise, we saw that the modern-religious person is willing to act also outside that framework, and therefore even if he is a Zionist it is not necessarily on Torah grounds. He could also be both at once: think there is a halakhic obligation to settle and conquer the Land, and that cooperation with the secular is not at odds with halakhah and its spirit. He need not deny those Torah values. But as modern, he can adopt Zionism independently of them. In such a case, his Zionism and his religiosity are independent (he drops the hyphen between Zionism and religiosity). Unlike the conservative religious-Zionist, the religious Zionist (without a hyphen) is both religious and Zionist, but his Zionism is not necessarily religious.
It is interesting to see a reflection of this approach precisely in a common Haredi witticism attributed to the Ponevezher Rav. He explained to his students that he does not say Hallel or Tachanun on Independence Day—exactly like Ben-Gurion (who also did not say Hallel or Tachanun on Independence Day). People take this as a joke, but to me it was a serious statement: he was not opposed to Zionism; he was a “secular” Zionist like Ben-Gurion (and like me). He is not a religious-Zionist, but he is both religious and Zionist. From this we may infer that such a stance is open even to Haredim (i.e., those who oppose religious-Zionism—with the hyphen).
The modern-religious person, whether Zionist or not, is primarily defined by a commitment to modern values, some of which were listed above. Despite being religious, he can oppose coercion and support freedom of religion and freedom from religion, civil marriage for all citizens, and so on. For the modern-religious, a general moral and human foundation suffices to validate values and obligate adherence to them. In his view one need not find a Torah source for every value. Modern religiosity is also more willing to take reality’s constraints and contemporary conceptions into account when shaping its life and beliefs—and at times even halakhah. Needless to say, such positions must be shown not to contradict religious conceptions. Sometimes that is hard to see, and the various shades of conservatism play skillfully on this religious sentiment, causing us to conflate liberalism with “lightness.” But this is incorrect. A Jew faithful to halakhah and Torah can at the same time uphold modern values—and even be a secular Zionist. This is not trivial, but on conceptual and halakhic analysis it can be shown. Because of the complexity, this is not the place to elaborate (I have done so elsewhere).
What Happens in Practice?
In contrast to other parts of world Jewry (especially in the U.S.), in Israel the idea of modern Orthodoxy has not truly taken root. All non-Haredi Judaism here defines itself under the heading “religious-Zionism” or “national-religious,” and modern-religious identity is not placed on the table as a third alternative. Modern religiosity is considered a faction within the national-religious stream, but defining non-Haredi religiosity as “religious-Zionism” is partial—and thus mistaken and misleading. Under what we call “religious-Zionism” are concealed the two ideological currents we encountered: religious-Zionism (which in principle can be conservative in its religious and halakhic approach) and modern religiosity (which in principle can be non-Zionist, or at least Zionist without the hyphen). This partiality leads to serious errors and distorts the entire political and identity map of the religious community.
This is easy to see via the “Hardal” phenomenon—ultra-Orthodox-nationalism. Hardalim are religious-Zionists with a conservative—indeed Haredi—attitude to Torah and halakhah. Their attitude to modern values is generally hostile, and therefore at least on that plane you will see virtually no practical difference between them and Haredim. I am not speaking of the declarative and theoretical plane, usually grounded in Rav Kook’s writings on modernity. There one finds marvelous, innovative declarations calling for renewal, yet their practice is entirely Haredi. Their approach to questions like the status of women, the place of religion in Israeli public life, attitudes toward foreigners and LGBTQ people, the Western Wall framework, and every other public issue is identical to the Haredi stance on these matters. The same goes for their practical attitude to the arts, higher education, and engagement in external fields in general (topics that have been changing in recent years even among Haredim). In all these they are very similar to Haredim. In both groups there is the same fear of the outside, of the new—and in particular of the infiltration of Western culture—to the point of paranoia. The slogan “innovation is forbidden by the Torah” exists among Hardalim no less (perhaps more) than among Haredim. Paradoxically, Rav Kook’s fundamental dictum—“the old shall be renewed and the new shall be sanctified”—has become among them a dead letter, a law for the Messianic era.
Thus, at least on the practical plane there is identity between Haredim and Hardalim regarding modernity and liberalism. The practical difference between the two groups lies only in their attitude to Zionism—for example, in the sanctity they ascribe in principle to the state and its institutions, in reciting Hallel on Independence Day and Jerusalem Day, and in their attitude toward Greater Israel. But today all this has almost no practical consequences. Where would this be reflected in the Knesset (the test of voting), for instance? There is also some difference in their attitude to the settlements and the political issue in general, but beyond that, the difference is not striking (Beitar Illit and Modi’in Illit—the Haredi cities—are two of the largest “settlements”). Not for nothing is the Haredi leadership very concerned about young Haredim moving to the parties of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and cooperates with right-wing parties in all their endeavors. Moreover, these differences have little practical meaning in these years (there is no peace process on the agenda, and everyone implements “freezes” in more or less similar fashion). This is a “secular” political matter (secular Israelis also hold such positions), and it is hard to accept it as the fundamental basis of a religious identity. Note that what is called today in political jargon “the right camp,” or “the national camp,” includes the Haredim together with the secular right and religious-Zionism. Likud keeps repeating that it will not join parties that oppose Zionism, yet it has no problem routinely sitting in a coalition with Haredi parties that have enshrined opposition to Zionism on their banners. The reason is that both Zionism and opposition to it have no real practical meaning today.
Given a situation in which mainstream Haredim (those represented in the Knesset) are Zionists de facto and Hardalim are anti-modern de facto, the remaining difference between these two groups is erased. All have turned from black-and-white to gray. This means that today Hardal is, in every respect, a branch of Haredi-ism, and there is no connection between them and modern-religious Jews. The difference between them and Haredim, in my view, is no greater than the difference between Belz and Gur and the Litvaks. Black and white have become gray, and the identity struggle over them has lost relevance. It is unclear how, despite everything I have described, religious identity is still divided around attitudes to Zionism, and Hardal is considered part of the non-Haredi religiosity (what is mistakenly called “religious-Zionism”).
So far I have dealt with Hardal, which is a small minority within the non-Haredi religious community. But it is easy to miss the fact that this description goes far beyond what we label Hardal. If we return to the voting “experiment” I described earlier, it shows that these characteristics describe the public policy of the entire religious-Zionist camp. The votes show that its representatives act in the Knesset as Hardalim—that is, as Haredim. The current identity-political situation is that of one large gray bloc, divided into two “Hasidic courts”: the Zionist one (the knitted kippot, the gray that used to be white) and the Haredi one (the black kippot, the gray that used to be black). This entire bloc behaves in a Zionist manner (at least de facto) and conservatively in its policy regarding issues of religion, modernity, and liberalism. Therefore, at least practically, it is one bloc. Those outside this bloc are the modern-religious (the Green), who disagree with the entire gray bloc on issues of modernity and liberalism (though they may resemble it with respect to attitudes to Zionism and nationalism).
I would therefore expect religious identity today to be divided between modern-liberals and conservatives (national or not), without any connection to the question of Zionism. The watershed line, i.e., the identities embodied by religious parties, should be laid out on both sides of the modernity line (and not the Zionism line). But, as noted, that is not what happens. To better understand this, consider the calls that have recently arisen to grant proper representation within the Religious-Zionism party to ostensibly liberal groups. These calls fit my analysis, since they recognize that the principal party representing non-Haredi religiosity behaves conservatively (i.e., Haredi-like). But another look reveals that these calls reflect the same error. From my analysis it follows that there is no reason to enable liberal representation within the Religious-Zionism party—no more than within Agudat Yisrael. These are two different conceptions, and there is no justification for their sharing a single party.
The conclusion that follows is that the ideological division should have been between liberals and conservatives, with conservative religious-Zionism (Hardal) and its affiliates and Haredi-ism as two factions within the conservatives. This is in contrast to the existing absurdity in which modern religiosity and Hardal are considered two factions sharing one political and religious identity (religious-Zionism). I emphasize again that I am not addressing parties here but identities. I am not at all sure there is a need for a modern-religious party. My claim concerns our religious identity, which needs updating and adaptation to reality. Questions of forming, dissolving, or merging parties are other matters. On the level of identity, the whole picture is completely illogical, anachronistic, and detached from contemporary reality.
Case Study: The Elections for the Chief Rabbinate
In 2013, elections were held for Israel’s Chief Rabbis. In the media discussion around the elections, the terms “Haredi” versus “religious-Zionist” were used constantly. Most of Israel’s public is not Haredi, and it turns out that even in the electoral body there was no such majority. Nevertheless, in this contest the candidates deemed Haredi won. Of the seven candidates only two were considered Haredi (Rabbi Boaron was seen as a middle figure), and the results, as is known, were the election of Rabbis David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef—i.e., the two considered Haredi. The punditry cried out and lamented that the Haredim had won again. Many claimed that religious-Zionism had once more shot itself in the foot by failing to unite around agreed candidates and thus lost. It is worth recalling that prior to the elections, conferences were held by the group known as “senior rabbis of religious-Zionism,” who opposed the candidacy of Rabbi David Stav (president of the Tzohar organization), seen as more liberal, in order to devise a plan to prevent his election. No wonder that afterwards many accused them of succeeding—that is, of having themselves brought about the election of Haredi rabbis.
But the entire discussion suffers from a perceptual distortion. Why is it important to us that the Chief Rabbi be religious-Zionist? Is reciting Hallel on Independence Day the essence of his role? What, exactly, is affected by whether the Chief Rabbi is Haredi or religious-Zionist? The Chief Rabbi’s functions and spheres of influence concern mainly the questions described above, most of which relate to modernity and liberalism, not to Zionism. In these elections, the substantive confrontation was between liberals and conservatives, not between religious-Zionists and Haredim. When one understands that this is the relevant watershed, and not the Zionist line, no one should be surprised by the results. The conservative majority (some religious-Zionist and some Haredi) won—and rightly so: they were the majority. The liberal minority (Rabbi Stav) lost—and rightly so: he was the minority. So why the lamentations? Why the surprise?
Ask yourselves why, in these elections, conservative and liberal religious-Zionists were supposed to unite against the Haredim at all. What do these two groups share regarding the issues on the agenda? Was anyone concerned that the elected Chief Rabbis would abolish saying Hallel on Independence Day? By the way, as far as I know, Rabbi David Lau and his father—those deemed Haredi, let me remind you—do say Hallel on Independence Day; and Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and his father at least support saying Hallel on Independence Day. So why did their election disappoint the non-Haredi public? Obviously because of their conservative approach to halakhah. But if that is the discussion, then we are talking about modernity, not Zionism.
Note that along the liberal-conservative line, the division among the candidates was not 4:3 in favor of religious-Zionism but 6:1 for the conservatives. Why, then, is their election a failure of religious-Zionism? On the contrary: religious-Zionism, led by Haredi rabbis and activists (who say Hallel), succeeded in its mission: it prevented the appointment of a liberal rabbi. Alternatively, consider why the election of Rabbi Stav would have been considered a success for religious-Zionism. For the conservative faction, that would have been a far greater failure than the election of Rabbis Lau and Yosef. He was not elected because religious-Zionism (led by conservatives, remember) did not want him.
Moreover, the identity between Haredi dayanim and rabbis and conservatism is not exact. There are quite a few Haredi judges and rabbis who are more open and liberal than some of their religious-Zionist counterparts. In the public, there is indeed a significant slice with modern conceptions, but among its representatives in the electoral body and its rabbinic leadership, there are almost none. The lamentations stem from the fact that modernity suffered a defeat—but when one looks at the representatives and rabbis, there is no surprise. Modernity exists, but it lacks significant rabbinic and political representation. The lamentations and the surprise they express are a textbook example of the fallacy I am discussing here—namely, a mistake in understanding the true watershed. People lament because they live under a false consciousness according to which they are modern religious-Zionists, whereas they—and in fact their leaders—are conservative Zionists, that is, Haredi in every sense.
False Consciousness
We have seen that today religious identities are divided along the Zionism-Haredi axis, and modern religiosity has no place on the map. At most it is seen as a small faction within the religious-Zionist identity. One might think that even if conceptually this is distorted, there is here a political and statistical justice: history seemingly teaches that modern religiosity has no “troops.” The representations that arose for modern religiosity (Meimad in the more distant past, and perhaps Bennett until recently) do not manage to survive, and apparently they have no significant electorate. If this is the case, then even if the analysis above is accurate, in practice such a watershed does not truly exist.
I reject this claim on two levels. First, even if electorally there is no such slice, the identity exists. At most there is no justification to form a party to represent it, but a person still needs to be aware that his fundamental religious identity should not be based on Zionism or Haredi-ism, but on conservatism versus liberalism. We should not be divided between religious-Zionists and Haredim, but between conservatives and liberals. Second, in my impression, the number of those who hold modern conceptions is larger than what appears on the party map and larger than is reflected in its rabbinic and political leadership. To explain this, I must analyze the phenomenon known as “false consciousness.”
In my estimation, a significant portion of the religious-Zionist public—and also of the Haredi public—deep in their hearts favors modern religiosity, contrary to the slogans under which they were raised and by which they swear. If you ask people in a private conversation about religious coercion, human rights, the Chief Rabbinate, and so forth, many will give you modern-liberal answers. Yet it seems that many feel that the identity reflected by those answers is not a legitimate religious identity. So they were educated; so their political leaders and rabbis still preach to them. Therefore, in the eyes of the simple person, a modern-religious outlook is at best a weakness one must overcome in the name of loyalty to Torah. It is a temptation to follow Western populist fashions, stemming from weakness in religious commitment (this is the essence of the term “light”).
I understand the success of this biased, misleading propaganda as having two causes: sometimes we are indeed speaking of people with weak religious commitment who merely follow fashions (the “light” phenomenon). But clearly the sweeping identification of liberalism with “lightness” is wrong; not everyone is like that. The success of this false propaganda stems from the fact that the third identity, despite being well founded in sources and reason, lacks leadership and a coherent platform. In such a situation it is very easy for the conservative leadership (Zionist and non-Zionist alike) to present these conceptions as “lightness” that is unfaithful to halakhah and even contradicts it. As a result of this biased propaganda, people take for granted that modernity (green) in essence is “lightness” (light black or dark transparent).[3] This propaganda perpetuates the anachronistic black-and-white watershed and denies green the ability to present itself before the public as a legitimate third identity. Welcome to the State of Jacob.
There are actors for whom it is important (for reasons I will enumerate shortly) to perpetuate the false consciousness of “black-and-white” and not let the “green” ideas sprout in the social and political field. There is a fixed group known as the “senior rabbis of religious-Zionism” that sets the political tone in the Religious-Zionism party. The party largely follows their directives, and its strategic decisions are typically made in one of their offices—despite the fact that the vast majority of the non-Haredi public it ostensibly represents is not particularly interested in the teachings of these rabbis. How many in the public identify with those rabbis’ statements on the status of women, attitudes toward LGBTQ people, issues of personal status, and the necessity of religious coercion? Very few. And yet this cluster of conservative rabbis—who, at least in their conceptions and public conduct, are Haredi in every essential sense (even if not all would be labeled Hardali in common parlance)—is defined as “the senior rabbis of religious-Zionism” and largely dictates its conduct. I could perhaps agree that these rabbis are the leaders of religious-Zionism, but they are certainly not leaders of modern religiosity. They do not express the view of a significant portion of the public who, due to the fallacy described above, is labeled “religious-Zionist.” As noted, at least practically their conduct is almost entirely Haredi. Yet because of conceptual murkiness and confusion about the watershed line, the public perceives them as the rabbis of the non-Haredi religiosity (including modern religiosity), because that is what we call “religious-Zionism.” And so we all—educated on religious-Zionist values—are left with the imagined identity of religious-Zionists and feel that these are our leaders.
No one notices that the entire discussion assumes an anachronism: that our identity must be defined around our Zionism rather than around modernity–liberalism. The fact that these individuals make decisions for all of us seems somehow self-evident, and no one says the emperor has no clothes. Whoever dares to say it is accused of fomenting division (an accusation that presupposes the misguided assumption that we are talking about a split within one stream). Incidentally, the fact that over the years the political conduct of the Religious-Zionism party is guided by rabbis is itself a clear Haredi characteristic.
We must understand that if I am right—that a significant portion of the Haredi public and of the non-Haredi religious public tends in their hearts toward modern conceptions, at least if this were presented to them as a legitimate religious identity (and not labeled “light”)—then forming an ideological slice, a party, or a movement that acts along modern-religious lines would leave the current leadership naked and exposed. A significant portion of the public would move into this new slice, and the two poles would remain with a certain share of conservative Zionists or anti-Zionists who obey the conservative rabbis on both sides. A large share of the public would be outside this anachronistic black-and-white game, and green would become a dominant color—perhaps even the dominant color.
You can now understand why, for the conservative leadership on both sides—rabbinic and political—self-definition of the modern-religious group is an ideological cataclysm. Such a redefinition could obliterate religious-Zionism and Haredi-ism—the movements on which we were educated and raised. The fact that both sides insist, with great intensity, on maintaining the irrelevant watershed of Zionism vs. Haredi-ism (black-and-white) attests to a shared fear on both sides of that ideological cataclysm, a fear born of mental automatism and long habit. No wonder they constantly engage in propaganda against the “greens,” alleging they are “light,” neo-Reform, gentiles in disguise, and so on. They use their rabbinic-Torah authority to claim that such a stance has no halakhic legitimacy. I do not mean to say this stems from lust for power or malicious plotting. I am convinced these are good people who truly believe in their path; they are simply mistaken—and their authority sows confusion among the broader public. Their conservatism, as well as the power of long habit, causes all of us to cling to these anachronistic ideas and fight yesterday’s fervent battle. No prince, however small, will divert us from it.
The general public is not equipped with overly complex tools of thought, and therefore struggles to rebel against its leadership and the values in which it was raised. Are the rabbis who served as our role models fools—or wicked? Are these great men conducting propaganda and creating false consciousness? For one raised in religious-Zionist education it is very hard to accept such a thesis. Nor do I think so, as I’ve said. But I do think they are mistaken and misleading—even if innocently.
It is no wonder that many with a modern-religious identity attribute their intellectual and practical deviations from “pure truth”—Haredi in essence—to their weaknesses. Such a person says to himself: I may be weak (“light”), but I am certainly not modern-religious, heaven forbid (after all, our great Torah leaders say those are neo-Reform). In my personal life I may not conduct myself in a conservative way, but that is only out of weakness. Such a person typically takes care to maintain—at least outwardly—the conservative religious-Zionist identity to which he is accustomed, hoping his son will be stronger. The synagogue he does not go to is only the conservative religious-Zionist synagogue. The rabbis he chooses not to listen to are only the Haredi-nationalist rabbis who make political decisions in our name. Therefore, in his eyes, a partnership-style synagogue (like “Shira Hadasha”) is intended for neo-Reform who are not committed to halakhah (unlike him—he merely cuts corners). Thus is formed the false consciousness that leads to the political split I described—creating the misleading impression that there is no significant modern-religious public.
I estimate that once the third alternative—modern religiosity—is conceptualized and placed on the table as a legitimate religious identity consistent with full halakhic commitment, many on both sides of the current divide will identify with it and abandon the false consciousness imposed upon them. They will recognize that they are actually “green,” and that this is entirely legitimate. The anachronistic black-and-white will shrink—and in fact become a gray pole facing the green pole on the two sides of the updated watershed. I do not know how many will stand on each side, but I suppose we will discover quite a few “closeted greens.” In any case, at least it will be clear what we are talking about, who is against whom, and where I stand in all this.
It is important to understand that even rabbis and public leaders who clearly incline toward modern religiosity feel themselves on the defensive. Sometimes even they fail to free themselves from the conservative religious-Zionist discourse and to conceptualize and articulate an explicit third identity outside today’s dichotomy. Beyond that, when one of them does so, he is immediately accused of fomenting division (“harming the religious-Zionist camp,” which conservatives are very comfortable defining as one unified camp—though, as we have seen, there is no justification for this). I get the impression that many of them do not even notice the fallacy I have described. In my view, these rabbis need to awaken and craft such a conceptualization in order to clarify the difference between modern religiosity and Reform or “lightness,” thereby neutralizing the demagogic criticisms hurled at it from conservative flanks. But as long as even they do not do this, what will the citizens and politicians—the moss of the wall—say?
Current Political Implications
Although my concern here is ideological identity and not political parties, I want to connect the discussion to current events, if only to sharpen its meaning. As stated, voting patterns serve here only to illustrate the identity-ideological claim. Many view Naftali Bennett’s fall as evidence of liberalism’s failure and the lack of a real electorate for those directions. In the end, we are told, deep down even the “light” are good Jews; they know what is truly right and what their weaknesses are, and they do not turn these into ideology.
But such analyses ignore Bennett’s prior successes—particularly against the backdrop of the steady decline of religious-Zionist political representation over years. In my view, Bennett’s earlier impressive successes stemmed from riding the suppressed modern sentiment. Those bearing the silenced third identity felt there was finally some expression of their views, and that was new to them. When this expression arrives with a right-wing worldview, it offers a double innovation (compared to Meimad). It allows the voter to separate political desires (right) from religious conceptions (modern religiosity)—which is not possible in the Religious-Zionism party. Bennett’s success indicates that there is a broad modern public. Bennett’s fall stems, among other things (beyond his own failures, of course), from the fact that the war against this stream intensifies the more it gains political expression—and from the false consciousness that this war succeeds in creating.
Without entering into Bennett’s decisions, promises, and statements (I certainly share some of the criticisms), one cannot deny that the intensity of the war against Bennett and his colleagues was utterly hysterical. The war against them escalated to extreme levels. Bennett and his cohort became the greatest corruptors and traitors to the Jewish people since Dathan and Abiram—and the greatest enemies since Balaam, Pharaoh, and Esau. I’ll just note there was a rabbi who refused to give Minister Matan Kahana a glass of water. Bennett, as prime minister, was not invited to Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav on Jerusalem Day (almost heresy in their view—especially if one remembers who was invited). Unceasing demonstrations—replete with lies and malicious, tendentious slander—were conducted against them and their families, as well as ostracism in synagogue and community. They were likened to the worst of humanity, presented as leftists who hate Israel and have joined terrorists, and more. The violent and disproportionate criticism of Bennett and his cohort—joined by Haredim and religious-Zionists (together, again)—indicates an understanding, not necessarily conscious, among conservative adherents that the threat posed by him to them is not merely a local political one, but an existential ideological threat. As part of the same tactic, the conservative leadership (on both sides) stoked the public, which turned wholly against the new threat.
Politicians of Bennett’s type are not equipped with the Torah and philosophical capacity to contend with the criticism and the frenzied war waged against them. Remember that Bennett and his colleagues themselves are faithful products of religious-Zionist education and society, and therefore they find it hard to stand up to rabbinic figures by whose light they were themselves educated. No wonder that Bennett and Shaked—who themselves are far from religious conservatism—acted, until the last term, in decidedly conservative religious directions and led a Haredi line in every religious matter on the agenda of the Knesset. They understood that this is their role as representatives of the religious-Zionist public, and they submitted themselves to its leading figures—namely, the conservative rabbis who lead it. Bennett and Shaked are not truly positioned to determine whether these are indeed “great rabbis,” and whether their stances necessarily reflect halakhic interpretation. Therefore they assumed that such is the case. They adopted the insulting, yet common, view that the religious public—like an Arab village or a development town—has “notables” whom one must approach in order to move things and make decisions. Thus, politicians who themselves do not espouse conservative religious positions fell victim to the very identity fallacy I describe here.
This booklet hardly claims anything on the principled plane. It deals mainly with description—that is, presenting a fuller identity map with a more directed, updated coordinate system, from which naturally sprouts an option that is somehow silenced in our public discourse. Now each person can—and should—choose precisely where he situates himself on this map. Thinkers and rabbis must shake off the misleading, agenda-driven discourse that imprisons us all, and build a platform, infrastructure, and support that will dispel the mistaken consciousness and give the public the possibility to develop a third religious identity. At that stage arguments are of course required. This small booklet cannot lay that groundwork. It contains an initial direction for renewed thinking and for gathering the social and rabbinic forces that identify with the identity pulled out of the fog and placed here on the table. Those who support it can come from religious-Zionism with or without a hyphen—and even from circles that do not define themselves as Zionist. The time has come to free ourselves from the conservative straightjacket repeatedly forced upon us. Ultimately, I believe we can add a magic “anti-eraser” and color the world green instead of the anachronistic, exasperating black-and-white that ties our hands and our thoughts for roughly three generations. This process will not necessarily lead to the victory of modernity. But as a result of it, at least every Jewish mother will know that if she sends her son to war, it will be a worthy war and he will know what he is fighting for.
| And here are a few answers to claims likely to arise
You said you’re not political—so where’s the funding from? From private individuals—friends who believe in the importance of this discussion.
This is a leftist picture. Not true, despite what you are told morning and night—that anyone against Bibi, Smotrich, or Gafni is a leftist. That is part of the propaganda I described. One’s stance toward liberal values is unrelated to political right or left. Incidentally, even if I were leftist, I believe arguments should be discussed on their merits and examined substantively, regardless of the speaker’s identity. Labeling is a tool of the weak (those who have no arguments).
But practically I must vote Religious-Zionism, because it’s the only true Right. Perhaps. I am not dealing here with political voting but with identity building. You should examine—regardless of your vote—whether your fundamental religious identity is rooted in Zionism, and whether that is the issue around which it is appropriate to split and clash. In particular, think about who your rabbinic and political leadership is. My words here aim to clarify questions of identity. Each person will draw his own political conclusions.
Does the identity you propose have a Torah basis? Absolutely yes—but do not expect it within the confines of a small booklet. Whoever wants to delve deeper must read, study, and inquire (you are invited to my trilogy, which in my view does the job, and to the site here). At minimum I wished to inform you that such a foundation exists, and that it is no less solid than the foundations underlying the two anachronistic poles I critique here.
And what about “Da’at Torah” (rabbinic authority)? I do not accept this concept—even in its softer senses common among the non-Haredi public. I see it as part of the propaganda I described.
But this goes against the education we received. Indeed, this line of thought runs counter to the education we all received, both religious-Zionist and Haredi. Again I say: ideas must be judged on their merits, not by their source—judge the claim, not the claimant. And I will further ask: what would you say to a pagan who refuses to abandon the path in which he was raised?! The fact that we were educated in a certain way is no guarantee that it is correct—and certainly not that it is perfect. The authority and responsibility to decide rest with the person himself.
Wait—are the religious-Zionist leaders really Haredi? That’s demagoguery! One must understand that under the definition I propose, the term “Hardal” is applied among us too narrowly. It is not about the rabbis of a few yeshivot (“the line”) but about many rabbis and politicians who were educated by them or influenced by them—by their power or by the power of their power. In my remarks I provided indicators (a list of issues, positions, and Knesset voting patterns regarding them). You are invited to use them to examine your own views and the situation in the political field.
This picture isn’t complex enough. Reality is always more complex than any thesis about it. Every theoretical discussion—especially one about seam lines—is necessarily simplified, and rightly so. Remarks about “oversimplification” in a principled debate do not allow one to make a claim. For more material on this, articles and recorded lessons, see the site. |
[1] The “Yamina” party is not a religious party but a right-wing party, and it indeed gave some expression to the modern-religious public. However, it has now disappeared; below I will touch on the significance of this.
[2] In light of the earlier distinction, the hyphen requires explanation, but I will not go into that here.
[3] In my view, a significant part of the “light” phenomenon stems from the very labeling that assumes identity between religious commitment and conservatism. The “light” have internalized this baseless conflation and therefore see themselves as weak. Once that conflation is removed, some may discover that they are not “light” but modern-religious.
Discussion
Regarding the settlements: the Haredim are not settlers for ideological reasons, but for financial ones. If they get instructions from the rabbis to leave, then they’ll leave. They have no particular interest in specifically annoying some Arabs and showing them who’s boss, unlike the Religious Zionist settlers, among whom it seems that for some, brawls in Palestinian villages are an inseparable part of Sabbath delight.
And דווקא among the “extremists” in Haredi society you can find a certain openness that stems from their opposition to the very existence of the Jewish state. You’re invited to ask Neturei Karta what they think about civil marriage and private kashrut. You’ll find enthusiastic support, as part of the aspiration to bring down the rabbinate and undermine the fiction of the “Jewish state.”
I’m talking about practical differences, not slogans. When a peace agreement is on the table and we are required to evacuate settlements, then perhaps there will be a difference between Haredim and Religious Zionists. That is not on the table, and it’s certainly not a peg on which to hang a religious identity.
Neturei Karta are not on the map I drew. This is an esoteric and insignificant group.
At last
With God’s help, 9 Elul 5782
The “third identity,” which proposes liberal religiosity, has existed for quite some time in at least three forms—Tzohar rabbis, Beit Hillel rabbis, and “Torah va-Avodah Faithful,” with various nuances distinguishing between them. Not long ago, Rabbi Michael Abraham tried to establish a new “Modern Orthodoxy” organization that would attract alumni of Yeshiva University in America, but they were not eager for innovations lacking a solid basis in the halakhic literature.
It seems that most people of the “third identity” see themselves as an integral part of halakhic Judaism, and aspire to anchor their innovations in the words of their predecessors, rather than see themselves as a “new stream in Judaism.” Indeed, insofar as they insist on proper and worthy halakhic modes of thought and writing, grounded in the words of the decisors, early and later authorities, they have a chance of remaining within the framework of halakhic Judaism.
Best regards, Ofer Bedein of Levav-Muskroner (A.B.M.)
On the political level—there was the Jewish Home, in which there was room for all circles of Religious Zionism, both the Mercaz HaRav people and the Har Etzion people. After Bennett and Shaked left, an attempt was made to revive the Jewish Home, and a council was established for it that represented the two directions. Smotrich pushed the Jewish Home into a corner and drove its members into the arms of Yamina, which turned into “Leftward.”
What Smotrich did to חגית משה in the previous elections—Ben-Gvir did to him in the current elections, and perhaps thanks to them there will be a revival of the “Jewish Home” together with Ayelet Shaked. The problem is: who will lead there? Shaked’s approach, which valued and listened to rabbis’ advice, or Hendel’s condescending approach? And will this combination manage to pass the electoral threshold?
I think it’s easy to explain the collapse of “modern religious” parties not necessarily by false consciousness, but by the natural identification of their voters with secular parties.
If, as stated here, the modern religious person sees no religious basis for his Zionism (if it exists) and does not want religious coercion in the public sphere, what does he need with a religious party?
Perhaps this is an expression of self-awareness. The modern religious person no longer needs to vote for a “religious” party in order to maintain his personal religious identity. So he turns to the secular party closest to him, and continues to feel religious in his own home.
I’m also not at all sure that religious parties are needed. That’s why I spoke about religious identity and not party affiliation. Regarding voting, I agree that this is part of the matter, and the other part is false consciousness.
Although you argue forcefully that there is no connection between “lightness” and religious modernity, and your rational arguments are good, unfortunately they do not convince me. In my identity I am modern religious. But alas, I don’t find many Jews who truly see value in modernity and at the same time are faithful to Torah, love it, study it (invest their time in it), and value Torah scholars. Recently, after many years of studying Gemara, Rishonim, and listening to online lectures, I began studying Shev Shema’tata. What can I tell you—I have almost no one to talk to about it with, and I certainly don’t really find a modern person who would appreciate Torah study. On the other hand, most of my Torah-oriented friends have not read and will not read Anna Karenina or Gargantua and Pantagruel, and will not be impressed by insights and novelties in number theory. I know there are others like me; I know they are few. How many Jews like attorney Yaakov Weinroth do you know—who until the day of his death admired the analytical brilliance of his rabbi, Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky, and at the same time was open to and deeply interested in this world? Count carefully and you’ll get to 247… What can I say—if only. Somehow it doesn’t work together, modernity and our beloved Torah. How many Jews do you know who would be interested in what you write about LGBTQ issues and at the same time enjoy your book on issues of time in the Talmud? (I enjoyed it immensely.) It doesn’t work; we are a minority. In any case, I too will circulate the article; it is of great importance. But without divine intervention, there isn’t much chance (:
With God’s help, 9 Elul 5782
To be proficient both in “Gargantua” and in “Shev Shema’tata,” one must be “panirz” (= all-capable), and then in his study of Shev Shema’tata his existential doubt whether to marry or not will be resolved 🙂
The ideal of being a person versed in all the sciences, which prevailed in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance—has been declining in the modern period, in which every field keeps expanding in knowledge and in the depth of study required. To be “modern” requires specialization.
What one may expect from a modern Torah scholar is that he have broad, multidisciplinary general knowledge, a basic familiarity with worldwide currents of thought. Precisely in the Har HaMor circles there are a number like that…
Best regards, Ofer Bedein of Levav-Muskroner (A.B.M.)
Do you mean to say that in Har HaMor circles there are such people? How many? Write names. And don’t start with Aviner and end with him. Because if you really knew, then you’d know that Rabbi Tau doesn’t count him. How did you dismiss with a wave of the hand Rabbis Lichtenstein, Rabinovitch, and Steinsaltz? True, they are all of blessed memory, but only recently they were walking among us, and with each of them one could speak with broad knowledge about this world and the holy Torah. Why are you playing innocent about Har HaMor? They hate not only the secular world; even a commentary on Rav Kook’s writings that is not from Rabbi Tau’s students is invalid in their eyes. Well, never mind—you always want to defend everyone. Fortunate are you in this world and the next.
My main problem with the article is that it is essentially calling for identity politics. Instead of the author calling on people to grow up and vote for whoever will advance the policy they believe in, he calls on people to vote according to a different identity from among the variety of identities they hold. In my opinion this is the greatest damage one can do to politics and to shared public life. I assume the author also does not want the state to decide one way or another in disputes of outlook or religious conceptions, but at most a change of outlook and a changing of the guard in the state religious institutions such as the Chief Rabbinate and the religious councils. If I’m right and that’s what all the uproar is about, then the obvious question is whether, out of the range of challenges and issues on the agenda, this is the issue that can and should consolidate the political camps. I, in my humble opinion, think that the identity of the head of the Teachers’ Union affects the citizen in “real life” more than the identity of the Chief Rabbi. In short—politics is not the continuation of a polemic on a blog by other means, or at least it is not supposed to be.
First, I agree with the principled analysis.
But it seems to me that on the ground there are social facts, and they are reflected in rabbinic leadership and in politics.
Socially, from a Torah-oriented knitted-kippah family one can go both to HaKav and to Gush and its daughters’ institutions (what would be defined as Hardal and modern Religious Zionist), but almost not at all to a black-hat yeshiva. Therefore, in practice one sees that there is a kind of knitted-kippah society. Conversely, Haredim will not go to the HaKav yeshivot either, and the modern ones among them will not go to Gush (at most to Kerem B’Yavneh), and it is evident that there is a social identity. This is also evident in marriage, living together, and partnership in communities.
As a result, there is a leadership and political reflection: each society is interested in its rabbis and votes for its representatives in order to look after itself, its neighborhoods, and its institutions.
Although there is a clear conservative-liberal axis, one cannot deny that there is some social construct of black kippot versus knitted kippot, and this comes from below, from the field, even though there is no logical theoretical explanation for it from the conceptual analysis you carried out.
By way of illustration: about a year ago there was a series of reports on the Haredim on one of the channels, and what stood out there was that even the modern ones among them, who study and work, want and aspire for their children to study Torah in kollel, not enlist, and be more Torah-oriented than they are. By contrast, the modern person with a knitted kippah does not feel that way and is more at peace with his choice. Although in the eyes of many of my acquaintances from HaKav yeshivot they are Haredim de facto, in practice our children may study together, maybe marry, and they will be my neighbors. With Haredim there is almost no chance. For some reason there is a Haredi society and a society called Religious Zionist. This is the actual situation.
I didn’t understand your argument. You repeat my words and then say you disagree. But that is precisely what I claimed, that the field behaves in an anachronistic and illogical way. I began by saying that everything is split around the Zionist line: institutions, yeshivot, synagogues, matchmaking, literature, rabbis, newspapers, budgets—and all this is illogical. So where is the disagreement?
Where in my words did you see a call to vote for someone? I spoke about identities, not about parties.
And where in my words did you see that the state should decide questions of religious identity? I wrote exactly the opposite: that people should relate to life and to the state according to their religious identity and not according to emotional and anachronistic tribalism.
Why don’t you take my arguments seriously, Michi?
After all, I write very substantively.
You can read here:
https://mikyab.net/posts/77547#comment-65416
In my opinion, you have a mistake in your analysis of reality. The numerical questions regarding “lightness” are not relevant to the discussion. My claim is that there are many people for whom this is their outlook, and indeed many of them are “light.” So what? My remarks are addressed to them so that they clarify two things that people are trying hard to blur: 1. Are they really “light,” or do they merely identify themselves that way because of their opposition to Hardalism? 2. Further, does their “lightness” presuppose an ideal conservative-Hardal model (which they are too weak to match), or a modern model (which they are too weak to match)? In my opinion, most belong to the second type. I am speaking about the principled conceptions, not about actual conduct.
Paragraph 3, line 3
…and a council was established for it that represented…
Reality is much more complex than the above article; there is no reference to subgroups and different shades in the tapestry of opinions existing between Zionist conservatism and liberalism and modernity. For example, different shades within Sephardi Judaism, reference to the Chabad idea in relation to modernity, the Breslov idea, and the group of immigrants from abroad in their various shades.
In any event, more power to you.
I assume you did not reach the answer to the last question on the last page.
Here one can see a positive side in Rabbi Eliezer Melamed’s Peninei Halakha books: even though in some of his rulings he leaned to the liberal side, such as on conversion, the attitude to Reform Jews, and in some purity and kashrut issues where he went too far—nevertheless, the general spirit blowing through his books is one of precision in halakha and preserving a connection to the words of the decisors, which will help his readership not make an all-encompassing ideology out of “lightness” that pretends to be a “third identity.”
Perhaps the desire not to create a complete rupture found expression in the relatively moderate attitude of Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, who on the one hand expressed reservations about some of Rabbi Melamed’s innovative rulings, but did not call for removing his books from the shelf. The reservations led to the appearance of the Ohalei Halakha series by the Institute of Torah and the Land, which presents concise rulings according to Rabbi Ariel’s approach and rulings. Thus everyone can compare and note the differences.
Best regards, Menashe Barkai Buch-Treger (M.B.T.)
A. I did not claim that you called to vote for someone, because that really would be absurd to claim, but you explicitly called to change the considerations by which we go out to vote around the framework you formulated.
B. I argued “either way”—if you really are not in favor of the state deciding, then it turns out that you are proposing to replace one kind of anachronistic tribalism with another kind of anachronistic tribalism, because if there is no practical meaning to voting that stems from identity, we are left only with emotional meaning (aka identity politics).
Rabbi Michi,
Again I wanted to thank you for the clarity and courage. You opened my eyes. Continue on this path. More power to you.
Ehud, thanks for the compliments. If I walked in God’s path (“who opens the eyes of the blind”) and opened one eye in Israel, that was my reward.
A. Indeed, I called on people to consider their vote according to the policy they desire, and not according to emotional and anachronistic identity politics. The “camp” I formulated (a bit hasty, no?) is a camp that has some worldview, and whoever belongs to it does so because he believes in it, not because he belongs to it for historical reasons (for it has only just now been formed), and this is in contrast to the current situation. I truly do not understand the inversion you are making here.
B. Same as above. It seems you did not read what I wrote at all.
This is no longer the Zionist line. Whatever the history may be, and whatever the names may be, there are in practice two societies. People do not choose them on the basis of Zionist/non-Zionist. They simply exist on the ground sociologically. It’s not something that can be challenged from above following the echo of your correct analysis. Still, from the same class in a religious high school, some will go to HaKav yeshivot, to various pre-army academies, to hesder, and to the army, and not to black-hat yeshivot—and vice versa (a Haredi who is not suited to yeshiva will not go to a pre-army academy). Each will feel alien in the other’s place. There seems to be some real social thing that has formed on the ground, in which among our neighbors and family members there are all types, and we will all sit together on Shabbat or meet at celebrations and feel a bond. And when we sit with a Haredi, there will be less of a feeling of social partnership, and even a sense of estrangement. I am not pointing to a cause, only to how things look in practice. My claim is that it is very hard to change this deliberately because it does not stem from ideological gaps (indeed, Hardal and Haredim are similar in much more than liberal and Hardal), but from a built-in society that already exists on the ground, and changing tribalism is very difficult. As an example I brought the fact that even the modern among the Haredim feel belonging to the Haredi tribe in their aspirations that their children be pure Haredim and less modern than they are, in complete contrast to the modern Religious Zionist.
I am not disagreeing essentially; I just find it hard to see how something could change in a deliberate way. Processes happen, but they take time and come from below. It seems to me that a modern person who reads you and nods in agreement was already convinced beforehand. Those who really need to diagnose their place on the scale (mainly the Hardal people who in practice behave like Haredim who say Hallel) in any case define you as a heretic and will contradict whatever comes out of your mouth. Although I completely agree with the analysis, I find it hard to see how discourse can change things when what is involved is tribalism ingrained from home.
Everything you wrote is also written by me. It is the Zionist line, except that it has settled in for sociological and psychological reasons, and now stands on its own. I wrote all this too. If you ask people, they will tell you that their basic identity is Religious Zionist (or national-religious), as opposed to Haredi. That is the retroactive justification they give themselves for their psychology. So on this we completely agree.
We are left only with your claim that there is no chance of changing this distorted situation—that is, causing people to abandon emotion and return to reason. I am more optimistic, and in my opinion this third identity is definitely possible, and I think it is already really emerging. Those who share it are people who belong to the labels of Haredi and Religious Zionist, and who understand that there is not really any difference—both on the Haredi-Hardal pole and on the more liberal pole. History has its own ways, and we must help it as best we can. Will we succeed or not? The future will tell us.
If you are a sociological and psychological determinist, then indeed there is no point in discussion. But I think sociology is created by people and not only creates them, and in this first component (that of creating sociology) we have a role, and there is also a chance of succeeding. Without this, nothing would ever have been created, and we would have had the image of Adam the first man, or merely of accidental circumstances acting upon us. I refuse to accept such a fatalistic picture.
I wanted once again to praise the site owner for his incisive words. May your wellsprings spread outward. Be strong and courageous, and do not be ashamed before the mockers and trolls.
So let me get to the practical point for a moment: what do you expect to happen in practice? The Hardal person will say he isn’t Haredi, and vice versa. What will change? Since right now they are rooted in their own identity and so proud of the gray with the black/white past, what will move them and where to? What practical consequence will this have beyond words, when in practice their children don’t go on dates and they don’t sit on the same bench in the same yeshivot? Will they merge into one society? After all, they don’t listen to you at all (or to anyone who does not speak from the mouth of the Divine Presence in the form of their all-knowing rabbis of blessed memory). In the liberal public this is seemingly more possible, but since among the Haredim the liberal one is less independent and is in practice a shadow looking up from below at the real conservative Haredim, as long as there is no change in the conservative public, in my opinion this also makes sociological change less possible in the non-conservative public.
Ehud, your unceasing praise is really embarrassing. People will think this is commissioned by me. Please, be so kind as to stop it and address the substance of the matter.
Unfortunately the gentiles too continue to argue about the justice of the existence of the state of the Jews. This cosmic optimism about the existence of the state of the Jews for the next 10,000 years does not seem right to me when we could collapse in just another year:
https://yuddaaled.wordpress.com/2022/01/18/%d7%97%d7%96%d7%99%d7%95%d7%9f-%d7%9b%d7%99%d7%91%d7%95%d7%a9-%d7%94%d7%91%d7%95%d7%a8-%d7%91%d7%a7%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%94/
You completely lost me in the quoted passage* in which you identify Bennett as a victim of persecution and demonization.
If I didn’t attribute false consciousness to you, I would attribute stupidity or malice to you.
Any reasonable person should easily see that the opposite is the case. Bennett was protected and caressed in an unprecedented way, far beyond his performance, only because he joined the real persecution and demonization campaign against Netanyahu, which apparently managed to brainwash you as it did many naïve people in the public.
* “…It is impossible to deny that the intensity of the war against Bennett and his associates was completely hysterical. The war against them sharpened to extreme levels. Bennett and his group became the greatest corrupt traitors to arise against the Jewish people since Dathan and Abiram, and the greatest enemies since Balaam, Pharaoh, and Esau. I will only mention that there was a rabbi who refused to serve a glass of water to Minister Matan Kahana. Bennett as prime minister was not invited to a Mercaz HaRav meeting on Jerusalem Day (for them that is almost heresy, especially if one remembers who was invited). Endless demonstrations, full of lies and wild, tendentious slander, were conducted against them and against their family members, as were ostracism in the synagogue and in the community. They were likened to the worst of human beings, presented as leftists undermining Israel who had joined forces with terrorists, and more. The violent and disproportionate criticism directed at Bennett and his associates…”
As someone within Religious Zionism, it seems that a large majority of the public does not truly and sincerely believe in its path and is not interested at all in questions of thought (but rather in current matters of TV series and Instagram and the like), and does not observe halakha when it is inconvenient. So the group of “modern religious” people that the rabbi presents is very small and lacks significant power (relative to the other parties). Does the rabbi agree?
It is not clear whether the persecution campaign washed Michi’s brain, or Netanyahu’s own. I assume you meant both.
In any case, in my opinion you found the sore spot. His hatred of Netanyahu (which plausibly does indeed stem from the long years of blackening campaign, which I assume you meant) ruins the line and completely confuses him.
And “at the end of the day,” the dividing line of identities is not between conservatives and innovators, but on the question of accepting the principles of Jewish faith and accepting the authority of Hazal and our early and later rabbis. Whoever accepts both these and those—is part of rabbinic Judaism.
Best regards, A.B.M.
No. A large portion of those whom you define as “light” are that way because of the fear of Haredi criteria. A normal person who is interested in TV series can be a good Jew and God-fearing. One is allowed to enjoy, and allowed, and allowed to love (as the song says). But the Hardalim sell us a picture according to which anyone who is not like them is “light.” Even the halakha that people do not observe is sometimes the Hardali halakha. People have a feeling that this is anachronistic, and therefore they do not observe it.
And despite everything I wrote, indeed there are quite a few genuinely “light” people. But the important question is what their outlook is, not what they do in practice. There is a “light” person who holds a Hardali conception, but he himself is weak and does not conduct himself that way. In his eyes, a real religious person is a Hardalnik, and his proper leader is Rabbi Ariel or Rabbi Lior or Rabbi Tau. And there is a “light” person who holds a modern conception but is weak and does not himself behave that way. Many “light” people fall into the second category, although they are sold the first one, and they themselves live in the false consciousness of the first approach. It is to them that I spoke.
Dear friends. It is evident that from sheer tendentiousness you cannot see the tip of your own finger. Indeed Bennett is protected by the press and the left. Who said otherwise? But from the religious side he is attacked in an unprecedented and disproportionate way. I said the second, and you point to the first. How did you see a contradiction between the two?
True, the subject of logic was never a strong point on that side of the identity map. But I have not despaired (not for nothing did I trouble myself to write this article), and I wish you a quick and immediate improvement. More power to you.
I’m really not optimistic, and you certainly could not have seen such optimism in the article. So I do not know what your remarks are aimed at.
I think one reason it is hard to define the modern-conservative divide as the dividing line is that the separation is much less clear than Zionist / non-Zionist, and is much more continuous.
In addition, in my opinion, apart from extreme fringes on both sides (I am speaking about Religious Zionism; I do not know the Haredi world well enough), there is no difference in principles but only in the mode of action and the “dosage.” Everyone agrees that Torah and commandments are of supreme importance, that the secular world has significance, that there is something to learn from general culture, but on the other hand one must also be careful of it.
Because the disputes are quantitative (how much to be exposed to general culture) and about modes of action (whether laws with a Jewish character contribute to the state/Judaism or harm them), in my opinion Religious Zionism is still one camp with real disagreements within it, but not ones that split it into two opposing camps.
Hello, Rabbi. I did not mean to claim that someone who watches series is necessarily not religious, nor to dispute the poet’s words. My meaning is that (as I understand it) a large majority of the public does not aspire to any conception at all, because they are not interested in religious questions, nor are they interested in questions of halakha and its observance; rather, they keep what is convenient for them and are “on the spectrum,” as the well-known saying goes—Mizrachnikim. [I am in the non-Hardal Religious Zionist public.] Also, I recall that a few years ago there was a survey in the newspaper Motza”sh about halakhic observance in various areas and Torah study in Religious Zionism, and the results were unflattering to say the least. My question is whether my view of reality is correct, and consequently whether there is a real possibility for a significant “modern religious” force. What do you think?
With God’s help, 9 Elul 5782
To P.A.—hello,
There are attempts to harness the “light” aspiration for comfort into a struggle against the “stringent rabbis.” For example, the struggle of Torah va-Avodah Faithful to grant certification to cafés and restaurants that are open on Shabbat, since the rabbinate refuses to grant certification to an eatery open on Shabbat.
What do they do? They drip-feed the public the idea that it is possible to spend time on Shabbat in a kosher restaurant or café, and only the rigidity of the Haredim and Hardalim prevents this kosher Sabbath recreation. At first they tried to force the local rabbinates by means of the High Court to grant certification to restaurants and cafés on Shabbat. When they did not succeed—they raised the idea of “privatizing” kashrut so that corporations would be found to give certification to eateries operating on Shabbat.
Consciousness is created through public struggles that try to “sell” the light public how much the “stringent rabbis” harm their ability to enjoy themselves. And so on: one public struggle will pursue another, and the consciousness of an identity set apart from the rabbinic leadership keeps growing stronger.
Best regards, Ofer Bedein of Levav-Muskroner (A.B.M.)
To Ofer: you are mixing topics. Your claim deals with people’s motivation. It seems to me that this is slander against liberal people as such, and anyone who reads the site/books knows there is no reason to suspect Rabbi Michael of a desire to establish “light convenience.” My claim is that most (not all) of the Religious Zionist public is not interested in religious discussions and/or halakhic observance, and therefore there is no significant “modern religious” force.
Indeed, most of the public also is not careful with every minor and major commandment—but does not want to make an ideology out of it. In many cases they would prefer to give their children a more Torah-oriented education. Even one who is not careful about everything will in many cases “love the rabbis and honor the rabbis,” and merit sons and sons-in-law who are rabbis. It won’t help the agitators….
Best regards, A.B.M.
To Ofer: I don’t know what world you live in. In this world, most kippah-wearers from Religious Zionism admire television stars, not rabbis—super-“light” people who are not committed to halakha at all, and in my view your claim is either naïveté/denial or unawareness of reality. And again, Heaven forbid that one should assume every liberal person as such is an “agitator.”
To Rabbi Michael: in your opinion is reality different, or despite that could there still be a modern religious force?
It is quite possible that this is second-generation trolling.
I did not understand the claim. Those unifying lines also exist among groups of Haredim, and do not exist among Hardalim.
I do not expect change to happen tomorrow morning, but the change is already taking place and will probably intensify. This article joins the effort to promote it.
In my opinion, definitely yes. Moreover, there is already a significant force like this. It is much larger and stronger than the Hardal one, but part of it lives in false consciousness and another part is not organized, and of course some of it also votes for secular parties (like me usually, when I even bother to vote).
Thank you for a wonderful article. May there be many like you in Israel.
Many thanks for the compliments.
Please explain to someone as logic-challenged as me,
why do you attribute the aversion to Bennett and Kahana to their modern religiosity? I, for example, very much identify with your approach to Judaism, but deeply despise Bennett on professional, ethical, moral, and personal grounds (in my non-professional impression, he is a psychopath par excellence).
With God’s help, 11 Elul 5782
To L.L.M.L.—hello,
The fact that a person blurted out an inappropriate remark in a time of anger does not invalidate any future statement of his, and each of his statements should be judged on its own merits.
All the more so since his anger at some of the Haredim who openly flouted the instructions of the health authorities during the epidemic is very understandable. Besides the fact that carelessness regarding protective measures endangers lives—it also arouses hostility in the general public toward the Haredim in particular and toward Judaism in general.
Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky too, who insisted that the education system should not be shut down but rather operated while maintaining small groups, ventilation, and no crowding (an insight that over time became generally accepted), instructed that in all other matters the directives must be observed, even at the cost of canceling public prayer. And Rabbi Gershon Edelstein demanded obedience to the instructions in everything. So one can understand Rabbi Michael Abraham’s anger toward those who flouted the safety instructions.
So it is better to conduct a substantive discussion about the content of the booklet The Third Identity, especially since reading it in synagogues might reduce the chatter and the reading of gossip and advertisements 🙂
Best regards, Ofer Bedein of Melabav-Muskroner (A.B.M.)
You are right that an “ideological-political manifesto,” like most leaflets, should not be brought into or read in a synagogue—and certainly not during the prayer service.
In Kochav HaShachar, the community rabbi, Rabbi Ohad Krakover, instituted that the Shabbat leaflets be placed in a stand next to the grocery. Whoever wants them should take them straight home and enjoy them on the couch. What are newspapers doing in a synagogue?
Best regards, A.B.M.
I forgot to specify additional organizations preaching “modern religiosity,” such as the Yaakov Herzog Center, Mizrach Shemesh, Kolech, and Hadar and others—with apologies to them—so that the “third identity” joins a broad group…
Best regards, A.B.M.
In line 1
…also is not careful…
The problem in the political sphere with politicians who show vigor in the area of modern-religious policy is that for some reason they also tend to side with the left in the diplomatic-security sphere; cf. Elazar Stern and Moshe Tur-Paz, who sit in Yesh Atid, and Matan Kahana, who joined the National Unity party and began to understand the Palestinian “narrative” and vigorously explain that we should support Abu Mazen…
For some reason there is a connection between a right-wing conception in the diplomatic-security sphere and a tendency toward conservatism in the traditional-religious sphere. Therefore the right-wing modern-religious voter must decide what is more important to him…
Best regards, A.B.M.
Where would you “give way” to modernity?
I’ll give an example that may not be self-evident. The laws of niddah and the many forms of distancing from her stem not only from halakha, but also—and perhaps primarily—from a demonic conception of the niddah, and Ramban’s words are well known.
We do not understand this conception at all.
Would you change anything in these laws?
Most of my book Mahalakim Bein HaOmdim is devoted to these questions. And also in my lecture series on tradition, innovation, and conservatism.
I think that among most of those called “Hardalim” (and certainly among the overwhelming majority of Religious Zionism), those unifying lines exist, and the argument is only about the dosages.
As for the claim that the Hardalim’s declarations regarding modernity are “open” but in practice they are Haredim, that is not so clear to me. In practice, most Hardalim are actually open to modernity, of course with reservations and caution.
I disagree, but the numerical question is really not important. My claim is that the essential dividing line is the attitude to modernity. If some Hardalim are to its left, then they belong there. Why is this important? The public and political conduct of Religious Zionism and its leadership is Haredi.
May the zealots die
To NLA—hello,
Better to say: “May the zealots be made to die down.” After all, we are moderns who advocate openness and tolerance1
Best regards, Mattaniah Hai Kimelman-Shiloah
With God’s help, 11 Elul 5782
To Reuven—hello,
The fences and safeguards in the purity prohibitions derive from the severity of the prohibition, which carries karet. There are also many safeguards concerning the prohibition of חמץ on Passover because it too carries karet. All the more so when dealing with the sexual impulse, which is strong. It would seem that the modern person also has desires, and therefore he too needs safeguarding.
Best regards, Shemaryahu Shlomo Halevi Kanafi
Indeed there is reason to fear that the Cossacks will find in Rabbi Michael Abraham’s words a justification for riots, especially since they too see themselves as Orthodox 🙂 Therefore, in my humble opinion, one should avoid distributing the booklet in Uman!
Best regards, Hop Kozak
On second thought, although with the religious liberal one can see less connection to Torah study, there is definitely a large public that sees itself as God-fearing, in the sense of halakhic commitment, only it feels bound to its conservative brother.
I didn’t understand the following sentence—
“Almost no central Religious Zionist rabbi or thinker argues against the Haredim who oppose Zionism in the name of modern values (how can you deny modern values such as nationalism, democracy, and the like?!)”
But Rabbi Kook (and presumably all Religious Zionist rabbis) speaks explicitly about the national idea as something that expresses the human aspiration to live in society.
The national idea, of course, is not taken from some “religious halakha,” but is a modern psychological movement in humanity.
How can you claim that the “Religious Zionist” is disconnected from modernity when he draws entirely from the teaching of Rabbi Kook?
You can look at Rabbi Cherki’s website, where he elaborates on the ideas:
http://ravsherki.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1662:q-16621662-1662&catid=57&Itemid=100513
This is empty discourse. In the end, even Rabbi Kook explained that everything begins and ends with Torah, and at most he found good things outside as well that came back and illuminated for him the Torah source. With his students this is even more prominent. These are empty slogans. Every new value is ultimately anchored in Torah sources, and they explain that we or the Torah already knew this in advance (it may only have been hidden from us over the years). I wrote this briefly in the article as well. Today there is no prominent rabbi in Religious Zionism who would make those arguments against Haredim.
I think you are conflating being disconnected from modernity with drawing from it. Rabbi Kook was not disconnected from it, but did not draw from it—that is, he did not rely on modernity as a basis that gives something validity. And his students certainly do not. Go and study Torah writings on democracy. All of them will explain to you how deeply rooted it is in our tradition (and in my opinion it really is not), rather than saying that it is morally proper simply because it is proper. We learned that from the world.
It’s like saying there is no religious thief, because if he is a thief then he is not religious. So too, there is no value that is not in Torah, because if it is not in Torah then it is not a value.
I don’t know what it means that “Rabbi Kook held that everything begins and ends with Torah” in our context.
I explicitly mentioned the national idea that is mentioned in the essay “For the Course of the Ideas in Israel.”
“For the Course of the Ideas in Israel” begins as follows:
“The style of life and the style of thought of the human being, which include his entire essence, stand out in their full content in the idea of society and in the spiritual idea, which are the treasuries of the national and faith forms that belong to human collectives. . . . The national idea . . . as the orderly style of life of society”
I do not see “Torah” mentioned here, and certainly not anything connected to halakha. He speaks in general about humanity, and that is completely clear to anyone who reads the quotation I brought.
And certainly all Religious Zionist rabbis (Rabbi Cherki, Rabbi Lundin, Rabbi Melamed, Rabbi Druckman, etc.) mean and speak in exactly this way.
If Rabbi Kook’s article had opened with “The national matter is something the people of Israel derive from its holy Torah, for in our holy Torah are found all the commandments dependent on the Land,”
then the truth would be on your side.
But what can be done—it is really not so. More than that, it is even the opposite. Rabbi Kook argues that דווקא in exile, the intensive involvement with Torah brought about the forgetting of the national matter.
Forgive my decisiveness, but your article is simply not accurate (to put it mildly), at least according to the quotation I brought from him. I think it is quite clear that this is so.
I will leave you and the readers here a link to For the Course of the Ideas in Israel; you are invited to read it for a moment (I assume you have read it in the past), and think for a moment whether it might perhaps be worth correcting what you wrote:
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9A_%D7%94%D7%90%D7%99%D7%93%D7%99%D7%90%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C
With God’s help, 11 Elul 5782
And perhaps instead of splitting, fragmenting, and tearing ourselves into clashing identities, we should begin to seek a “triple identity” that aspires both to closeness to God, to solidarity with the people and society in all their variety, and to the self-realization of the individual.
We should understand that some emphasize one side, and others emphasize another side, but all the sides are essential in order to complete the puzzle and create a “combined identity,” one that has balance and harmony between man and God, man and society, and man and himself. We will grant others some of our emphases and learn from them, with appreciation, their emphases, in the spirit of “each receiving judgment from the other.”
Instead of bringing the polarized social rifts of the election system into the synagogue—we should aspire to make the synagogue and the study hall a place that radiates harmonious wholeness to the entire public, and we will ask with all our heart: “Grant peace, goodness, and blessing to us and to all Your people Israel.”
Best regards, Mattaniah Hai Kimelman-Shiloah
To J.A.Q.—hello,
It is clear that the divine idea and the national idea exist in every culture. The Torah, as the “order of the world,” offers a proper combination of them: a strong and flourishing kingdom that will nevertheless be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” founded upon “righteous laws and ordinances.”
Modernity strengthened a third idea—the human being’s desire for freedom and self-realization. And here too the Torah has something to offer. Precisely the insight of “If I am only for myself, what am I,” and of the human being’s being a divine emissary meant to bring goodness and blessing into the world, is what grants a person unique meaning. It takes him out of being a worthless “crumb” or a meaningless “driven leaf” and makes him part of the “King’s legion.”
Best regards, Ami’oz Yaron Shnitzler
I think this discussion is empty apologetics. Take any work on democracy and Judaism, etc., and you will see that its value is based on Torah sources and not on the very conception that this is simply proper. Including the rabbis you mentioned and many others. As I wrote in the column, these fine phrases and declarations certainly exist, but they are a dead letter. And in my opinion even with Rabbi Kook himself they were not really such. Clearly he spoke of beautiful and good ideas everywhere in the world; that is common knowledge. So we do not need the quotations you bring here. There are many more like them. From a number of places it is evident that he saw all these as expressions of Torah, which had sometimes been lost to us and was found there. As I wrote to you above, to the best of my understanding, he did not ground the validity of external values on the mere fact that they are worthy, period; rather, at most they illuminate our eyes to discover another component of Torah.
But this discussion about Rabbi Kook is unnecessary. I have no wish here to enter into research on his thought. This is certainly the case with virtually all the others (and in my opinion with him as well). After all, I wrote in the article itself that he said “the old shall be renewed and the new shall be sanctified,” and other such phrases. That is exactly the tension between the slogans and the actual conduct, which is the exact opposite.
So I really do not see where or how I erred, and I see no need whatsoever to correct anything. My description is completely accurate.
Let’s agree to disagree; I left the quotations. Readers are invited to read For the Course of the Ideas in Israel and judge for themselves.
Another question—
Is there any advantage to the “third identity”?
You presented two modern conceptions that are necessarily positive: nationalism and democracy.
But what happens if a “modern religious” person goes along with modern conceptions that are a bit less good for us—
for example, cosmopolitanism (no borders and no nationality) or “family can also be dad and dad, or dad and dad and mom, or dad and dad and a dog.” After all, there are conceptions today that are very modern. And a family of dad and dad, as far as I understand, does not contradict any explicit commandment in the Torah (as long as they do not sin with male homosexual intercourse).
So who says, for example, that a “modern religious” person with a third identity who says “nationalism and democracy” is better than a “modern religious” person who says “cosmopolitanism and a family of dad and dad”?
I see a very great problem in the conception of the modern religious person.
The word “Zionism” originally meant return to Zion and building a national home for the Jewish people in this piece of land. The emphasis was on building a sovereign and secure political entity that would serve as a home and refuge for every Jew wherever he may be. Religious Zionism added another layer, giving a religious value to the word “Zionism,” which also included the commandment of settling the land within the borders promised by the Holy One, blessed be He, even if another people also lives within those borders, with all the problems that entails. The fault line between original Zionism and Religious Zionism is very deep, and today is essentially characterized as the fault line between right and left. In my opinion, it would be fitting for the religious Judaism that you describe as “modern” to address this fault line as well and not incline automatically to the right side of the map. The fact that most of the religious public votes for “right-wing” parties troubles me, because it apparently means that the religious outlook shapes in some way (perhaps also unconsciously) the diplomatic-security outlook, even though ostensibly there should be no connection between them.
This is not a question of advantage or disadvantage. The question is what values you believe in. I am speaking about an identity that does not necessarily share all its values, but what is common to all of them is that their “external” values are part of their religious conception. What are those values? About that one can argue. If you think that cosmopolitanism is something bad, then you have a disagreement with your modern-religious colleague regarding that value, but you have no disagreement about the very inclusion of external values in your religious conception. Just as there are disputes in halakha, there can also be value-disputes. That does not concern modernity.
And let it be known: I do not intend in any way to claim that everything that is a modern value is necessarily correct. I only claim that it is not necessarily incorrect merely because its source is external. Will I necessarily accept every progressive nonsense or merely “enlightened” nonsense just because it is popular in the modern world? Absolutely not. See, for example, abortions, conversion therapies, targeted killings, progressivism, and so on and on. All of these are problematic modern values. So I have a disagreement with those who hold them, but that has nothing to do with my being modern.
And one final note. In many cases, groups that hold such problematic values are used as an attack on modernity. That is why it is so popular among Hardalim to attack progressivism, and through it Western culture in general. But Western culture is not necessarily progressivism. On the contrary, most of the Western world absolutely does not believe in the extreme expressions of progressivism. Just as it is not right to attack religious people because Yigal Amir murdered Rabin, or because there are extremists who do problematic things.
Not for nothing did I avoid entering questions of right and left. As far as I am concerned, these are open questions, and in my opinion they neither are nor should be at the core of religious identity. If you advocate the left, all the best to you. Whoever advocates the right, all the best to him as well. In my view, neither is connected to the discussion.
By the way, the correlation between religiosity and the right is not necessarily based on diplomatic and security conceptions, but the opposite: such a person will tell you that because of the holiness of the land and the duty to conquer it, I become right-wing. And this even if factually I believe that compromise will bring peace. The correlation between religious beliefs and values and security conceptions is a spurious correlation (though it exists), and you can find several places on this site where I dealt with it and pointed out that this is indeed a logical mistake and a lack of integrity. There is no impediment to saying that I oppose handing over territory for a religious reason, and at the same time claim that handing over territory will bring peace. And of course the reverse as well. The fact that there is a correlation between these two questions points to a lack of integrity. By the way, that same lack of integrity is found in you as well, of course. The moment you abandon your religious commitment, you become left-wing. So exactly the same criticism you direct at the religious right can be directed at you.
Sorry, once again you are simply mistaken and misleading.
The Jewish people (of course the people and the religion are not the same thing) do indeed collect values from the gentiles (and from the whole world).
This is called “raising the sparks.” Many Religious Zionist rabbis speak about it.
Here is an example from Rabbi Cherki:
https://ravsherki.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8316:2021-04-02-06-57-13&catid=605&Itemid=100513
Factually, the people of Israel learn a great deal from the scientific fields of the gentiles. For example, among “Religious Zionists” (including me), the understanding that the theory of evolution is true is accepted, and this is because objective scientific inquiry and the striving for truth represented by science are values that many “religious Zionists” adopted following the upgrade that science has undergone in the last dozens/hundreds of years.
Forgive me, I just think you’re a bit confused, and it’s a shame that you’re confusing others.
So after I have proven that you were clearly and absolutely mistaken that “there is no Zionist rabbi who learns values that are external,” I will say one more small thing:
This entire article is built out of straw men, and various manipulations that present what you are trying to convey in a way convenient for you, so that your thesis will seem reasonable.
I previously gave the example that you deliberately chose the values of “nationalism” and “democracy” in order to present the “modern religious” person as something positive, whereas in reality things are much, much more complex (this you only noted in passing).
If I sum up:
A. The article is simply misleading (as was proven in the first comment).
B. Even where it is not misleading, the author makes life easy for himself in order to highlight his thesis. It’s exactly like my setting up a basketball hoop in the yard at a height of a meter and a half in order to say that I “can dunk.” And indeed I managed to dunk. Well done me!
Tell me, are you sure you’re real? This looks like trolling. It is very hard to discuss with a person lacking minimal comprehension ability, who jumps from question to question and, after one finishes and moves on to another question, goes back to the previous one and ignores the new one. I assume your next message will discuss the murder of Arlosoroff.
We began with the question whether there are Religious Zionist rabbis who adopt values from gentiles or whether they base their values on Torah. You “proved” to me that there are, and I explained to you that you are really not right. Then you left that question to the readers and concluded that we would remain without agreement. Fine. Then you moved on to another question: what is the advantage or disadvantage of a modern identity? To that I explained that here too you are formulating an irrelevant question.
When you saw that you had no way to address the new question substantively, you suddenly jumped back to the question you had summarized and repeated the same nonsense, with the addition of a splendid new absurdity: people learn from the gentiles evolution. QED.
So I will end this bizarre discussion with a few questions: what connection is there between adopting scientific information and adopting values? Is evolution a value? What is this nonsense? And that is without entering the question of which Religious Zionist rabbis accept evolution and how many. Did I say anywhere that people do not learn science or information from gentiles? What does that prove regarding drawing values from gentiles, which is the subject of our discussion here?
In short, if by your standards I am confused, then I am probably heading in the right direction. Good luck to you.
With God’s help, 11 Elul 5782
What can be done? The people of Israel preceded the Western world in its moral world by thousands of years. The more we look for contemporary values that have no root in Torah—the harder it will be to find them. After all, the Bible is one of the foundations of the faith and moral world of the contemporary cultural world.
Who coined the concept “for in the image of God He created man”?—the Bible. Who introduced the idea that education should be the inheritance of all?—the Torah, which commanded “and you shall teach them diligently to your children,” the prophets who set forth the vision that “all your children shall be taught of the Lord,” and Joshua ben Gamla, who first instituted in the world a compulsory education law.
Who put forward the vision of world peace, in which all the nations would unite in order to learn the Torah of the Lord, until they would no longer learn war and would beat their swords into plowshares?—the prophets. Who brought into the world the idea of a weekly day of rest?—the Torah. For more than a thousand years the gentiles mocked the Jews as “those who take the whole year out in Sabbath-rest festival-rest.”
We have no reason at all to minimize Judaism’s contribution to the world’s moral progress. We should be grateful to modernity for the scientific improvements and methods of social organization it developed, but we should be careful not to lose the Torah’s compass.
We will not accept from modernity the self-intoxication of “my power and the might of my hand.” We believe in “walking humbly with your God.” We will not accept from modernity sensual permissiveness; rather, we will proudly bear “you shall not covet” and “do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes.”
We will champion freedom but not lawlessness, so that we not be like Ham, who sought honor through his father’s disgrace and lost his freedom. We will recognize the good of Japheth for the broadening of horizons his culture brought into the world, but we will dwell in the tents of Shem, who stand proudly upon the faith of Torah and its values.
Best regards, Ami’oz Yaron Shnitzler
Rabbi Aviner told me that he definitely agrees that there are values outside the Torah and certainly accepts them; for example, he is happy with and accepts Cartesian criticism, while of course rejecting Spinoza’s heretical matters.
Why does the manifesto have almost no division into sections?
All the questions and answers at the end appear as one block…
Yaakov Weinroth may be a good example regarding himself.
On the public level, he completely identified with the Haredi parties and attacked the “modern Haredim” and core studies for Haredim,
so he preached well for himself, and not for others.
They will become zealots in their moderation, and destroy moderation too.
Therefore they have no protection but a knife…
First of all, I ask that you forgive me for my manner of expression, and I ask that you declare this here so that I can be calm, since we are approaching the High Holy Days.
And as for your question—yes, one learns at least one value from evolution.
You are invited to see, for example, the following lesson by Rabbi Cherki (5 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQNepkgFn6w
In a nutshell:
A. The value of improvement, progress, and development—just as the world develops, so should we.
B. The value of unity: everything is unified—everything is in divinity. This is a conception called panentheism.
Here is another example: education.
There is no doubt that the matter of education (“external wisdom”) is something that really began to catch on among the gentiles, and it also influences religious Jews.
Here it is quite clear what value this gives.
And again, this is another example, for instance, that Religious Zionists like me do indeed draw from “the external world.”
A third example: livelihood. The ability to earn a living independently and with dignity.
If you visit high-tech companies, you can find very many classic Haredi women (and I need not even mention Religious Zionist women, where this is obvious) working as programmers. It is impossible to say that this is not a result of the influence of “external wisdom.”
That is why I write (and I noticed that others write as well) that from your article one can mistakenly understand as though Religious Zionists (or even Haredim) are completely closed to the external world.
I apologize again for my wording, and ask that you forgive me here publicly.
That is exactly what I am saying. And I responded to it at length (search the comments for “Just a question”).
That is why I cannot understand at all the article that speaks about a “Religious Zionist” who does not draw values from outside the Torah.
There really is no such creature—not even on the declarative level, and certainly not on the practical level (maybe a tiny number among the extremists of Har HaMor, but that is on the order of a few dozen at most, if that).
And even among most Haredim, on the practical level, it is clear that they draw from the external world as well (even if on the declarative level this does not come out).
The whole matter is unclear to me.
I didn’t understand the question. It is divided into chapters and paragraphs within each chapter. The questions at the end are a collection of short questions and answers, and I don’t understand what problem you saw there.
Everything is forgiven. I do not see any offense or problem that requires forgiveness. I was angry at the manner of discussion, not at any injury to me.
The value of self-improvement is learned from evolution? Are you serious? It reminds me of all the “values” that are learned from Torah: humility, honoring parents, charity, etc. Everyone learns from it whatever his heart desires and whatever he would do anyway. Tell me one thing you would not have done had you not learned it from Torah. As for the values you brought here as well, you need to present values that have no source in Torah or simply in common sense, but that you drew from the gentiles and only because of that you practice them.
The values you brought here are trivial and are not learned from anywhere. They are self-evident. I am speaking about non-trivial values, like equality for women, attitude toward homosexuals, toward gentiles, democracy, freedom of speech, and the like. It is very easy to “learn from the gentiles” values that you yourself practice anyway from the outset.
One draws education from the external world, not the value of education.
Likewise regarding livelihood. This is indeed stated explicitly in the Talmud.
The going out to work of Haredim is not a result of values but of constraints.
Beyond all this, I myself claim that people learn a great deal from the gentiles, only they do not admit it.
I did not claim anywhere that people are closed to the external world. Not even the Haredim. There are influences on all of us, including in the value sphere; the question is whether we admit it and see it as legitimate, or whether we fabricate a Torah source for all these values in order to give them legitimacy.
With God’s help, 12 Elul 5782
To J.A.Q.—hello,
The examples you gave of accepting values from the gentiles are not successful. The idea of the world’s progress from a state of chaos and corruption to a state of repair is an idea with which the whole Torah is filled.
Beginning with the story of creation, which grows from the simple to the more complex, from the inanimate to the vegetative, and from there to the moving, to the living, and finally to man, who has material traits but also the “image of God” spiritually.
But the Torah teaches that growth is not linear; rather, it may come through processes of fall and repair. The generation of the Flood failed, and from it Noah grows. Again there is failure in the generation of the Dispersion that brought division, and then Abraham grows, aspiring to unite the world through calling in the name of the Lord and doing righteousness and justice.
The seed of Abraham failed in brotherly hatred, and they fall into exile and bondage in Egypt, the “iron furnace” from which the people will be forged to receive the Torah and the land. And even when the people reached the inheritance—they failed and went out to exile, but the Torah and the prophets promise that at the end of days repair will come. Not only will the people return to their God and their land, but they will bring about the repair and unification of all humanity.
Therefore Rabbi Kook was truly enthusiastic about the theory of evolution, which showed that nature too advances through a chain of mishaps (“mutations” in the vernacular) that bring creation to hardening and refinement.
And he followed in the footsteps of Maharal in Netzach Yisrael chapter 3, who determined that the world had to be created as a deficient reality, to which the Creator adds abundance that increasingly completes the deficiency. See Professor Benjamin Gross’s book, An Imperfect World—Toward Responsible Freedom.
Likewise the value of work and labor is rooted extensively in Torah. The first man was meant to work the ground and guard it, and to be a shepherd and leader of the animal world. The patriarchs were shepherds, and among them Isaac was distinctive in being a worker of the soil. And the people of Israel inherit the land in order to work it and guard it.
King Solomon too says much in praise of the diligent worker of the soil—“Wisdom is as good as an inheritance”; and Hazal say: “Beautiful is Torah study together with worldly occupation (= labor), for the exertion in both makes sin forgotten; for any Torah that is not accompanied by labor is destined to be nullified and leads to sin.”
Hazal also engaged in the natural sciences that bring the world to refinement. Some engaged in astronomy and some in medicine. Many of the Rishonim also engaged in science, and Maimonides won a worldwide name in the fields of medicine and philosophy, and some of his medical doctrine—the emphasis on nutrition, a healthy lifestyle, and mental balance for bodily health—is considered even today a cornerstone of medical teaching.
In short:
The Torah grants us values in abundance. The gentiles sometimes remind us of what we forgot under the pressure of the times, and add scientific knowledge and techniques of social organization. Thus, for example, Moses learned from Jethro the necessity of delegating authority, and in this his Creator agreed with him.
Best regards, Mattaniah Hai Kimelman-Shiloah
The distinction between general human ideas that one may accept from the sages of the nations, and ideas that are unique to the people of Israel and are not “equal for every soul,” is explained in the essay “Thoughts” in Rabbi Kook’s Ikvei HaTzon. Perhaps you could favor us with a link to Rabbi Uri Sherki’s lessons on this essay!
Best regards, M.S.K.
If I understood correctly, the rabbi argues that if the modern Orthodox public had a more orderly ideological doctrine, and perhaps also rabbinic figures around whom it could unite, it would be more distinct. But the truth is that there already were, and there still are today, rabbis who fit the rabbi’s description of modern Orthodox quite perfectly, and who also have a crystallized ideological doctrine on the subject—Rabbi Amital, Rabbi Lichtenstein, and Rabbi Rabinovitch, of blessed memory, and today there is Rabbi Medan, and I am sure there are quite a few more.
I think that part of the reason a large public does not coalesce around those rabbis and their doctrine is structural (at least partially), because:
A. In circles like the students of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda or the Haredim, there is great respect for rabbis in general, and therefore it is easy to unite around them as public leaders. However, the rabbis I described recoil from reverence and see themselves as ordinary human beings, which makes it difficult for a large public to unite around them and follow their doctrine.
B. Another parameter the rabbi did not address in the article is the very importance of Torah in life relative to other values. In societies where there are not many worlds of content outside Torah, the unifying figures are rabbis and the unifying contents are Torah doctrines. But among people who have other worlds of content, Torah is not always the main thing in their lives, and it is not what they unite around; consequently it is difficult to create a clearly religiously distinct group that way.
I would be glad to know whether the rabbi agrees with the analysis (even if it is simplistic), and if not, why the rabbi thinks there is no unification around the existing modern Orthodox figures and doctrines, and what needs to change in order for this to happen.
In the comment “Wisdom among the nations—believe it…”
Paragraph 3, line 3
…again humanity was caused to fail in the sin of the generation of the Dispersion…
Paragraph 5, line 2
…the world had to be created…
Paragraph 7 line 4
…the emphasis on the effect of nutrition…
Paragraph 8, line 5
…they add scientific knowledge…
I meant the manifesto on the site, which appears in one block without division into sections, and that’s a shame.
With God’s help, 12 Elul 5782
To Izi—hello,
It seems that writing without breaks indicates great pressure, a desire to unload a heavy burden weighing on the soul and waiting to burst out. In such a state there is no patience to be careful about leaving “space between one flock and another.”
Several Torah passages that describe being in an unbearable state one wishes to get out of as quickly as possible are written in this way, which leaves the reader no “breathing space.”
Thus the three chapters of the Flood (Genesis 6:13–8:15) are folded into one parashah. And thus from Jacob’s departure from Beer-Sheba until his return to Mahanaim, the twenty years in Laban’s house (28:10–32:3) are read as one parashah. Jacob has no breath; he only wants “to finish and go.”
And so Joseph is not calm from the moment he left prison until, nine years later, he places his brothers in the test: will they again abandon their brother (41:1–44:17)? He finds no rest for his soul in his anxiety: will they stand the test and repair their sin or not?
And by contrast, Balak, under pressure in the face of the people threatening him, cannot stop holding his breath until he finally receives Balaam’s counsel, after which he will breathe easily and go on his way with a “plan for solving the problem” (Numbers 22:2–24:25).
And as for us, we would recommend that Rabbi Michael Abraham adopt the path of Kobe Bryant, may he rest in peace, who would storm furiously toward the basket, but at the moment of the shot was calm and focused. Peace of mind and reflection between one step and the next are the remedy for being saved from hasty and rash actions. And as we learned from the theory of evolution—processes of ascent occur little by little.
With a blessing of repentance and calm, Noam She’altiel Menuhin Halevi
Thanks for the comment. For some reason we transferred it from PDF to Word and did not notice the distortions that were created. I have now corrected it somewhat, and I hope it has improved.
You are partly right. But that cannot be the whole explanation, because even if people do not coalesce around the rabbis, such an identity should still have formed among the people independently. And the fact is that many of them do have rabbinic figures (even if they themselves are “light”), and these are the conservative rabbis. Beyond that, the very fact that they have additional worlds of content is itself the identity that is not being formed, and therefore the difficulty remains. Let them create an identity that believes in a multiplicity of worlds of content. Therefore I argue that the blame lies mainly with the rabbis, including those you mentioned, who did not sharpen and conceptualize for themselves and for others that this is a third identity. They all continue to speak in terms of Religious Zionism, and from here comes the discourse about splits and unity in the camp. They did not place this religious option on the table as an alternative identity, and did not detach it from the Religious Zionist identity.
Beyond that, as I wrote in the article, the distancing from rabbis in this public is not always essential. Part of it stems from the fact that people are unwilling to accept the rabbinic figures presented to them (because they are conservative). If such an option is placed on the table by rabbis in their spirit, I assume there will be more people who follow them.
With God’s help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath: “Enlarge the place of your tent,” 5782
One of the characteristics of modernity is the broadening of horizons. The ability to absorb knowledge and ideas from outside as well, while preserving autonomous judgment that decides what to adopt and what to reject.
If Orthodoxy is fidelity to the Written Torah and the Oral Torah—then modern Orthodoxy is opening up to all the expanses of Torah: to the world of the prophets and of Hazal, to the world of the Rishonim and the Aharonim, of Ashkenazim and Sephardim, of Italians and Yemenites, to the world of the lomdim and to the world of the halakhic decisors, to the world of philosophers and mystics, to masters of thought and masters of ethics and Hasidism, to people of feeling and people of intellect, to people of spirit and people of action.
A modern Orthodox person is a proud Jew, to whom nothing Jewish is foreign. He finds interest in the whole variety of methods in halakha and thought, understands their reasons, and deepens his understanding of all the views and opposing views. Out of his deep familiarity, he chooses for himself from all the streams and shades the points that enliven and empower him, but also understands and respects differing methods, so long as they are anchored in Judaism.
Best regards, Kohelet Ospansky HaKibz’iali
Hello Rabbi Michi,
I am continuing the discussion of (“Just a question”) from another place in the comments.
Just to summarize in one line beforehand: I brought 3 examples of external things that can influence the values of a Religious Zionist (and even a Haredi):
A. Learning a value from the theory of evolution.
B. The need to acquire an education (and not only acquiring the education itself).
C. The need to make a living according to trends in the world.
You cast doubt on what I wrote. My response is below.
Regarding evolution—
I will simply quote Rabbi Kook, who shows how one can be strengthened in values through studying this theory.
So yes, I am completely serious when I wrote that one can learn values of unity, optimism, and development from this theory (I, and Rabbi Lundin, Rabbi Cherki, etc. etc. etc.):
“The development that proceeds along the path of elevation gives the optimistic foundation in the world, for how can one despair when one sees that everything develops and rises? And when we penetrate to the inner core of the principle of elevating development, we find in it the divine matter illuminated with absolute clarity, for precisely actual infinity causes to emerge into actuality that which is potential infinity.” (Orot HaKodesh II, “The Theory of Development,” p. 537, 1938).
Regarding the value of education (and not education itself)—
It is obvious that this too is an external influence that Religious Zionists (and even Haredim) absorb from.
Fact: in our times the gentiles began to populate colleges and universities (in the past the percentage of educated people was much lower, and education was sometimes only for a select few).
And among the Jewish people it is the same—the Religious-Zionist Jews go to study “external wisdom” in colleges and universities (and among the Haredim too such a trend is beginning; see “Haredi colleges”).
That is, not only is the education itself absorbed from the gentiles, but also the value and importance of becoming educated and studying external wisdom.
Regarding livelihood—here too it is obvious that Religious Zionists also make a living according to global trends. For example, there are more people in the “professions,” high-tech, capitalism, etc. And behold—here too one sees external influences of global trends on Religious Zionists and even on Haredim (like the example I gave of Haredi women programmers).
If I wrote anything incorrect, I would be glad to know what is incorrect—I am showing clearly that external influences actually change the world of religious people, including in value-laden matters.
If you cannot see on your own why the examples you gave say nothing, then there is really no point in merely repeating myself. I am finished.
With God’s help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath: “And My kindness shall not depart from you,” 5782
To Yisrael—hello,
Indeed, in order to conduct oneself moderately, one needs a zealous attachment to the trait of patience, so as not to burst out in anger at what is infuriating.
But one must know that moderation is not indifference. Moderation is the offspring of zealotry. The zealot understands that it is not enough to be angry at evil, ignorance, and darkness; one must correct the dismal situation. And correction can come only through persuasion.
When one hurls at a person that “he has no protection but a knife” and the like—there is no chance whatsoever that he will listen to you. By contrast, when one tries to understand the considerations of the person who errs—then one can engage with him and place him in a “ray of light.”
And so says the prophet: “For this is as the waters of Noah unto Me: as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with you, nor rebuke you.” The effective “flood” that will truly uproot evil from its root is to flood the world with “waters of knowledge.” And the words of the wise, spoken gently, are heard.
With blessings of a good and blessed Sabbath, Noam She’altiel Menuhin Halevi
And as a mnemonic: for judgment one needs a storm raging and seeking to cut down evil. But to repair the world one needs education, and here one must say to the storm of the soul, “be still.” It is precisely the splendor of patience that will bring a stable result like concrete 🙂
V
Paragraph 4, line 4
.. and the words of the wise, spoken gently, are heard.
Rabbi Michael, indeed something does not sit well in the common definitions of Haredi and Religious Zionist that have served us for many years, but the main claim in the booklet tends toward divisions that are too sharp and do not suit the more complex moods of people.
There are two central points:
A. In the end there is a very significant division between those called Haredim and those called Religious Zionists, including the part called Hardali. In the Haredi part, freedom of thought is limited in a clear and practical way, while in the Hardali part—in most of it—it may perhaps be limited in no small ways in practice (as it may be limited in any ideological group; anyone who looks at the state of freedom of thought in broad sectors of the left will understand this), but in most of the higher yeshivot (and not only the hesder yeshivot) one can hold almost any book openly on the table. You can find even in Mercaz or Beit El and the like books of yours, books by Rabbi Bazak, and additional books that anyone who placed them on his table, or even under his bed, in a Haredi yeshiva would be thrown out on the spot and would enter a different matchmaking status. Therefore it is very easy to claim that the Hardalim and the Haredim are the same thing. But they are not. Even if there are significant points of overlap. In this context, the point of Zionism is really an expression of a fundamental point that gives up conservatism as an iron principle, even if it does not give it up as an important principle. Following Zionism is an expression of a willingness to relate in a complex way to the very challenging historical developments of the last two hundred years.
B. The matter of modernity is deceptive. Because the question is whether we speak of it at the level of contents or at the level of a source of authority that is very high in the hierarchy (sometimes perhaps even above the Torah? I do not know and it is not clear to me). Many people in the Religious Zionist public and also in the Hardali public feel identification with many modern contents, and even identification with basic ideas of modern culture such as liberty and the like. But for them modernity is not part of the hierarchy. Judaism—in its broad sense, but one that is, let us say, “in the spirit of traditional Israel”—is what matters to them most. Not that there are no fundamental and deep disputes regarding the attitude to modernity. There are. But it may be that among the overwhelming majority of Religious Zionists, even those who are not Hardalim, the above principle regarding the hierarchy is very fundamental, especially on the emotional plane. From such an emotional stance, no less than they find it difficult to accept conservative positions of rabbis called Hardali, they also find it difficult to accept liberal positions that arouse in them difficulty and concern regarding this foundational principle.
And indeed, the attitude of quite a few figures in the liberal religious world toward this issue—the question of hierarchy and the place that Torah and Judaism occupy within this whole story—is not sufficiently clear.
First 😉
Let’s start sharing