An Evening Discussion at the Ilan Beit Midrash in Collaboration with HaNetiv HaShlishi, featuring Rabbi Dr. Michael Avraham, founder of the HaNetiv HaShlishi movement

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, I’ll try to lay out the picture, and afterward of course we’ll talk. I’m here, don’t worry, everyone will be able to speak. So my claim, in the end, is that the more important question, or the more important questions, really concern our relationship to modernity, not our relationship to Zionism. And if we need to define, in one word, the watershed line that defines our basic identity, beyond all the shades that come afterward, it really should not be our relationship to Zionism. It should be our relationship to modernity. And “relationship to modernity” is a slogan; you can interpret it in lots of ways, but I hope the general direction is more or less clear. A relationship to democracy, to one set of values or another, to the surrounding world, to outside wisdom, each person can take it in his own direction. But it’s a relationship to what is happening around us now, which may not be part of our own immediate four cubits, but it is the world we live in, and the question is how we relate to it.

And in that sense, I think what is called for—and this, I think, is the foundation for that move I mentioned earlier, the “third path” and so on—it seems to me that the foundation for this is an attempt to rotate the coordinate system. Because if we set up the axes, say a vertical axis that separates… then I’m suggesting we rotate the coordinate system and define this basic identity boundary as between modern and non-modern, where there are modern Haredim and modern Religious Zionists, and non-modern Haredim and non-modern Religious Zionists. Because in my view, the relationship to Zionism is secondary, and the relationship to modernity is primary. The main axis should be the relationship to modernity.

And what that basically means is that the connection we’re talking about, the “third path” as well, between Religious Zionism and Haredi society, really ought to be based on this new division. And notice: on one side of this new division, it’s already happening—on the non-modern side. Meaning, the connection between what people call Hardal, again, these are all slogans, there are nuances, but I’m speaking broadly right now, between Hardal and Haredi society works very well. Very well. You can see it in politics. In politics you see it, you also see it a bit on the ground, but certainly in politics it’s a real symbiosis. Here and there there are protests, but overall they work very well together. They work together not only because each side wants its own goals—the Haredim want their goal, and the Religious Zionists want their goals, or the Hardalim, those who today lead Religious Zionist politics, want their goals—and therefore they make some kind of deal, a cold deal. Okay, you support me, I support you, and we move forward together. There’s a deeper identity there. It’s not just a political constellation. Meaning, there is some basic identification between these two groups that oppose the new currents appearing in the Religious Zionist world with greater force, but also in the Haredi world—so far perhaps more at its margins, but they appear there too. And the battle against these margins, the “light” people, the modern ones, however each person wants to call them, unites, I think, very deeply those who are below the modern line—those who are against modernity—the Haredim and the Religious Zionists who are not in favor of modernity.

And I expect that the same connection will also exist above the line. Meaning, those who do identify with modern directions should also connect. Because all in all, this perpendicular line that separates Religious Zionists from Haredim, in my opinion, has simply lost its real meaning. So there’s sociology, and of course we are all influenced by sociology, sometimes even enslaved by it. We need to free ourselves from that a bit, but even if we don’t free ourselves from it, you can still preserve a Haredi sociology and a non-Haredi sociology, but cooperate around the essence and not around the sociology. Meaning, if someone has a Haredi sociology and someone else has a Religious Zionist sociology, but they believe in the same values, in the same directions, then fine—he’ll go to his synagogue and his cheder, and the other will go somewhere else; if you enjoy that very much then go, what difference does it make? But in the end, who are you cooperating with? Meaning, what are you promoting? With whom do you identify? Would you rather be a Haredi “light” person? I’m Haredi, but on the margins. Or not? I’m an alternative. I may be Haredi, whatever, each person will define himself, but not “light.” I’m a modern Haredi, a different kind of Haredi. A modern Haredi is not a second-rate Haredi; a modern Haredi is a different Haredi. Fine—he can be a non-modern Haredi, he can be a modern Haredi. And the question is whether the fact that you are Haredi is the foundation stone of your identity. If it is, then naturally you connect with the non-modern Haredi and of course become his margin, his “light” version. Okay? On the other hand, if the foundation stone of your identity is the modernity within the modern Haredi, then your natural connection is to the modern non-Haredi. And then there is also sociology, and maybe even a certain partnership beyond sociology, with other Haredim—but where do you see yourself? Where do you place yourself?

And that’s a very important question because a large part of what, in my opinion, blocks these processes is that the conservative core makes sure to drum into its margins, both in the Haredi world and in the Religious Zionist world, that they are “light.” Some of them really are “light,” by the way. You can’t deny that. But that’s not essential. Not everyone who is not in the conservative core is “light.” And a large part of those who are defined as “light,” and who also see themselves as “light”—and that is the more difficult problem—because this indoctrination succeeds, and in the end the person sees himself as “light.” Why? Because in the end his model remains that model; it’s just that I don’t so strongly identify with it, I’m in a different place, so I’ll live differently at least in my own private four cubits, but it’s not that I’m going to create a different ideology, a different group, a different way of operating. Of course not. I’m “light”; I do what’s convenient for me on the side, but I’m a Haredi “light” person. Okay?

And some people really are like that, fine, they really are Haredi and “light,” it doesn’t suit them, they are traditional— we talked earlier—they are basically traditionalist Haredim. There is such a thing. People don’t realize there is such a thing. There is such a thing as traditionalist Haredim. They don’t really believe in Haredism, they aren’t really—maybe they do truly believe—they aren’t really part of it, but rather some sort of periphery of it, and they define themselves as its periphery. Just like traditionalists—or at least a certain type of traditionalist—see the ideal model as the fully religious model, fully committed, but I’m not there, it doesn’t suit me, I don’t want it, it’s too much for me to keep everything, so I do part of it, I’m “light.” But the model—if you ask him what the real model is—the real model is that one. And many times these groups, in the Religious Zionist world, which is starting a bit to free itself from this, and in the Haredi world, which is less free of it—though there are processes there too, of course, but less free of it—also see themselves as “light.” Not only do people make sure to explain to them that they are “light,” but they internalize it, swallow it, digest it. And they relate to themselves as “light,” and that means that from their perspective the correct path, in some sense, is the conservative path. It’s just that I’m “light,” it doesn’t suit me, so I do what I can within my limitations, and so on. But the true path is that path. The leading sages of the generation, the leaders, the ones who chart the way—that’s them. Those people. There are no other leading sages of the generation for modern Haredim. There are the leading sages of the generation, period. We’re “light”; we won’t always do what they say, but broadly speaking that is the model, that is our utopia. Okay? And I think that’s what we need to free ourselves from.

We need to free ourselves from that—and first of all, not that they should stop indoctrinating this, because they won’t stop. And the more people free themselves from it, the more they’ll drum it in, because the threat is more significant. I think people need to free themselves from it. You don’t have to see yourself, and you don’t have to see yourself, the way others dictate to you. See yourself according to what you think, not according to how others define you. And if inwardly you identify with a certain direction, then that’s your direction.

And many times I’ve spoken with confused Haredim of all kinds, for many years. I’ve met hundreds, maybe thousands of them in different formats. And I told them one thing—I’ll come back to other things later—I told them that very often, “We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in their eyes.” Meaning, your fear, or your self-perception, feeds off how others perceive you. If you— for example, I grew up in a Haredi environment for quite a few years, both in Yeruham and in Bnei Brak. Every Independence Day I took my children to the hesder yeshiva where I taught, to pray there, to say Hallel on Independence Day. I came to the cheder and took them; they went to say Hallel on Independence Day. They squirmed a bit, they had… the guys around them didn’t make life easy for them. And one day the cheder principal invited me and said, look, this isn’t working… I said to him, look, there are two possibilities: either you throw them out or you don’t, but this is what I think and this is what I do. Now, they didn’t throw them out.

I think—and not because of me personally, not that I got some special treatment—I think that’s a paradigm case for many things, where it seems to me that quite a few Haredim simply don’t call the bluff—and you know the Haredi world better than I do, even though I lived in it for quite a few years. When you have your own position and you have self-confidence in what you think, the environment will respect it. The environment will respect it. It’s not true that every time you do something a little outside the norm there will immediately be boycotts, they’ll throw you out of the kollel, you won’t find matches, and they won’t accept your child into cheder. It doesn’t happen that quickly. If you go too far, maybe yes; it also depends which cheder, which community, all that is true, there are nuances. But broadly speaking, many times we make mountains out of shadows. Why? Because we let others dictate to us what is right and dictate to us who we are. The question is where we stand in relation to what is right—whether we are far from what is right or close to what is right. But if I determine for myself what is right, then by definition I am close to what is right. Simply, where I am is what is right; where I stand is east, as they say. Okay?

Now if you come with that kind of consciousness, it’s not that everyone will agree with you—absolutely not—but they certainly will respect it. Generally they will respect it. And there will be those who demonstrate against you that you’re a heretic, fine, but generally speaking society as a whole will respect it, as long as you don’t deviate in extreme ways. And I’m telling you this from experience. I went through many things, both in Bnei Brak and in Yeruham, where I did not look like my environment and yet I was part of it. My children learned in cheders both there and there, fully, totally part of the society, and I was different in one way or another, and overall they accepted me, both here and there.

Now true, it was easier for me, and so I don’t blame anyone. It was easier for me. I wasn’t born there; my close family at least wasn’t there; the pressures are different, that’s obvious. But on the other hand, a lot of it depends—my conclusion is that a lot of it depends on us. Meaning, if you have a clear position, if you’ve formed a view for yourself and you go with it, many times people will respect that. They won’t so quickly ostracize you. And therefore this is something I also said to people around me, and this is a continuation of what I said earlier: I think the first thing is to allow yourself to determine your own truth and not let the environment determine the standards, and then you position yourself according to how close you are to them or whether you are “light.” Because they determine what is right, and you merely have to see—you have free choice, you can be “light” or not “light,” but you have no choice in defining what “light” is and what “not light” is. That, no. You can only place yourself as either yes or no. Because the tracks are predetermined. And that is what I want to deny. Meaning, I think it’s worth your while, first of all, to consider that point. Because I assume that if people have come to a meeting like this, then at least some of you certainly have thoughts in these directions, and therefore it seems to me that for people of this kind it’s worth thinking a bit about this point.

Second, I want to go one step further and say: if I’m really right in my assumption that there is a substantial part—I’m speaking now about the Haredi public because that’s the setting here, but I could say similar things on the Religious Zionist side too—if I’m right that inwardly, within you, or within many, many people inwardly, there is identification with what we’ll call modern ideas—democratic ideas, education, earning a livelihood of course, that’s already out in the open today, and so on—then the question is: why doesn’t it move from potential to actuality? Why doesn’t it manage to crystallize, again? There are attempts, and of course here and there some institutions arise, a few voices here, a few voices there. But such a path has not been created; an alternative voice leading such a direction has not been created. This is our direction; we are going differently; we are heading that way. And the question is why not.

My feeling is that the percentage, the volume, of these ideas in the public is much wider than the practical expression they receive in the public discourse. Much wider. By the way, this is also true in the Religious Zionist public, where the pressures are much less intense, and still on the ground there are masses of people who lean more in a modern direction and do not identify with Hardal, and they do not manage to take off politically. In the public discourse—and this, I think, is the majority of the Religious Zionist public, I haven’t done statistics, but it seems to me this is the majority of the Religious Zionist public—of course it’s a whole spectrum, but broadly speaking, no public voice has emerged. There was some voice, the Meimad party, which of course leaned leftward and that doomed it, but a public direction doesn’t manage to take off—not in terms of how many people there are on the ground, but as a public direction representing a tremendous mass of people in the Religious Zionist public.

You can see—and on this there are statistics—how many voters in the Religious Zionist public cast their votes for secular parties. The overwhelming majority. A large majority. Not just a large part, a large majority. How many religious voters voted for Smotrich? How many seats does he have? Compare that to the size of the religious public in Israel overall—that’s a minority. A small minority. That means that some people don’t mind voting for a secular party, and others don’t find a religious space with which they can identify. And then what happens is that they have no public expression. There are masses of such people, but in the public discourse there is no expression, and so our public discourse is still stuck on the question of whether you are Religious Zionist or Haredi. Right? Nobody asks whether you are modern or non-modern. They might ask whether you’re “light” or not—that yes. But you understand that this is just a reflection of the discourse of Haredi versus Religious Zionist. Okay?

So let me just give you an example that clarifies the point. Look at the elections for the chief rabbis. These too, but in the previous round it was even more so— that was the first time the penny dropped for me. Most of the candidates were not Haredi, and there were the younger Rabbi Lau, Dudi Lau, and Yitzhak Yosef. They were considered the Haredim. Let’s say—not the greatest Haredim in my opinion, but they were considered Haredi. And after all the circus that went on there, of course both of them were elected. Then began the wailing and lamentation, the crying in the sectoral Religious Zionist press over how we failed, why we weren’t clever enough to unite, and then Religious Zionist rabbis would have been elected. And so the minority succeeded in defeating the majority because the majority was split.

Now this is simply a misunderstanding, a wrong reading of the map. The majority won, and no one was clever enough to unite because there was no one with whom to unite. The argument was not about the question of Zionism. Nobody cares whether the chief rabbi says Hallel on Independence Day. Who cares? Does he have any influence over saying Hallel on Independence Day? Who does that interest? The question is what he does in practice. The question is how he runs the rabbinical court system, what kind of attitude he has toward women, say, in the rabbinical court system—but never mind, that’s just an example—what his halakhic standards are, even apart from women. There is a very deep closedness there, a very deep stagnation, and I was partially involved in that too—in the struggle against it, I mean. And on that question it is obvious that the conservative majority prevailed over the open, modern minority, and therefore the majority won. Nothing surprising happened. And when you try to make a connection between more liberal or more modern Religious Zionists and more conservative ones, and then you lament and say, how were we not wise enough to unite and elect a Religious Zionist rabbi—that’s anachronistic. It’s a conception as though the struggle is still over whether we are Zionist or non-Zionist, but nobody cares about that. In the role of chief rabbi within the Chief Rabbinate there is no function—if only they would shut that institution down—but the formal functions it does have do not touch Zionism in any way. What does it have to do with Zionism?

And by the way, with regard to Jewish law and women, say, as a test case, it is simply not true that there is a difference between Haredi rabbis and Religious Zionist rabbis. The correlation between rabbis who are more open or more liberal, let’s call it that, and rabbis who are very conservative does not at all overlap with the division between Haredim and Religious Zionists. Not at all. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Once Rabbi Sherlo told me that if you really want leniency, go to a Haredi halakhic decisor, because the Haredi halakhic decisor feels he is the master of the Torah; he says whatever he wants. The Religious Zionist halakhic decisor is always glancing sideways, as if wondering how people will look at him. It’s not really his domain; he’s a guest here on this field. He has very deep inferiority feelings. Therefore he doesn’t allow himself to move in directions we might call more innovative. But never mind—even without that, I’m saying it’s obvious there is no such correlation, and in my view, if we’re already holding elections for that corrupt institution, then it should not revolve around the question of whether the candidate is Zionist or not Zionist; the question is what his halakhic policy is. Now no problem: if you’re conservative, vote for conservatives; if you’re not conservative, vote for non-conservatives. But understand that that’s what the discussion is about. The discussion is about that, not about the question of Zionism.

Now this is a wonderful expression of the stagnation I described earlier. An expression that says we are prisoners of these conceptions that there are Haredim versus Religious Zionists, and coalitions have to be made between Haredim and Haredim and between Religious Zionists and Religious Zionists, when this whole story is simply an artifact, something artificial, anachronistic, simply devoid of any meaning. Any meaning. It has no meaning whatsoever. And we lose sight of the real line—the modern line, I don’t know whether to call it liberal, I don’t like that word—but the more open line, yes, the one more willing to accept changes, updates, changes, however you want to call it, as opposed to the conservative line. Those are the questions we deal with today. The questions we deal with today are those questions, not the question of Zionism. What does that have to do with anything?

So why do we keep educating our children according to the question of whether we are Haredi or not? Seeking matches according to whether we are Haredi or not? Parties—Haredi or not? Newspapers—whether we are Haredi or not? Everything. Meaning, our whole lives are managed according to our relationship to the state. What does that have to do with anything? Why? Why is that even a relevant parameter? And everything, everything revolves around this issue. The clothing too, of course, everything. There is nothing that does not derive from this. It’s simply bizarre.

Now I want to say—perhaps claim—something else. As I said earlier, since I estimate that in both publics, the Religious Zionist and the Haredi, there is a substantial public that identifies with what we’ll call the more modern or more innovative directions, I asked: why doesn’t that move from potential to actuality? Why doesn’t it take off? Why doesn’t it become institutionalized and receive some kind of label: we are this, we have a third label, we are modern? Fine? So there are several reasons.

One of the insights I accumulated from many meetings I’ve had in the past: I have various radical ideas too, in the realms of Jewish law and theology, but that is not specifically connected to the third path, not directly at least. But when I tried to talk about it, I found that it was much easier for me to speak with Torah scholars—even the most conservative ones imaginable, it doesn’t matter—much easier. Because I can talk, raise arguments, they can agree, they can disagree, but they understand that there is give-and-take. I bring proofs, arguments, reasoning, sources; you can talk. And in the end they won’t agree, fine, but you can talk. With an ordinary layman I can’t talk, because from the layman’s perspective everything he is used to came down from Sinai. And if I say something he’s not used to, then I’m a heretic. I simply don’t accept the tradition of our forefathers, and that’s that. Because he doesn’t know how to learn. Or didn’t learn, doesn’t learn. So if you don’t know, then you don’t distinguish between main and secondary, between agreed and not agreed, between innovation and something with a basis. From your point of view it’s all one package deal, and you can’t speak to him with arguments.

A striking example of this, by the way, is women. With all due respect to the women sitting here, I have no small amount of experience speaking with women. There are very opinionated women I’ve met, Haredi women, very opinionated women I’ve met. It was impossible to talk to them about this. Why? Because they never studied Torah. It’s forbidden. So if they never studied Torah, what can you say to them? I say to them, look, there is this Tosafot and there is this Talmudic passage—what can they answer? Fine, but what, do you understand Tosafot better than Rabbi Shach? And Rabbi Shach says otherwise. That’s it. So it came down from Sinai and that’s all. So you have Tosafot—who is Tosafot compared to Rabbi Shach? Meaning, you can’t talk to someone who isn’t immersed in the sources. Someone who is not immersed in the sources cannot advance change, cannot accept an argument in favor of change, because there is no basis on which to conduct the discourse.

The additional problem is that, in the end, as I said earlier, even with Torah scholars I don’t manage to advance. The discussion takes place, and in the end each one goes off on his own path. “He too departed weeping,” as they say. Each one goes off on his own path. Why? What’s happening there? So here I want to make another claim. This is a realization that dawned on me not long ago, and I think it’s a very essential point for all the moves I’m talking about.

I assume you know the story of the turkey prince, from Rabbi Nachman. Sometimes even among the Hasidim there are words of substance. And in the story of the turkey prince, the king’s son decides he is a turkey, takes off his clothes, goes under the table, starts eating and gobbling under the table. The king is desperate, no one manages to heal him. A certain wise man comes along, and the king says to him, yes, if you can do it, go ahead. Fine. The wise man goes under the table, takes off his clothes, and starts gobbling along with him. The prince says to him, what is one born of woman doing among us? What are you doing here? I’m a turkey—what’s the problem? Fine, excellent. The two of them eat their grains there in study-partnership. At some point he says to him, look, a turkey can also wear pants, a shirt, sit on a chair, eat with a knife and fork. Little by little he got him back to behaving like a human being, and that’s the end of the story. Since then they’ve lived happily ever after.

Now the question in this story is twofold. The first question that comes up immediately is: in what sense was the prince healed? He wasn’t really healed, right? He still thinks he is a turkey. It’s just that behaviorally, in terms of his behavior, he is a turkey that eats with a knife and fork in a shirt and pants, and that’s it, everything is fine. A turkey can do that too. So he wasn’t really healed; he still sees himself as a turkey. That’s one question.

In order to answer that question, it’s worth noticing another interesting point that raises another question, but the opposite one. When the wise man went under the table, the prince asked him: what are you doing here? What was difficult for him? From the outset, what did he think? Meaning, why—what’s the difficulty? Because he says: it’s obvious this is a human being, right? What is a human being doing here? This is a turkey coop. What are human beings doing here? Meaning, he understands that someone who looks like this and behaves like this is a human being, right? So he isn’t sick. He doesn’t think that a turkey is also someone who looks like this—he’s a turkey, right? Meaning, he understands what a human being is and what a turkey is. So the previous question was: after all, he wasn’t healed. This question is: after all, he was never sick.

And I think these two questions answer one another. Sorry for all this pilpul I’m doing on this story, but I think this might even be true. With Hasidic stories you have to believe they could have been true, right? The Praises of the Baal Shem Tov. So I think these questions answer one another. If a person is truly sick, completely, and there is no point in him that still understands what is right and what is not right—no healthy point—then you can’t heal him. You can’t heal him. You can reprogram him, you can rebuild him, do a reset, wipe him out and build anew—that yes. But if you want to heal him—let’s say healing, psychotherapy—that basically means taking certain points that exist in him and still function, healthy points, and trying to use them in order to fix the other dimensions of his personality as well, the more diseased parts. Fine? That’s the way you can do it. Otherwise, as I said earlier, it’s simply a reset.

Now, if there are no such points, healthy points inside the person, then there is no way to heal him. But on the other hand, if there are such points, then what needs healing? Then he understands. When a person wants to do something—and that’s the point here, that’s the moral too according to the Breslov interpreters—when a person wants to permit himself to do things, say in the moral of the story he no longer has the strength to keep all the commandments and behave properly, then he chooses for himself the look of being a turkey, and turkeys can do whatever they want. And slowly he builds for himself the theory, I’m a turkey, because you don’t have a monopoly on being a turkey—we know these arguments today—so I’m a turkey too. Right? And then at a certain stage he starts living with the consciousness that he really is a turkey. He really convinces himself that he is a turkey. But deep down there is still some deep, deep place where he understands that it isn’t true. When the wise man came and went under the table, suddenly it jumped out of him. Suddenly he understands what a human being is and what a turkey is. But in everyday life, while he is gobbling down there, he lives with the genuine feeling that he is a turkey. And that is called living in split consciousness.

And living in split consciousness means this: first, someone who lives in split consciousness is indeed sick, even though deep down there is a healthy point inside him, but still, in his conscious experience it is a sick experience. That’s one thing. Second, if deep down there is a healthy point, then one can try to repair. If everything has been destroyed, if everything is spoiled, there is nothing to work with. But if there is a good point there, one can try to use it in order to repair the rest.

What am I getting at? I want to claim that a great many people in the world live in split consciousness. They build themselves theories in order to justify various desires. Yes, even the Sages say, “The Jewish people sinned only in order to permit themselves forbidden sexual relations.” What does that mean? They did not commit idolatry except in order to permit themselves forbidden sexual relations. What does that mean? In order to permit yourself forbidden sexual relations, you build for yourself some kind of theory so that if you live within its framework, then there’s no problem, there are no such prohibitions. A turkey is allowed to do anything. So you build some kind of theory for yourself, but slowly you convince yourself—human beings are complex creatures—so in the end you are sincerely convinced that you are a turkey, even though deep inside somewhere you know the truth. And you see it when the wise man comes and suddenly you jump. Your instinct, when you’re not filtering it through System 1 of Daniel Kahneman—if you know him—there is the instinctive System 1 and the more rigorous System 2, the one that works with arguments. So your System 1 sometimes jumps, because that understanding is inside there.

It seems to me that this is also the meaning of Maimonides’ “we compel him until he says, ‘I want to.’” It’s not mysticism. “We compel him until he says, ‘I want to’” because inside every person there is some real desire to do the commandments and fulfill what the Torah instructs us. I don’t accept that, and you also don’t need to say that in order to explain “we compel him until he says, ‘I want to.’” It seems to me the meaning is much simpler. Think about a get-refuser. “We compel him until he says, ‘I want to’” applies with offerings and with divorce, right? It appears in both places.

What is it in divorce? A man is refusing to give a get. What is a get-refuser? He is angry at his wife. He doesn’t want to release her. You can beat him physically, I mean he still refuses to release her. Now we are talking about a person who keeps Torah and commandments, who generally fulfills what is required of him, and therefore I can assume that fundamentally he wants to do what the Torah says. And the religious court tells him what the Torah says. They tell him that in this particular situation he has to divorce her. But he doesn’t want to. Why doesn’t he want to, if the Torah says so? No, no, the Torah doesn’t say so; they are mistaken. Meaning, he suddenly becomes the greatest Torah scholar and explains to himself, builds for himself some theory: the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself wants me to keep my wife chained until the end of her days. That is what He wants, even though all the halakhic decisors who specialize in this, or are entrusted with saying what Jewish law is, say the opposite. But he knows better. Why does he know better? Because he built this theory for himself because he is angry. He is angry, and he is trying to build for himself some theory that will justify this action.

Now what do you do in such a situation? Exactly as that doctor healed the prince—you beat him until he says, “I want to,” and then you release the woman. And he says: look, but I only said “I want to” so you would stop hitting me; I didn’t really mean it. So this is a coerced get. A coerced get is invalid, right? And I say to him: nevertheless, I will marry her off. I will marry her off. I recognize the divorce, and your coerced get can remain “coerced” for all I care, and now I myself, with my own two hands, will marry her off. Now once he understands that his stubbornness will not help him, then at least there is some chance that the theory will dissipate, because the whole theory was created in order to allow him to behave this way. Now here—you will not succeed. Nothing will help you, and I will take her away by force. Your scheme will not succeed. So the theory will dissipate on its own, because fundamentally he wants to do what Jewish law says. It’s just that here, because of his anger, he built himself some theory: no, no, I am right, this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants in this situation. It will dissipate if in practice, as the heart follows actions, you simply do not let it happen in practice. The theory will dissipate on its own. And therefore: we compel him until he says, “I want to.”

A practical implication, for example: what happens if someone is completely secular, grew up in a totally different place, and there is no indication whatsoever that he really wants to keep commandments? It won’t help to compel him until he says, “I want to.” I claim that if you compel him until he says, “I want to,” his wife remains a married woman. Impossible. If you’re talking about mysticism, then maybe it works there too. If you’re talking about this process, this process works only with someone who really does, inwardly, want to keep Jewish law. But if not, then not. So what can you do? You can’t do that. But that’s not the important discussion for our purposes. What I want to talk about is the concept of split consciousness, because all these examples show that people live in split consciousness. A person builds himself some theory that this is what’s right; inwardly he understands it isn’t right, but he lives with the conscious theory, with the theory that accompanies him in his day-to-day life. This, by the way, is also the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s exactly the same thing.

What’s happening here? My feeling is that very often when I speak, at least with a Haredi public—mainly with a Haredi public, I think, though not only, but there it is very prominent—it won’t help me to bring arguments. I asked earlier: why doesn’t it work even with Torah scholars? With the ignorant masses I already understood why not, but why doesn’t it work with Torah scholars? Because of the concept of split consciousness. What does that mean? In the Haredi world we’ve gotten used to—you’ve gotten used to, or each person can say for himself—to living not according to what you think. You live in split consciousness. Meaning, you can identify with one idea or another; that is not what you will do in practice. And you believe in both things, you believe in both things. Meaning, inwardly you believe one thing, but outwardly, outwardly you believe in another model.

And therefore I think that very often, raising arguments in order to convince Haredi individuals, groups, or even individuals that I am right is a barren move. No—sometimes I won’t succeed, and unfortunately I’m not always right. But even assuming I am, it doesn’t matter. The problem isn’t there. Even if I convince them that I’m right, now I have to convince them that after they have been convinced, that is also how they will behave. And that doesn’t happen. This living in split consciousness is, in my opinion, one of the hardest problems in Haredi society—sorry to say it. Of course each person knows himself and his environment better than I do, but I’m putting this thesis before you. Okay?

And what I basically want to say is this: when we study—say, we study in yeshiva—we study in-depth analysis, and there everyone has all kinds of theories and is extraordinarily creative, sometimes virtuoso-level. And then when it comes to deriving practical Jewish law from the discussion, you ask yourself: okay, so what do we actually do in practice? You open the Mishnah Berurah to know what to do in practice. Right? But that is not what it means to derive practical Jewish law from the discussion. It means to study, arrive at a conclusion as to what is correct, and then do that. Studying in order to reach a conclusion about what Jewish law says—that is the purpose of study. I mean the purpose of study—here I have a bit of a disagreement with Ari, I don’t think that is the purpose of study in the value sense—but that is what study should look like. Study should look such that in the end you arrive at the practical, halakhic bottom line. Even with the rebellious son, who never existed and never will exist and never can exist—but in the end you still have to reach a halakhic conclusion. What is the law in this case?

Now what happens in that yeshiva world is a reflection of what happens in the broader world. We disconnect between what we think and what we do. What we think is what we thought in the morning about the in-depth learning and the theories and this and that, whether we reached a conclusion or didn’t reach one, but we have some position we arrived at from the topic. What we will do is what is written in the Mishnah Berurah. There you have split consciousness. You ask yourself: but what is right? Now when you ask that person: but what is right in your eyes? He can tell you: look, I’m insignificant; the Chafetz Chaim was a tremendous Torah scholar, and if he says this, then apparently I was mistaken in the morning when I was learning the analysis. It’s possible. Okay? I’m not sure I agree with him, but it’s possible. But many times it doesn’t rest on that, it doesn’t rest on that. It rests on the fact that this is what has been handed down to us, and even if I think otherwise, in practical terms I have to do this.

Now this is true in many other contexts as well. Back in my cheerful Bnei Brak days, I still remember the jokes that were circulating there about Rabbi Elyashiv, and about whatever leader it was in his turn—cruel jokes. In the Haredi world, I mean, cruel jokes. And after the ruling came out, whatever they said is what everyone did. So everyone knows the… Back then they already called it “the Grish-Efrati,” right? “The Grish-Efra…” meaning Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and Rabbi Efrati, who was his attendant, his assistant. So they called it the “Grish-Efrati,” meaning that Efrati was basically running Rabbi Elyashiv and telling him what was right and what was not right. Okay? Everyone told this joke. I didn’t invent it; I heard it in Bnei Brak. But in the end, when Rabbi Elyashiv said to do something, that’s what they did.

Now there are explanations for this: mysticism, yes, he has heavenly assistance, all true, never mind now how he reached the result, but he apparently reached the right result. Explanations can always be given; there are all sorts of explanations. Some people even believe these explanations—I believe them; others don’t believe them. What all these things have in common is that same split consciousness. I understand that this whole business is nonsense, but I think that this is what one must do in practice. If you ask me what I really think inside, the question is what “really think” means, I don’t know. How do we decide? Is what’s inside what I really think, or is what’s outside what I really think? Here comes the whole thesis of daat Torah and mysticism and all these things, which come to tell you that the truth is what you think on the outside, not what you think on the inside. That gives an anchor to your being able to continue with split consciousness. Do whatever you want in analytical study, as long as afterward you do what you are told to do.

And this is true in politics, and true in Jewish law, and true everywhere. And it is true in society, it is true in daily behavior. In the end there are people who do what they want in their own private four cubits, but they will not turn it into a way of life. It is not a way of life; it won’t get a brand name; it won’t become an ideology. It’s “light.” I’m “light,” right, I admit it, I’m “light.” So I do this, I do that. As long as I myself acknowledge that I am “light,” they will even accept it; they will accept me as the periphery of the true core, the true daat Torah, the true leading Torah sages, and so on, as long as I see myself as a tail to lions. Okay?

And therefore there is some marvelous cooperation between the core and the periphery in the fact that the periphery is basically “light”; it is not an alternative worldview but an absence of worldview. The real worldview is that same model in which inwardly I don’t believe, but it is the model according to which I live, and with that we go on living. And therefore my feeling is that when someone comes and talks to people—not just me, I’ve seen many conversations in many contexts—when I talk to people, I try to raise arguments and convince them: look at military service, helping Israel against an enemy, a war that is a commandment, Maimonides, “a groom from his room and a bride from her canopy,” and all sorts of things… what relevance does that have? It’s not relevant. Not because it isn’t correct—it is completely correct. The arguments raised against it are complete folly. But—but—but it’s not the point. Those arguments do not touch the real point. The real point is that even if you convince me, that is not what I will do. Because what is true is the accepted norms, once again, whether because of daat Torah or for all sorts of reasons, but I’ve gotten used to living in split consciousness. You can convince me that this is what is right, but still what I will do will be this: what the framework dictates, what the leading sages of the generation dictate, and so on.

Now it makes life too easy for us to pin this on fear. There is also fear, and concern about being exceptional—what I spoke about earlier. There are social sanctions of one kind or another, there are prices to pay, it is definitely not simple. But that makes life too easy for us. It’s not only that. There is something very deep in Haredi thinking, and perhaps in Hardal thinking too in a certain sense, though there it is a bit different, that says: there is a difference between what I think and what is right, or between what I think and what one does. Autonomy does not exist. I do not allow myself to be the one who thinks and forms his own position—not the public’s position. I didn’t ask that each person formulate the position for the public, but your own position, his or her own position—form that yourselves. There is no legitimacy for that. No inner legitimacy. Not of society. Haredi people themselves, again I don’t know you personally, but I’m speaking generally, do not permit themselves this—not merely that society doesn’t permit it. It’s not only because of the prices.

There is something in the fact that we continue the tradition of our forefathers, we continue to go more or less as it was customary. My uncle likes to say—he’s a Hasid from Monsey—that Abaye and Rava studied in Yiddish. In Iraq 1,500 years ago, they studied in Yiddish, because obviously, they knew how to learn. Anyone who knows how to learn learns in Yiddish. Meaning, those who don’t learn in Yiddish apparently don’t know how to learn. Now, he knows they didn’t study in Yiddish. Yes, he’s not an idiot. But that is the ethos. He takes that ethos completely seriously. If you ask him, he’ll tell you they studied in Yiddish. He knows factually that it’s not true, but that’s split consciousness. Meaning, inwardly they didn’t study in Yiddish, but I live with the consciousness that Abaye and Rava studied in Yiddish because that is the ideological truth, that is the truth within which I live. It’s not what I think. Okay?

And in my opinion this is so deep in the Haredi world that… it is very hard to deal with, and all the raising of arguments misses the point. You raise arguments, and at most you’ll change what the person thinks inwardly. Let’s say you succeeded in convincing him or her, and now they think differently. So what? The question is what they will do. They do not allow themselves to do what they themselves think. Therefore the focus that, in my opinion, one needs to focus on if one wants to strive for some sort of change is the second focus. Not to convince people of modern values—many people already identify with them, each at his own level and in a measured way, of course, all is fine, I’m using broad headings here. But the identification does not—it does not pass into action. The identification does not come to practical expression. Because there is a difference between what I think in my weakness, as a “light” person, and what I will do, because that is the truth. I will not present it as another ideology. I will not come out against rabbis who were appointed by Yated Ne’eman to be the leading sages of the generation, and who are indeed the leading sages of the generation. Now I know that they were appointed by Yated Ne’eman. We all know that. So what? Yated Ne’eman as a slogan—not literally Yated Ne’eman, but almost. But it doesn’t matter. Because in the end they are the leaders of the generation, they are the eyes of the congregation, and therefore in the end what they say is what I will do, even though inwardly I really do not identify with what they say. And that is the same split consciousness I spoke about earlier.

So what good does it do for me to convince you that they are wrong? You also think they are wrong. I don’t need to convince you. The question is how one solves the question of split consciousness, not how one adopts other positions. Rather, after I have adopted a position—or I already had a position, I don’t need to adopt one—how do we make it appear in practice? That is the important question. I’d be happy afterward to hear your thoughts on this matter.

[Speaker B] I’ll just say that those are exactly the kinds of questions that can’t be resolved.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s good. To me, that’s duality on a different plane. The duality you’re talking about, in my view, is the duality of two things that exist on the same level, not inside and outside. Rather, I’m committed to two systems even though there’s tension between them—I don’t know if contradiction, but tension—and I’m willing to be committed to both. Here it’s something else. This is psychological duality, not ideological duality.

[Speaker D] I understand, but it’s easier to find a very devout religious person who can contain foreign values within himself than a very devout Haredi-national person who can contain foreign values within himself at precisely that point.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, but you can find Religious Zionists who aren’t Haredi-national. Haredi-national really is parallel to conservative Haredim, so in my classification that’s the same group.

[Speaker D] And in terms of his religiosity, in terms of being religious, he’s genuinely Orthodox. Meaning, the Haredi person sitting at the university can be fully Haredi in certain aspects, while at the same time containing modernity in other aspects in a way—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Containing it in one sense, not in another. Meaning, that’s exactly the point. Meaning, it will almost never come to practical expression. That’s the problem—not that internally he can think everything is fine, or part of it is fine. That’s the question. That’s why I say there’s a difference between duality in the way you act and psychological duality of inside versus outside. I’m completely in favor of duality in the ideological sense—a duplication of normative systems that I’m committed to.

[Speaker E] He doesn’t really contain it, because he doesn’t dare put it into practice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I say, that’s exactly—

[Speaker E] The opposite of the Haredi, who can’t contain it at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A different concept, fine.

[Speaker E] They can hear it, but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s “contain” in one sense and not in the other—yes, he doesn’t contain it in actual practice. Okay, in any case, let’s move on, I’m about to—

[Speaker B] Leave some time for questions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One more second, I just want to finish the picture and then we’ll start talking. One indication, for example, of this duality: I meet all kinds of people, lots of arguments—when I used to raise arguments and debate people before I understood the insight I just described to you. Well, it still happens, but when I do it, very often I discover completely absurd counterarguments. Totally. I mean, arguments can be arguments—one person thinks this way, another thinks that way, I’m not always right, okay, fine. Normally you expect that from someone you study with—you learn a Talmudic passage together, and he raises a line of reasoning you hadn’t thought of. But in discussions of this kind I’m so used to hearing arguments that are simply absurd. They don’t even get off the ground—you have no idea where they came from. And we’re talking about intelligent people, not stupid people. And the explanation I give for this is exactly that same point: he’s trying to defend something that he himself doesn’t believe in. But he has to explain it, because when you rationalize how you behave, you need to present arguments for why it’s correct. Now in terms of the arguments, after all, you also agree that it’s not correct. It’s just that you don’t act on that. So when you present arguments in favor of that position—you can see this in debates about enlistment—you might be able to raise somewhat better arguments, I don’t know to what extent, but you see arguments there and you have no idea where they come from at all, it’s bizarre. Now this is obvious, and again, these are intelligent people, not fools. And the explanation I give for this is that same issue of duality. Deep down, he understands that it’s not logical. But he’s committed to the position that it is logical. And now, in order to reconcile this—you know, in neuroscience they’ve done lots of experiments on how we invent theories to explain to ourselves what we think we’re seeing. Completely far-fetched theories, and we say them with total confidence as if they’re obvious. There are fascinating experiments about this. So that’s one indication of the matter. A second indication, by the way, is extremism. Very often extreme statements and behaviors express inner doubts. The clearest example I know of is—I assume at least some of you know Tzemach Atlas by Chaim Grade, The Battle of the Inclination and Tzemach Atlas. There there’s a description of Tzemach Atlas, the Novardok yeshiva head there, and the Chazon Ish, in the figure of Rabbi Avraham, and it’s known that that’s the Chazon Ish. Chaim Grade was in his house as a child. And these two figures are presented one against the other: Tzemach Atlas is a total fanatic, and again, it’s literature, but he’s completely consumed by urges of heretical thoughts and sexual thoughts, and the way he fights his inner wars is with jihad against all his yeshiva students. In insane extremism. He cannot bear any questioning and any challenge. In contrast, the Chazon Ish, who overall had views that were no less extreme in content—but nothing of the sort. You ask him a question, he answers you, accepts whatever you say: if you think this, do this; if you think that, do that. There are stories about the Chazon Ish in those directions; he also writes some of these things. Completely different. And he too had a radical worldview—the Chazon Ish had a radical worldview—but he didn’t have an extreme personality. In personality, he was willing to hear any position. Say it, okay, he’ll discuss it with you or won’t discuss it with you, and he writes in his letters: it is not my way to enter into arguments with people because they don’t listen. But when they do listen, he’ll discuss with them, he’ll answer them, hear the questions, okay, all fine. When I see extreme behavior, usually, as an armchair psychologist, I understand that there is some war here of the person with himself, with what is inside him—not only with what is happening outside. It’s a projection, what is called in psychology projection. You project what is happening inside you onto what is happening outside, and then you go to all-out war against what’s happening outside. When Haredim go wild in an extreme way, it’s usually because they feel that something of the thing they are fighting against has entered the Haredi camp. Something there, somewhere, they’re fighting it. I don’t think they’re really interested in what’s happening around them; that seems to me the interpretation—I understand it that way. And again, the extremism and the quality of the arguments are indications that deep inside, within the society or within the person, these ideas have taken root, and he’s trying to fight them in order to synchronize this tension between his conscious awareness and his inner point. And that comes out as projections and wars and extremism and ‘we will die and not enlist’ and all kinds of nonsense of that type. I think that’s another indication.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now I’m heading toward the end. I just wanted to say one more thing—or really two things—and then we’ll start talking a bit. A great many people I’ve spoken with asked me: okay, how do you make the change? How do you bring the light—I don’t know what to call it, I don’t like these bombastic words—how do you bring about this revolution? And I get very frustrated by that question, because that question basically says: I expect other people to do the work for me. Rabbi Tamir Granot wrote—yes, now he’s involved in the enlistment issue, himself a bereaved father—and he said that as part of his activity he met with some very senior Lithuanian Haredi rabbi, he didn’t say who, and that rabbi told him: listen, you’re completely right, but we’re children—you have to save us from ourselves. We’re children. And it’s true, by the way: Haredi society behaves in a very childish way. And very often what looks like wickedness or selfishness or something like that is a kind of childishness. It’s not wickedness and selfishness—it’s a child. A child sees only himself; he doesn’t see that he exists in a surrounding environment and there are constraints, and others are suffering and are in difficulty. He feels he is at the center and everyone has to take care of him and help him and save him from himself. And in that sense I always tell my conversation partners: in the Communist revolution, people paid with their lives—not with a match for their daughter, not with their child in the elementary religious school, and not with a kollel stipend being reduced from two hundred dollars to a hundred and eighty because they weren’t on the right line. They paid with their lives. There is no such thing as a revolution without costs. There is no such thing. No one will do the work for you. No one will do the work for you. If you want to make a change, then you have to pay a price for it. You have to enlist yourself, be willing to pay prices, and advance what you truly believe in. And that duality I spoke about earlier—part of it, living in duality—is a general characteristic. There are many reasons for it. One of them is fear, and that’s what people always mention. The second is the habit of living in duality. The third is unwillingness to pay a price. Unwillingness to pay a price—I understand internally that what I’m doing, or what society is doing, is not right. But it has heavy costs, and I’m not willing to do it. And so it turns out, absurdly enough, that highly respectable percentages of the society think this way and it doesn’t come out in practice, because no one alone—after all, they can’t organize unless people come out of the closet. You need to create a group; to create a group you need to be out in the open. Now a person has to go out alone, and afterward others will come out and then it can connect. But no one goes out because there are costs. And they expect someone else from outside to break the closet open for you and help you get out. That doesn’t happen. It won’t happen. They’re trying to do that now, by the way, and with not much success, and apparently it can’t really happen. Until there is a voice from within, from inside Haredi society—and I say the same thing about Religious Zionists in their own emphases, it doesn’t matter—until a voice comes from within, nothing will happen from outside. No group was ever saved by another group that rescued it. You can ask other groups for help; you cannot have the other groups do the work in your place. Don’t sit here saying, the army still isn’t ready, we can’t enlist, the army hasn’t yet made all the preparations. You’re sitting in the government, and you also think people should enlist—fine. Organize what needs to be organized so that it will be possible to serve on the required religious and halakhic level, whatever you think that means. There is, overall, principled willingness for this. It is not other people’s job to prepare it so that you will graciously agree to enlist—and after they prepare it you still won’t come, so why should they prepare it? It doesn’t work like that. The same, by the way, with Mizrahim, the same with women, the same with all kinds of groups that felt disadvantaged and really were disadvantaged. But the change didn’t happen—or won’t happen—until they themselves got up and decided to act and pay prices. And sometimes it went too far, okay, that’s all true, we all know that, but still I think this rule is very important. The voice and the willingness to come out have to come first of all from the Haredi side itself, and then there will be connections and there will be help, and I think there is great willingness to try and help. But tango takes two. Meaning, people can’t just sit here and wait for someone to help them and pull them out of the valley of tears. First of all they need to say: we want to come out. That’s stage one. And second, do what is possible to make it happen. And again I say, by coming out I mean making a change—it doesn’t matter right now what change, how much, in what you do believe and what you don’t believe; each person where he stands. I mean in general: you don’t have to agree specifically with what I think or what someone else thinks, but if you think something and it really matters to you to advance it, you have to be willing to pay a price for it. There’s no way without costs. It won’t happen. As I said earlier, the costs are not always as great as people think. If you have a position and you’re solid about it, often they’ll respect it too. But even if not—fine, what can you do, that’s life. In revolutions people were killed. Without that, it doesn’t happen. That’s one thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One last thing that interferes here, and that also needs thought, is Maslow’s pyramid. Maslow’s pyramid—the hierarchy of needs—says that if someone is occupied with very basic needs, he has no time to deal with luxuries. If someone is fighting for his life, he doesn’t deal with ideology; he has to manage under constraints, he can’t live otherwise. So there’s a sort of pyramid of needs that you are supposed to climb. If you have fulfilled these needs, you can fight for those needs, but if you are in a struggle down here, you won’t fight for those higher things—and certainly not for ideologies, which are already beyond needs. And therefore, again, from the feeling I also get from the activity of The Third Path recently, on the Haredi side even when we succeed in getting cooperation, it’s usually cooperation aimed at meeting needs. People want help setting up a school that provides core studies, or some kind of Haredi hesder yeshiva or something like that—which is absolutely fine, that’s excellent progress, and may there be such things, and we should help as much as we can and as much as each person can. But I think part of this coming out from the straits into the world, part of breaking the closet they are inside, is understanding that there is a space outside the closet, like Plato’s cave. Meaning, you need to be involved also in what is happening outside. It has to matter to you also to repair the world, not just to solve the problem of your child’s livelihood—which I am not belittling at all, that is a hard problem. But that problem itself is greatly hindered by this. Because in order to solve your child’s problem—how he will study, some education, it doesn’t matter, each person according to what he believes, but something beyond the minimum given in Haredi education—you need to formulate some educational outlook, you need to formulate an ideology. But that’s ideology—that’s high. High on Maslow’s pyramid. We can’t—we’re dealing with bread and… not butter, but bread and cheese. Right? We’re dealing with the ABCs. We can’t deal with ideology. But without ideology, even the ABCs won’t be solved. You have to break this whole thing of Maslow’s pyramid. Meaning, in a Haredi world, certainly one in distress because it really wants other things and they are not available to it within Haredi society, then it’s no wonder that it is very hard for it to connect to all kinds of big ideas—modernity, the state, involvement, even enlistment, say—which is also some kind of big idea in the sense that it’s not something that comes to help me figure out how I’ll make a living. Maybe indirectly yes, because if I enlist I can also work afterward. But that’s only indirectly. What people don’t see in front of their eyes is that we have some duty to take part in what is happening around us, not only within our own four cubits. And that is part of the same thing that will also solve the problem of our own four cubits. And therefore we need to break this failure created by Maslow’s pyramid. Even though we are dealing with this minimum we need in order to survive somehow—and many times Haredi people are truly in distress, not necessarily economically, also economically, but not necessarily; the level of pressure is in a completely different place than for people in other societies—so you can’t fight for big abstract ideas. But there’s no choice. There’s no choice: if you don’t deal with the big abstract ideas, with ideology, with basic conceptions, then the practical changes also won’t happen. And that goes against human nature in that sense, but it’s part of the price that has to be paid if you really want to make a change.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in that sense—and here I’ll finish—the move of The Third Path, in whose name I came here, is a move calling for some connection between forces in the Haredi world and forces in the Religious Zionist world. This connection is as hard as splitting the Sea of Reeds. It’s as hard as splitting the Sea not because there is no agreement. There is, overall, agreement on most things. Fine, you can talk about wording and nuances; people philosophize endlessly there about the nuances. But this philosophizing about nuances stems from the lack of real willingness to take practical steps. So it’s better to argue over the tiniest point and say, with this I don’t identify and with that one I don’t identify, so I can’t. In my eyes that’s an excuse. It’s an excuse that comes from how very hard it is to arouse people to join, to take part in this, to act, to come out, to say: friends, we are not just the light version. We are different. That’s what I think. I can be a different kind of Haredi—it doesn’t matter, let each person define himself however he defines himself. But I’m different, I believe in my path, I’m not the light version of your path. Okay? And these things have practical expressions. Who do I vote for in elections, for example. Not that I came now to make election propaganda. But who do I vote for in elections? A large part of modern Haredim and the light types and all of that—I think the vast majority of them vote for those parties that they rebel against with every fiber of their being. Why? I don’t know why. I have no interest in some other party; no party looks good to me. But I don’t understand this phenomenon. Why? And in the voting booth, by the way, it’s behind the curtain. The voting booth is not something where you need to come out of the closet. Which shows that it’s not fear. There’s something internal here: I’m not willing to do in practice what I myself think.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One last story and that’s it. Two people came to me, within the framework of all the meetings I described earlier. These two people belonged to a very, I think, open Haredi community—open. One was a returnee to religion and one was the community rabbi. They came to my house, we talked. This was a little before the Haredi demonstration against enlistment, the mass demonstration against enlistment, massive and not so massive. So they were at my house and we talked. Among other things they said, tell us, what do you say about the demonstration? I said, what, are you crazy? Why would you go? You yourselves don’t believe in this anyway, right? That’s what came out of the conversation with them. They said yes, true. The next day I get a phone call from the rabbi, yes? We’re at the demonstration. We got to the demonstration and truthfully, you’re right. We’re leaving, we’re going back. I was stunned. I couldn’t really talk with him because it was in the middle of the demonstration there; he called me from the heart of darkness. And I said, tell me why, so why are you there? He says, you know, the Haredi public is under attack, and there’s a certain identification—you want to strike back, you’re part of this public. Now that was an explanation he pulled out of his sleeve; I think everything I said here today is part of the explanation for that phenomenon. That there is something where you completely agree with what I’m saying and in the end you chose to do the opposite. You do the opposite on your own initiative, not because you’re afraid. He didn’t go there because he was afraid—he left the demonstration afterward. Meaning, he’s not afraid. He went there because what he thinks is not what he does. But in my eyes the problem is not clarifying the concepts, but okay—after I’ve clarified the concepts and reached my conclusions, what now?

[Speaker C] Meaning, to understand themselves…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only to understand. Understanding themselves is the first step—you have to. To realize that deep inside there is something other than what you think is your ideology. And don’t treat that as evil inclination advice, as being “light,” as something that means you’re just weak. No. That’s what you really are. What you really think—I’m not trying to persuade you, look inside yourself. What you think. The harder focal point is the question: okay, this is what you really think—so what? Should you carry it out in practice? Should you go with it? That is the hard obstacle that somehow needs to be cracked. Meaning, after the conceptual clarification and after I’ve reached the conclusion that this is what I think, the question still remains whether that’s what I will also do. Or how I will also speak. Will I join moves that promote such a thing? That’s the question. There are emotional dividends, but there are also all these other things—it’s a lot of things; I described quite a few here. Of course there are emotional dividends too. A sense of belonging, the absolute truth that I belong to, which is bigger than me.

[Speaker F] Irrational fear.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, who am I? You want the absolute truth that comes from Sinai—meaning, after all, I am part of some historical process. It’s obvious that that gives something; that’s Marx’s opium of the masses. Maybe. Look, I’m not a psychologist. But I just tried to describe the phenomena as I understand them. How to deal with them and what to do in order to release these blockages—I don’t know. First of all to recognize them, that they exist. That’s first of all. That I think I can help with a little. But how to cope with the psychological blockages—I want to sharpen something a bit. Obviously this exists in every society. I spoke here about Haredi society because that’s the forum. But it exists in every society. Still, we need to be honest and say: it exists here more. More than in other societies, and the consequences are more extreme, because society dictates things that are much more far-reaching than other societies do. I agree. But still, it has to be dealt with.

[Speaker G] No, I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, the fact that it’s human is true. But if we want to deal with the problems, sometimes we need to deal with human nature. So you can create such a community. It’s just that such a community isn’t being created. Let them create a community. I’m not a communal type, I don’t go looking for communities. But if there are people who like communal life—each according to his temperament—then there’s no problem that they create a community around the values they believe in. Why do you have to pay such heavy prices in order to be in a community? Set up a different community, one that suits you better. I don’t think—what do you mean it’s fate? Here, there are other communities where this doesn’t happen. What do you mean?

[Speaker F] There will always be someone who follows the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but not at this intensity, not at this extreme intensity. These human phenomena always exist everywhere. Look, since The Third Path appeals in both directions, here I spoke about the problems on the Haredi side. What you said is what I talk about when I speak with Religious Zionists, because on both sides the captives need to be freed. Now there are different reasons in different publics for this captivity. Here I spoke about the reasons that in my opinion contribute to the captivity of Haredim—the captive Haredim. There are those who truly believe; that’s another matter. In the Religious Zionist world there are other reasons; we could discuss them, but I’m not sure how relevant that is here. Part of it is captivity to the right wing, where in the name of the right people are willing to pay a lot of prices. Another part is the opposite: the freedom to say, okay, so I’ll go to a secular party, what’s the problem? Meaning, I’m not obligated to anything, I don’t have to vote for a religious party. And then there doesn’t arise… For example, in The Third Path we were very torn, and still are, over whether to enter the political field as a party. And the feeling is that as a party we have no chance. Because a party that puts on its flag something unrelated to right and left at all—do whatever you want about right and left. I’m talking about modernity, integration of Haredim, a different kind of religiosity, religion and morality, what we spoke about earlier, which is somewhat missing from the existing tracks. Such a party wouldn’t get a single vote. Because today people vote for security, for the economy, or something like that. For Bibi or not-Bibi. Anyone who doesn’t speak that language can’t establish a party. I think that’s what blocks its formation in the Religious Zionist public, and in that sense it’s seemingly easier. But on the other hand, in the Haredi public they have no problem at all voting for parties that don’t have an agenda in the areas of left and right and economics and all that. They already vote for parties that promote an ideology—or whatever, take care of a certain ideology. So vote for an ideology you actually believe in. In that sense it’s easier among Haredim than among Religious Zionists. The people of Torah with worldly engagement were Haredi in terms of social belonging, and they did promote such a direction. True, they disappeared by the way, got absorbed among the Haredim and the Zionists. I completely agree with you. I’m not—look, I’ve written books whose purpose is really to try and crack these educational foundations, which is long before the ideologies I’m talking about here. But yes, it—look, it belongs more to the worlds of psychology, which is not my field. But I have hypotheses about this. Modern Haredim see themselves as the periphery of Haredi society. And precisely because they don’t engage in ideological clarification, they’re afraid of it. Because if they engage in ideological clarification, it will become clear to them either that they’re not Haredi—and then that will shake up their world a bit—or other problematic things could become clear to them. Once you don’t engage in ideology, everything else threatens you. Meaning, my belonging is not belonging on the ideological plane; it’s belonging on the sociological-social plane. I don’t want anyone threatening that belonging. I live my comfortable life on the side, sometimes very comfortable, but I also have the envelope that gives me the justification, the social security—not economic but social—and I, I’m Haredi. I have a label on my back, I have certain rabbis who are a model, even if I don’t follow them. Is he more challenged by it? Yes, definitely. Because first of all, the modern Religious Zionist doesn’t give him a replacement label. There is no label. We’re trying, by the way, to create a replacement label, because that’s part of the problem. People look for community, or a label, or something. And therefore, therefore I think that’s a major obstacle. And therefore, as I said before, it’s much easier for me to speak with Torah scholars than with ordinary householders. Much easier. Again, with them too, in the end I won’t move them practically, but they understand that there is such a side, and they understand that—okay, we have a disagreement. Other people, for them everything came down from Sinai, everything is what is correct. I don’t do it, but it’s what’s correct, and don’t confuse me with questions and suggestions. I would address this on two levels. First of all, enlistment for me was just an example; I’m not talking about enlistment at all—don’t enlist. But I’m talking about it on two levels. One level is the substantive factual-value level, which asks: is it really more dangerous? In my opinion, no—contrary to what everyone thinks or what most people think. You spoke about the great secularization of the Religious Zionist world; I only need to remind you where all the secularization of the Jewish people came from. All the secularization of the Jewish people came from the Haredi world, when the Haredi world couldn’t cope with enlightenment, and we see the results today. Therefore I say we need to be careful between short term and long term. Second, there is a lot of secularization under cover. There are lots of things wrapped up that people don’t talk about and don’t count. So even on the purely factual-value level, I’m not at all sure I agree with your claim that the Haredi path is safer. On the contrary, I tend to think not. Therefore I say I’m talking on two levels. On one level I argue on the substantive plane; I don’t agree with the substantive claim. The second level is: suppose you are right on the substantive plane. Now the question is: what prices are you willing to pay for what? That’s a second level. Now if you think—you’ve made your calculation—and you think that life within the Haredi framework is the lesser evil, and clearly there are frogs and there is no society without frogs, that’s obvious—but if you think that, then I’m not talking to you. Everything is fine. Then you are apparently on the path you truly think you should be on. I’m talking to those people who are not in that place.

[Speaker H] From your perspective they’re on the margins—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And I want to say to them: friends, don’t see yourselves as on the margins. Moshe sees you as on the margins; you don’t have to see yourselves as on the margins. Not Haredi—call them whatever you want. Today they’re classified sociologically as Haredi. A lot of the group that is sociologically classified as Haredi really—

[Speaker F] can join what I’m talking about here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It may be that you can’t, so fine, then apparently you can’t. Everything’s fine, there are different opinions. I’m only saying that someone who can should not recoil because of all the obstacles I spoke about earlier. Someone who can’t, can’t. I’m aware that not the entire Haredi public is there. That’s why I said I think a lot of this is based on a mistake in analyzing reality, also on the substantive plane. And some of these mistakes come from the ideological pumping that comes from the core, which convinces you that only this way will Judaism survive, and if it doesn’t look like this then it won’t survive. I don’t agree with that on the factual level, beyond the question of what one should do if one thinks that way. I simply don’t think that way. I think that is a very tendentious presentation. That comparison is a very, very tendentious comparison. A large part of what Haredi society manages to preserve, maybe sometimes better than other societies, is thanks to the fact that there are other societies. Meaning, because when people have questions they come to me, not to you, and because of that in the end some of them remain Haredi. Because they have no one to talk to about it in the Haredi world. People who live in the Haredi world, and that world doesn’t succeed in sustaining itself health-wise, economically, security-wise, except thanks to everyone around it. Now you can say, ‘Look, I protect myself best.’ Sure—because I take the risks, according to your view. I don’t think there are more risks here. I take the risks, and because of that you remain safer. The question is whether you are at peace with such a path. I wouldn’t have been at peace with it. Okay, now regarding everything—

[Speaker I] you said about that, even if everyone agreed, it still isn’t a direct appeal.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So now I’ll ask you a question: what happens regarding the principle of… Suppose I raise arguments to him himself showing him that it’s not true. Excellent, I’d be happy with that. Suppose—wait, wait—suppose. Now, not you personally; I’m talking about that Haredi person you’re describing here, okay? So I raise such arguments to him. Now what will he say to me? He’ll say: even regarding the question of obedience to rabbis, true, you’re right, but I obey the rabbis. Fine. Against a black hole you can’t contend. Meaning, you understand, this is a thesis where I simply think that very many people aren’t supposed to be there, and I think they also aren’t really there. And if they are, then maybe one can shake that loose a bit. In the endless arguments I used to have in Bnei Brak, in my period in Bnei Brak, they would say to me: there, you see, everyone who goes to the army becomes secular. So I said to them: come make a comparison between graduates of Ponevezh who reached the army, or I don’t know, some other yeshiva, and graduates of Mercaz HaRav who reached the army. And you’ll discover—you’ll get surprises. And the reason for that, the reason that Ponevezh graduates who reached the army reached it already secular, they didn’t come out of it secular—otherwise they wouldn’t have reached it. But if you define—now I return to the parable and the point—if you define the others as “light,” and the others accept that they are “light,” then true, they’ll also commit transgressions and they’ll also really become “light.” But if I tell him, listen, they define you as light, but you don’t have to enter that framework. If you truly believe in something else and you really think it’s correct, then you’re not the Haredi light version. Don’t accept that definition. And therefore don’t permit yourself to be “light,” because you’re not. Very often that is a self-reinforcing thought. Once you define someone as light, then he also permits himself, because okay, I’m light, so in any case it doesn’t matter. But if you say no, no—you, in your outlook, if you truly are like this and you truly agree with me that you have a different ideological outlook, that itself will prevent you from being light. Those who are truly light will be light; there’s nothing to do about that.

[Speaker J] But among those leaving the Haredi public today, since their main story isn’t religion but life, they can’t tell themselves that story.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But if I could catch them beforehand—if I could catch them beforehand, and I spoke with many such people—and I would tell them: listen, you can leave the Haredi world without leaving the religious world. It’s not a package deal. You just need to understand: you’re not Haredi-light, you’re simply not Haredi. But from the standpoint of the education they received, there’s no such thing. If you’re not Haredi, then you’re not religious. What else could there be? So he goes out, he gets expelled because he’s not there. But if you tell him: listen, what bothers you also bothers me—it’s true. So change the outlooks you don’t agree with, but that doesn’t mean you have to throw away everything else. And then suddenly you’ll discover that a great many people who left completely left completely because of Haredi education—exactly like with enlightenment, what I spoke about earlier.

[Speaker K] What mainly interests them today is life. They don’t define you by religion, it doesn’t occupy them for even a second, and therefore they also—the way you see it is a person—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] whom religion interests. A Religious Zionist person is interested in that. I’m speaking to whoever my words speak to. Right, there are those it doesn’t.

[Speaker K] Among the people from the public—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m speaking to people who are inside the Haredi world, not those who have left it. It may be that afterward they can also leave it because of this dissonance, and maybe this can prevent that too, but I’m not talking about leavers. I’m talking about those who are inside the Haredi world and for whom these things do matter, but who feel some dissonance between how they conduct themselves and what they really believe. To those people I’m trying to say: friends, then you’re probably different.

[Speaker L] Come to Ponevezh and talk with us, with people—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In Ponevezh, listen—

[Speaker L] answers that are invented out of thin air, all sorts of strange things like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I talk to everyone. I try to persuade them, and whoever talks, talks, and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t. What can I do? Whoever nothing interests except life—fine, so what can I do. Yes, okay, obviously there are—in every place there are.

[Speaker C] Let’s move on. One last response. This whole issue of academia for Haredim, the IDF for Haredim—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, that’s always a dilemma. You know, the question is: it may be that if you don’t adapt, nobody will come, so it’s always a dilemma what to do. In military service too, same thing: there were those who went into military service even before the frameworks were adapted for them and so on. But very few came. So the dilemma is whether nonetheless to enable people to do it. Beyond that, also on the liberal level I don’t agree with dictating to people: if they want to live and study separately, let them study separately. True, that has implications, but that’s what they chose. I don’t want to force things on people that they don’t believe in.

[Speaker G] In academia they’re more advanced, but fundamentally they still accept the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so here we have a factual disagreement. I don’t know—maybe you’re right—but I think there are quite a few for whom it is on the table, not a few. But I think beneath the table there are many more. People who identify with values of modernity, who don’t just want to study in order to earn a living but think that study also has some value in itself—I mean secular studies, not Torah study—there are quite a few such people.

[Speaker B] How significant is that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I haven’t done a survey, and these surveys too—look, I haven’t done a survey, and these surveys often can’t really reveal the truth, because who knows how people respond to surveys and how willing they are to expose themselves there, and so on. I get an impression from the people I meet, and I meet a lot of people, really. It’s far from being a representative sample. Haredi society today is—I don’t know how many millions—what, 1.3 million. Okay, so obviously I don’t meet even one percent of that. But I meet hundreds and thousands of people, and from those samples it seems to me there is a non-negligible segment. Non-negligible. Again, and I’m sure I only meet the outermost edge of it.