Q&A: Is Ra'am as Part of the Government Something Good or Something Bad?
Is Ra'am as Part of the Government Something Good or Something Bad?
Question
Hello,
I don’t have enough knowledge and understanding to know whether Ra'am as part of the government would be something terrible and awful, as many say, or "neutral," meaning not so terrible, or maybe even something good.
If in the final analysis the right has veto power over everything, why is it so terrible?
Answer
This isn’t really a question of knowledge but of assessing the future. Ask whoever says it’s terrible. Usually these are tendentious statements, and there’s no need to discuss them or be troubled by them.
Discussion on Answer
Should the right to travel on intercity roads also belong only to Jews?
"Should the right to travel on intercity roads also belong only to Jews?"
That is what the government elected by Jews will decide.
Will a Reform convert be recognized as Jewish for voting purposes?
Indeed, the question is: who is a Jew?
I don’t have a completely final answer, but the direction is that whoever does not believe in Moses our Teacher as the one and only source of authority is not a Jew.
So a secular Jewish heretic of the Herzl and Ben-Gurion type would lose his right to vote?
An answer to the main questioner:
If you support a Jewish state, then you should be troubled by the fact that there is a party in the government that does not recognize that this is a state of the Jewish people. It’s that basic. There’s nothing tendentious here.
If there were to arise a party of Arabs who recognize that there is here a Jewish state of the Jewish people, then it would be a completely different matter.
With God’s help, on the "day of thunder" (Thursday), on the weekly Torah portion of "and you shall not be afraid" 5781
Regarding the question of establishing a government that relies on Arabs, there are two planes: the principled and the practical.
On the principled level, there is a problem in the very fact that a non-Jew determines fateful decisions. We were commanded, "You may not set over yourself a foreign man who is not your brother," and in a democratic regime, every Knesset member on whom the government relies is, in some small measure, a "king."
The principled problem is even more severe when the non-Jew’s involvement runs contrary to the choice of the majority of Israel’s Jewish citizens. This grave situation exists in the government that Bennett and Lapid now want to establish, which will apparently be a clearly left-wing government led by Lapid, Gantz, Michaeli, and Zandberg, against the will of the majority of Jewish voters who voted "right" and, with the help of the Arabs, receive "the far left of the far left."
In the practical sphere of concern, one must distinguish between the diplomatic-security realm and the realm of the state’s Jewish and value-based character.
In the diplomatic-security realm, my main concern is the government leadership, beginning with Lapid, Michaeli, and Meretz, who will make a mad dash to establish a Palestinian state and destroy the settlements in Judea and Samaria, and also Gantz, who would not dare confront American and international pressure. But even Mansour Abbas, who is relatively moderate, has already shown his vigorous opposition to Operation "Law and Order," which was meant to deter the Arab rioters.
In the value sphere, preserving the Jewish character of the state, specifically the Arabs, even the secular among them, have a connection to and understanding of traditional values. We already saw in the Motti Steinmetz event in Afula that a Jewish judge disqualified it entirely because of the "gender separation," while an Arab judge found the middle path between the need of religious people to keep the laws of their religion, and proposed three sections: one for men, one for women, and one "for whoever wants." Arabs have much greater understanding of honoring religion and tradition.
And likewise regarding LGBT issues, Abbas made clear that he would not lend his hand to legislation in this area. Given what we know of the eagerness of the left and the liberals, who had already planned to outlaw by law professional psychological assistance for someone who wants to change his inclinations, Abbas’s insistence (and also that of the people from the Joint List) will, with God’s help, prevent the persecution of professionals who do not accept that same-sex inclinations cannot be changed.
In short:
On the principled plane, reliance on Arabs is not good even to uphold the will of the majority of Jews, all the more so when the intervention of the Arabs runs contrary to the will of the majority of Jews.
On the practical plane: in the diplomatic-security realm, reliance on Arabs increases concern. By contrast, in the value sphere, Arabs have more respect for religion and tradition than some of the liberals and leftists, who scorn tradition as primitive fanaticism.
That is the not-simple situation, and all we can do is lift our eyes to our Creator, that He place compassion for the Jewish people and His Torah in the heart of the ruling power and save us from all evil and cruel decrees, and send us Ra'am [= the Faithful Shepherd] to guide us in the ways of Torah and commandment.
With blessings, Yaron Fisch"l Ordner
In a democratic Jewish state, only Jews should have the right to vote (or the right to be elected).
But because of the sheer lack of thought, no one considers this simple fact.