Q&A: The Rabbi’s Opinion
The Rabbi’s Opinion
Question
Do secular people in Tel Aviv have the right to stand by their values and not allow gender-separated prayer in their areas, just as religious people have the right to prevent the sale of leavened food on Passover in religious concentrations? Or to prevent the distribution of heretical ideas in their areas?
Answer
In my opinion, nobody has such a right. There is freedom of expression, and it should not depend on territory.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t understand the question. Nobody needs to bend anything before anyone else. Everyone should live their own life. By the way, at the moment it seems to me that in Tel Aviv it’s דווקא the religious people who are being forced to bend. Maybe you should ask yourself the opposite question: is there a version of secularism that is supposed to allow religious people to live according to their own understanding.
Does the Rabbi think it is possible to find within religion a place to allow non-religious people to live as they see fit from the outset? I don’t know of any such version of Judaism, so I’m wondering how a secular person in Tel Aviv is supposed to act when he understands that it always has to be he who bends his values before religion.