Q&A: A Third Identity
A Third Identity
Question
I read on the movement’s website, and I’m trying to bring it down to the practical level—today there really isn’t much public transportation funded by the state, maybe only a little before the Sabbath ends.
As for cities that are mainly secular—does A Third Identity support full operation of state-funded public transportation if there is demand for it among the secular public?
It’s important to note that beyond the riding public, this also involves a large group of workers who would be forced to work—drivers, inspectors, garage staff on duty, service personnel, and others—who may not normally work on the Sabbath, but because there would be a requirement to operate public transportation on the Sabbath, they too would be forced to work.
Answer
You can’t really bring this down to the practical level, because what connects the people is not agreement on the details but agreement on the framework. So there’s no point in asking specific questions. On questions like that, each person can answer you according to his own understanding. Beyond that, the question is not well defined. Will there be job security for religious people? Mechanisms like that can be arranged (I think it’s even written there). One has to discuss a specific model and all its details in order to express an opinion on such a question. That’s why the guidelines document contains only general principles. If you want a commitment on every little nitpicky question, you’re naive. Even if they give it to you, it won’t actually be carried out in practice.
Discussion on Answer
What about commerce on the Sabbath? Is A Third Identity on the side of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah or on the side of his opponents?
(Is this an example here of a value that can be learned from the Hebrew Bible, God forbid?)
First of all, there won’t be more. The question is whether people desecrate the Sabbath at home or at work.
Beyond that, in my view the Sabbath desecration of secular people is not a transgression. I discussed this at length in my article about causing a secular person to sin.
Third, if the alternative is the current desecration of God’s name, then I would even desecrate the Sabbath myself in order to put an end to it.
Someone who runs public policy according to the question of how many people will desecrate the Sabbath does not understand what a public is.
As for commerce on the Sabbath, I definitely don’t like it, but the decision should be made by agreement (like the Gavison-Medan Covenant). If there is no agreement, then let there be some commerce, while taking care not to harm the employment of religious people.
The right combination is public policy together with repairing the world under His kingship.
Overall, the State of Israel seems to be heading in the right direction.
Things will presumably become clear on their own as time goes by.
The horses of Sabbath commerce bolted from the stable long ago. The secular public has gotten used to the idea that the Sabbath is a day for shopping. There is some measure of blame—or even more than some measure of blame—on the legal system, which thumbed its nose at an explicit law and gave ridiculous fines to chains that opened on the Sabbath. The time for discussions of the kind Rabbi Medan and Ruth Gavison had is long gone. That is both because religious people mistakenly see themselves as responsible for the secular public’s Sabbath desecration and therefore are unwilling to make any concession on the issue, and because secular people too have lost patience with the religious, and especially with the Haredim. If one side is unwilling to share the burden and behave with basic decency, the price is that the other side loses trust in it and in the possibility of reaching joint agreements with it. And the ones who pay the price are the traditional and religious people in the middle, who may not always be the most punctilious in commandment observance, but would be happy not to have to face the test of Sabbath commerce.
So as a general question—if it turns out that, as part of implementing a more liberal policy, more Jews will end up desecrating the Sabbath through serious violations—for example, Jews who don’t usually work on the Sabbath will start working—would that be worth it?
I don’t see desecration of God’s name or severe problems between an overwhelming majority of religious people and an overwhelming majority of secular people.
95% of these and 95% of those live in symbiosis.
Is there really a need to move to a more liberal state (the state is already liberal today), if the costs are as mentioned above?