Israel's "religion and state" battles have taken
on a new character in recent years. It's no longer the Orthodox rabbinate
against the secular Supreme Court, or against the Reform and Conservative
movements. Most of the battles of recent years are those of the Orthodox
rabbinate against movements, organizations and phenomena that are themselves
also Orthodox.
A run-down of some of these skirmishes provides ample
evidence. The Orthodox Rabbi Avi Weiss was disqualified by Israel's Chief
Rabbinate for the sin of granting ordination to female halakhic arbiters; the
rabbinate was forced to reverse itself (not least as a result of the battle
waged by the Orthodox Zionist Ne'emanei Torah Va'Avodah movement). Also
Orthodox and in the firing lines: A significant percentage of the Women of the
Wall, the religious girls who enlist in the Israel Defense Forces (now deemed
by the Chief Rabbis as an improper vocation), Rabbi Haim Druckman's IDF-program
conversion courts, the "community kashrut" project in Jerusalem which
operates on trust rather than the Rabbinate certification process, and other
movements and phenomena against which the rabbinate has declared war.
But another dynamic was revealed in these struggles. As
opposed to the image that Orthodoxy in Israel is becoming more extreme, more
Haredi and more isolated, there is a strong and opposite trend. A significant
strengthening of the Orthodox voice that is committed to all of Israeli society
and all of the Jewish people. Which is committed to halakha (Jewish religious
law) but also to human ethics; which does not follow every social trend, but is
also unwilling to categorically reject modernism and its values.
The Orthodox community in Israel was never homogeneous. The
most prominent and well-known internal dispute regards Zionism: The Haredim
(ultra-Orthodox) on the one hand, and religious Zionism on the other. This
dispute is still alive and kicking, and it is in fact at the root of some of
the battles, for example on the subject of conversion. It is clearly possible
to argue that the more the dayan (religious court judge) feels himself
responsible for "all of Israel" and sees a value in the integrity of
the Jewish people and mutual responsibility, the more he will tend to emphasize
the convert's desire to belong to the Jewish people, rather than how strictly
the convert observes every marginal law on Shabbat. Such a dayan will seek to
include rather than exclude.
The same is true of shmiTta, the sabbatical year that will
begin next year, and the disputes and battles it will bring in its wake. The
values-related question of the importance of Jewish agriculture in the Land of
Israel, and what should be done to preserve its strength, certainly affects the
halakhic policy regarding shmitTa. This assumption, that whether an arbiter or
a dayan is "Zionist" has a decisive impact on his halakhic decision,
and this is what lay behind the attempt by the religious Zionist Tzohar rabbis'
organization to promote Rabbi David Stav to the position of chief rabbi.
But Zionism explains only some of the battles. Others, such
as the increasing closeness between the Haredim and the Hardalim (Haredi
religious Zionists), originates in another inter-Orthodox dispute, which is
less discussed and far more complex. Namely the dispute, or in effect the
series of disputes, regarding liberal values and modern culture in general.
Values of equality, and particularly equality of women, liberty, the autonomy
of the individual – are they all invalid or at least suspect, or can they be
"converted" to Judaism, fully or partially, or at least examined?
Do these values arouse suspicion and should walls be built
to keep out "assimilation" into them, or are they a revelation of
God's will, a gradual redemption and improvement of the world? Does God speak
to us only through the commandments and halakha, or through history and
historical reality as well? And the modern world – is it entirely evil, full of
temptations and dangers, or does it also represent a great blessing, and the
chaff has to be separated from the wheat? What is the basic intuition – fear
and seclusion, or integration? And tradition – is it a cosily static thing,
beloved and cherished, which we must preserve, or is it living and changing all
the time?
These disputes are less easily formulated and attract fewer
headlines; they contain more shades of gray than of black and white, but they
are alive and burning.
And when they are conducted "for the sake of
heaven" and in a respectful manner they are also productive. Such disputes
have always characterized the Jewish world, and indeed debates likes these
built it. The problem is that most of the time these disputes are not conducted
as disputes but as a battlefield where aggressiveness, force and
delegitimization are all acceptable.
There really is a serious difference of opinion between the
Haredi chief rabbis and Rabbi Avi Weiss on the question of what a women's place
is in Jewish ritual and leadership. But instead of conducting an in-depth
conversation and a proactive debate, the Chief Rabbinate chose to leverage its
legal authority on the issue of recognizing someone's Judaism, in order to try
to force its viewpoint about women on Rabbi Weiss. And the rabbinate is not
alone. There have been repeated attempts to use various means to coerce or to
"place beyond the fence" those with more liberal views.
But something is starting to change. Something in the public
atmosphere within the religious Zionist community. The liberal voice, which for
years was on the defensive and was almost totally silent, is once again being
heard. And so religious feminism is expanding its influence, the attitude
towards rabbis who have transgressed is no longer forgiving, and there is an
open public discussion regarding it.
The ongoing process of creeping gender
separation in the schools has been halted, the attitude towards gays (as
individuals, not necessarily the orientation) in the Jewish community is also
undergoing a change, and there is increasing opposition to current
socio-political phenomena such as "price tag" attacks, racism (for
example the "ban" on renting apartments to Arab Israelis), as well as
to separatism in general, all informed by an embrace of a more humanistic
ethos.
This voice is not new: It has always been here, but it had
some very quiet, hesitant, perhaps even stuttering years, years of retreat and
an apologetic attitude towards other, more unequivocal and one-dimensional
voices within the religious Zionist community. But now it is once again louder.
Expressing itself more articulately and more clearly as a spiritual and
cultural option in the broad Israeli experience and in the narrow
"sectoral" experience.
And for me it's a voice of hope. Hope for the State of
Israel and for Judaism itself.
Tehila Friedman-Nachalon is a fellow in the Mandel
Leadership Institute.
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