On State Sanction of Religion

Hareidi ('Ultra-Orthodox') and Secularr Jews clash over
Shabbat observance

This week, I'm going to take one of my periodic departures from writing about the weekly Torah portion to focus on an issue that has very much captured the attention of the Jewish world this week.

As I hope I've successfully conveyed in this blog over the past half-year or so, I love living in Israel.  After spending much of my life, especially my professional life as a Rabbi, 'in the woods' in Jewish terms, it is a joy to wake up every morning in a country where being Jewish is 'normal,' not an 'outsider' status.  For Jews, Israel is a very special place, a country whose importance far transcends its tiny size and population among the countries of the world.

That said, there are aspects of the country's religious landscape, whose wisdom escape me.  And not only me; as many of my readers abroad know, in the Jewish State most Jews could not care less about Judaism.  The split between the religious and the secular was long assumed to be about 80% secular/20% religious, but based on the results of the 2015 election the split is now understood to be more like 75% secular/25% religious.  The 'religious' group (in Hebrew, dati) are what we commonly call outside Israel, Orthodox.  That begs the question:  in North America, the majority of religious Jews are not Orthodox, but identify with other streams of Judaism such as Reform and Conservative.  Do such 'non-Orthodox' Jews exist in Israel?  And where do they come out in the figuring of the 75/25 secular/religious split?

The answer is that those belonging to non-Orthodox congregations, or otherwise identifying with those Jewish streams, constitute a very small minority of Israeli Jews.  I have heard a figure of 10% for Reform and Conservative combined, but I think that is a gross overstatement.  And of those who might claim Reform or Conservative affiliation on a survey, most consider themselves at heart 'secular' Jews who melt into the majority of non-religious except at key moments of life and an occasional synagogue visit to prove they can.  So instead being generally seen as legitimate religious alternatives to Orthodox Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements are seen in Israel as transplants from the Jewish diaspora.  And some immigrant Jews who identified with those movements before they came to Israel, cling to them in Israel out of nostalgia.  I do not believe this is entirely accurate, as we have in our Masorti (Conservative) congregation in Ashqelon, more than a few veteran and native Israelis who come from either Dati or secular backgrounds but became involved with our congregation for a number of reasons.

The reader who has gotten this far might be tempted to ask at this point:  Why does this matter?  If Reform and Conservative Judaism don't seem to resonate with significant numbers of Israeli Jews, who cares?  More specifically, if the non-Orthodox get written out of the Western Wall or the process of conversion of Judaism, why does it matter?  These are two decisions by the Netanyahu government that have the Jewish world inflamed this week, the latest crisis that threatens to cement the split between Israel and the Jews of the rest of the world.

The answer is that religion plays a different, wider role in Israel than in the Western World in general - and certainly, most relevantly, the USA in particular.  In America, the non-Orthodox Jewish streams have flourished for the same reason that so many Christian and other denominations have grown and flourished and become important elements in the religious landscape.  And that is the ironclad separation of church and state - but not religious faith and state - that is mandated by the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution's First Amendment.  In Israel by contrast, the religious landscape is entirely based on the state's ceding of certain personal status issues - marriage and divorce for example - to the different religious groups.  To the different officially-recognized religious groups, that is.  So Jews turn to the state-sanctioned (Orthodox) rabbinate, Christians to the handful of churches with official recognition, and Muslims to their officially-recognized counterpart.  All of these recognized religious bodies receive state funding and sanction, and all other Jewish, Christian and Muslim bodies do not.

This creates a social climate where the recognized religious bodies - in particular the Jewish section of the Ministry of Religious Affairs - try to coerce the vast number of non-religious citizens to behave in religious ways.  But they largely fail, because citizens of a modern, democratic state are unlikely to be coerced.  Probably the most visible ways this plays out, are in Shabbat closings of essential services such as public transport, and in marriage.  Since there is no civil or non-Orthodox alternative to the Rabbinate's hold on personal status, non-religious Israelis flock overseas for civil marriage, then return home where their marriages are recognized by the relevant government ministries - except Religious Affairs.

This coercion, in turn, fuels the public's distaste for religion, period.  And that's too bad.  In the land where the Jewish people found their origins as a people bound to their G-d, the majority of Israelis simply don't care about G-d at all, or about religion, that set of practices and beliefs that express a people's longing for an encounter with G-d.  Would a different role for religion, or a different way of recognizing the various religious streams, make much of a change in this reality?  Who knows?  But I do know that it's unfortunate that religion, in demanding an official role for itself - which by definition, narrows the religious landscape to those religious groups that are officially sanctioned - has become so irrelevant in a country where religion could matter a whole lot more.

Will We Ever Learn? A Thought for Parashat Korach

It always pains me, at least a little, to offer my thoughts on Parashat Korach (Numbers chapters 16-18).  It shouldn't.  The portion offers a narrative that that offers a - may I use this phrase, cliched by certain politicians? - Teaching Moment regarding dissent and conflict.  Moreover, it was my son Eyal's bar mitzvah portion, so it should - and does - bring forward many fond memories of an important family milestone.  But nevertheless it makes me look at the world around me, from the Jewish community moving outward to the greater world in ever-widening concentric circles, and realize that year after year, we learn nothing.  If a great national tragedy causes us to introspect and take a lesson that will make us wiser, stronger, and better, then that is ultimately for the good.  But if we keep engaging in the behaviors that led to the tragedy, then all the suffering that came with the tragedy is meaningless.  And unfortunately, that's where we are today.

Korach is a Levite who, with a group of 250 of his kinsmen, rebels against Moses' leadership.  Now I realize that, in my last blog installment, I asserted that Moses' leadership was on a downward trajectory to where Hashem would ultimately decide that Joshua Bin Nun must take over the reigns.  But that has not yet happened.  If Moses' leadership is faltering to the point that it would cause harm to the people Israel, there is not yet any indication thereof.  And remember, Moses is the leader whom G-d Himself chose despite Moses' not thinking he was up to the task.  Besides, Korach and his followers have not laid out a platform that indicates they have any better an idea of how to lead the people to success.  They simply want to be the ones in charge.

As I already pointed out, Korach and his followers are Levites.  That means they're not laymen.  Not rank-and-file.  They are members of the tribe which, as a whole, has been set apart from the people Israel to serve important functions in the cultus that serves as the nexus between Israel and Hashem.  They enjoy an exalted position.  But they want more.  They are drunk with the power they now wield, and it makes them want more.  And they want it so bad, that they are willing to push aside those specifically chosen by G-d for the highest positions:  Moses, his brother Aaron, and Aaron's sons.

Korach's only complaint against Moses is why do you lord it over to G-d's people?  But his only solution is to replace Moses with himself...so he, Korach, would then be in the position to lord it over to G-d's people.

Unfortunately, so much of the conflict we experience is of this nature.  We're ready to condemn leaders - at whatever level - for their failings, real or imagined.  But the conflict becomes about unseating the leader about whom we object, with little or no thought of a better way forward.

I'm not going to draw parallels to the national political situation in the USA, because they are all too obvious.  But I have seen this Korach Syndrome in effect at so many levels, in so many settings.  Seeing it operative over and over in Jewish religious life, drove me into retirement from the rabbinate years before I had planned.  It was just heartbreaking to see it tear at the fabric of the community, year after year with no end in sight.

I'm not suggesting we should not allow conflict, or that we should quash discussion of any issues that might lead us into conflict.  Rather, we should take heed to the Rabbis who used the conflict of Korach and his followers to teach us about conflict:  Conflict for the sake of Heaven (conflict for the purpose of finding a better way) as opposed to Conflict not for the sake of Heaven (conflict for conflict's sake, for usurping the current leadership).  The former is healthy - when carried on within certain constraints and parameters - and the latter is patently unhealthy.  As these important chapters come around once more, let's try to give Korach's rebellion a fresh look and really take the lessons it offers, to heart.  Shabbat shalom.

Unfit for Leadership?

Charlton Heston as Moses at his best in 'The Ten
Commandments'

My apologies in advance for not posting NEXT week; I'll be travelling and don't expect to be able to get to a computer.  But here's a thought for THIS week...



No, this isn't an essay about President Trump, please no!  It's about Moses!  But actually, there are parallels between Moses and Trump - as well as any flawed leader...and they're ALL flawed to one extent of another.

All leaders are flawed, because all PEOPLE, whether they aspire to leadership or not, are flawed.  But when one aspires to leadership, one's flaws become visible for all the world to see.  And they become more critical.  Say I have a 'locker room sense of humor,' such as Trump is popularly seen to possess.  If I'm just Don Levy, an individual, then if my humor offends you, you can just decide not to admit me into your circle of individuals who matter to you.  To put it more plainly, you can decide that my friendship is not worth having to listen to my jokes.  BUT...if I have insinuated myself into your life somehow, say by being elected your president, then you can't just ignore or avoid me.  I'm in your life whether you want me there or not.  That's why, if you particularly take exception to my expression of humor or whatever, you are likely to constantly question my fitness for whatever office I have managed to acquire.  This is why we are unforgiving of the foibles of presidents, congressmen, generals, or (much lower down the hierarchy) rabbis.

Moses, while being a giant of a man, is flawed.  He begins developing a short temper and loses his ability to deal rationally with the people Israel and even with G-d at times.  This causes his downfall.  It isn't that he should be an object of scorn.  Rather that his fitness for continuing to lead the people Israel comes into question.  Here, at the point in the Torah's narrative that we are reading these weeks (this week's reading, Beha'alotecha, begins with the eighth chapter of Numbers), he is starting to lose it.

Of course it is only human - and Moses is, if anything, human - to be reluctant to step down from leadership.  It is difficult after a time, to separate oneself from the entity one leads, and to see its continuance after one's pulling out.

Fortunately for Moses - and for the people Israel - G-d sees and recognizes Moses' developing unfitness, and ultimately decrees that the mantle be passed to Joshua bin Nun.  That doesn't happen this week (in the cyclical reading of the Torah), but the events we read about now definitely lead to it.

But the Jewish tradition fortunately does not develop a contempt for Moses just because his time as a leader ultimately passes.  Rather, we revere him.  The Rambam (Maimonides) called Moses the chiefest of the prophets, and I don't know of a Jew who would disagree with that assessment.

Leadership is an elusive quality.  It is rarely possessed, and it is rarely possessed permanently.  When it presents itself to us, it is our task to recognize it and to follow it.  Sometimes, it takes a powerful discernment to recognize it.  And to know when it is time to move on.