Actually, we should have outlawed the religious parties a long time ago. That’s what a democratic country should do. After all, religious parties, by virtue of their existence and by definition, don’t accept the yoke of the foundations of democracy. Not equality, not the identity of the sovereign, not the restrictions against racism, and of course not the supremacy of earthly law over divine law.
That’s why it’s no coincidence that almost all the democratic countries in the world, as well as several of the nondemocratic ones, have separated religion from the state.
Israel didn’t do so. Why? David Ben-Gurion didn’t allow it. He was convinced that he would control religion and it wouldn’t control him. For the past 75 years the State of Israel has been paying, in blood and in money, for Ben-Gurion’s arrogance.
And this year it will pay once again. And how. Because the payment required to buy the Haredi votes in order to legislate the “reform” and its numerous sickening laws, has risen like a tsunami. It’s no surprise. The religious parties, those who have only a gluttonous God in their hearts, represent 32 solid votes in support of any abomination. Precious merchandise for a government that is seeking a dictatorial eternal life.
During its distant years of sanity, wise Judaism (as opposed to pagan, chauvinist, fascist Judaism) invented one of the most revolutionary rules in its history. One of those rare rules that enabled its survival and its sanity. It’s called “dina dimalkuta dina” – the law of the kingdom is the (valid) law. That, it can be said, is the Jewish “chameleon law.” It’s the law that allows the Jews to recognize the authority of the rulers in all the innumerable countries where they lived. To accept innumerable governments, kingdoms and legal systems. Without encountering unnecessary collisions.
In short, that’s the rule that enables Jews to be good and effective citizens there, rather that closed-in idlers who are dependent on the largesse of the kingdom, like here.
To our great regret and disaster, Judaism – in its political and moral attrition – forgot to invent a parallel rule in Israel. It could have been called “the law of democracy is the law,” and it would have enabled, even required, the Jews here to accept the rule of democracy, as it is accepted in all the other democratic countries. And there – wonder of wonders – Haredim know how to work to earn a living, to serve in the army, to respect equal rights, to rent apartments to non-Jews, not to exclude women in public, not to pass nonsensical laws and to keep all their crazy ideas at home.
Here, only here, are they power-hungry and unrestrained. Boastful and megalomaniacal, they pass foolish Chametz laws (which are foolish even by halakha), squeeze the public coffers like a lemon, disseminate nonsense that is embarrassing even to the Holy One blessed be He, abuse women, are preoccupied with “kosher” telephones, with “negiah,” which forbids even the slightest, glancing physical contact with a member of the opposite sex, and a totally crazy world of misogynistic “tzniut,” modesty.
In Israel the Haredim incite wars in which only others will die, nurture vain imperialistic and messianic dreams, and primarily are busy breaking exalted records of egoism, gluttony, condescension, greed and selling nonsense and demagogy.
A democratic country doesn’t have to tolerate all that. It could even be said that democratic countries came into being in order not to tolerate all that. And therefore, in the next country that we establish, after we are liberated from the yoke of the present one, the religious parties will be in the place they deserve: beyond the bounds of the law.
What Do Religious Parties Have to Do With Democracy?
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23.03.2023
Actually, we should have outlawed the religious parties a long time ago. That’s what a democratic country should do. After all, religious parties, by virtue of their existence and by definition, don’t accept the yoke of the foundations of democracy. Not equality, not the identity of the sovereign, not the restrictions against racism, and of course not the supremacy of earthly law over divine law.
That’s why it’s no coincidence that almost all the democratic countries in the world, as well as several of the nondemocratic ones, have separated religion from the state.
Israel didn’t do so. Why? David Ben-Gurion didn’t allow it. He was convinced that he would control religion and it wouldn’t control him. For the past 75 years the State of Israel has been paying, in blood and in money, for Ben-Gurion’s arrogance.
And this year it will pay once again. And how. Because the payment required to buy the Haredi votes in order to........
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