Congratulations, Israel Is Still Yours |
The greatest achievement of Israeli democracy may yet be persuading the lambs that moving Passover forward is a reform enacted entirely for their own benefit.
The good news is that Israel still belongs to the Jewish people. The less good news is that the Knesset appears to be adding footnotes explaining which Jews, under what conditions, and during which hours. The country has not been stolen in the night. That would be vulgar, inefficient and, above all, insufficiently legal. Instead, it is being redistributed in daylight, one coalition agreement, one exemption and one “temporary arrangement” at a time. By the time the citizen notices that another room has disappeared, someone is already inside it explaining that the mezuzah proves it was always his.
Consider the legislative farewell gift of the outgoing Knesset. At almost the same moment, lawmakers extended mandatory military service for those who serve and protected tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox draft evaders from arrest. They declared Torah study a foundational value of the state, expanded gender-segregated higher education, restored the Chief Rabbinate’s control over kosher certification, weakened the attorney general and increased political influence over the media. One could call this a legislative program. One could also call it a coalition dividing the silverware before leaving the house. The remarkable thing is that the house still belongs to the public, which is apparently expected to applaud the efficiency of the removal company.
The central principle is wonderfully simple. Some Israelis are asked to give more to the state, while others are being given more of the state. One family is told that military necessity requires another month of service, another reserve call-up and another interruption of ordinary life. Another is told that the arrest warrant can wait because Torah study protects the nation in ways mysteriously unavailable to the manpower department of the IDF. Perhaps the army should revise its recruitment posters: “Be all you can be, unless your coalition negotiator can arrange something better.”
This is not an argument against Torah study. Jews have managed to value Torah for several thousand years without requiring a parliamentary majority to certify that the Almighty has met the constitutional threshold. Torah does not become holier because sixty-three politicians press the correct button. Nor does it become less holy when a student shares a lecture hall with a woman. The issue is not whether Torah sustains Jewish life. The issue is whether........