December 24, 2004

"Who is Right and Who is Wrong?"

As Ariel Sharon prepares to withdraw Israel from Gaza, and in the process uproot some eight thousand Jews from their homes, a new government is emerging. It has the objectives of Labor, most of Likud, United Torah Judaism, and Sephardi Shas. This is a strange, if not worrisome, combination of objectives.

Arafat's death ostensibly permits Sharon to make a deal with the Palestinians, and this agreement enables Rav Ovadia Yosef, the leader of Shas, to allow his party's participation in Sharon’s government and its withdrawal from Gaza and elsewhere. United Torah Judaism, governed by its Moatzei Gedolei Torah, the Council of Torah Sages, has presumably already approved the withdrawal plans, thus enabling this party to become part of the Sharon-Labor coalition.

Rav Avraham Shapiro, the former Chief Rabbi and Rosh Hayeshiva of Yeshivat Merkaz Harav, previously ruled that soldiers in the Israeli Defense Force who observe halacha may not participate in the removal of Jewish settlers in Gaza, thus calling on these IDF members to disobey orders. Rav Shapiro’s ruling created a storm of anger, but with the even more pious Council of Torah Sages and the halachic Torah giant, Rabbi Yosef, approving their constituents’ participation in Sharon's government, Rav Shapiro’s edict is now meaningless.

The National Religious Party, the only Zionist Orthodox political party, withdrew from Sharon’s coalition because it could not support Sharon’s Gaza plans. The NRP is now the only religious party in the opposition, but Sharon no longer needs the NRP because he has the approbation of the Council of Torah Sages and the leadership of Torah observant Sephardim. The result of all this is a widening chasm in Israel’s religious society.

Most of the settlers on the West Bank and Gaza are Orthodox Jews, supported by the NRP. They contend that uprooting Jews from living anywhere in their own country is an affront to Zionist ideology. If there is no end to terrorism, the NRP will be blamed because Jews the world over will say that the settlers impeded peace in their fight to keep the land. On the other hand, if Sharon’s program succeeds in ending terrorism and bringing peace, the religious Zionists will be ostracized for having opposed Sharon. And if the religious Zionists do an about-face and decide to give up the land, they will be scorned for not sticking to their principles.

In the face of all this, we might ask who is right and who is wrong. But, this isn't my concern. My concern is whether Torah and politics can even be compatible. Should Torah-observant Jews be involved in the government? Are they becoming spiritually unclean by risking inconsistency with the Torah? The rabbis of some religious parties are now depicted by secular Jews as ordinary politicians motivated by the power and money the Sharon government has promised them. Will the secular continue to look on us as corrupt or biased towards a political position?

If Torah-observant Jews get out of politics, they can remain spiritually clean, yes, but it is only if they stay in politics that we can get the State of Israel to keep the food in the Israel Defense Forces kosher, that we can prevent some cities from instituting public transportation on Shabbos, and that we can get money to fund yeshivot. All of these are religious goals that the Shinui party, for example, opposes.

I don't care who are the good religious guys or the bad religious guys. I care that religious Jews should be consistent. I want us to stop being self-destructive. I want us to remember that our mission is to reach out to the large number of secular and alienated Jews in Israel and the world over and to bring them to Torah Judaism. That is what the Jewish state is about. It pains me as I think of Jewish land being given away, but the withdrawal will probably happen whether we like it or not. That is sad, but even sadder is our abrogation of our responsibility to inspire Jews everywhere with hope and trust in G-d.

Edited by Anna Olswanger

Shabbat Shalom