On Religion, Rabin and Easy Solutions

In addition to discussions over politics, Israeli Friday night dinners also have their fair share of arguments about religion. While I am never one to shy away from a bit of theological banter, and enjoy bating religious dogmatists with controversial statements as much as the next person, what I really dislike is the type of simplistic question that punctuated my relaxing Succot Friday night dinner in Caesarea last month; "I’m surprised you're religious – I mean, religion is the cause of so many wars around the world."

Its instructive to note how many Israelis relate religion to two main sectors of the population – the Charedim, perceived as misogynist parasites who control marriage and conversion, and the national religious ‘settlers’ who are connected with an uncompromising extremism of ‘not one inch.’ When these straw men are complemented by traditional secular Zionism’s view of the galut Jew as the weak, cowardly religious type as expressed by Bialik and Berdichevski, it's unsurprising so many Israelis see religion as an anachronism. Add into the mix a few bigoted or cruel comments from Israeli rabbis, and you have a pretty strong recipe that fuels anti – religious feeling.

That same week, the Ha’aretz supplement reviewed a book by Chanoch Daum, a formerly religious journalist and writer living in Efrat who discusses a religious upbringing he describes as loveless and unempathetic and the theological and emotional scars it has caused. Divided into four parts, the book is comprised of different personal letters Daub writes to God, his father, his community and his wife.

Strangely enough, the Talmudic rabbis themselves were aware of the potentially destructive power of organized religion, as well as the dissonance between God’s words and the actions of those who purport to speak in His name. Long before the ideas of Marx, Spinoza and Freud or modern complaints about religious coercion, the Midrash suggests that Abel's murder by his brother Cain was due to an argument over either property, religion or women. Another commentary on a verse in Ecclesiastes (which we read on Succot) (4.1) suggests a dissonance between the religious authorities of the day (who interpret God's law without mercy) and what God actually wants.

Secularism in Israel meanwhile, has its own problems. I recently heard Uzi Dayan describe the process of secular Zionism (of which he considers himself a part) detailing the jump from the Tanach to the Palmach and the ambivalence to skipping towards 2,000 years of Jewish civilization in between. From dreaming of creating a new Jew from the ashes of the diaspora, many secular leaders in Israel feel that instead of a generation of heretics, they have raised a generation of ignoramus.

I would have thought that everyone in Israel with all its complexities would realize that generalizing our problems into a bumper sticker soundbites of good and bad, of fanatical religious or immoral secular, of kapo left wing or fascist right would do little good. Yet it seems that surprisingly few understand Isaiah Berlin’s comment that its not religion or secularism or capitalism or communism that is responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the altars of the great historical ideals. Instead, it’s the belief that somewhere in the past or in the future, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker…there is a final solution, one utopian ideology that will solve all our problems.

Similar to JFK, most Jews my age remember where they were the night Yitzchak Rabin was assasinated. 12 years ago this week, I was at a party of a friend of a friend in Elstree, old enough to realize that what happened was bad, but too naïve to realize the danger of those who feel their religion or ideology justifies murdering elected officials.

As we mark the Yahrzeit of our former Prime Minister, Israeli society remains divided as ever. And while its difficult to help people understand there’s no magic wand or absolute solution to our problems, part of me feels that those like Chanoch Daum, Uzi Dayan and the Rabbis of the Talmud give us a clue – the need to critique our own community and to rid ourselves of the self righteousness that we are in the position of the absolute truth.

And perhaps most importantly, in a country where there isn’t even a word for subtlety, to start a conversation to help us understand one another better.