A HALF MILLION ISRAELIS RALLY IN SUPPORT
OF JUDICIAL REFORM
SHOULD WE?
By: Suri Davis
One of the seven Noahide laws is to establish a Judicial system. We in America idealize our judicial system as a democratic source of communal justice, where two parties appear and there is no bias or favoritism and justice is equally applied to all. It is one of our favorite idylls.
Somewhere in the corner of our minds we know that women who commit white collar crimes are punished more harshly. We know that black people historically have been treated differently than white people, as Jews have been judged harshly in courts worldwide.
We know that a Democratic President will appoint liberal judges to the Supreme Court, while a Republican President will appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court, and suddenly what the law of the land is, is no longer, somehow there is read in the same constitution a different interpretation, and within years, our entire nation is affected in their bedrooms, bathrooms, and oval office.
But we persist in our dreams of justice as sure as we dream of the Messiah, or better yet, because of the failings of our judicial system, we yearn more for the absolute justice of the wise, G-d-inspired, Messiah.
I was in Abu Dhabi and I saw strict limits on pork, women’s dress, and prayer by non-muslims. There was no shame in the rulership saying, hey this is a Muslim country, you are a welcome visitor, but you have to play by our rules of food and modesty etc. And I wondered, and still wonder whether this is what we want in Israel, a theocracy, a government which isn’t shy to declare itself a Jewish government for the people and by the people.
What would a theocracy look like? Israel would no longer permit non-kosher food in its borders. Those who eat non-kosher food would be punished under biblical law. All Jews in Israel would have to keep Shabbos and Yom Tov, those who violated the Shabbos, would be put to death. If a child hurt his parents, all those present would have to stone him etc.
Let’s look religiously at this question. We were given the land of Israel to settle and to build one temple. Because we sinned, we were exiled. We were given the land of Israel a second time, we built a second temple and it was destroyed and we were exiled because we sinned.
Two thousand years we were dispersed in the diaspora at the whim of evil foreign nations, until 1948, when control of Israel was returned to the Jews. We are in the land now 75 years, and I ask myself what is G-d thinking. There are beautiful yeshivot and shuls. There are charities and a bounty of goodness in Israel. There is also pork, a majority of Israels who are not religious, although that is changing, among other public sins. What do you think G-d thinks of this, that there are many Jewish sinners who go unpunished by the Rabbis. What is G-d’s tipping point, is it the number of Jews sinning, is it the lack of a response to sinners, is the cup of sin filling up and at some point G-d says, dayeinu, enough?
At the time of the destruction of the second temple we read about the 10 great rabbis who were tortured. Why couldn’t they and their students suffice to avoid the destruction of the entire Jewish Israel Jewry. I am not sure we know what the inflection point is, we don’t know G-d’s cheshbon/running tab on merits and sins to know when enough is enough.
Many believe that this is the final return to Israel which will result in the final and eternal third temple with the coming of Messiah. But I have a niggling feeling that if we continue to sin and permit wholesale public sin in Israel, that G-d would once again spit us out of His land saying “did you not learn from the prior two exiles that if you sin, I will spit you out, yet you continue to permit pork and violations of shabbos and bad feelings between the religious Jews and non-affiliated Jews between the Ashkenaz and Sephard. When do we say enough, and exactly what can we do about where we are religiously in our country. Why do I say this? Because Israel is a modern country, advanced in its technology and agriculture, medicine, science and culture.
I ask myself, do I/would I want to live in a theocracy, back to the biblical days where women were chattel and stayed at home. Yes we had Jewish heroines throughout history, but over the years, we have been marginalized by those who feel that women’s existence outside the home is immodest. They are historically wrong even looking back at our foremother, Sarah, who went out of her comfort tent to bring the light of G-d and monotheism to idolatrous women.
How do we resolve this conflict of Israel as a historically religious country and the modern State of Israel among the nations. Even as I write this I know, that in the past the conflict existed as well. Jews who wanted to integrate and assimilate among the 7 nations of Canaan and then Egypt and Assyria and Greece, and we fell into this trap of being a light unto the nation by thinking that to shine, we first have to integrate and assimilate.
There is the famous question thrown around by the world when they want to criticize Israel about how it decides citizenship, the question of “Who is a Jew? This very famous question takes far second place, and is even easily answered, if we first ask the question, Who is Israel? Is it a modern nation among the nations of the world, or are we the biblical Israel of the practicing Jew.
For 74 years the people had spoken. They wanted the freedoms of a modern nation. The winds of change are upon us, and we have a more religious leadership in Israel, and they want the return to the ethics of our fathers.
It could be I am wrong on this, but it appears to me that in the history of Jews in the land of Israel, this is the first time in Jewish history that we have had a Jewish government in Israel without a prophet present to give us direct guidance from G-d on how to lead this country. Perhaps this is so because G-d is saying to us, I have taught you for five thousand years how to live as Jews and rule as Jews and what I want to see happen with the Jews on my holy property. Six million Jews died because they were Jews, we have to believe that being Jewish is as important to us as our being Jewish is to the gentiles, so important that they take our money and send us on our way to remind us that we have no real home other than Israel.
So why do I celebrate Yom Haatzmaut and say Hallel on this day? Not because of the government of Israel, nor its armed forces or its Yeshivot, I say Hallel to HKBH/G-d for giving us another chance on this land, another opportunity to decide whether we are going to stray and pursue the ways of the other nations of the world, or look inward to the soul of this country and decide that we are an am kadosh/a holy nation. If we stay holy, we get to keep the land, if we stray and care to be among our pals in the United Nations, they will continue to unite…against us as they always have. I say Hallel, for every day of Israel’s existence is the story of Chanukkah, the few against the many, the weak against the strong, the holy against the fatuous and inane and hedonistic.
AGAIN, LET ME RESTATE, WE HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT OUR JEWISHNESS MATTERS TO US, BECAUSE IF WE DON’T, THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD, WITH G-D’S APPROVAL AND APPROBATION, WILL REMIND US HOW IMPORTANT OUR JEWISHNESS IS TO THEM.
I am cautious and wary and weary about change, as we all are. But the people of Israel have spoken in their desire to see a religious government. What gives me comfort is knowing that while we all have free choice to choose our paths, choosing the path of G-d cannot be wrong, and having trust in G-d means that we are where we are supposed to be, AND we have a choice to do and be better.