Last update - 00:00 11/03/2008
'Along comes a blow like this and realigns everyone'
"The worst Israeli government is immeasurably better than the best diaspora. Ever since the establishment of the state, we have rejoiced in it despite its flaws." That is what Rabbi Haim Druckman, head of the Bnei Akiva religious youth movement, has been saying over and over again since the uprooting of the Gaza settlements.
Druckman is sticking to his support for the state even now, as the minister of education is being ejected from the grieving Mercaz Harav Yeshiva. He repeats a story from the Jerusalem Talmud that he also used after the uprooting of Gush Katif, about a man "who was cutting meat and, while using his right hand, cut his left hand by mistake. Are you going to cut the right hand to avenge the left hand? What kind of stupid person is going to cut his own hand again? We are one people, and even though some parts of our people are not educated like we are, there is no other way apart from the way of explanation and education."
In such remarks, Druckman expresses the pro-state religious outlook that Mercaz Harav symbolized for decades, and to which its rabbis still adhere even after last week's deadly terror attack.
Rabbi Dr. Benny Lau, an educator, rabbi and researcher, goes one step further. Lau holds that the terror attack at Mercaz Harav has given many religious Zionists a sense of proportion: "This grave incident strengthens the line that connects to the state and weakens the line of separation. You look at the mosaic of the children who were murdered, you see the homes where they grew up and you get an overview of the main population of the more right-wing strain of religious Zionism, which is fully connected to the state and its institutions. These are people for whom this connection is their entire discourse and their essence. So many people have been talking of late about the separatism and the alienation of this population. But now, along comes a blow like this and realigns everyone - at least at the level of solidarity - with the central motif of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, the central motif of [former head of the yeshiva] Rabbi Zvi Yehuda [Kook], which is national responsibility and partnership with the entire Jewish people."
As both the rabbi of several religious educational institutions and the father of children who are being educated at these institutions, Lau is exposed nearly every day to the moods and storms that this public has experienced since the uprooting from Gush Katif and the subsequent violent clashes at the West Bank outpost of Amona. "What has been happening in the days since the terror attack is that this entire public, or at least most of its elements, has been overlooking vast numbers of disagreements - differences of opinion with respect to modernity, differences of opinion on the issue of obeying the law and the limits of this obedience, a whole range of nuances," he said. "Now it is returning to its core. And this core is a population that is totally committed to the process of the return to Zion at the national level. This includes the connection to the army, the settlement movement and secularism, as well as the ability to remain staunch under difficult conditions and to survive thereafter.
"Since the time of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda," he continued, "national religious youth have experienced many tendencies toward separatism, such as becoming more ultra-Orthodox, or the strengthening of Hasidic philosophies like Bratslav at the expense of the philosophy of Rabbi Kook. Many nuances have flourished in the yeshivas that are identified with [religious Zionism]."
"This incident," he believes, "is bringing many back to the main path - to national responsibility, to a partnership with all Jews. And it likely to unite various strains that seem as though they had diverged. This is the spirit of mission and devotion to national goals, from within an outlook of Torah and faith. And it is still very dominant."
As though to reinforce Rabbi Lau's impression, students at Mercaz Harav have been hearing the following from their rabbis in recent days: "We make a clear and absolute distinction between the current government, which is temporary and ephemeral, and the state and our renewed sovereignty in the land of Israel. The state of Israel is a positive commandment from the Torah. The first step in settling the land is not to leave it in the hands of another people, in the hands of another regime, and this element cannot be realized except by Jewish rule - regardless of whether it is Solomon or Jeroboam. The main thing is Jewish rule ... After the destruction of Gush Katif, we remembered the reign of the Hasmonean dynasty, in which the Rambam [Maimonides] found purpose and value even though this dynasty included Alexander Yannai, who killed the sages of Israel ... Today, we have been stricken by a great disaster, and with all due understanding of the feelings of wrath and anger at the shortcomings and the terrible mistakes that led to this disaster, we are continuing in the path of Torah and faith as part of the Jewish people in the state of Israel, facing the public, and not with our backs to it."
This pro-state line is not easy for everyone at Mercaz Harav, and especially not for the young people, many of whom were in Amona and Gush Katif. But at least the rabbis are making it clear that even after the great disaster, their line will not change.