Calamitous fundamentalism

Rulings by the Yesha rabbis and Rabbi Avraham Shapira that forbid soldiers to be involved in evacuating Gush Katif divert the legitimate public debate over the disengagement plan into a blind alley over which the danger of civil war hovers. Through their ruling, the rabbis are trying to impose halakhic categories, which draw their validity from the world of religious faith - which, by its own definition, is not rational, relying instead on a divine commandment - onto a debate that is rational by its very nature, as it deals with national affairs. The rabbis are thus mixing apples and oranges, and thereby threatening to throw the state into a calamitous internal confrontation.

Religious zionism, from which the school represented by the Yesha rabbis and Shapira developed, originally saw itself as an organ of the state. Unlike the ultra-Orthodox sector, religious Zionism viewed the establishment of the state of Israel as a realization of the divine promise of the redemption of the land. Out of a feeling of deep identification, and full partnership, with the general Israeli public, it adapted its conduct to life in the modern, democratic country that Israel grew to be.

Now, the Yesha rabbis and Shapira are trying to destroy the golden mean that has been created over the years, which served as the framework for managing secular-religious relations and in which a reasonable balance was maintained between the state's needs and halakhic rules: They are calling on the religious public, including soldiers, to prefer the halakhic source of authority to the laws of the state. The rabbis are telling the religious public to obey their orders, which are to oppose the withdrawal from Gaza and the northern West Bank by any means, and to reject their civic obligation to accept the authority of the authorized governmental institutions.

Every person, including the rabbis, is entitled to say whatever he pleases, as long as he does not violate the law against incitement to violence and terrorism. But the rabbis must know before whom they are standing: The centrist stream of the Israeli public rejects their worldview and will fight for its right to maintain Israel as a rational, developed state in which decisions are made according to the rules of the democratic game. The future of the Jewish settlements in Gaza and the northern West Bank will be determined by the decisions of the cabinet and the Knesset, not in the rabbinic houses of study. A fanatic minority, even if it comes in the name of a divine commandment, will not dictate the majority's opinions.

Moreover, the assertion by the Yesha rabbis and Shapira that they represent the sole correct halakhic opinion is simply false. The Torah has many faces, and anyone who delves into it can also find support for the opposite opinion. In the formative period of the state, the rabbinate was an institution that dealt with relations between the individual and his creator and relations between man and his fellows. It fought to shape the character of Israel's public square, but it never presumed to apply its conceptual universe to diplomatic and security decisions, which were made democratically, according to rational considerations. The Yesha rabbis and Shapira would do better to restore their movement to its former glory instead of plunging the state of Israel into a maelstrom whose end no one can foresee.