From chametz to Baruch Goldstein

Judge Tamar Bar-Asher Zaban's distinction between public and private space with regard to the sale of chametz during Passover may sound reasonable in a legal sense, but the main issue here is not the legal one but rather the public one: Is it appropriate for Israel's lawbook to include a law prohibiting the sale of chametz on Pesach? My very unliberal response to that question is: Yes.

When discussing "religious legislation," it is important to distinguish between two types of law: those that interfere with private actions, which are unacceptable; and those that seek to shape Israel's public sphere, which are legitimate and even desirable. No to imposing religious marriage and circumcision, but a resounding yes to prohibiting commerce on the Sabbath or the sale of chametz during Pesach. A society has the right to use legislation to help shape its core values, and in this regard prohibiting the public display of chametz on Passover is no different in principle from legislating the closure of restaurants and movie theaters on Holocaust Remembrance Day or on Memorial Day.

The comparison to the hypothetical imposition of circumcision is out of place here; the reason that the brit milah is not mandatory in Israel is not because that would be "religious legislation," but rather because such a law would constitute acceptable interference in people's lives. And, in the same spirit: It was not the Festival of Matzot Law that led many secular Israelis to eat chametz on Pesach. The proof is that there are many secular Israelis who oppose religious coercion but who nevertheless avoid eating chametz on Passover.

Not eating chametz on Pesach or pork at any time and not engaging in commerce on Shabbat - these are not only religious values. Because of their centrality in Jewish history they have long been fundamental values of national Jewish culture. That is why even completely secular Israelis observe them. Indeed, if everything were a matter of individual rights and the core values had no significance, then the day will soon come when a restaurateur or theater owner will petition the High Court of Justice for permission to open his "place of entertainment" on Holocaust Remembrance Day and Memorial Day. The court would not be able to find a solid legal reason to prevent it.

If there were no core values deserving of legal protection, then there would also be no basis for destroying the grand monument in Kiryat Arba to Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 massacred 29 Arab worshipers in Hebron. After all, the monument was hidden from public view much more than the restaurants in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that serve bread during Pesach. It is also difficult to argue seriously that the erection of that monument represented a "clear danger to public security." In the same spirit, it would be difficult to justify the imposition of a common school curriculum in all sectors of society, such as that known as the "core program."

It is precisely this point that is the locus of the joint problem of the ultra-Orthodox and of the militant secular populations: Each one wants to fight for the imposition of its own core issues while opposing, with the same intensity, the imposition of the core values that are important to the other. But principles cannot be split into halves. Secular Israelis who oppose the prohibition against selling chametz cannot demand the imposition of civil-democratic core values. (At most, they can insist on criminal prohibitions against harming others.) Haredim who reject the imposition of democratic core values in the name of each sector's right to act in accordance with its own lifestyle cannot expect the "Matzot Law" to be enforced.