Historic decision for religious Zionism

The call to Israel Defense Forces soldiers by many rabbis, who are identified for some reason with religious Zionism, to not only refuse to carry out orders to evacuate settlements but to go AWOL from the army after Passover brings the internal confrontation within religious Zionism to a new peak.

These are the same groups that seek to disconnect religious Zionism from the rest of Israeli society - not only in regard to the question of refusing certain orders, but also in regard to the way military service is performed in general. (For example, service in an ultra-Orthodox Nahal unit is a way to avoid serving in units together with female soldiers.) These groups also seek to disconnect religious Zionism from aspects of secular Israeli culture, such as literature, theater, cinema and more.

This mix of domains, and especially the seriousness of the current situation, makes it incumbent upon religious Zionism to make what can justifiably be termed a "historic" decision.

During the past decades, two different streams have been claimants to religious Zionism. One of them, which we'll call "the spirit of Bnei Akiva," regards Zionism as part of a general process of returning to historic reality, of integration with and consideration toward the family of nations. Therefore, it has also adopted the values of modern culture.

The other stream, referred to as hardali (nationalist and ultra-Orthodox), is itself divided into two. Its "messianic" component regards Zionism as part of the process of mythic redemption, which is supposed to lead to the renewal of the Kingdom of Israel and realization of the ideal of a solitary people who "ignore the goyim." The "earthly" component of the hardali stream did not nurture plans of redemption, but it also failed to understand the significance of responsibility and the new conditions of sovereign life. It believed that the same halakha that developed in the Diaspora could also continue to be maintained under conditions of sovereignty. The common denominator between these two components of the hardali stream is a blindness to the reality of Israeli life and to the fact that a failure to internalize what the conditions of sovereignty mean is liable itself to lead to their ruin.

Due the fact that both of these streams wear similar knitted kippa and serve in the IDF, the sharp differences in worldview were blurred - not only for those looking in from outside, but even more critically, within the stream itself. (The blurring of this distinction sometimes led to the identification of religious Zionism with the fanatic minority.) The absurd is now reaching new peaks, as the dissident faction of Effi Eitam relies on the rulings of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, who opposes refusal, and the National Religious Party, which formerly at least, is more moderate than Eitam, continues to regard rabbis Avraham Shapira and Mordechai Eliyahu as its rabbinic authorities, despite their clear support for refusal.

The calls for refusal and disengagement from society do not allow for a continuation of this blurring. The "silent majority" in religious Zionism must disengage from the rabbis who are leading it to places it does not wish to be. The overwhelming majority of religious Jews who settled in Judea and Samaria also did this in the name of Zionism and as part of their understanding of the needs of the state and not as an act of defiance against it. They do not need to accept the fact that a minority of rabbis retroactively diverts their actions in an unwanted direction.

This type of disengagement from the hardali stream may ultimately yield some good, and religious Zionism may emerge strengthened from the disengagement crisis. It would be exempt from the need to distort the path of its "silent majority" and would be free to pursue the mission that was supposed to be its greatest challenge in the first place: fashioning the image of Israeli Judaism, and preserving the fundamentals of Judaism, while recognizing the halakhic significance of the sharp transition from Diaspora to sovereignty - not only in matters of state, but also on issues like recognizing all of the streams of Judaism, providing solutions for non-Jewish immigrants and concern for all of the residents and citizens of Israel, including Arabs and foreign workers, as is incumbent upon a state that is no longer a shtetl.

But all of the camps in Israeli society should learn the lesson of role reversal that transpired around the evacuation of settlements. Suddenly, the right speaks about human rights, while the left and center speak in the name of national responsibility and statehood. (After all, it is clear that in the area of human rights, there is indeed a serious blow here.) Hopefully, when the storm subsides, everyone will remember the values that they are not used to championing: The left will remember that sometimes it is necessary to protect the national and state interest, even when this infringes upon human rights, and the right will remember that without recognizing the importance of human rights, the rights of its own constituents are also not guaranteed.