Judaism is not just a religion. It is also culture and consciousness and nationalism and language, and most importantly - identity. There is Israeli Judaism and there is Jewish Israeliness, but convergence solely on the dimension of observance as a guideline and way of life deters broad populations that are not "religious" from forming a Jewish identity for themselves. Anyone who reduces Jewish identity to the dimension of religion alone is liable to alienate large parts of the Jewish public in Israel.
Herzl, who grew up in a confused and sometimes assimilated secular home, once said that a return to Judaism precedes a return to a Jewish state. He meant, in my understanding, to say that Judaism would be the basis for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel; that they should be woven and intertwined; that Israeli nationalism and Judaism can also complement each other, and not just define themselves by being different from the other; Just as the Jewish religion cannot exist without its national dimension, Israeli nationalism cannot exist without its religious foundation and heritage, including Torah and mitzvot.
State Contractor Benjamin Zeev Herzl, Photo: None
On the eve of Yom Kippur 5724, it should be emphasized that the Jewish identity of the state, and not religious identity, as the ultra-Orthodox parties periodically claim, was – and hopefully still remains – the broadest common denominator, which still ties most of us here together. This, despite everything we have been through here in the past year; Despite the differences, and the rifts and quarrels, and the skirmishes and boycotts. Jewish identity in its broad sense, in its many forms, was and still is the platform for continued coexistence and inner peace.
Making peace within us requires mutual recognition of the value of the baggage carried by the cart of the other. If one side sees the other's cart as an empty cart, inner peace will drift away. If each side recognizes that the other side's wagon is also full of values and goodness, inner peace will draw closer.
For the 38th consecutive week: Tens of thousands protest against the legal reform in Kaplan // Photo: Moshe Ben-Simhon
The religious side does not have to sanctify the egalitarianism and liberality of the secular bandwagon, but it is allowed to recognize their value in quite a few situations that accompany us here. The secular side does not have to begin to fulfill the 13 mitzvot, but it is allowed to recognize the abundance of life values offered by the Torah, including the value and sanctity of the family. The secular side does not have a monopoly on progress and enlightenment, and the religious side does not have a monopoly on Judaism.
Everyone has his own prayer, and his own house of prayer, and his own prayer language, and just as our opinions and faces are different, so too are our prayers. This difference should not prevent any of us from praying – in synagogue or under the open sky; From the good old cycle, though not always understood, or from the heart bursting; In speech or poetry, in public or in private. These and these are the prayers of the living God.
Selichot at the Western Wall, Photo: Western Wall Heritage Foundation
Shmuel Schnitzer, who was one of Israel's leading journalists, once wrote that if we learn to live together and not just pray together, we can expect a better year. This year's prayers should therefore also be aimed at the return of mutual responsibility – one of the quintessential foundations of our shared Jewish identity, which has so weakened this year.
This guarantee is embodied in the prayers of the day, which are often phrased in the plural. These prayers contain confession and a request for forgiveness and forgiveness for the sins of the many others. This guarantee is rooted already in ancient times in Judah's confrontation with Joseph, the ruler of Egypt, and in the words: "For your servant involved the boy," which were meant to save Benjamin. It is also embodied in the conduct of the two and a half tribes (Reuven, Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh), who receive Moses' consent to settle in the eastern Transjordan, only on condition that they take part in the conquest of the lands of the other tribes of Israel on the western side of the Jordan.
Beautiful Israeliness. Maxim's funeral, photo: Coco
Many dimensions in the State of Israel and in Israeli society have been shaped to a great extent by this ancient Jewish pattern, which is not self-evident and must be tried very hard to preserve it. The lone soldiers who come from abroad to "carry the stretcher" with their native-born brethren play it.
The thousands who attended the funeral of the soldier Maxim Molchanov, whom they did not know, play it, and the Israeli prisoners in Egyptian prisons, who refused some 56 years ago to be released until the prisoners of the "affair," Egyptian Jews handled by Israeli intelligence, are also released from prison, play it. It also exists in the relationship between the individual and the individual, requires serious improvement in our attitude towards Diaspora Jewry, and the more it is strengthened on all levels, the better society and Jewish society we will be.
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