Separation of religion and state is the slogan heard from time to
time in public debate in Israel. It is not, however, the actual policy of any
party or political group. The slogan is raised as the expression of a
theoretical position in "secular" circles, but its advocates do not regard it
seriously as a political demand to be realized in the present. They do not
attempt to clarify its meaning nor do they propose a plan for embodying it in
law and government. Their struggle is limited to episodic clashed with religious
or pseudo-religious aspects of administrative behavior or legislative action. At
the same time, official religious Jewry, its spiritual leaders and political
representatives, who rejected the idea of separation and supported the existing
relation between state and religion, never accounted for their own position. It
is doubtful whether they have ever critically examined it. A struggle over the
relation of religion and the state has never really been conducted between the
religious and secular in Israel. Out of sheer opportunism, both sides accept the
reality of a secular state with a religious façade.
In these pages the demand for separation of religion and state
will be presented from a religious viewpoint, from which the present relations
between the state and the Torah appear as Hillul Hashem, contempt of the Torah,
and a threat to religion. Two prefatory
remarks are necessary in order to clarify this position.
First, the religion with which we are concerned is traditional
Judaism, embodies in Torah and Mitzvoth, which claims sovereignty over the life
of the individual and the life of the community - not a religion which can be
satisfied with formal arrangements grafted on to a secular reality.
Second, the state of which we speak is contemporary Israel, a
state defined by its manner of coming into being in 1948 and its mode of
existence from then onward - not the state as an ideal. In other words, the
relation of religion and state is not discussed here as an article of faith. We
shall not inquire as to what, in principle, should be the relation between
"religion" (in general) and "state" (in general), nor seek to demarcate "the
holy," "the secular," the historical, or the metaphysical essence of the Jewish
people as the people of the Torah. We are concerned with determining what sort
of political-social organization would be in the religious interest in the
existing situation.
The state of Israel that came into being in 1948 by the common
action, effort, and sacrifices of both religious and secular Jews was an
essentially secular state. It has remained essentially secular and will
necessarily continue to be such, unless a mighty spiritual and social upheaval
occurs among the people lining here. The secularity of this state is not
incidental but essential. The motivation and incentive for its foundation were
not derived from the Torah. Its founders did not act under the guidance of the
Torah and its precepts. It is not conducted by the light of the Torah. That "the
state of Israel is a state ruled by law and not a state governed by Halakhah" is
recognized by all - including the religious - as the principle governing the
activity and administration of this state, in which official religious Jewry has
participated since its establishment. Whether we are religious or secular, we brought this state
about by dint of our common efforts as Jewish patriots, and Jewish patriotism -
like all patriotism - is a secular human motive not imbued with sanctity.
Holiness consists only in observance of the Torah and its Mitzvoth: "and you
shall be holy to your God." We have no right to link the emergence of the state
of Israel to the religious concept of messianic redemption, with its idea of
religious regeneration of the world or at least of the Jewish people. There is
no justification for enveloping this political-historical event in an aura of
holiness. Certainly, there is little ground for regarding the mere existence of
this state as a religiously significant phenomenon.
Even from the standpoint of religious awareness and faith, this
Jewish state is in the same category as the kingdoms of Yarov'am, Ahab,
Menasseh, and Herod were in their time. A person does not and may not sever his
connection with a criminal parent, nor may a parent repudiate a son who has gone
astray. Likewise, the Jew, including the religious Jew, may not dissociate
himself from this state. However, though we fully recognize its legitimacy, it
is necessary to confront the secular state and society with the image of a
religious society and state, that is of a state in which the Torah is the
sovereign authority. What is truly illegitimate is the surreptitious
introduction, by administrative action of religious items into the secular
reality so as to disguise its essential secularity.
The demand for the separation of religion from the existing
secular state derives from the vital religious need to prevent religion from
becoming a political tool, a function of the governmental bureaucracy, which
"keeps" religion and religious institutions not for religious reasons but as a
concession to pressure groups in the interest of ephemeral power-considerations.
Religion as an adjunct of a secular authority is the antithesis of true
religion. It hinders religious education of the community at large and
constricts the religious influence on its way of life. From a religious
standpoint there is no greater abomination than an atheistic-clerical regime. At
present we have a state - secular in essence and most of its manifestations -
which recognizes religious institutions as state agencies, supports them with
its funds, and, by administrative means, imposes, not religion, but certain
religious provisions chosen arbitrarily by political negotiation. All the while,
it emphasizes its rejection of guidance by Torah ("a state ruled by law, not by
Halakhah"). We have a rabbinate invested by the state, which receives its
appointment, authority, and pay from the secular government and confines itself,
therefore, to the functions that this government allots to it. It is a religion
whose position in the state parallels that of the police, the health
authorities, the postal services, or customs. There is no greater degradation of
religion than maintenance of its institutions by a secular state. Nothing
restricts its influence or diminishes its persuasiveness more than investing
secular functions, with a religious aura; adopting sundry religious obligations
and proscriptions as glaring exceptions into a system of secular laws; imposing
an arbitrary selection of religious regulations on the community while refusing
to obligate itself and the community to recognize the authority of religion; in
short, making it serve not God but political utility.
This is a distortion of reality, a subversion of truth, both
religious and social, and a source of intellectual and spiritual corruption. The
secular state and society should be stripped of their false religious veneer.
Only then will it become possible to discern whether or not they have any
message as a Jewish state and society. Likewise, the Jewish religion should be
forced into taking its stand without the shield of an administrative status.
Only then will its strength be revealed, and only thus will it become capable of
exerting an educational force and influencing the broader public.
Against this argument, religious circles claim that such
separation would make the social and perhaps even physical existence of
religious Jews within the secular state and society unbearable and compel Jews
to forsake their religious way of life. These arguments stem, to some extent,
from naïveté, from misunderstanding the implications of separation of religion
and state for the conduct and administration of state and society. To some
extent they only pretend naïveté and veil vested interests. In effect, such
separation would not in the least narrow the possibilities open to religious
Jews of living according to their wont. It would even foster the expressions of
religious life in the community at large. Let us attempt to gain a realistic
view of the consequences of separating religion and state.
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