[Be-Ahavah U-Be-Emunah – Lech
Lecha 5773 – translated by R. Blumberg]
Some wish
by a pen stroke to heal the wounds of our people, registering non-Jews as “Jewish”
on conversion documents out of synch with Jewish law. They think that via this procedural
step they can solve a profound problem of identity. Yet in reality they err and
cause others to err, adding still more suffering to our Nation. Instead of
toiling to bring near those far removed, they place an official stamp of
recognition on the division of our people, creating two types of Jews: Jews
according to Jewish law and Jews according to Israeli secular law. Heaven help us
if tomorrow a boy proposes marriage to a girl he loves, but she answers, “I
cannot. I am Jewish by Jewish law and you are Jewish by secular law. Leave me.
I am forbidden to you.”
True,
there are circles of people, both religious and irreligious, seeking to
separate religion and state. They do not understand that you cannot solve
problems and conflicts by division of forces, but only by increasing love. They
do not understand that they are leading us to a deep crisis. And who knows
where it will lead?
We mustn’t
agree to there being two types of Jews in our midst, any more than we should
agree to the establishment of two separate countries for the Jewish People.
Generations
ago we were a dispersed people, scattered among various countries, but now we
are a country ourselves, and the Torah too must manifest itself as a national
institution.
You cannot
have every group holding its own loudspeaker, thinking it represents Jewish
law. The Chief Rabbinate must be the body that decides matters. When there is
no national conception of the Torah, fissures form that threatens to shatter
the nation. Therefore we must increase unity and we must strengthen the Torah
as an all-encompassing institution of the Jewish People, centered around the
Israeli Chief Rabbinate. This will solve the problem of conversion both here
and abroad, and put an end to all of the yelling, agitation and divisiveness.
As for the
very question of “Who is a Jew”, I can recall what Yosef Schechter, a learned
educator, philosopher and researcher, said to David Ben-Gurion: “Here is what a
researcher does when he sets out to deal with a problem. First he examines all
the material that has been published until now. Then he examines all the conclusions
that have been amassed, and he builds on them, unless he discovers contradictions. The present question was deliberated upon by
generations of our Sages. They pondered it in enormous depth and examined every
detail with remarkable precision. Not only that, but we see with our own eyes
the extraordinary result of their long, exhausting approach – the survival of a
poor, persecuted nation throughout such a dangerous exile. True, in our own
generation, novel and scientific research methods have been developed, but as
far as spiritual problems, it is not only experimentation that should be the determining
factor, but thought as well. And in this realm, we are forced to admit that
civilization’s advance has only tainted the depths of our thinking. Who will
dare, in our dark generation, in which the worst crimes against humanity were
committed, to try to tailor the Torah of Moses to modern thought?”
A Supreme
Court justice, the late Dr. Moshe Zilberg, wrote in his day that what we have
here is not a minor, concrete question of registration, but a penetrating
clarification of the essence of the concept of a Jew: “The one in the court
docket is not the registrar of the State of Israel, or the Interior Minister,
but the Jewish People down through the generations. Shall a ‘subjective test’
be what determines Jewishness? Is silent identification coupled with some
ceremony that people have made up out of their heads based on their own
understanding of the spirit of Judaism sufficient? Where is the boundary? Shall
even the Christian who harbors deep affinity for the Jewish People be
considered a Jew?
One soldier
said that the radio broadcaster who announced on June 7, 1967 that the Western
Wall had been liberated was worthy of everyone’s thanks, ‘because he succeeded
in making clear for us, all at once, how foolish is the pilpulistic argument
over who is a Jew’ (Siach Lochamim p. 236). Yet the Jewish People were not born
yesterday. Shall we desecrate the word ‘Jew’, cross out its hallowed, historic
meaning, and deny all the values of the spirit to which we became accustomed
daily during our long exile? Whether we are called “religious” or “secular”, we
cannot cut ourselves off from our historic past, nor can we deny it. We are
carrying on. Not everyone who wishes to claim the title of Jew for himself may
do so.”
Now
someone called “secular” may rise up and say, “What relevance do Jewish legal definitions
have for us? After all, we don’t keep Jewish law, and those who do keep it sometimes
insult us by calling us non-Jews. It turns out that we aren’t Jewish either according
to Jewish law.”
Yet that
is not true. The essence of a Jew is not measured by behavioral criteria, nor
does it depend on Mitzvah fulfillment. A Jew, even if he be secular, is still a
Jew. One’s very Jewishness is independent of one’s deeds. It should be borne
out by one’s deeds, but it does not depend on them. It is an inner quality and
a spiritual character.
We are
plagued by a very deep crisis of loss of, and search for, identity, and this is
bitterly painful for us. In these times, we cannot avoid this issue. We must
remember what we are, what our lives are, what it means for us to be a special
nation, distinct from all others. We constitute a unique component of mankind,
a people with a unique national psyche. We belong to a people that was not born
recently, but in ancient times: the people of eternity, Eternal Israel.
