1.
Special occasions have the power to pull us out of our mundane routines and force us to behave differently. This can often lead to different thoughts and existential rumination. What are "appointed times of the Lord, holy convocations" (Leviticus 23:4) if not a time to confront that part of our individual and national identity?
The drama surrounding the African infiltrators, which reached a fever pitch this week (when the prime minister reached a compromise deal to prevent the mass deportation of tens of thousands of illegal African migrants from Israel, only to rescind the agreement days later) is only the tip of the iceberg of serious issues facing Israel at the moment: morality, national identity, immigration, democracy, foreign relations, governance versus bureaucracy, elected government versus the judicial system, helping foreigners versus helping our own, independence versus foreign interference, legitimate criticism versus thought police and more. These issues all raise a fateful question: Who are the Jewish people, who returned to Zion after a protracted journey in foreign lands?
In fact, everything is connected and it is our duty to examine all these issues. We cannot let ourselves off the hook. The secularization process that the Jewish people have undergone over the last 250 years is not the end of the story. At some point in history, it became necessary to cut the religious cord, to clear the way for the reawakening of the national identity after a prolonged period of slumber. The years of exile generated an anomaly in our people: religion, in its narrowest sense, became the key component of our identity as a people. The idea of the return to Zion shifted from being a practical objective into being a fantasy – something to be achieved at the end of days. The religious aspect of our identity began to hamstring the national aspect, to the point of stifling it. When you fall asleep at the wheel, reality can become a dream.
During the course of our awakening, as we once again became a nation among nations, we underwent a process that is familiar to any growing teenager: separation-individuation – the process in which a child separates from his or her parents and develops an independent identity. Our people also had to separate from "parents" of sorts; we had to rebel against the ancient patriarch that headed the traditional Jewish family for thousands of years in order to develop an independent national identity. Who led the rebellion? Central sectors in the Jewish population, which was concentrated mainly in Europe at the time. The social elite that was left to fill the vacuum left behind by the religious leadership had cut ties with the religious Jewish base. These young people were very familiar with religious customs and tradition, and the Jewish textual sources, but they viewed religion as an archaic vestige of an old world that had outlived its usefulness. To them, religion was doing nothing more than holding them back from realizing their personal and national aspirations.
2.
Jews hailing from Arab and Asian countries did not experience this rebellion. There was no need; they always viewed religion as holy but flexible. In recent generations, the Sephardi and Mizrachi sages have acted more like rabbis to a community rather than revered educational masters, the way the heads of Ashkenazi religious schools are seen. The difference is certainly evident in the religious rulings but also in the fact that among Sephardi Jews, the religious tradition was never experienced as a threat or obstacle to national fulfillment. Anyone who knows anything about the writings of Sephardi sages knows that Zionism was readily accepted in those countries as a natural progression of the prophets' idea of redemption. The reawakening national identity dovetailed perfectly with the religious tradition rather than contradicting it.
In contrast, the Second Aliyah to Palestine in the early 20th century brought the socialist avant-garde to Israel. These were revolutionaries who had rebelled against religion and rejected the ancient traditions as retardants to the process of our development as a modern nation. They fought against religion and its symbols, viewing them as a threat to their new world. Religious Jews were perceived by the pioneers as representatives of the old world that was holding the Jewish people back from re-entering history. It is no coincidence, therefore, that those who facilitated the birth of Israel as an independent Jewish state saw themselves as gatekeepers, protecting their baby with militant secularism. Any mention of religion, outside the bounds of what they defined as legitimate, was seen as a threat to the fragile statehood and as a challenge to the hegemony of the state's self-proclaimed rulers.
3.
The so-called "upheaval" of 1977 (when a right-wing government won the national election for the first time since the establishment of the state) brought together a number of different political groups, ideologies and ideas that together represented the "other" Israel. The common thread was a commitment to the religious tradition as a vital part of the national identity. The 1977 upheaval is commonly thought of as linked to the Eastern ethnicities and the religious sectors for this very reason.
Menachem Begin, who was elected prime minister in the 1977 election, didn't use the phrase "B'ezrat Hashem" ("with God's help") as a figure of speech. He truly believed in divine assistance and that God was watching over his people in history's valley of the shadow of death.
The historical significance of the 1977 upheaval was that it posited the "other" Israel on equal footing as the "first" Israel – the left-wing, secular, Ashkenazi elite – in navigating the Zionist ship. The moment the keys were handed to the right-wing, traditional coalition, led by Likud, symbols and representations of religious tradition became increasingly well-received in official spheres. Ideas, customs, names, characters and more became ever more accepted. That is when the battle over the character and face of Israeli society became more intense – it was no longer just about political parties and budgets but also about the character of the national framework that unites us.
But rebellions do not last forever. Even when Pharaoh drowned in the sea and the Israelites began wandering in the desert, the people still longed for Egypt. This is even truer when it comes to longing for our "parents" – traditional Judaism and that part of our identity that we suppressed. The maturing child who rebelled has now become an adult, and is raising his own family. He learns to see his own children from his parents' perspective. He is under no obligation to agree with his parents, but he is now more open to reconcile with them. Case in point: Note how deeply religious representations have permeated Israeli culture and public discourse over the last 20 years (religion not in the meticulously observant halachic sense, if there is such a thing).
For example, it is no coincidence that Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, whose father, Yosef Lapid, headed the anti-religious Shinui party, is now working on a religion and tradition-loving public image for himself. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. In this regard, the extreme anti-religion media efforts by popular television programs and left-wing newspapers indicate just how powerful the shift has been. The writers and journalists behind anti-religion comedy sketches and articles represent a sector of society that is feeling extremely threatened.
4.
Deep down, below the surface of media feeding frenzies and rapid successions of current events, the real battlefield is laid out. The battle is over our very identity. It motivates the resistance to legislation that would legally define Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, for example. Why should Israel's Jewish character be anchored in law, the threatened sector asks. It fuels the clash over the character of the military and exacerbates the fear of the junior military officers, most of whom are religious. It drives the fight against "religification" – what some perceive as a coercive effort to infuse religion into public institutions. It is also the basis for the debate over the authority of the High Court of Justice.
It is also responsible for the bloody battle over the future of Judea and Samaria, and Jerusalem, first and foremost. At the root of this battle is what these geographical parts of the land represent – the core of our ancient identity as a people, which includes the religious tradition.
The latest development in this battle is the crisis over the African migrants. Ironically, it is those very same people who use the demographic threat to argue for relinquishing essential parts of our land, who have no problem keeping tens of thousands of migrants in Israel, knowing they could turn into hundreds of thousands before we know it. Just like in every other debate, the migrants are just an external representation of a deeper issue – the deep-seated disagreement over the nature and character of the Jewish state. Like in the first-Temple era, the biblical kingdoms of "Judea" and "Israel" (which today symbolically represent the Jew and the Israeli) are battling one another as two parts of our people's identity – the religious and the national. If we are wise enough to let passing crises die down without a fuss, we will soon be able to witness, after a long and exhausting historical process, these two branches evolving into a mighty tree, so strong it can withstand any historical storm. Just be patient.
