In the Mishna there's a story about the wise men of Israel who complained to King David that there was not enough work and economic prosperity for the people. Our master the king, your people of Israel needs to make a living, they told him. The wise king responded: You need to make a living? Then go out and make a living off each other. Or in short: If you have no way of making a living, create work for each other.
And indeed, lately there hasn't been much work in terms of religion and state in Israel. Where are the days of the protests on Jerusalem's Bar-Ilan road? Where are the protests for and against the High Court rulings on Jerusalem? Where are the Shabbat inspectors who imposed heavy fines on business owners? It's not that the genuine problems were resolved, heaven forbid.
The problems are alive and well and are fizzling below the surface, but as is the custom with us, matters of secondary importance become the essence, while the most important matters are marginalized.
Therefore, God was kind to us by introducing in with a matter of days from each other the issue of transferring the transformer on Saturday and the Jerusalem gay pride parade, so that we can "make a living" off each other. Finally, the hawks on both camps, apparent Orthodox on the one end and seemingly secular Israelis on the other, cleared their throats and screamed out, as if they were butchered chickens, those same slogans we're fed up with.
Transporting the transformer revived all the worn-out slogans: "Terrible desecration of the Shabbat" and "Jewish state", and "desecration
of god's name" on the end hand, with "Israel won't be Iran"; "democratic state"; and "sanity will prevail" on the other. Then came the pride parade in Jerusalem, and here they already moved on to nicknames such as "beasts, mentally disturbed, and perverts," along with other phrases that make us want to throw up when we hear them, or see them posted on Jerusalem walls.
Had I been an ultra-Orthodox Jew who strictly adheres to Jewish law, neither the transfer of the transformer nor the pride parade would have left me sleepless. The desecration of the Shabbat in Jerusalem is much more terrible. Dozens of restaurants and cafes are open in the city on Saturday and some even serve, may such a thing not happen to us, insects and other things we shouldn't even mention.
If, as an Orthodox Jew, I was truly concerned about the state's Jewish character, I would scream out that foreigners who have no connection or attachments to Judaism, and who are certainly not Jewish even in accordance with the most lenient interpretation, arrive at the State of Israel and immediately receive "absorption basket" funds, citizenship, and other pleasantries.
As an Orthodox Jew, who is supposed to care about every Jewish soul, I would also scream out over the terrible deaths on the roads that every week claim the lives of good Jewish souls.
And secular Israelis? They're also silent while the State of Israel, which claims to be democratic, does not offer civil marriages and instead marries each man and woman in accordance with their religion (just like in Islamic countries). Those who are called secular do not make a sound even in the face of the fact that Israel is home to more than 250,000 people who cannot wed at all because they are categorized, at times even after completing their military service, as "lacking a religion."
Israel is the only country that does not offer any public transportation on Saturdays, because if you're wealthy and can afford a vehicle you are permitted to drive wherever you wish on Shabbat, but if you cannot afford a car, please sit at home on the Saturday. And we haven't even spoken about the organized shirking of military duty by those whose job is seemingly to study Torah.
In short, the real problems were not resolved, and possibly the opposite is true: Sweeping them under the rug only makes them grow bigger. But as usual around here, we deal with what looks good in media photographs, with spins, and with what makes for a good news item. We stopped engaging in in-depth debate over our problems a long time ago. A while ago we already despaired of a genuine attempt to reach a solution in matters that are of great importance to us. One sentence here, one exaggerated reaction there, and that's it.
Images of a homosexual with long hair together with a burning garbage dumpster at an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, and that's enough. It is worthwhile to mention the end of the story found at the opening of this piece. The essence is as follows: The protests, screams, and parades mean nothing. The issues will not be resolved on their own. Genuine problems require a genuine solution, rather than another spin or slogan. Yet the solution is not in sight until we decide whether we wish to be a modern country concerned with national needs or a shtetl at the service of God.
The writer served as national infrastructure minister on behalf of Shinui
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