Earlier today, I was looking back at some of my previous blog posts on this week's Torah portion, mainly to make sure I don't repeat myself, but also to see what kinds of things I was writing about last year, the year before, and the year before that (I've been doing this whole
blogging thing for a while now!). I found myself focusing especially on a post from two years ago, which I entitled 'An Appeal to My Fellow Lepers.' It mainly talked about the dominance of the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel, and how we cannot let ourselves be bullied around by them any longer. Well, on the one hand, it's still a big problem. On the other, change IS coming to the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. The question is, will it lead to any new policies or practices? I'd like to share with you a few thoughts about religion in Israel today, and how it still very much relates to this week's Torah portion about cleanliness and purity laws.
We tend to let ourselves be easily distracted. Our parasha this week is an infamously 'icky' one, about leprosy, skin disease, and mold. But that's not REALLY what it's
about at all; we just have a hard time getting past the symptoms mentioned in this part of the Torah. Nevertheless, they are indeed symptoms of a larger problem: the question of who's IN and who's OUT. Who is part of the Establishment? What does it mean to be relegated to the margins of society, and how do we treat the people who inevitably live their entire lives there? In some ways, it's actually much easier to just think of this Torah portion as talking about gross skin diseases, because we can dismiss it as irrelevant and unpleasant. But what if the REAL source of discomfort for us is how current this topic actually is?
Right now in Israel, we are on the verge of a religious shift. It's not quite on the level of choosing a new Pope for Catholics, but it's significant. The Chief Rabbis in Israel (there are two of them) serve ten year terms, and they are both ending in 2013. So there's a big debate right now in Israel over who should be the next Chief Rabbi, and how this person will address the growing rifts in Israel.
Because it's an enormous problem. The status quo today leaves hundreds of thousands of Israelis on the margin, just because they're secular, gay, or simply not religious enough to meet the chief rabbinate's standards. In a recent article on Ynet, Yizhar Hess, the Executive Director of the Masorti Movement in Israel, writes compellingly about this concern. He specifically focuses on a rabbinic organization called Tzohar, who have put forth a candidate for Chief Rabbi. Hess addresses the 'nice guy-ism' of the Tzohar rabbis, but how ultimately they STILL don't accept the validity of any non-Orthodox group. He laments, "Tzohar rabbis are good
people who can speak the secular lingo fluently; however, they are miles
away from embodying the solution for the problematic relationship
between the state and religion in Israel."
We like to think of Israel as 'our' country. We want to believe that we belong there, and that we, as Conservative Jews, would be accepted by the Israeli establishment. But the sad reality is that we would not. None of us. And the divide between Orthodoxy and everyone else is growing all the time. Yet we are not the lepers of this week's Torah
portion. We shouldn't be treated as outsiders, at the mercy of those in charge, and grateful for any act of kindness they show us. Are there easy solutions to this (or seemingly any other Israeli) problem? No. But we can't avoid talking about it either, simply because it's uncomfortable, unpleasant, or complicated. We love Israel, and we all have just as much stake in the past, present, and future of the country as do the Orthodox. We just need to stay informed and up-to-date, and keep emphasizing our rights within the Jewish State. Otherwise, we're going to keep being treated as lepers. I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of it.
Photos in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of Miss Blackflag on Flickr
3. CC image courtesy of Minamie's Photo on Flickr
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