Tfi« Canadian J«whh Newt, Friday, Sepfember 14, 1962 — Page 5
FREEDOM OF OPINION
By MEYER LEVIN
ISRAEL ~- RELIGIOUS
LLET
Perhaps the most inexcusable effect of the controls exercised by the rabhinical body in Israel is the dampening, even the strangling , of genuine religious impulses in a large part of the population. Those who cannot accept Orthodox ritual have virtually no way in which to express the very genuine and often profound adhei:-cnce to Judaism which they feci, except through secular observance of folk-tradition.
As the Orthodox synagogue has, 60 to speak, a monopoly, (I have previously outlined some of the difficulties that can arise when a Progressive synagogue tries to establish itself), the vast number
of "moderns" who. in truth, feel a growing need for rellgibui expression,, have riowhere to turn.
Even among old-time free-tliink-in'g kibbutzhicks, this sentiment is expressed: I, sat In the room of such an old-timer; his grown son, bom in the kibbutz,- was among the little group discussing religion. Yes, they agreed, evert here in the kibbutz there was a desire for "some kind of •worship". It the right type of rabbi would appear, if the right way could be found.
Such a desiie should not be too startling, since the non-religious kibbutzim have. In their observance of the holidays, continuously
showTi a fundamental measure of religious content.
Throiigh the entire course of Zionist settlement, a conscious effort has been made to mould traditional religious festivals Into more secular forms, to restore, indeed, some of the connections to seasonal agricultural celebrations that preceded the holiday observance of galiit ritual. There is scarcely a Passbver-tlme visitor to Israel who has not come back with enthusiastic descriptions of a kibbutz seder, preceded by the procession into the. fields, on garlanded tractors, for the cutting of the first sheaves. The Seder Itself will have a "new" Hagada, with
much of the discursive recitation eliminated, Mid In which the liberation-symbol is stressed and linked with events in our'own times.. Is this unreligious, non-religious, anti-religious? Does ^not the Passover celebrant in the icib-butz, down to the youngest child, e.xperlehce the event with reU-gious feeling?
The same may be said of Sah-bath in the kibbutz, whether or not it is presented as merely a socialist-worker's day of rest, whether or not candles are lighted on the eve - and in mosj. butzim I visited, they are lighted -the Sabbath, cannot but remain m the minds and hearts of the popu-
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latlon as a sanctified day, for thocenturies of "accommodation"
Israeli is steeped in the Bible.
One has only to experience a Yom Kippur in Israel to understand that the population as a whole has profound religious feeling. The total cessation of activity Is personal and voluntary. On the roads not a vehicle stirs. The free-thinkers, the non-religious, who use their cars, scooters, tiiicks, un the Sabbath, would not think of desecrating the Day of Atonement. Is this merely a manifestation of respect toward the observant elements of the population? It is a universal expression of awe, of pure religious feeling, even amongst those who will hot enter a synagogue.
Many more might enter a synagogue If there were one in which this awe, this reverence, this senMjjf a mysterious Iwnd could be expressed in a way^ fitting to their own response. Prayer by rote, prayer In an overcrowded room, prayer in disturbing surroundings, cannot appeal to them. But the feeling Is there.
Synagogues in Israel have, as a rule, neither the homely warmth of the old country shtiebel nor the attempt at aesthetic impres-sivenesG of the modem American "sanctuary". Apart from the visits to "colourful" synagogues ^e Persian, Bokharan or Chassl-dic congregations offered to Jerusalem tourists, Israel synagogues tend to be uninviting structures associated with "prayer by the old fo:)cs". The vast majority of the population has nowhere to go to seek its own form of religious expresslcn.
The absence of t fitting place 1» only symptomatic of the absence of a fitting content In religion. Apart from the occasional, utterances of a Martin Buber -who is non-observant - I cannot think of a single personalltj', a single rabbi or religious thinker in Israel who comes forward to crystallse, for the general pubUc, some great ethical or moral issue, in the grand tradition of Judaism. I feel sure that. In the population as a whole, there Is no impulse to look towards religious leadership for ethical enlightenment. And yet, in the despised and ridiculed commmiities of the galut, in America for example, these are the first spokesmen tor the Jewish view on the tense moral problems of our time. In Israel, religion seems to have re.duced itself to matters of kashrat. of Sabbath traffic, pig-breeding, and the contractual aspects of marriage.
This absence of high ethical guidance is felt in Israel. Many a ^-isitor has come away with the impression of a country of rapidly declining irmer ethical standards. It is hardly surprising that the generation that fought to establish the nation, and that had, against Incredible odds, to resort to every means, to the special morality of the underground struggle, to ruse and deception and necessary Illegality, shmld later be susceptible to equivocal ethical behaviour. But far deeper is the effect of
psychology in Orthodox Jewish practice itself.
If the religious law says that a man may not use his land in the seventh year, why, let him nominally "sell" it to a non-Jew for that year and thus feel free to make full use of It. If a Jew may not light a fire on the Sal>-bath, why, he may hire a Shalh bas-goy to do so, or, in modem times, employ an electrical device that gives him continuous comfort. This evasive approach cannot but have poisoned the ground-bed of Judaism and atrophied t.ie divine ethical sense streaming
from the prophets, the appro.icn teaches^ a habit of subterfuge whicir°can invade the personality of a people and.project it> self ev^n into the non-religious.
This' moral problem^ r^er than a political oalance-of-power, is what is urgent in the question of religious concern in Israel. Xbe non-observant Israeli feels a desire completely to express his Jewish identity' and Is begiimlng to understand that nationalistic
expression is not enough. An expression in folk-dances and songs is not enough. Every chUd absorbs the Bible, from primary school days, and just in America, many a primary school child comes home on Friday from a candle lighting ceremony In his Israeli classroom and demands that mama, too, light candles. Tra:ditibn, or religion? Something is wanted by this Jewish child, and his non-observant parents will often admit that they, too, want "something".
But confronted with the existent synagogue, these same people: shrink back. A wise rabbinate, truly concerned vdth religion, would seek an understanding with this rapidly growing sentiment among the Israeli population. Such a rabbinate would not insist on the imposition of anachronistic regulations that antagonise the non-observant Jew. even as he feels a need for an appropriate expression of his Judaism. Such a rabbinate would liberalise itself, would permit civil marriage laws, and would relax other reg-
ulations, rather than wait for an irritated public to force such; liberalisation. Such a rabbmate would apply itself, instead, to. filling the vacuum in the religious lile of most Jews in Israel. Such a rabbinate would revive itself as an ethical authority end seek to end the mental habits of su^^^er-fuge and evasion that have been tolerated through - the centuries and that have given much of the world the image of the Jew as a shifty tribe, flexible in matters of ethics.
Even more than.for tlie sake of relief from material inconveniences and" martial injustices Israel needs a rationalisation of the relationship between synagogue and State - for the sake of honesty, for the sake of Jewish character, for the sake of religion. If the official rabbinate could but realise it, Israel stands wide open to a renewal of Judaism.
This is the third, concluding crticls of Meyer Levin's specioi series or. Religion in Israel. — Comments answering the famous American . Qutiior will be published by The Canadian Jewish News.
OHL Y IN AMERICA
by HARRY GOLDEN
Putting God Back In The Classroom
By HARRY GOLDEN
It was more than, iiiteresting that Cardinal Spellman, of the Roman Catholic Church, Bishop Pike of the Episcopalian fellowship, and several Fundjimentalist Baptist ministers of the South finally found themselves in agreement. They agreed that "God has been taken out of the classroom" by the Supreme Court.
I doubt this. I rather incline to the view that the Supreme Court wasn't trying to take God out of the classroom, only questioning the way He had come in. The Supreme Court simply said it was not the duty of a governing body to write prayers for the public to recite. Governing bodies have more important things to do, like trying to make children literate or able to add, tasks at which they have not been wholly successful.
But I have a plan to bring God into the . classroom again, a plan whereby there will be no court arguments as to His presence.
Add to the curriculum of every school the following poem by the Nobel prize winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, the Hindu philosopher:
He is made one with Nature; there'is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan
Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird;
He is a presence to be felt and kno^^-^
In darkness and in light;
from herb and stone,
Spreading itself where'er that Power
may move
Which has withdrawn His being to His own;
Which wields the world with never wearied love.
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above . . . The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines.
Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-colored
glass.
Stains the white radiance of Eternitj Until Death tramples it to fragments.
A famous constitutional lawyer in Chan lotte says if such poetr>' is added to the curriculum at the discretion of teachers, principals or school boards, neither the Supreme Court, nor any court, can exercise its jurisdiction against this inclusion.
If we are going to circumvent the Supreme Court and smuggle God back into the classrooms, let us do so in an orderly and civilized manner.
L'SHONA TOVA
Esther Harris
Murray Ellis
LISTEN TO THE
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