Yes to inclusion no to exclusion

Ever wonder what life would be like in Israel if there were no Arabs amongst us? Sounds like a dream right? For starters we wouldn’t have to pour so much time and money into security. We could finally iron out our domestic issues, all without any silly distractions like bloodshed and constant threats of war. Finally we could have our cake and eat it too!

Sadly though I am confident that with the doing away of our external problems our internal problems would take even more of a center stage. What I am referring to here is the Haredi/Secular divide. I and others have a theory that the Arabs are actually G-d sent because without them it seems likely that we would be fighting ourselves.

There is a notion here in Israel of “us” and “them”. The us refers to whoever we are and the them refers to everybody else who thinks differently then us. Now if that sounds a bit confusing let me clarify what I mean. If I am Haredi then the them are the secular sinners. If I am secular then the them are the crazy settlers or Haredim or even better the crazy Haredim settlers. If I am Sephardi then the them are the Ashkenazim and so forth.

Ironically the world sees us all as Jews yet we as Jews see ourselves very differently. The truth is that the world is right. We are all in fact Jews. We as Jews have been exile for over 2000 years precisely because we fail to get this point.

So how do we fix this huge time enduring issue of division and hatred in our ranks?

As Jews we are supposed to be about the notion of “kol yisroel arevim zeh la zeh”, which means we are all responsible for each others actions and we either rise together or sink together. In order to actually bring this about though we have to come together and stop the mutual hatred and exclusionary behavior.

Everyone shares the blame here. On the Haredi side of things there is little appreciation for the State that allows them to live their lives the way they like. Somehow throwing rocks at people for breaking shabbat which weirdly breaks shabbat itself is OK. If you are gonna tell me that this is being done by a few kids and doesn’t represent the consensus then the Rabbis need to speak out against this. How are we gonna bring Jews back to observant Judaism if the supposed pinnacle of religiousity is throwing rocks and beating girls up in Beit Shemesh for having the nerve to walk around at night?

The blame on the Secular side is the failure to see that the Haredim are actually keeping the tradition alive by taking the time to study Torah and diseminate it’s laws onto the next generation. Your average secular Israeli knows very little about the very basics of Judaism and it’s laws. Without people learning Torah the very world as we know it would fall. Now of course in order to get more people to see it this way we need to make the whole process more attractive and inclusive.

How can we make religious Judaism something that is appealing to the masses? For starters instead of throwing rocks and calling soldiers Nazis we should be trying to bridge the gaps not widen them.

The only way to do this is to make being an observant Jew something that is for everybody. Not just a select few. If we can turn people on for the right reasons and show them the beauty of the Torah and a Torah way of life then they will want it. By pushing our fellow Jews away because we see them as sinners, antagonizers, and gentiles then we have failed to right history and we are doomed.

Our Messiah will only come if we are moving towards this and not further away. My hope and prayer is that we somehow come together and realize this so we can all benefit from redemption together.