It is an iron-clad rule that extremism on one side leads to radicalization on the other. We must take sorrowful note of an intensification of antireligious violence, such as the vandalizing of a synagogue in South Tel Aviv and the cutting off of the side curls of a boy in Jerusalem . These and similar incidents are a reaction to the protracted violence of the ultra-Orthodox . If the acts of religious coercion and violence continue, the extremely religious are liable to antagonize the younger generation, which has not yet rebelled against the Jewish religion.
Particularly astonishing and disappointing is the fact that the ultra-Orthodox approach utterly ignores the supreme precept to love one’s fellow Jews , as stated by Maimonides :“Every man is commanded to love each and every Jew as himself, as it is stated,“Love your neighbor as yourself’”(Laws of Beliefs, 6:3).
We sorely miss the perspective of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook , the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Eretz Israel , who discerned sparks of holiness in the secular Zionist enterprise and endeavored to draw all the non-observant toward the Jewish religion with“golden cords.” His approach was based on a profound faith in the value of each and every Jew as such, even if he or she does not observe the mitzvot. His words are important to the ultra-Orthodox in Me’ah She’arim and to all of us, whenever we are embroiled in potentially catastrophic quarrels like that on the Ramot road:“Even from the profane, the sacred may be revealed, and even from libertine freedom the cherished yoke.” This approach, which finds something positive in every Jew and attempts to bring them closer, rather than repel them, is what we need if we are to survive the worsening crisis between the religious and nonreligious sectors in Israel .
Halakhic Apologia for Murder
We have seen the attempts to justify religious violence from sources of the halakhah, which indeed prohibits such acts. Since those earlier days of squabbles, stoning vehicles, and beating individuals in enraged political protests, we have witnessed an escalation to bloodshed. This problem has reached a point which is no longer concerned with minor political gains of closing a road or an archaeological site. Here there is an attempt to eliminate physically the enemy, whether it be a peaceful congregation of worshipers or the duly elected Head of State.
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