Shavuot: A Time to Advocate for Religious Freedom and Equality

On the Festival Celebrating the Torah – It’s Time for Religious Freedom and Equality

23/05/2023 08:55

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Hiddush for Religious Freedom and Equality

This week we celebrate the festival of Shavuot, one of the three pilgrimage holidays and the holiday that commemorates the giving of the Torah. Instead of it being a time of widespread public celebration, we find ourselves amid a deep regime crisis and dispute over the Jewish and democratic identity of the State of Israel. We at Hiddush believe that precisely now, on the holiday of the giving of the Torah, we must raise the flag of religious freedom, equality, justice, and compassion. Not as a protest directed against Judaism, but rather the opposite: a Jewish struggle intended to rescue the light of Judaism from the hands of those who seek to paint it black, and distort it to fit their extreme, messianic, and fundamentalist world view.

"Turn it over, and [again] turn it over, for all is therein"say Pirkei Avot about the Torah, and indeed the Torah has many dimensions and interpretations. In it we read the words of God explaining his choice of Abraham as the father of the nation and the proper conduct and morals necessary to shape the people in the spirit of Judaism. These are also a condition for the fulfillment of the divine promises for his future:

“ For I have chosen him, so that he will instruct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”(Genesis 18:19)

This is the Judaism faithful to the teachings of the Torah: "Justice, justice you shall pursue!"; "For the Lord your God abhors anyone who does injustice"; "The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens. Love him as you love yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." We hold to the opinion of Ben Ezzai, who presented the value of the equality of humankind, as the greatest principle of Judaism, quoting the verses of Genesis: "This is the book of Adam's (humankind’s) history; On the day God created Adam, he created him in the image of God; he created male and female; and he blessed them, and on the day he created them he called them Adam ."

There are those who wish to read the Torah

“The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on liberty, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience…”

as instructing Jewish supremacy, religious coercion, dodging the yoke of security and the economy, and permission for bloodshed and extremism. Unfortunately, their representatives sit in the current government and coalition and claim to represent Judaism.

It is not necessary to believe in God to adopt the core moral and social values of the Torah. This is exactly what the Declaration of Independence did. As it defined Israel as a Jewish state, the declaration made it clear that it did not intend to make it a Torah state but rather a state whose Jewish identity follows the spirit of our words above. These are its assurances:

“The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on liberty, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience…”

This is at the heart of the current struggle, opposition to the excessive and shameless “coalition funds”. These funds for their most part contradict the eternal values of Judaism and pose a threat to the future of the State of Israel and its economic and social well-being , as well as undermine the prospect of embracing Israel’s Jewish spirit as anchored in the Declaration of Independence. In this spirit, you can read in this newsletter about our legal battles to promote the vision of the Declaration of Independence, and about the scandal of the “coalition funds”.

A symbol of the void between inclusive, tolerant, and progressive Judaism and extreme, coercive and narrow-minded Judaism can be seen in another aspect of Shavuot: it is the holiday of the converts, the holiday of Ruth the Moabite, the great grandmother of King David. Anyone familiar with the current reality of the Rabbinic Courts and the Chief Rabbinate, to whose hands our politicians have entrusted the official stamp of Judaism, knows that if Ruth had appeared before them at the current time - they would not have converted her!

The time has come to retrieve the Judaism of justice, tolerance, equality, and peace.