Spokesperson for Jewish Enlightenment and Secular Judaism in Israel, *Merav Michaeli:
"It’s like you want to say – I don’t get it, you still didn’t get it? The nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people, not the Jewish religion. The entire Jewish people. Don’t you get it? This is why we built this country; this is why we came here. So that the entire Jewish people will have a home, a safe haven. This country belongs to ALL of us; it’s not yours to take and to hold. What is it that you don’t get about this?
"[. . .] we haven’t talked enough about us. Us secular Jews. We are also a stream in Judaism, which, in Israel, is, in fact, the biggest and most significant stream and the Torah belongs to us just as much as it belongs to them, just like the Western Wall; And when I say, “secular,” it doesn’t mean not believing in God, or not fasting on Yom-Kippur, or going to synagogue or lay phylacteries if one wants to do so. I mean, people who decide for themselves how to live their lives, and how to practice and experience their Judaism.
"It’s time to understand that secular Judaism is the biggest and most successful stream of Judaism, and we won’t let anyone take that away from us, the same way we won’t let anyone take Judaism away from us. Because the Jewish world is not a 15th century Polish “Shtetl,” the Jewish world includes everyone that defines themselves as Jewish, and all the different ways of being Jewish. Without this diversity, there is no state of Israel and there is no Jewish people. And we won’t let anyone destroy the Jewish people and the State of Israel for cheap politics.
"Do you know the essence of the Enlightenment and Jewish secularism? Within a span of 150 years, we tuned from a persecuted, weak and exiled people into a strong, advanced democratic and unified, solidary nation.
"[. . .] it’s time that our schools start teaching about the links between the Jewish Enlightenment movement and the Zionist movement, so that it’ll be impossible to teach that Zionism is only defined by a return to the land that God gave Abraham and Naftali Bennett."
BEHOLD A PEOPLE THAT SHALL DWELL ALONE, AND SHALL NOT RECKON ITSELF AMONG THE NATIONS:
He foretells that Israel shall never surrender its Torah Principles because of the nations; and they shall forever continue to maintain their own ways. Included in this word “alone” is also the prophecy that all the nations will view Israel with hostility.
In his work “Contra Apion”, Josephus declares that from the earliest times the writers of the nations have issued calumnies against Israel; and we have seen that subsequently no nation has been subjected to as much animosity.
The words of Bilaam here are echoed in Haman’s accusation: “There is one people, scattered abroad and dispersed . . . and their laws are different from those of every people” (Esther 3:8)
“That shall dwell alone”: the period of 40 years in the Wilderness was a symbol and a portent that Israel would always be alone. Three aspects are easily recognized:
1. They shall be regarded by all nations as a people alone;
2. They shall isolate themselves from all nations and the ways of the nations; and
3. They shall be regarded by Hashem as a unique entity and not as one of the nations.
(Rabbi Avigdor Miller, Dor Deah: Journey into Greatness (1997)
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*With appreciation to Devash of TomerDevorah
2 comments:
Read "Separated from the Nations, Undivided within Our Own":
www.sefaria.org/sheets/70391
A very good post.
The article from the Israel Times is all twisted and perverted and wrong on every count that they illustrated.
First, there is no distinction between Israel (the Jewish people) and religion. Judaism is not a religion; otherwise, it would be counted among the avoda zorahs of the world, c'v. Torah Judaism is the Eternal Truth and our connection to the Almighty!
Second, there are NO denominations in the Torah and no such word as 'religion. There is one Torah with its Halachot. Only depends on the Jew keeping the mitzvot or being non-observant of its Laws.
Third, the secular forms of so-called observance of Judaism is not the largest stream because the Reform and conservative movements have lost their momentum a while back, because those seeking meaning to their lives definitely do not find it in these so called 'streams' of Judaism, and,
Fourth, because the Jewish people have so assimilated with the rest of the nations and their cultures, Jews are being lost left and right by intermarriage where their children are completely non-Jewish without any knowledge of what a Jew is and what our purpose in this world is, except for their meaningless materialism and sheer ignorance.
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