21 March 2017

Replacing Torah with The State

23 Adar 5777

Very often in Jewish writings one can read these three together "the people, land and Torah of Israel". God gave a unique book of instruction to a unique people to be expressed in a unique land. On this the world stands. When any one of the three is replaced, the world becomes destabilized. I noticed this when reading 'A THIRD OF SECULAR ISRAELI JEWS WANT TO MOVE ABROAD' this morning. 

This sentence caught my attention...
"Masa Israeli is a nonprofit organization invested in reinforcing individual, Jewish and Zionist identities while strengthening the connection and sense of belonging to the people, land and State of Israel, as well as to the communities from which they come."
I also noticed something else very interesting...
...Another finding of the poll concerns the sense of identity of Israeli Jews. Respondents were asked whether they categorize themselves as Jewish or Israeli. One hundred percent of haredim, 90.3% of religious and 82.9% of traditional respondents overwhelmingly saw themselves as Jewish first. The secular camp was divided, with 53% selecting Jewish and 43.6% Israeli (3% said they did not know ,and 4% chose neither).
One might be able to make a case for the following idea...

Hareidim - more representative of the Torah of Israel
Religious (Dati) - more representative of the Land of Israel
Traditional - more representative of the People of Israel
Secular - more representative of the State of Israel

The first three are connected to each other and see themselves as parts of the whole. But the secular are disconnected and see themselves as apart from the others, generally speaking. So, we see who it is who has the most difficulty with identity as a result and it ends with a willingness to abandon all.