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Yosef (Tommy) Lapid / MINS is a Knesset member and leader of the Shinui party. He is a former journalist and served as General-Director of the Israel Broadcast Authority.
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By Yosef (Tommy) Lapid / MINS
January 31, 2003
I am going over some newspaper articles that have been written about Shinui and myself in the orthodox media. At least a dozen announcements and articles per day, all of them filled with slanderous headlines, poisonous declarations and warnings from rabbis, manipulative language, self-righteous commentaries and tempestuous calls for an uncompromising struggle against the enemy who threatens their very existence. There are examples of profound self-inquiry, like the symposium among five rabbis, that was published in the weekly Mishpacha under the headline "Why are we hated?"
The article reads: "Days
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"We aren't talking about religion, but equal rights and equal duties."
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before the 'nation' gallops to the voting booths, when the most important issues on the minds of the people are 'explanations' and 'image' and the most talked about question is how did Shinui grow to such a horrible dimension. Mishpacha invited some of those who are at the forefront of 'explaining' for a discussion in our offices in which the questions dwelling in the hearts of all of us were raised: Are we to blame? What should we do? Why are we hated? How does one change, if at all possible, the terrible image the orthodox public has?"
The symposium was speckled with circuitous longwinded debates that had one measure of self-inquiry and nine measures (tisha kabin - a biblical reference) of self-righteousness, a whole lot of calculations and very little soul. Together with that, I wasn't able to ignore the sense of fear bursting within the method of inquiry. Genuine fear, almost primeval, a very Jewish fear of the taskmaster. This fear insults me more than any other insults that have been bestowed upon me in your media. Because this fear places us somewhere we are not, and relates to us intentions we do not have, and presents us as a group that has declared war on the holy people of Israel.
We don't wish to make things bad for you nor do we wish to damage Judaism.
Our struggle against your imposition on our way of life is not linked to religion. Forget about the entire religious subject. Imagine a nation in which 10 percent of its residents wear hats. Yet they manage to pass a law in parliament dismissing the hat wearers from military service whereas all of those with exposed heads must serve. In addition, 80% of the hat wearers do not work but rather they live off of the paychecks of others. In addition, they passed a law providing expanded national insurance to the hat wearer's children and also prevented those poor people with exposed heads, from being provided with public transportation on Wednesdays. They prevented those with exposed heads from marrying unless they do so according to hat wearing traditions. They forced the exposed heads to abide by the diet of those who wear hats and obtained a budget for their education system that is 40 percent higher per child than the budget given to bear headed children. All of this has no connection to religion faith or fear of God. Would you not agree? Would you want to live in a country like this? Or would you demand equal rights for bear headed citizens and vote for a party that protests against discrimination?
We aren't talking about religion, but equal rights and equal duties. The minute you recognize this, we will no longer have any disagreement. We will live our lives and you must live yours - but not on our account. You must understand that secularism is not the dismissal of religion, but a way of life. Freedom of individuality is holy in the secular public's perspective just as the laws of the Torah are holy in the orthodox perspective. When you forbid a secular person from drinking coffee after he ate a steak, it is like a secular person forcing you to eat non-kosher meat. When you forbid a secular man from riding the bus on Saturday, it is the same as a secular man forcing you to ride a bus on Saturday. Secularism is not a network of people sinning against the Halacha (Jewish law), but a way of life that a majority of the population lives according to.
The right of an orthodox Jew to live according to his sacred beliefs, in my eyes, is the same as a secular person's right to live in accordance to his own beliefs. We wish to let you live your lives as your beliefs dictate under the condition that you don't do so on our account and under the condition that you don't meddle with our way of life.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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