Parsha Pearls: Parshas Behaaloscha

 

The Exile of Yishmael
Don’t Ask For Unnecessary Miracles
Why Couldn’t Moshe Make the Menorah?
If We Join Them, They Will Be the Winners

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Yisro’s plan to convert his countrymen by blending into their society is reminiscent of those groups today who take part in the Zionist government with the aim of making the people more religious. All anti-Zionists agree that participation in the Zionist elections and serving in their government are serious sins. Yet at the time the state was established, certain anti-Zionist rabbis argued that these sins should be permitted because the end justifies the means. They feared that without religious participation in the government, the Torah lifestyle could not continue under the Zionist government. Their slogan was “aveirah lishmah” – commit a sin for a noble purpose.

Nowadays, even they have admitted that observant Jews do not need representation in government to exist. Those who are observant would stay observant even without the benefits they reap from the representation. Still, they continue to justify participation on the basis that they are helping the non-observant Jews stay closer to Judaism by keeping the state Jewish.

As the years go by and the religious population increases exponentially, this goal of bringing Yiddishkeit to the Jews of Eretz Yisroel seems more and more attainable. But now there arises a terrible question that may not have been foreseen by those advocating participation in the state. Establishing and maintaining a Jewish state is forbidden by the Gemara in the famous passage of the Three Oaths. Until now, we, observant Jews, could have considered ourselves exempt from punishment for this sin because it was not us but the secular Zionists who founded and ran the state. What will happen when the state becomes dominated by observant Jews? How will we deal with taking sole responsibility for that sin, which is not merely a sin but a total perversion of Hashem’s plan for Jewish history, exile and redemption?

The time is not so far off. According to recent data, Haredi Jews and Arabs together comprise 30% of the Israeli population. But among schoolchildren, they are close to 50%, and in another 30 years, the two groups will comprise 78% of schoolchildren.

Because of the higher birthrate among Arabs as opposed to secular Jews, the Arabs would soon overtake the Jews in the demographic race, were it not for the religious Jewish community with its high birthrate. A state with an Arab majority in the government would not be a Jewish state and would not violate the Three Oaths. Thus the religious Jews who participate in the government are literally keeping the state Jewish and in violation of the oaths.

It is time for us to ask, as Moshe Rabbeinu asked Yisro: who is influencing whom? We may succeed in making the state religious, but in the end, Zionism – the concept of preempting the geulah and ending the exile with our own power – will have triumphed. The Torah will have been changed forever. Is this what we want?

Full Reading: https://torahjews.org/2023/11/26/parsha-pearls-parshas-behaaloscha

Tags: Noam Elimelech -