OH, NO: Kedushas Tzion Again Calls for a ‘Halachic State’. Include Me Out!
When I once noted Hyehudi is allied with, but not fully agreed to Kedushas Tzion, I was swamped at once with queries to explain why and wherefore.
I think the following Open Letter from Kedushas Tzion to Knesset Member B. Smotrich, makes this clear.
View or Download the PDF / פתח או הורד את הקובץ
Sic.
There is very good reason almost no one has ever or will ever claim the “Halachic State” mantle; the term is an oxymoron!
We explained this many times (but always have new readers!). The goals of the modern State, let alone the means, are most all illegitimate. You can have national autonomy without a parliament. All that required in this country was allowing the British Mandate to expire, and not putting anything in its place.
“Medinat Halacha” is “lip service” for the so-called radical Right (Source: Yeshayahu Leibowitz), and as a fundraising vehicle for Meretz (which only pretends to support the separation of religion and state — unlike Zehut. What they really support is using the State to bash religious Jews even harder).
The idea uttered by Smotrich, and supported by the above Open Letter, namely the pig-lipstick of introducing some (some!) Torah law into the goyishe Israeli courts, is discredited every day anew – and it doesn’t fool religious Jews any better than Mohammed’s attempts to give Mohammedanism a Jewish veneer, either (I hope).
Some of the things the regime does are already the exclusive responsibility of Beis Din it inexcusably shirks, so the addition of a state entity is superfluous, while it would be the responsibility of Beis Din to actively stop other things, such as central banking, prisons, the army draft, centralized water supply, etc.
Yes, let’s get serious about applying Halacha to every walk of life (but not like this). This entails, as a very first measure, abolishing the state. Legislative “reforms” are always and everywhere a sad joke. Is Kedushas Tzion endorsing the coercive methods of Brit Hakanna’im“?!
And it’s easier to secede in a million ways little and large and then lead the seculars our way by shining example (not war!) than to get the Knesset to vote on its dissolution, like the USSR (Heh!). At least they aren’t into political activism yet…
In this connection, see this past article, too.
And speaking of vital disagreement with Kedushas Tzion, I see current Judaism’s ailment as far deeper than “missing kosher Zionism”, so my general strategy is, too, accordingly different.
To quote myself:
… I notice the Kedushas Tzion writers take care not to name their opponents. This is probably due to the Gra on בנפל אויביך אל תשמח.Myself, I have a different strategy. See, if these topics were merely about ABCD, then surely we should guard the dignity of the mistaken (for many reasons). But in this case, “The issue is never the issue”. The specific issues are supposed to be a hook to get the reader to re-examine everything else he learned from his rabbis.I want him to think: If they could be wrong on so basic and obvious a matter as ABC, what else could they be wrong about?