The fanatics within - Jul. 28, 2010

[Quibus_Licet]

"Strange times to be a Jew." That's the master theme, voiced early and
demonstrated often, in a haunting 2007 novel about Jewish messianism,
The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Michael Chabon's darkly brilliant achievement in alternate history
sprang to mind last week, when news broke that if Israel's extreme
right wing ultra-Orthodox -- the Haredim, who control the Chief
Rabbinate--have their way, who is or isn't a Jew will be far more
narrowly circumscribed than ever before in Israel's history.

The Knesset has approved a draft bill that would permit the Haredim to
dictate the criteria for legal Jewish status. They would then hold the
power to exclude thousands of Jewish converts, even many converted by
Orthodox rabbis, from eligibility for Israeli citizenship under the
"law of return" accorded all Jews as aninherentright.

Whether the bill passes or not this time -- Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu reassured panicked Diaspora Jews he wouldn't support it --
it reminds us that, given Israel's electoral system of proportional
representation, the political will of the disproportionately swelling
ranks of Haredim (now about 1.3 million) will, one rapidly approaching
day, dominate the Knesset--and Jewish destiny.

The root of the word Haredim means anxiety, which is what all Jews
should feel about a putative Haredi balance of power. The Haredim are
not simply religious fundamentalists with a prolific birthrate. The
most eschatologically ambitious amongst them harbour lunatic urges to
"force history," to hasten the arrival of a dilatory Messiah.

The Haredim are also not, as many people assume, a more "authentic"
version of Torah-based Judaism. On the contrary. The Modern Orthodox,
who hold that distinction, are rational, civically integrated and
pluralistic in outlook. Haredi Judaism is a fossilized historical
aberration from Orthodoxy. It began as an anti-establishment spiritual
movement, but petrified into a constellation of self-contained
planets, each orb cultishly gripped in its own charismatic-leader
worship, all dependent on, but resisting contact with authentic
evolutionary Judaism.

Many ritually lapsed Diaspora Jews entertain the mistaken notion that
because the Haredim are so fanatically observant of the ritual law's
every tittle, they are spiritually purer or holier than the Orthodox,
or that they are saving Judaism from the extinction they--secular,
intermarrying Jews --feel guilty about facilitating.

Such Jews should worry more about the opposite possibility: that
Israel's parasitic Haredim, most of whom don't serve in the military,
or contribute to Israel's economic and cultural life, could, through
perfectly democratic means, reduce Israel to a farcically retrograde
theme park, an 18th-century Hungarian ghetto by the sea.

In the Diaspora, extreme ultra-Orthodox cults (such as the Satmar in
Quebec) are unassimilable, but at least politically ineffectual. The
problem for Israel, where Haredim do seek and gain power over the
nation, is Haredi messianism. Messianism, with its built-in temptation
to force history by artificially setting the stage for the envisioned
saviour, the world-healing man or system, even at the risk of carnage
and mayhem, is a troubling feature of all fundamentalist beliefs,
including secular "progressive" revolutionary movements.

In what seems like a wildly inventive plot in the Chabon novel,
messianic Jews team up with messianic Christians in a hypnotic folie a
deux around "end times." This version of forced history involves a
literal return to the days of the Temple, including animal sacrifices,
a supposed condition for the Messiah's arrival/return.

But the novel is reality-based. Apparently, in anticipation of a
potential event, a corps of Haredim in Jerusalem have constructed an
intricate scale model of Solomon's Temple, as blueprinted in the
Torah. The original was destroyed by the Babylonians, then rebuilt and
restored (by the Judean king who ordered Jesus' death), and destroyed
again by the Romans. These messianists believe that if they can
actually build this third Temple and sacrifice the Torah-prescribed,
unblemished all-red heifer (which doesn't exist, but dedicated
breeding programs are attempting to create one), the Messiah will
come.

There is, however, this one small problem: The Temple must be situated
where it was in previous incarnations. Since the end of the Seventh
century, that spot has been occupied by the symbolically freighted
Dome of the Rock. It's not going anywhere. That is, not of Muslims'
volition.

So up to now the restored temple remains a dream, not the terrorist
plot in Chabon's novel. The trouble is, as an influential secular Jew
famously said, "When you will it, it is no dream." Do messianist
Haredim merely fantasize about the Third Temple, or are a critical
mass of them "willing" it? With messianism comes irrationality, and
sometimes irresponsibility.

Between "friends" like ultra-liberal Jews on the left and the Haredim
on the right, authentic Jews may not need their other myriad enemies.

bk...@videotron.ca



http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/fanatics+within/3330109/story.html