In most Western countries with Christian orientation, the question itself is pretty obvious. ‘Belief in God’ for a typical American would usually be accompanied by some common Christian behaviors, and since many of these are optional, it could be translated into simple everyday habits. Nothing special that can be recognized by an outsider, unless they specifically ask.

Not so for an observant Jew. The amount of strict rules enforced by Orthodox Judaism is enormous, many of which are directly related to how one is dressed, how they talk, what they eat, you name it. Hence, asking a Jewish person ‘are you religious’ – seems unnecessary. If they are, you quickly see it without asking.

So far, the minority of Israeli citizens of Jewish origins would answer ‘yes’ and be classified that way. Yet, a recent survey revealed 80% of Israeli Jews ‘believe in God’… What is the meaning of this? How can one define him or herself as ’secular’ and believe in God at the same time?

I suppose the explanation has to do with both the way we are brought up and the way our mind has evolved, but whatever the reasons are, the road from ’secular but believe in God’ to ‘religious’ is pretty clear. It is that road that poses the real danger to the future of modern Israel.

“He who sues his friend in their secular court – his sin is unforgivable.” (Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, book published in 1981)

“Thus, a harsh edict, almost incurable, in the shape of democracy has fallen upon the world. That is a horrible disease that spreads and devours from soul to flesh.” (‘Yated Neeman’ – ‘Faithful Tent-Peg’, Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper, January 1999)

“The dark Zionist regime of the last century will be extinct … The supreme court’s halls shall be swept from their current occupants, whose place will be taken … by Sanhedrin [religious court] …” (‘BaKehilla’ – ‘In the Community’, Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper, February 1999)

“The Knesset [the Israeli parliament] as a whole is against the Bible … It does not matter which laws are made there … Even if we ourselves [the ultra-Orthodox Jews] vote and send our representatives there … to prevent harsh edicts … it does not imply any recognition of this institute …” (Rabbi Chaim Shaul Karelitz, a major ultra-Orthodox Jewish leader, article published in May 2000)

“The ideological perverts also named ‘secular’ … which are beasts. Perhaps improved beasts, one must say, as their external shape is human.” (‘HaShavua’ – ‘This Week’, Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper, April 2001)

And the poor “secular” people – what do they say? Where are they? Alas, there are not too many real secular people, especially not in the Middle East. In fact, most of those granted the title “secular” are exactly those mentioned in the beginning of this book, which wander between the “reality mode” and the “religious mode”. The presence of many secular people, so to speak, is more of a worldwide illusion. There are mainly the more religious and the less religious.

Putting people with religious thinking in power may be hazardous to your health. By definition, a person who surrenders his or her sovereignty to some god of their choice is due to surrender his or her free will (and decisions) to the rules dictated by that god. These rules may not always represent the optimal solution in the real world.

Would you put a country’s education in the hands of a leader who believes that all species were created simultaneously? Would you trust a decision about the future of some territory to be purely rational, when one’s god has already sentenced this territory’s future? What about public busses in Tel Aviv during the Sabbath? And letting poor Mr. Cohen marry his loved one, who happens to be divorced, or even recognizing atheists (e.g., heretics) as patriots? Here is what Vice President George H.W. Bush had to say to Robert I. Sherman, a reporter for the American Atheist news journal, in 1987:

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?

Bush: I guess I’m pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.

Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?

Bush: No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

Sherman: Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?

Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I’m just not very high on atheists.

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, a Holocaust survivor, is considered a moderate man. Yet, in his 2005 speech during the March of the Living at the former site of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, while representing the state of Israel, he counted all evils one by one:

“Don’t we understand it easily, what the snake understood? … like poverty, like crime, like ignorance, like atheism, like terror, like anti-Semitism, like atom, like cancer, like AIDS, … isn’t a time that we understand we all must live together?”

Thus creating the equation: atheism = terror and cancer (or pick any other evil of choice).

As opposed to the United States, Israel cannot afford to fall back too much into religion. Yet this process is so clear, that many people simply fail to pay attention to it.

Leaving religion is what made the modern State of Israel, and returning to religion is what will destroy it. Moreover, when this happens, the few remaining secular people will be the ones blamed for the consequences.

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“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” – Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

You’ve probably heard of the term “Separation of Church and State”. What does it mean? For many it means exactly what it says: Let each and every religious person (or community) go about their own business. Let the state (or country) take care of the people’s business in general: Education, economy, defense, etc. In short: Don’t mix personal beliefs with the regime.

Is there a separation of church and state in Iran? Most readers would probably say ‘No’. Is there a separation of church and state in the United States, in Egypt, in Israel, or in other places?

In August 2003 there was a big debate in the American media over the federal court order, to move a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building. Was it appropriate to have the monument there? Hundreds of people demonstrated against the decision to remove it. A quick survey taken by the CNN web site proved the public opinion was more or less split as to whether it should be there.

While it may be argued that the monument simply symbolizes some sort of striving for justice, it’s a little bit more difficult to use the same “symbolic” argument in the case of Israel’s laws of matrimony.

You see, long ago Jewish priests were not allowed to marry divorced women. Since the State of Israel irresponsibly abandoned all formal treatment of matrimony to the religious courts, then at the time of writing these lines (21st century, to remind you), it’s still impossible for people carrying the last name of Cohen to marry divorced women in Israel. In fact, it’s also totally impossible for people who are registered as having different religions (!) to marry in Israel. How do they work around this? Travel to some other nearby country – typically Cyprus – get married there, and return home.

The gluing of church and state in Israel does not end with the Cohens. The very existence of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, sponsored by the Israeli taxpayer, is another clear aspect of the phenomenon. Let alone other religious coercive laws, such as the formal forbiddance of displaying bread for commercial purposes during Passover (it’s still okay to sell it under the table), or the many limitations on raising pigs. Does stopping all public busses in Tel Aviv during the Sabbath make people more Jewish? It probably makes them more pissed off if they don’t own a car, but still it happens.

When Theodor Herzl envisioned the Jewish state at the end of the 19th century, he wrote:

“We shall therefore prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the fore on the part of our priesthood. We shall keep our priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the confines of their barracks.”

In fact, the pre-birth of the State of Israel was at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, by young Jewish people who abandoned the religious way of life in favor of Zionism. Many of them were shunned by their communities, and often by their own families, for the sin of leaving the religion and heresy.

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