Vision

Here are some curious aspects about Israel:

1) Non religious funerals and burials have only been legal for about ten years and have only been offered in the last few.
2) A bill was tabled in the Knesset this month to allow secular marriages. It was voted down after the first reading. (This one really bothers me for some reason, and I had a religious wedding myself!)
3) In the last few Saturdays in Jerusalem, there have been nasty protests involving rocks, dirty diapers and water cannons. The issue: whether a parking lot near the old city can be open on Shabbat.

It appears to me that Israel is a deeply divided country especially amongst the Jewish majority within. There is an ongoing debate between moral responsibility, religious values and pragmatism that is polarizing the Jewish citizens into separate camps that seem to not be able to find middle ground. One on the things I have taken for granted is the separation of church and state as being something desirable. But here, the exact role of religion in politics has yet to be decided.

Fundamentally, the vision of what Israel should be is very diverse amongst its people. Should this be a religious Jewish state? Or should this be a western style democracy protecting all of the minorities? Is Israel more morally responsible for the people they occupy, or to keeping its citizens safe? Should government be religious? Secular? By becoming more secular would Israel just be giving in to the pressures of America? Why should Israel aim to be secular when many of the countries around it don't even pretend? And probably most importantly: did God give us this land or the UN?

I brought up these issues of secular marriage and funerals and parting lots because they matter to people. These issues get argued over and over seemingly without resolution because, silly as they seem, they define the vision and direction of the nation.

Especially in Jerusalem, the population is growing more and more black-hat-wearing due to increased birth rates and immigration. The battle between secular and religious populations is becoming more and more heated.

So when you hear about conflict between soldiers who need body guards from the settlers, or Haredi black-hats throwing diapers and rocks at police over a parking lot being open on Shabbat, the issue isn't the parking lot or that specific group of houses in the desert. The conflict results from lack of a overriding vision of what Israel should be. These minor issues, because they represent the bigger picture of religious vs secular and super-zionism vs pragmatism, are not only fought with media friendly violence, but with political economic and even reproductive enthusiasm.

I had this whole second half to this verbose post relating these ideas to Canada, but The Chicken poo-pooed it. He says people can draw their own conclusions. In a way, I agree. At the same time, his poo-pooing is full of poo, because I don't trust people to think like me and we all know I have never been normal. What is the point of a blog if I can't draw conclusions and ask people to read them? My big point was this: Canada looks completely put- together and refined compared to this pot of political craziness, but there are still issues in Canada's past, present and future that will continually shape what "Canada" is. In some ways we are no different than Israelis, just with less diaper throwing.

Happy Canada Day everyone.