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STEPPING OUT

One of the great dilemmas that plague any individual is one’s relationship to the general community that one lives in. What if the standards of culture and behavior of that general community do not match those of the individual concerned? Is one entitled to withdraw from the community because of this divergence of views and beliefs? What is one’s responsibility to a community that does not meet one’s standards and expectations?

These are important issues especially relevant to everyday Jewish life here in Israel. A large section of Israeli society, principally, though not exclusively Arab and Charedi, has no connection to the society at large or to the national agenda. In Jewish life in the Diaspora this situation has occurred before and no unanimously satisfactory solution was found. I think that it will be no less difficult to find some sort of solution in our current Jewish national state.

The inclination to step out of the general society is very strong within the Jewish psyche and memory. Though this attitude exists in all sections of Jewry, it is manifested especially in the society of religious Jewry. There the splitting into small individual groupings has become the norm. Large synagogues are no longer the usual house of prayer. Instead there are hundreds of small prayer groupings each one contributing little sense of unity or community support to the general larger society. This is the situation all over the Jewish world today, here in Israel and in the Diaspora as well.

In the nineteenth century, in Germany, the Reform movement swept German Jewry into its agenda. At that time many thousands of Jews chose to advance in German society by converting to Christianity. Reform ironically saw itself as a force against such a wave of conversion. The leadership and control of the kehillot – the Jewish communities – of Germany, which were part of the mandatory governmental organization of those communities, passed into the hands of Reform. The general membership as well as the majority of the members of the kehilla was Reform.

The leaders of the kehillot were willing to meet the communal needs of the remaining Orthodox minority but the general agenda of the community was clearly in line with the programs of German Reform Jewry of the time. The question that faced German Orthodox Jews was whether or not to remain part of the general kehilla system. In Frankfurt am Main, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch established his famous austritt community. Austritt literally means “to step out.” Rabbi Hirsch’s community left the general Jewish kehilla of Frankfurt and established its own independent kehilla. However, great rabbis disagreed with Rabbi Hirsch’s approach, foremost among them Rav Bamberger and Rav Hildesheimer.

The majority of Frankfurt’s Orthodox Jews did not follow Rabbi Hirsch’s austritt community but remained part of the general community, even though its agenda and leadership was not in accord with their traditional beliefs and lifestyle. In Eastern Europe Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin warned against following Rabbi Hirsch’s lead in the Lithuanian communities that were beginning to be dominated by secularists. He wrote strongly against separating from the general community saying that this type of division among Jews led to the destruction of the Second Temple.

So here we have the two divergent views as how to deal with the problem of belonging to a society or national government that does not appeal to our sensitivities, goals and lifestyle. It seems that the view of Rabbi Hirsch has triumphed in our time. There are undoubtedly various reasons as to why this view has prevailed in our time. The bitter seeds of centuries of secular-religious strife have developed poisoned fruit. The example of the successful “stepping out” of the Chasidic movement in the eighteenth century has undoubtedly strengthened the tendency to step out. The bitter struggle over Zionism, which consumed the Jewish world in pre-war Europe and America and here in the Land of Israel, has unfortunately not ended with the emergence of the State of Israel.

One would have hoped for greater wisdom and harmony among all concerned by now. One would also have thought that we would have realized that we are all in the same boat together. In the middle of an airplane or ship journey there is no option of “stepping out.” I hope that in the new year with its opportunities and challenges, a greater sense of tolerance and togetherness will govern in our society. As such, it will truly turn into a new year of accomplishment and progress.