Moving Past Purim: On the Charedi Paradigm Shift

This year’s WZO elections—voting has already begun—involve unprecedented controversy in the Charedi space. Eretz Hakodesh, a Charedi party which boasts a range of senior Israeli-Charedi members, is seeking to grow its share of the vote and win greater sway in the influential Zionist organizations. And it’s doing so against the explicit instructions of Rav Dov Lando, shlita, the leading rabbinic authority in Charedi Israel. In this short piece, I will try to make sense of this anomalous situation. To do so, I will employ the contextual framing of Megillat Esther.

The story of Esther is the story of the Jews in their exilic condition. It is about how, notwithstanding powerful adversaries and unbridled evil, the Jews lived to tell the tale. It teaches us that even in times of weakness, deprived of land and sovereignty, vulnerable to the capricious whims of an unscrupulous monarch, the Jewish People will survive. It is about how God, even in His ostensible absence, remains somehow present, guiding us by means of actors who are entirely oblivious to the role they play in the destiny of the Jews.

Are we still living a Purim story, albeit in a new setting, or have we moved to a new, post-Purim era?  While the jury is still out on this question, I will argue that the paradigm shift has already begun

Many important and insightful points emerge from the Megillah story and its exilic context. Among them, I will focus on one: the accusation that Haman levelled against the Jews and its ultimate resolution. This discussion will lead me to reflect on the greatest question facing Charedi society today: Are we still living a Purim story, albeit in a new setting, or have we moved to a new, post-Purim era?  While the jury is still out on this question, I will argue that the paradigm shift has already begun.

Dual Loyalty in Megillat Esther

The Talmud teaches that Haman’s lashon hara (“evil speech”) against the Jewish People was unparalleled. These are his words, as cited in the Megillah: “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to suffer them.”

Of course, a huge empire like ancient Persia will include a range of distinct ethnicities and nationalities, many of them with their own customs and cultures. But while these are tolerable or even desired, enriching the empire with a range of colors and creeds, the Jews are different. Their otherness is forever jarring, never blending in as one hue amid a harmonious collage. Every societal ill is projected onto the Jew’s ultimate otherness, and his fidelity to the empire is thus forever suspect.

Today, we have a name for this age-old “Jewish problem.” We call it “dual loyalty.”

“We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation,” said French nobleman and lawmaker Clermont-Tonnerre in 1789, “and accord everything to Jews as individuals.” Clermont-Tonnerre was a progressive who fought for the individual rights of Jews, but only on the condition that they entirely repudiate their Jewish national identity and adopted the French one in its place:

We must withdraw recognition from their judges; they should only have our judges. We must refuse legal protection to the maintenance of the so-called laws of their Judaic organization; they should not be allowed to form in the state either a political body or an order. They must be citizens individually.

Alongside standard Christian anti-Semitic tropes, the deeper case of his rivals was that the Jews, in their exilic condition, would always be a nation within a nation

His colleagues, less generous toward the Jews, understood the simple fact that Judaism is not merely a religion or creed, but a nation. Jewish denial of nationality cannot be sincere. The case for emancipation that Clermont-Tonnerre raised was that “we cannot have a nation within a nation.” Alongside standard Christian anti-Semitic tropes, the deeper case of his rivals was that the Jews, in their exilic condition, would always be a nation within a nation.

Esther, the heroine of the Megillah, presents an early embodiment of the dual loyalty issue. Though queen of Persia, Esther acts selflessly on behalf of her people, emphasizing her national belonging through. When begging the king to save the Jews, Esther includes herself with the nation: “For we have been sold, me and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed and to be eradicated” (7:4). She pleads for her own life as a Jewess (7:3), and ties her fate with that of her people: “For how can I endure to see the evil that will come to my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my countrymen?” (8:6).

Though deeply assimilated—Esther’s children would become Persian princes—Esther thus remained loyal to her own people. Ultimately, Megillat Esther’s solution to the dual loyalty issue is that despite inevitable hatred and persecution, God will ensure that the Jews overcome the challenge. Where, however, lies the solution to the problem?

An Israel-Purim Story

As Theodore Herzl came to recognize so profoundly, the only solution to antisemitism and the dual loyalty problem is a return to Jewish sovereignty. Israel solves the problem by definition, uniting loyalty to nation and state. The Jewish state effectively negates the concept of court Jews such as Mordechai. It allows modern-day Esthers to be part of government as a direct realization of their loyalty to their own nation. Indeed, Jews in Israel are privileged, for the first time in thousands of years, with possessing one passport alone.

But with one exception: the Charedim.

“Observant Jews in the secular state are living in exile, just like their brethren in the Diaspora”—thus wrote Moshe Shenfeld, the official ideologue of Agudath Israel, in the year 1951. The present exile, he continued to explain, bears all the familiar hallmarks: “hatred, libels, decrees, and the degradation of honor.” And how are we to respond? The answer hearkens back to the Megillah. Like all good exilic Jews, we employ the art of advocacy. Shtadlanut. Court Jews.

Fifty years later, Yisrael Eichler pointed to the difficulty of mounting effective advocacy in a condition of exile among Jews. “Among the gentiles,” Eichler observed, “we had agents and activists who petitioned those in high places […] and their mission succeeded in annulling many wicked decrees.” By contrast, in the State of Israel, it is difficult to find loyal advocates: “Can today’s advocates truly raise all ten fingers and declare, ‘We have done all that our Torah leaders commanded us, and in all our actions, we had only the welfare of our constituency before our eyes’?”

In the words of a 2021 Yated Neeman editorial, is that Charedim hold “two passports”—an Israeli passport and a Jewish one.

Eichler was as good as his word. In 2003 he joined the Knesset and, alongside his colleagues in the Charedi parties, became an advocate on behalf of Charedi society. Like Jewish life in exile, Eichler sees our exclusive responsibility as internal communities and their institutions: yeshiva academies, Torah scholars, Hassidic courts, religious services, welfare allowances, housing, and all things internal. The state, by contrast, is the capricious overlord himself; we bear no responsibility toward it.

The result, in the words of a 2021 Yated Neeman editorial, is that Charedim hold “two passports”—an Israel passport and a Jewish one. “We can hold a dual passport, Israeli and Jewish,” wrote editor Yisrael Friedman, “so long as there is no contradiction between Israeli sovereignty and that of the Almighty Master of the world.” The trouble, he continued to explain, is that too often this isn’t the case, causing Charedim to cling to their one passport, the “passport of God.” Under such circumstances, our participation in Israeli politics is for the exclusive sake of procuring resources for the (faithful) Jews, or to mention the oft-cited Talmudic expression: “to save [resources] from the lion and the bear, from the torrents of the sea and the depths of the river.”

Non-Charedi Israelis, of course, are strongly dismayed (and often angered) by such rhetoric. Their claim, in a nutshell, is a new version of the dual loyalty argument. Charedim are a deep part of Israel’s government and even have a representation in the security cabinet, yet their primary loyalty is to the Charedim rather than to Israel—which is why, for instance, Charedim refuse steadfastly to serve in the IDF. The Charedim know this to be true, but from their perspective, they are preserving a pure version of Jewish life under threat from the ills of Western ideology and culture. They do their best to assuage the suspicion while relying on Hashem to pull through. It’s Purim all over again.

Yet, a concrete shift is taking place within Charedi society, bringing us to a place of greater identification with Israel and responsibility far beyond the boundaries of Charedi communities. One expression of this change is the Eretz Hakodesh controversy.

The Charedi Paradigm Shift

I recently attended the first ever Oath of Enlistment ceremony of The IDF’s new Charedi brigade, aptly named Chashmonaim (Hasmonean). It was a moving experience. The new soldiers were accompanied by multiple family members, many of whom clearly hailed from the heart (or thereabouts) of Charedi society. Speeches of rabbis and commanders alike were replete with Torah references and deep aspirations for blending safra and saifa, living by the Book of Torah while wielding the IDF sword against Israel’s bitter enemies. The event was run by Charedi standards: Mehadrin food, gender separation, Mincha and Maariv prayers on either side of the ceremony.

As I approached the gathering, I was happy to see a young man I had previously taught in yeshiva, together with his father. But as I drew nearer, I noticed that his father was not merely accompanying his son. Having joined the Phase II army program for older Charedi men, he was embarking on a six-month training course to bring him up to combat standards. Father and son, a pair that resemble your average Charedi family on the streets of Har Nof, had enlisted together for their respective training at the new brigade.

While still small, the Charedi brigade is a sign of changing times. Charedi society is going through a paradigm shift—from two passports to one, from dual loyalty to a single loyalty, or from Purim (the festival of exile) to Hanukkah (that of national renewal). Paradigm shifts, of course, take time, and the Charedi transition is no overnight revolution. And yet, it takes place, shifting in tandem with a changing State of Israel.

Charedi object to the national call to “be like the nations,” the call of those who desire a “neutral state” (with some Jewish flavor) that yearns to join the European Union

Israel’s population has turned distinctly rightwards, a shift caused by demographics, the collapse of the peace movement, disillusionment with the liberal Left, and other factors. The Knesset, the army, the Galgalatz playlist, and other national and cultural institutions are today replete with kippah wearers, shifting their character in tune. Given these changes, it comes as little surprise that Charedim have gradually become more Israeli. Charedim object to the national call to “be like the nations,” the call of those who seek a “neutral state” (with a mild Jewish flavor) that yearns to join the European Union. Their objection is less to a Jewish State per se and more to a Jewish State that doesn’t align with Jewish values as they see them. As the state moves rightwards, Charedim naturally feel an ever-increasing sense of belonging.

The many phenomena of growing Charedi participation within Israel—Charedi state schools (Mamach), deep government involvement, diverse workforce participation, Charedi academic colleges, cultural blending, Internet access, army service, and so on—are thus set to become a paradigm shift. As Thomas Kuhn explains, scientific revolutions occur when anomalies that the current paradigm cannot adequately explain accumulate, causing the scientific community to lose confidence in the existing framework. Finally, a new paradigm emerges. It seems that the accumulation of Charedi anomalies is approaching the requisite dimensions for a parallel shift: a shift from two loyalties to one.

This shift leads to two parallel phenomena present in today’s Charedi society. One is the reactionary positions of factions such as the Jerusalem Faction (the ‘Peleg’), which fiercely opposes any confluence between Charedim and others and argues for militant isolationism. From their perspective, participation in the IDF ‘melting pot’ means the end of Charedi society and must be opposed at any cost. While not officially in this camp, Rav Dov Lando clearly shares the sentiment—hence his fierce opposition to participation in Zionism, calling all such involvement heresy and a desecration of Hashem. In another recent statement, he noted that from his perspective, we would have been better off under the rule of some benevolent Gentile. Megillat Esther, indeed.

Although the Purim story emphasizes the survival of the Jews in exile, its deeper message is that the Jewish people, even in the dark, possess a great light

The other shift, however, which I wish to emphasize, is toward greater responsibility for Israel and greater readiness to be part of the project. While Rav Lando has expressed his opposition to Eretz Hakodesh in no uncertain terms, other rabbinic leaders, perhaps most openly Rav Gershon Edelstein zt”l, supported the Charedi entry into the Zionist organizations, principally because of the wish to curtail Jewish-progressive influences on Israel. Before him, the Nahal Charedi was established with the support of Rav Aharon Leib Steinman, who appreciated the need for a unit that would support Charedi boys in the army. Indeed, the Jerusalem Faction was established in opposition to Rav Steinman’s ‘moderate’ positions.

And the rest is history—a history unfolding before our eyes. Although the Purim story emphasizes the survival of the Jews in exile, its deeper message is that the Jewish people, even in the dark, possess a great light. Hashem’s presence dwells among them even in a distant exile and works not just to ensure their survival but even to bring them home—to a place beyond Purim. After decades of preserving the exilic tale of Esther even under Jewish sovereignty, thus enabling a remarkable rehabilitation of traditional Jewish life, Charedim today are moving past Purim.

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This piece focuses on the paradigm shift taking place within Charedi society. Yet, in the greater vision, the shift applies to Israel collectively. As the Chashmonaim brigade foretells, Charedi entry into all things Israel will not involve simply joining the Israel project on its own terms. It will entail a recalibration of what Israel stands for, joining other seismic changes taking place in Israeli society. It is down to us to ensure, with much toil and labor, that the result will be the very best version of Israel that our collective ‘we’ can imagine.

Picture: a Purim costume reflecting opposition to the Charedi trend toward greater integration in Israel. Credit: Bigstock.