Yoni Goldstein: Israel’s new Torah study law will bring all Israelis together

In the Torah, the Hebrew word for the Five Books of Moses, there is not a single reference to a kippah, the circular piece of material that many Jewish men, and in more recent times an increasing number of Jewish women, wear on their heads. The closest thing you’ll find is a description of the turban-like coverings donned by the high priests as they conducted their holy service.

Even in the Talmud, there are less than a handful of citations of Jews wearing anything on their heads, and virtually none that suggest a religious obligation to do so. The first significant endorsement for kippah-wearing didn’t come until the 12th century, when Maimonides recommended covering one’s head as an act of modesty.

Four centuries later, the kippah was codified as halacha (Jewish law) by Joseph Karo in his seminal work Shulchan Aruch.

If you just read the Torah, then, you’d have no idea why Jews cover their heads, no historical context for the evolution of one of, if not the most, visible signs of someone’s Jewishness in the modern age. This is because the words, sentences and books of the Torah tell only a fraction of its story. The vast majority is only revealed through deep analysis, as Judaism’s (and Christianity’s and Islam’s) scholars have understood for thousands of years. The kippah is but one example of the scholarly evolution of the Five Books, but it underscores that reading the Torah isn’t enough. You have to actually study it.

Canadian Jews study Torah in a variety of ways — in private Jewish K-12 schools and synagogues of varying denominations, in community classes and at lectures. But Torah study is not a given for a Jew in Canada. You have to seek it out, often at a high cost.

By contrast, in Israel, Torah study is woven into the educational fabric. The country’s public school system features curricular Torah study at a level of rigour that would make many Canadian Jewish schools blush. And that’s to say nothing of the immersive Torah-based context that Israelis engage in on a daily basis, from streets named after the great students of the Torah to (admittedly controversial) laws that prohibit, for example, public transportation companies from operating on Saturdays and labyrinthian dietary rules.

In Israel, you can’t avoid studying the Torah, no matter how hard you try. To be an Israeli is, by definition, to be a student of the Torah.

And now it is also a law of the land. This week, the Knesset passed a new Basic Law — the Jewish state’s version of a living, breathing constitution — stating that “Torah study is a fundamental value in the heritage of the Jewish people and in the State of Israel.”

This is as it should be. While many worry that the government’s Basic Law: Torah Study bill will further encourage Israel’s ultra-Orthodox to skirt mandatory conscription (a subject I have written about recently), few, if any, argue the underlying notion that studying the Torah is a core concept underpinning the country’s past, present and future.

The new law is unlikely to make draft-dodging any more trendy among the ultra-Orthodox — the practice is already endemic within that community anyways. There is no legislation that can or will change this. The only thing that might change it is to take a more conciliatory approach. Perhaps by enshrining Torah study, the one thing the ultra-Orthodox value above all else, as part of the national fabric, the ultra-Orthodox in turn will feel more connected to the wider population. Perhaps this is a pipe dream, and undoubtedly it will take a long time, but it’s worth a shot.

For everyone else, though, the new Basic Law: Torah Study bill is an important step in the evolution of defining and publicly affirming what the Jewish national project in Israel constitutes. Eight years ago, the Knesset took a similarly necessary step when it passed the Basic Law: Nation State, which defines Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people,” and rules that the Jewish people hold the exclusive right to national self-determination in Israel.

Previous Basic Laws — there are now 15 of them on the books — have dealt principally with how the country operates, from the government, to the army, to the judiciary, to the economy, to the establishment of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. But, the two most recent additions hold a different kind of weight: they speak to the Jewish state’s soul. Earlier Basic Laws show how and why Israel operates as the only democracy in the Middle East; these ones set out how Israel intends to live Jewishly.

The truth is that all Jews, whether in Israel or not, could use a little (or a lot) more Torah study in our lives, because it helps us understand who we are and why we are that way. It connects us with our history and holds the blueprint for the path forward. Even if this new law fails to build bridges toward the ultra-Orthodox, Torah study can bring the rest of the Jewish community closer in profound ways and help us better understand one another. We are in dire need of that right now.

National Post