Moshe Feiglin will not serve in the next Knesset. I usually disagree with him, but I enjoy his original voice. This week he also challenged the discourse. Faced with the myriad embarrassing affairs at the top of the police force, everyone called for stricter enforcement and punishment and for more complaints.
But Feiglin wrote: "The only cure for sexual harassment in the police, the army and similar organizations is to implement strict adherence to the 'laws of uniqueness' in the organization. The sages descended to the human soul. These laws are not about putting out fires but about preventing them. Investigations and punishments will not help.".
Before calling him primitive and also snickering about "exclusion of women," it's worth thinking again. Halacha, and this may be surprising, does not give much trust to humans. It asks that we keep our distance to avoid even entering the danger zones.
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
Does it seem strange that a man and a woman wouldn't be alone together in a closed room? It seems even stranger that one after another is being investigated for abuse of power and harassment. Of course, this doesn't mean that someone who defines themselves as religious is automatically righteous. No sector is immune.
But setting clear boundaries and red lines far beyond what the law requires can certainly prevent such cases in the future.
A month and a half before the elections, two comments:
• So this is the final party map: three parties running on the right-wing issue (Likud, Jewish Home, Eli Yishai), four parties competing for the religious or haredi vote (Shas, United Torah Judaism, Jewish Home, Yishai), two competing for the left-wing votes (Meretz, Zionist Union), and no fewer than four squabbling over the center votes (Zionist Union, Kahlon, Liberman, Lapid). Which means: a big headache for anyone trying to form a coalition. Oh, and there is also, thank God, one unified Arab party.
Faced with this mess, one of Naftali Bennett's associates put forward a sobering opinion this week: To ensure a Netanyahu government, Bennett needs to "give" a mandate or two to Likud, so that Netanyahu receives more from the Zionist camp.
In order not to lose and waste tens of thousands of votes for the right-wing bloc, Bennett also needs to "donate" a seat or two to Eli Yishai, otherwise the bloc map will be to his detriment. It sounds strange, but realistically, Bennett with 16 seats could be much weaker than Bennett with 12 seats.
His great success within the camp could turn into a kind of shooting within the APC.
• The winner of this election, for now, continues to be the video editor.
Even when politicians go out into the field, to the Mahane Yehuda market or to a high school panel, they quickly upload a short video of the strongest part of it. For every significant video, a response video is released within seconds. When Bennett dressed up, Zehava Galon dressed up. When Netanyahu posed as a babysitter, the Zionist Union responded to him after a short time, using his own video.
Prime time is Saturday night. With the release of three stars, the party headquarters unleash their best crop. But the peak is still ahead of us. The really strong material is saved for the last two or three days before the elections, to create momentum. Public memory is short. There's no point in using all the artillery now.
The dream at Likud headquarters, by the way, is the following video: After Netanyahu agreed to play a kindergarten teacher and a babysitter, achieved success and finally felt that he too was starting to radiate coolness — it was time for a video with Sara. Yes, the prime minister's wife in the video has her own sense of humor, referring to everything, laughing at everything, from bottles to babysitters. For now, the idea remains only on paper.
And in fact, the videos are not only managing the election campaign, but also the relationship between the West and radical Islam. After all, the ISIS organization, by contrast, also lives from video to video.
His effective use of technology is astonishing. The fact that at the end of every horrific fire or brutal beheading there is a sophisticated iPhone is certainly disconcerting. It reminds us once again that technological progress does not guarantee moral progress. And the Western response, time and again, indicates the depth of the embarrassment.
""We slaughtered a Japanese!" the terrorists announce, and the official response is: "We will examine the video.".
""We burned a Jordanian pilot!" they exult in the sands of Syria, and in the West they respond in a way that is sure to be very discouraging: "Our intelligence experts will check the reliability of the documentation.".
In fact, all of these issues also arise in the Ten Commandments, which are the focus of this week's parashah. The parashah of "Yatro" describes the situation at Mount Sinai, and the ten basic commandments that the people of Israel receive there. "Thou shalt not murder" was said then, but thousands of years later there are those who murder, and sometimes precisely in the name of Allah. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," it says there, but there is a great distance between the requirement in this week's parashah and the police cases.
""Honor your father and your mother," "You shall not steal," and so on and so forth — this basic and ancient text that is read in the Torah this week continues to challenge humanity.
This week I found a letter in my mailbox from the Jerusalem Municipality. What could it possibly be? At best, it's a kindergarten registration, at worst, a traffic report, and if not, then it's probably some routine property tax payment.
But from the white envelope came a decorated page on which was written in festive letters: "Generations of Jerusalem. A project designed to commemorate the name of every baby born in the city. To preserve the memory of every link in the chain. The Jerusalem Municipality sends elegant congratulatory certificates to the homes of families blessed with the birth of a baby. The names of all the children and the names of their parents are recorded in a book displayed in the lobby of the Jerusalem Municipality.".
Maybe it sounds kitschy and cheesy, or maybe Nir Barkat just wants to be re-elected, or maybe it's only after giving birth that this gesture seems particularly moving to me. But I stood by the mailbox and read it over and over again.
If at the beginning of the last century my grandmother had been told that one day her granddaughter would receive an official blessing from the Jerusalem Municipality, for the birth of a baby in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, she would not have believed it.
Next to the golden logo of the roaring lion, a verse from the Book of Zechariah is also written in the greeting: "Old men and old women will still sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each leaning on his hand for many years, and the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets." An ancient prophecy that is coming true, as if by chance, in every nursing home in the capital and in every slide in the city's kindergartens.
Jewish status: ""If Israel were missing even one person, the Torah could not have been given. Everyone is needed, from the greatest of the great to the least of the least" (The Lubavitcher Rebbe)
• The column is published in Yedioth Ahronoth
