The demonstration that took place last week in Bnei Brak was a spectacle of infuriating and saddening vulgarity. Women and men come to the home and stronghold of the ultra-Orthodox community to defy and rudely trample on values that are dear and sacred to this community, under the pretext of liberalism, progress, and freedom of expression.
Scenes like those of a man holding a flashlight and blinding the Haredi in front of him with a smug smile, or of a woman in pants signaling to the Haredi woman in front of her to remove her headscarf - were a demonstration of arrogant arrogance and extreme lack of awareness, as well as a complete lack of familiarity with the Haredi public, whose way of life is based on a millennia-old ideology, a faith cast in concrete, and a determination that a thousand flashlights or T-shirts would not break.
Of course, such disgusting behavior cannot be justified.
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But from an internal and deeper perspective, there is another way to look at that demonstration, as well as all the demonstrations that took place in Bnei Brak in recent months: In many places in our Holy Torah it is explained that the final redemption of the people of Israel will not leave a single Jew in exile: "And you shall gather the children of Israel one by one"; "For he will not cast out one who is cast out from him"; "If your cast out be to the end of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you and from there he will take you" and more.
The protesters in Bnei Brak did not come just to anger. This defiance, although the protesters themselves are probably not aware of it, in my opinion its inner goal is to awaken the Haredi society from its slumber, which is made possible by the high walls it places between itself and the rest of the Israeli public, between itself and the people of Israel. This wall is the wall of exile and is also the one that, among other things, delays the redemption.
The redemption of Israel is not something that will happen in the future, that will come when it comes, it depends on our actions and works now, and the true and complete redemption is no longer waiting, it is knocking on our door and it is knocking wildly.
None of us will be saved without all our parts of the Jewish people. The people of the gupiot and the "shame" are also waiting for the clouds of heaven, even if not consciously, and therefore, for their sake, for our sake, for the sake of our children, the walls with which the haredi society surrounds itself must be opened.
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The Haredim are obligated to go out and get to know the people of Israel, to meet them and mingle with them wherever they may be, in the city, in the village and in the field, and to introduce them to the spiritual and mental educational treasures of the Torah, of thousands of years of Jewish education, Torah thought, the importance of the family and ancient and profound wisdom.
In addition, along with our duty to teach and provide, ultra-Orthodox society also has something to learn from our traditional and secular brothers: to earn a living with dignity and well-being and to redeem our children from poverty, to learn a sense of self-worth and confidence, to develop personal expression and creativity, to develop awareness of proper nutrition and physical health, and even to take - those whose Torah is not their art - part of the burden of sustaining and protecting the people and the land.
True, it is scary and threatening, the walls protect the boundaries of the Torah and allow us to provide a Torah education for our children, without fear of external influences, but modernity is already penetrating the walls, it is seeping into the closed reserves that the sector has built, and we must wake up, we must change.
The way to do this is to delve deeper into the Torah, sit on the platform, and find ways that are surely found in the depths of the holiness of our Torah in order to be able to lower the height of the walls and meet with the people of Israel, to give our children tools and "know what to say" so that they can stand against the tempting drift of permissiveness.
Is our faith in the power of the Torah, in the mental and educational structure we give our children, really so fragile? Do we not have confidence in our Torah that can stand up to modernity? The time has come to find other ways to protect ourselves and our children's education, to find a way to instill values and internalize them that is not just isolation, walls, and fear.
The Bnei Brak protesters came to rouse us, my ultra-Orthodox brothers! We have no right to create such a thick barrier between us and the people of Israel.
Is it possible that we are keeping Jews out of our educational institutions just because they dress differently or because they have screens at home? Can we leave Jews without Torah because we are afraid of screens or inappropriate clothing? You shall not stand for the blood of your neighbor!
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A good friend, a returning convert married to a traditional husband, came to check out a Haredi school for children with communication problems for her son who was diagnosed with autism. The principal met them and the first thing she chose to talk to them about was the presence of screens in the house and the replacement of the child's kippah. It was explained to the parents that if the child was accepted into the school, he would not be able to talk about cartoons he watches at home and the like, so that the principal would not receive angry phone calls from other parents. And so, the sweet 8-year-old child remained outside the framework that meets his needs because of... cartoons. Can you, my Haredi brothers, can you really say, "Our hands did not shed this blood"? Souls are crying in secret and you stand by? Until when?!
Progress is not a mistake, it is a challenge that calls us to discover in our Judaism depths that are possible and that are there. It cannot be otherwise! Masses of Baal Teshuva testify to this. How long will our children continue to cling to material poverty, to isolation and reduction in a world where there are no borders between countries, where at the touch of a button one can be in China or Australia, in the depths of the sea or on the summit of the Himalayas?
The wake-up call that was made in Bnei Brak last week should be heard like a thousand screaming zamboras. Public figures, its leaders, and educators, in deed and spirit – we must seek and find ways to open up Haredi society, this is the order of the day. We must find a way to encourage our children to give personal expression to their uniqueness and their talents without abandoning religion, we must teach them to love the Torah and to truly feel that it gives life and vitality and that we cannot do without it.
We must look directly at the challenges and find ways to take our Torah and go out into the world with it. There is a knock on our door! We are being urged to go out, for their sake and for our sake. We must pick up the gauntlet.
