Religion: Guiding the Next Generation's Seculars

A rite of passage: a secular boy's bar mizvah at the wailing wall - a boy is welcomed to the congregation  © D-A Vider 2017

Israel's Jewish orthodoxy and secularism differences is hard to understand from the outside. Israeli supporters sometimes assume people's culture and lifestyle to be mostly governed by religious principles. Israeli detractors see most secular Israelis as non-believing heathens (or at least atheist). Somewhere in between lies real life here. The Jewish orthodoxy in Israel is governed by traditional rituals practiced over two millennium. Some believe these are practices formed over the last four hundred years in the eastern European diaspora. Some practices also come from Arab and near-east countries also formulated over the last five hundred years. On the other hand, secular Judaism is a mix of beliefs and practices which are both derived from orthodox ones and newly invented ones. Some go back only to the early Jewish settlers in Israel a little over a hundred years ago.

Arguably, a bar mizvah is one of a man's most important rite of passage. The ritual entails reading from the Torah scroll. The "portion" read is the one which corresponds to the synagogue reading on the boy's birthday. The tradition of reading a portion of the Torah each week has been followed for as long as we can remember. The ritual essentially gives a thirteen year old boy the permission to read from the Torah in front of the congregation. This ritual is by far the most common and agreed to among all Israeli Jews: from the orthodox to the secular. While other rituals may be practiced differently in each religious stream, this one is followed strictly by most Israelis. Most Israelis have their own opinion why certain rituals, beliefs and values are common among us. We are not sure why certain values and rituals are practiced by each religious stream, but we are certain how Judaism, regardless of how it is practiced, is a common thread. The challenges we face between us is how to keep our core rituals while keeping the wide gap in everyday life practices. Some of us are more undecided than others on how strict we are going to follow the ritual practices. Some of us are more worried about the seculars losing millennia old traditions. But as a whole, we try to keep our values and respect another's ritual practices. It's hard to tell this story in a short blog post, so ask questions and make comments to get a better feel of religious ritual practices in Israel.