Between Enlightenment and Ignorance -- Daat Emet Leads a Revolution

By Orna Shani

This article deals with the Daat Emet organization, which is trying to create a conceptual revolution within two groups: the Charedi and the secular. It feels the ideological dialogue between the Charedi community and secular society is taking place under conditions of ignorance and confusion of identities and concepts; the Jewish religion is identified with nationality, faith with the religious establishment, and the Holy Writ with god. The revolution which the organization wishes to incite is mainly meant to cause the secular to draw a distinction between Jewish culture and Jewish religion and to accept or reject religion knowingly, not from ignorance. Within the Charedi community the organization wishes to promote critical thinking about "absolute truth."

Revolutions throughout history have come in differing forms and covered the spectrum of fields -- psychology, science, philosophy, technology, economics, and cutural. A diachronic look at the history of Western countries principally shows waves of national sentiment and acceptance of religious oratory and then waves of enlightenment, secularism, and the taking of personal responsibility for life events. These waves, despite the complex connotations, are comprised of true revolutions and changes in societal norms which have taken a heavy toll. By definition, a revolution is always the result of a historical event in whose wake a group of people or a "revival movement" arises, championing a change to the face of society. This is an active proclamation in support of a new order. This article discusses an organization which is provoking an ideological revolution within the secular population as well as the Charedi/religious. The organization calls itself "a movement for social change, enlightenment, and education" and charges at the vanguard of revolution with a triumphant cry.

There was a huge happening in Rabin Square on the occasion of elections to the 17th Knesset (March 2006). Many party slogans were batted about. Media photographers surrounded a number of elected officials, documenting the event and the experience, the drummers, the balloons, the hats, the clowns, the stands, and the hundreds of visitors. Blending in, with no color or costumes -- with only a revolutionary message -- were members of Daat Emet. They distributed a pamphlet, "Democracy/Halacha," with a Magen David-like logo partially in black and partially in blue. Passersby, filled up to here with the courting of various parties, asked about these people's platform and were told, "We're not a political party, but we have a political agenda: we are fighting for a secular Jewish identity."

Members of the organization have tried to start substantive conversations about problematic issues, issues which are not discussed in the media unless the topic of "Who is a Jew" is on the public agenda, as it has not been in recent years. One of the conversations held by the organizations chairman, Yaron Yadan, on that day was with former MK Michael Kleiner. After Kleiner rejected the Daat Emet pamphlet, Yadan asked "Are you against liberalism?" Kleiner answered, with some emphasis, "I'm for religion." "But religion says that men and women…" [Yadan's words are interrupted.] Kleiner: "I don't understand much about religion, I'm secular. I'm in favor of religion. I'm in favor of the Jewish nation, thanks to whom we exist." Yadan, amazed: "I'm not talking about nationality, only religion. You don't understand religion, but you're for it -- isn't that odd?" Kleiner: "I don't know what the religion says." Yadan: "The religion says that one may kill the secular. Doesn't that matter to you?" Kleiner: "I don't accept that. It's your interpretation."

This conversation is a classic example, Yadan states, of the common secular person. The profile of a secular Jew shows an internal double standard towards religion and the religious: on the one hand hard-core secular are closed-off, culturally, from the Charedi communities, but on the other hand bow to their authority. In the final analysis, the secular feel that the Jewish character is preserved by "the learners" and the religious rituals which the Charedi observe. Based on daily interaction between organization members and the secular on issues of state and religion, Yadan says, "Everyone talks about 'The Book of Books' and the Holy Book when they speak of the Torah, but no one really has studied the Scriptures. In fact, the secular are held captive by the myth of the chosen nation, a light unto the nations, but he doesn't really examine these values. Ask a secular person what secular ideology is, and he would say 'What are you talking about?' Many don't even understand that we do have an ideology." Daat Emet is attempting to revitalize the enlightenment revolution which has slowly, since the establishment of the state, died out, and warns against surrender to ignorance. "One day I went to school with one of my children. It was 'dialogue day' between the religious and the secular, so the principal made a display with a doll wearing a kippah. Next to him was a Sabbath challah, a tablecloth, candles, a Torah scroll, tzitziyot. Opposite him was a doll without a kippah, with Walkman earphones and a bubble issuing from him, saying 'What disc do you want to hear?' That's secularism? In a secular school? The principal had not heard of philosophy, science, the Enlightenment, revolution, technological developments, nothing. What is secularism? 'What disc do you want to hear'." It was after this historical event that Yadan decided to go to war against the twin sources of secular ignorance: learning the secular humanistic basket of goods and the religious.

Secular society

The year 2002 was the start of a period in which the organization began to solidify a plan for a conceptual revolution in the secular society. "Only after they understand and know exactly what the Jewish religion and its values are can they understand that to protect Jewish culture without damaging democratic values they must reject religion." The organization began an ongoing lecture tour across the country, in community centers, soldiers' centers, cultural centers, and even universities. The lectures made many of those present feel ambivalent. On the one hand, they felt an emotional attachment to the Jewish religion, and on the other felt frustration over religious coercion. Much of Jewish philosophical literature deals with the unique problems of the State of Israel: a cultural mosaic in which Orthodox Jews live in a national-religious Jewish state, established by secular people who saw and still see religion as their identity and as a tool of government. Therefore, an unavoidable situation in which the secular person who rejects religion feels self-reproach as a member of his nation (Agassi 1984). At one lecture a school vice-principal explained, quite simply, the essence of the problem: "When I object to Charedi, I feel uncomfortable, as though I were anti-Semitic, but I'm a Jew, too." This is why the organization's strategy in the secular community is more complex than it is within the Charedi community.

Another hurdle which creates difficulties in adopting the proper path to infiltrating society is that its views are heterogeneous. Those who do not define themselves as religious or Charedi vary from completely secular to traditional and everything in between. An in-depth study carried out by the Israeli Democracy Institute on the Israeli citizen's definitions of religiosity found that 51% of Israeli Jews fully believe that the Torah and the commandments are Divinely ordained. 50% fully believe that the Jewish people are the chosen nation and 40% fully believe that there is a World to Come. Members of the organization have used statistics like these to discover the most efficient method of preparing this public for enlightenment and critical thinking which will, in the end, lead to an understanding of how important it is to separate religious institutions from the state.

The fig-leaf of the "problem" of the secular Jewish identity was fully exposed when the organization held a dialogue with students in a secular school. "I asked these students to define 'secular' and 'religious.' I divided the board into two columns and they began to speak: 'Religious is moral,' 'religious is fulfilling the commandments,' 'dons tefillin,' 'believes in G-d,' 'keeps the Sabbath.' When I moved on to the secular column, it was 'does not observe the Sabbath,' 'does not believe in G-d,' 'does not don tefillin.' Secular values were utterly abandoned in the face of religion and its symbols. The whole world of enlightenment, humanism, and modernity was expressed as 'not.' That's why it was decided that educational sessions in secular educational institutions would become top priority. Daat Emet currently is formulating a specific and a generalized plan. Organization members are aware that becoming part of the Ministry of Education curriculum is a utopian vision, though it is necessary. They believe that reality will force the educational system, sooner or later, to teach such a curriculum. In the framework of this curriculum religion would be studied from the critical academic angle, not faith-based. Religion would be studied for its inherent qualities along with religion as anthropological discipline and as Jewish history. In addition, the curriculum would focus on secular ideology in its modern incarnation and its development throughout history. To illustrate Yadan states, "Under this system religion will be studied separate from Judaism." "The pilot group," he goes on to explain, "includes educators, educational advisors, psychologists and academics who can influence the Education Minister and her office, along with all the relevant bodies, into accepting this curriculum." Yadan brainstorms with advisors to create a program of seminars and lectures for teachers, college students, and youth groups. Yadan sees his undertaking as a social mission, a contribution to democracy, and dedicates every moment to the topic. His workday begins at 7 a.m., when he answers questions about morality, democracy, the Talmud, secularism, pluralism, Halacha, and religious rulings which have been sent to the website. Afterwards he turns to the writing of articles which are published on the site and in some university libraries. In between he takes phone calls from parents whose children are being turned religious, meets to advance the movement's ideas, updates the media spokesperson about a pro-religion judge, and speaks in the evenings at cultural centers and parlor meetings. He is also the father of eight.

Yet to be finalized is a detailed curriculum which will base their outlook on religion and the religious, on democracy, secularism, and on being Israelis on a foundation of knowledge and not ignorance, on principles. Yadan says that students in the educational system should leave school with a clear understanding of the chasm between the secular and the religious outlooks. While the former follows a set of humanistic values in keeping with civil law and general social responsibility, placing man and his happiness as the central value, the latter champions "worship of G-d at the expense of man's happiness." Yadan has many plans, some of which are being realized right now. Academics like Prof. Michael Harsagur, Prof. Uzi Ornon, Prof. Eliyah Leibowitz, and many others think that Daat Emet has taken upon itself an honorable task at which the state-run educational system often fails -- educating students to think rationally in the face of Jewish religious fundamentalism. Daat Emet's reasoned argument with religious faith as a source of authority must be broadened at a time when "secularism is seen as an empty vessel," as Prof. Yael Amitai has put it.

Charedi society

The emphasis in the Charedi community, Yadan says, is fostering critical thought. Since the Charedi culture, as described by the philosopher and researcher Shwed, "was created with the consciousness that it is the result of a Divine revelation," the seeds of revolution must sprout from within, from the tents of Torah. And so, says Yadan, "if they understood that it's all a human creation then they will not be obligated to stick to laws which do not match reality and are not moral in our times." If this conceptual change succeeds, it will undoubtedly be recorded in history books as a revolution.

His friends call him a "young Leibowitz," and author Chaim Be'er has called him "the last of the enlightened." His enemies, the Charedi, call him a "son of the wicked Bilaam" or "destroyer of Israel," but all agree that he has an organized doctrine and that he proselytizes for his ideology. Daat Emet is a non-profit organization founded in 1988 by Yadan, a former kollel head who left religion. Its goal is to distribute critical Torah style texts [pamphlets] in yeshivot, synagogues, and Charedi households. The critical essays are unique because [organization members state] they reveal the contradictions and scientific mistakes in the text, errors which cannot be reconciled with empirical reality and which therefore cannot be Divine. The second arena on which organization members concentrate is the issue of morality. The organization's chairman states that "When you emphasize the lack of morality in the Torah, you see that it was not written by G-d, for the believer sees G-d as a symbol of purity and morality."

A description of the following incident, one of many, represents one of the ways organization members work within the Charedi community: Daat Emet activists entered yeshivot in the middle of the night and inserted pamphlets into gemaras and onto shelves. In the morning, when the students came in for prayers, they find the pamphlets and immediately got together to tear them up, based on instructions by the head of the yeshiva or their teacher, and the remains were thrown in the trash. At the same time, a notice was posted on the yeshiva bulletin board warning against the reading of the "heretical pamphlets" and demanding that they be torn up and burned. In the wake of repeated 'events' Charedi agents complained to the police, and recently the magistrate's court ruled that this activity is trespassing and is no longer permitted. Presently this activity is mainly carried out through the mails or organized street distribution in Charedi areas.

Yisroel [a man who left religion and became a member of the organization] tells, in his own words, what many others have described:

"I was in yeshiva and one day we found pamphlets in the talmuds. They took the pamphlets and asked us to destroy them. I read a little before the pamphlets were destroyed; I wanted to see where Chazal erred. In yeshiva, afterwards, all the students were forbidden to leave the campus and they told our parents to keep track of our cell phone conversations."

Tracking phone calls would show if a student called the organization and left religion, for they claim that the organization 'hunts' the confused and encourages them to leave religion. Students who had not lived through this experience knew of similar occurrences in their own yeshivot or in other yeshivot, and one way or the other the students were puzzled about why it was forbidden to read the pamphlets. "What could be in there that they are afraid of? The pamphlets led me to understand that they are keeping something from me, covering up. There's no point in my refraining from everything enjoyable just because they think I should," explains Chaim [who has left religion]. Chaim and other Charedi, who having thought things over decided to leave religion, claimed that just because the community is conformist in principles of faith doesn't make those principles the proper path.

The organization has become a name in the Charedi community since the apostasy in the pamphlets is based on the words of the sages, halachot, the hallways of Torah. Ignoring the organization may be interpreted as ideological surrender. Tzvia Greenfield, a Charedi woman who has established an institute for tolerance and democracy, writes that the Charedi community must deny the possibility of religious doubts which might "bother the hearts and minds of the faithful…as though their religious faith has already solved every complex and troubling issue of uncertainty or incompatibility in their lives." Since nearly all of the pamphlets are imbued with Judaic content, the Charedi press and rabbis launched a media attack as a means of defending the one true faith. Everyone wrote articles and booklets in answer to the statements and difficult questions raised by Daat Emet. A well-known head of a yeshiva protested the term "Booklet of answers to the pamphlets," as the idea of answers implies real questions which the answers address. "Two schools of thought arose to address the phenomenon of Daat Emet," wrote a Charedi paper. "One says to minimize the impact of this terrible phenomenon, even at the price of letting some members of the cult who have been discovered in yeshivot go, as long as the great shame is hidden. The second says to uncover and reveal the truth…"

Another hole through which the critical remarks of the organization penetrate is their website. In recent years religious and Charedi forums have been established on websites like Yotzim B'Shelah, Sholaim et haRav, Atzor Kan Choshvim, and Charedi ben Torah. According to Barzilai-Nahon, these sites are meant to strengthen and preserve the communal hierarchy and are under the strict supervision of spiritual leaders. They are undergoing social change and localization through discipline, supervision, and control, but many of the sites also deal with critical writings, albeit negatively, be it for sophistry or to answer the claims the critical essays raise. Therefore the closed communal net is opening and critical elements penetrate -- including the organization's words.

It can therefore be said that Daat Emet has penetrated and is penetrating the Charedi communities and is slowly creating question marks where exclamation points are the essence of existence. The organization has added a voice to the sole uniform voice of the Charedi community in matters of Halacha, an alternative voice. Thus "Judaic studies" has become a topic of debate -- the start of a revolution.

Notes and Sources

1. Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz was a Charedi scientist and one of the most important Jewish philosophers. He believed that the entire Torah is a human creation.

2. A revival movement is defined as a conscious effort by a number of people in a society to build a more satisfactory culture. There is a specific chain of events in any revival procedure: at first a person comes along with an ideological model. Then the man passes his ideology over to those around him. The central figure and his followers go throughout the country and publish the ideology with a view of bringing more members to their movement. In the next step, the 'adoption stage,' the movement engenders a certain resistance and must suit itself to the conditions of those who join. The final step is a social revolution in which the majority of society accepts the doctrine and builds a lifestyle in keeping with it.

Yosef Aggasi, 1984
Between Religion and Nationality: Towards a national Israeli identity. Tel Aviv: Papyrus and Tel Aviv University Press.

Tzvia Greenfield, 2001
They are afraid: How the Religious and Charedi Right became a leading force in Israel. Tel Aviv: Yediot Acharanot.

Karen Barzilai-Nahon and Gad Barzilai, 2004
Cultured technology: The internet and religious fundamentalism. In the webzine of the Israeli Internet Society, http://www.isoc.org.il/fr_reload.html?magazine/magazine.10.

Eliezer Shwed, 1996
Towards a modern cultural Judaism.

Yom HaShishi newspaper (January 26, 2002).
Yated Neeman newspaper (January 21, 1999).

http://www.daatemet.org.il/

http://www.tzavpius.org.il/guttman/research.pdf

"Kaveret"- Journal of the Department of Behavioral Sciences.
July 2006