Since the establishment of Israel its civic society has been facing intractable challenges on issues of religion and state; specifically, how Jewish law (halacha) determines matters relating to Jewish identity, the status of women, relationships with and to non-Jews in Israel, marriage, divorce, and other fundamental concerns that impact the way of life in the Jewish state. In many cases halachic rulings are viewed as archaic, not rational and inhumane. This situation leads to great frustrations and divisions within Israeli society. To date, attempts at closing these gaps have not succeeded because the logic and language of the two cultural concepts – that of Jewish law and that of secular, rational reasoning – do not intersect. This rift between cultures and languages is even greater within diaspora Jewry. There, what manifests as a “social” gap in Israel is transmuted into an inability to cope with the exponentially increasing phenomenon of assimilation.
Based on many years of extensive research on halachic rulings, it appears that there is a common source for all the above described difficulties in conceptual understanding. It is the unawareness that Jewish law is derived from a perception of physical reality as a living, breathing and speaking entity, imbued with character, drive and free will, and uses a corporeal language. It is a language rooted in physicality and our connection to the earth from which Mankind was created, and through which Womankind creates new life and hence, culture. It is a source of never-ending creativity. Because of this, physical existence is capable of great influence on the cultures of other nations, and indeed, the derivation of the physical body from the earth also enables Man to connect with the flora and fauna of the planet, as we are all on the same continuum of genetic material, DNA.
In Jewish religious thought, Man’s deep connection with his physical existence mandates a unique way of relating to the Torah. From this vantage point one can come to explain and clarify the halachic rulings that are positioned at the core of the social-ideological conflicts in Israel.
