The Tzohar (Window) Rabbis Organization is a group of religious-Zionist rabbis who seek to present Orthodox Judaism in a tolerant and welcoming fashion, especially in conducting weddings for secular couples, with whom they meet numerous times before the ceremony. One prominent Tzohar member, Rabbi David Stav, spoke with Arutz-7 today about yesterday's Knesset vote rejecting civil marriages in Israel:
"The situation is very complex, and seemingly has no way out - but not quite. The problem is that we have hundreds of thousands of citizens - Jews, doubtful Jews, and goyim - who are not permitted to marry according to Halakhah [Jewish Law], while on the other hand, no normal state can permit such a situation to exist within its borders.
"It is clear to me as a believing Jew who believes that we must maintain our traditions and laws that to allow civil marriage means to legitimize assimilation - but at the same time, how can we tell hundreds of thousands of people that they can't get married except by going to Cyprus? This appears to be a no-win situation.
"However, I believe that we must look for solutions in two directions: One is conversion - i.e., encouraging more non-Jews to convert. Many of them, of course, will not want to take on the 'yoke of the commandments,' and so another partial solution must also be tried, namely, investigating intensely into the backgrounds of those who are listed as having 'no religion' and seeing whether they in fact may be Jewish. I think that we must make the efforts to interview grandmothers and relatives, and we will find that a certain portion of them really are Jewish.
"We have not yet internalized that this is an emergency situation... If we do not take action now to remove as many people as we can from the 'no-religion' column, there will soon be no way to ascertain the Jewishness of those who really are Jewish, and their children will have the same problem a few years from now."
Rabbi Stav said that contrary to the perception that many secular couples do not want to marry according to Jewish Law, "the fact is that we have thousands of couples who have turned to us, and who are now good-will ambassadors to the secular public. We see in many ways that secular Jews have not turned their back on Judaism; in many ways we see that they want to be connected. The idea that the religious public has 'what to sell' and what to teach is gaining momentum in wide circles. We, and others who do the same, realize that every couple to whom we can present a positive picture of Judaism, without changing a whit of traditional Halakhah - meeting our wives and our families, and talking openly and heart-to-heart - is another generation of Jews that we have preserved. These couples then send their friends as well, and the demand is currently so great that we are not able to meet it. We feel that this is truly 'holy work.'"
"The situation is very complex, and seemingly has no way out - but not quite. The problem is that we have hundreds of thousands of citizens - Jews, doubtful Jews, and goyim - who are not permitted to marry according to Halakhah [Jewish Law], while on the other hand, no normal state can permit such a situation to exist within its borders.
"It is clear to me as a believing Jew who believes that we must maintain our traditions and laws that to allow civil marriage means to legitimize assimilation - but at the same time, how can we tell hundreds of thousands of people that they can't get married except by going to Cyprus? This appears to be a no-win situation.
"However, I believe that we must look for solutions in two directions: One is conversion - i.e., encouraging more non-Jews to convert. Many of them, of course, will not want to take on the 'yoke of the commandments,' and so another partial solution must also be tried, namely, investigating intensely into the backgrounds of those who are listed as having 'no religion' and seeing whether they in fact may be Jewish. I think that we must make the efforts to interview grandmothers and relatives, and we will find that a certain portion of them really are Jewish.
"We have not yet internalized that this is an emergency situation... If we do not take action now to remove as many people as we can from the 'no-religion' column, there will soon be no way to ascertain the Jewishness of those who really are Jewish, and their children will have the same problem a few years from now."
Rabbi Stav said that contrary to the perception that many secular couples do not want to marry according to Jewish Law, "the fact is that we have thousands of couples who have turned to us, and who are now good-will ambassadors to the secular public. We see in many ways that secular Jews have not turned their back on Judaism; in many ways we see that they want to be connected. The idea that the religious public has 'what to sell' and what to teach is gaining momentum in wide circles. We, and others who do the same, realize that every couple to whom we can present a positive picture of Judaism, without changing a whit of traditional Halakhah - meeting our wives and our families, and talking openly and heart-to-heart - is another generation of Jews that we have preserved. These couples then send their friends as well, and the demand is currently so great that we are not able to meet it. We feel that this is truly 'holy work.'"