"Do everything you can to ensure the future of the people and the country."
Rabbi Haim Drukman established a generation and paved the way for the religious Zionist movement in many areas. Apart from the love of Torah and love of Israel, he has a great message here for today's youth
By Ariel Horowitz – Arutz
Sheva, Small World Magazine, 12 Nissan 5775, 01/04/15 (Translation)
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Rabbi Drukman at memorial service for Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, zt"l |
"The real prize is
the privilege to contribute to the nation, the state, the Israeli public,"
says Rabbi Drukman, "When there is official recognition of this
enterprise, it certainly adds value." Rabbi Drukman’s modest words actually allude to several enterprises: his establishment of Bnei Akiva yeshivas in Israel, his many
years of work with the Association of Hesder Yeshivot and his position as head
of the Israel government’s Conversion Authority. This last role put him in a
severe – some would say explosive – conflict with the ultra-Orthodox Haredi
world.
In his book-lined study at his home in Merkaz Shapira, a small religious community in the south, just a short walking distance from Yeshivat Bnei Akiva Or Etzion that he founded, Rabbi Drukman sits, learning and teaching, advising students and rabbis, in person and on the phone; Looking down from above is a painting of Rabbi Kook, whose name he mentions during our conversation over and over again. Just before Passover we came to his home to talk to him, to try to understand some of his teachings, and to hear his thoughts on religious Zionism, today's youth and Israeli society.
‘Taking off the hat’
When I ask Rabbi Drukman
to recall the religious world that he experienced in his youth, he was not
tempted to glorify the past and put down the present. As usual, he is full
of gratitude for our situation today. "The situation in the days of
my boyhood was far different from the case today. Like [the distance between]
heaven and earth. I was once interviewed on a Channel One TV program, and the
interviewer said, 'Israel is full of religious education, but it is also full of datlashim - formerly religious people!' I replied: 'Let your ears hear what your mouth
is saying: There are also formerly religious people! Decades
ago the majority were formerly religious people! You have to understand
that just a few decades ago everyone was traveling in just one direction: the
off-ramp leaving the path Torah and the Mitzvot.
Boys and girls finished
the eighth grade in a religious school, and that was the end of all their
connection to Judaism. They were drawn to the big ideas of that era: building
the Land, pioneering, Socialism; and it seemed to them that these ideas had
nothing to do with the Torah. We would say, 'so-and so has taken off his
hat' – because in those days the boys would go with hats, berets, in public. Who
ever dreamed that religious youth would go on the street wearing a kipa? How
can anyone not see what a revolution took place? Today there is a world of
tremendous religious Zionist Torah that is unprecedented! We have an entire
population; we have institutions and youth movements. Look at how much
value there is in [religious Zionist] education; how effective it is and how
much it influences."
Are ‘formerly religious’
people today leaving religion for the same reasons as before?
"I don’t think so.
Today, it is usually the religiously weak youth, those without a strong
religious background; boys who went with a kipa but without any commitment to religious Zionist values. If there are internal values, you can stand up to all kinds of crises
and difficulties, exposure to other influences and peer pressure. But if there are
no values, a religious upbringing will not last. Some people are outraged when
formerly religious people are referred to as 'captured babies’ [who never
learned Torah]. They claim that that the formerly religious are people with
great values who turned to another path after thoroughly investigating [religion]. But no
one can convince me this is the reality. [In most cases] it is a weak youth
who comes into contact with a particular social group, and finds it difficult
to resist the peer pressure; so he allows himself to pulled along in order to fit in. What can
you do? It is a sign of lack of character. It is important that we fill
our students with substance and develop their character, [so they will have the backbone] to stand on their own."
Do you think that
secularization is associated only through one’s encounter with another world,
or can is be due to problems in the religious world itself?
"You cannot
generalize. In most cases, it is about a weak character who could not cope with
the reality around him, but there are also youths who were disappointed with
the religious world, so they left. Rabbi Kook, of blessed memory, wrote long
ago that people, by mistake, relate to Judaism through those who they see
practicing it [rather than for what it really is]. Sometimes someone may encounter a rabbi that disappoints him, and because of it he projects that disappointment onto the values the rabbi seems to represent. One needs
to make a distinction between a specific rabbi and whole of the religious
world. It is the identification of Judaism with a specific individual that
often creates the motivation to become secular."
Go to Part 2: Rabbis and Politics
Go to AFYBA Website
Go to Part 2: Rabbis and Politics
Go to AFYBA Website
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