1. A young man dressed in white and wearing a baseball cap approached the stage. With guitar in hand, he inched closer to the microphone and broke into a Hebrew prayer: L'shem yichud kudsha brich hu ushakhinateh. This line is roughly translated into the uniqueness of God, and it is uttered before one fulfills the Jewish commandments as mandated by the Torah. The young man then invited the spirits of the righteous, and especially Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, to join him on stage. At this point, the natural inclination is to think: there goes another weirdo Breslov disciple invading the taping of that wonderful television show with that awful name, The Voice (Why couldnt the producers of the Israeli version simply give it the Hebrew name, Hakol, instead of using the English title-). But then Roi Edry broke into song and ripped the audience including myself to shreds. Besides having an outstanding voice, he also moved naturally, like a rapper. He chose to perform the hit Crazy, a chart-topper sung by the hip-hop group Gnarls Barkley. His appearance and the image it conveyed gave the lyrics meaning. After all, who is the crazy one? Is it the one who is always in a state of self-control? Or is it the person willing to lose that self-control to reap other benefits? Devotion and addiction can take various forms. In the context of the Rebbe Nachman devotee on stage, one could link it to the question of faith in God. Does that make me crazy- the song asks. In positing that question, he suggests that perhaps it is you, the listener, who is crazy for being afraid to devote yourself to a supreme being, to assimilate into a mystic experience, and adhere to the dictates of religious practice. The judges reaction to Edry was indicative of the long way that Israeli society has come in the way it views its identity. Two of the judges were quite moved. The third one loved the singing and expressed understanding of the religious message. There was only one judge who demonstrably ignored Edry in protest. A blessing on prime time television- he wondered, before castigating Edry for the cynical exploitation of God. 2. Israeli society really has come a long way on the issues that comprise its foundation. The history of the Jewish people is inextricably linked to religion and the way in which we view a certain deity the one deity who has come to be known as the God of Israel. The issue here is not a theological one. It is not a debate as to whether God does or does not exist. Even a sworn atheist would acknowledge that the Jewish people have conducted their lives with God on their minds, and that in the Jewish consciousness God is the source of personal and national yearnings as well as the arbiter of all things, good and bad, that befell the nation. Nationalism was never the sole ingredient of the Jewish peoples identity, for it always went hand in hand with the religious element. There was prophecy, and there was suzerainty. There was governance, and there was the Sanhedrin. These twins are in constant struggle, and together they shaped the nations psyche. Toward the end of the 18th century, in what became known as the Haskalah, or the Jewish Enlightenment, the nation decided to embark on a new path. It expunged the religious dimension from its life, rendering it a personal, private issue. In psychohistoric terms, one can speak of patricide. The intellectual elite, which would eventually come to supplant the religious leadership that dominated the old, rabbinical and political order, did away with the entity it considered to be responsible for its dire diplomatic, socio-economic, and political predicament: God. It was not a total banishment, but just like any other instance of patricide, the father figure was deeply repressed. On the surface, the new leadership sought to guide the nation by relying on rational, measurable tools and indices. 3. In our personal lives, it is customary to speak of separation for the sake of individualization, namely separation from our parents, usually by means of rebellion, in order for the young adult to forge an independent identity. The Jewish people sought to sever the umbilical cord that tied it to its God. Initially, the goal was to assimilate into the nations with whom they dwelled. Afterward, it was to formulate their brand of modern nationalism. In both instances, God and, by association, the entire religious package - was lumped together with exile. Therefore dissociation from exile apparently militates toward a holy rebellion against that which is perceived as holy. One can certainly argue that this separation was a correct one. The Jewish people went from a status of living dead, a nation on the margins of humanity, to a people who returned to the history books and eventually to their ancient homeland, in the process doing the impossible: reviving their language and establishing an independent Jewish state. 4. In instances of patricide, the young adult fears the return of the repressed father, fearing that he would regain control over the newfound freedom. The repressor fears that the fathers return could cause his life to revert back to the way it was. This goes a long way toward explaining the fierce arguments that have often been heard in Israeli society for generations. Issues like separation of religion and state, the ultra-Orthodox, religious soldiers in the military, a Jewish and democratic state, and the debate over the Supreme Court, touch a raw nerve that threatens those who see themselves as the spiritual heirs of the intellectual class that spearheaded the holy rebellion. Even the intense argument over our presence in Judea, Samaria, and, of course, Jerusalem stems from the question of identity. These strips of land are not perceived solely as territories. Rather, they mark a focal point in the Jewish peoples religious identity. More specifically, it ushers in the potential return of the ancient Father to the center of Israeli discourse. In his opus The Joy of the Poor, Israeli poet Nathan Alterman wrote in the early 1940s about two characters, a maiden and her dead but alive father. Literary critic Mordechai Shalev wrote that the maiden was a character who came to represent the progression toward Zionist realization, while the father was analogous to the old Jew, or the traditional, religious Jew. There is a symbiotic relation of love and hatred between the couple. A careful reading of the poems reveal the fathers incestuous act of raping his daughter. This unusual coupling led to the birth of a son. This son came to represent the merger between the old Jew and the Zionist, the religious identity and the nationalist one. It is the long-sought reconciliation between two sides wrestling with one another, the two sides that comprise our identity. 5. Israeli society arose on the foundations of that same metaphorical fratricide. In its early years, the religious dimension and God were marginalized. A recent poll commissioned by the Israel Democracy Institutes Guttman Center for Surveys and the AVI CHAI Foundation attests to this reconciliation. Israeli society is coming to terms with the religious aspect of its identity. It is a years-long process that demands patience from all the rival constituencies in society. This does not mean we are returning to a religious-oriented lifestyle that characterized our experience in exile. Every religion, particularly Jewish tradition, is judged by its ability to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances of contemporary life. The face of the Jewish God is akin to the face of the Jewish people, and both change together with history. The process which Alterman referred to is in full swing. As years go by, when the youngster who rebelled against his parents reaches maturity and has a family, he learns to make peace with his parents. He understands that his argument is not with his actual parents (whom he cannot change), but with their image as it is perceived in his soul. It is with this image that he must wrestle until his dying days, until those whom he repressed and expunged and rebelled against come back to bless him in their own way.
