Let’s not forget that the Reform and their partners have been behind the bulk of the petitions to the Supreme Court against the state on religious issues (25 petitions in the last five years). Their biased civil servants write the rules and criteria for government budgets. They’ve even managed to get the high court to issue a directive for government “affirmative action” favoring Reform congregations-without-worshippers. A Jewish rabbi who gets together communities of hundreds and thousands year-round won’t get a penny. But a Reform “rabbi” can collect a monthly wage without working, based on the court’s affirmative action decision. It boggles the mind: a Reform or Conservative congregation with fewer than 50 “worshippers,” who conduct 40 prayer sessions a year, receive a state budget in the name of “equality before the law,” instituted by the Supreme Court.
Alas, while representatives of these organizations and their lobbyists are regularly invited to voice their opinion on every aspect of state and religion, influencing MKs to serve their ends, there is hardly any Haredi or religious extra-parliamentary group to work the same Knesset committees and lobbies. No one invests in a lobby to honor the Shabbat in Israel, to protect the civil rights of Haredi citizens, to promote the housing and employment rights of close to a million Israeli Haredim.
We don’t stand a chance of stopping the activities of those “machers” who are plying MKs with political bribes. But we can and must establish stronger organizations to defend the sanctity of Israel and enter a war using similar means of political persuasion, as the Bible describes Benaiah Ben Yehoyada’s success: “He snatched the spear from the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear.” (Samuel II 23:21).
And all that’s left for us to do is pray to God, “Break the arms of these wicked, evil people! Go after them until the last one is destroyed” (Psalm 10:15), about which Rashi comments: “The wicked in Israel who see other wicked men succeed, are also drawn to wickedness.”
“God is King for ever and ever, the heathen will perish by His land.” (Psalm 10:15).
