All the main Jewish communities in Israel find it difficult to deal with the complexity of cultural duality. Barring an inclusive ideological model, and faced with the reality of a democracy in crisis requiring decisions, all are dragged into a kulturkampf. Hence the mutual choice of both religious and secular camps to conduct most of their discourse in a normative language. Normative systems are perceived as effective instruments for reaching a clean decision and a professional, precise victory over the “other.”
The primary responsibility for the overstated centrality of the law when determining cultural decisions lies with Israeli society rather than with the judiciary. Judges do not choose the issues brought before them and are dragged into involvement in cultural disputes by parties seeking rulings in particular cases. They are forced, by definition of their roles, to answer such questions as: Is the conversion valid? Can the street be closed on the Sabbath? Does a same sex partner have rights? The demand for legal restraint in settling cultural questions, therefore, should be directed towards society in general. Legal restraint can be promoted in a society that adopts a culture of open discourse; that has effective institutions for settling conflicts in extra-legal ways at the local and national levels; that is highly consensual, offers political rewards for easing tensions, etc. Having said that, judicial systems should not be exempted from responsibility for exacerbating cultural controversy through their rulings. This is a serious responsibility, which courts and halakhists do not always discharge successfully.[117]
In my view, leaders in both normative systems are not sufficiently cautious regarding the ways in which they allow others to use them in order to reach cultural decisions. They emphasize theoretical positions about the totality of the law and of Halakhah that could prove extremely harmful, since the other side, for whom the norm is crucial, might infer from these pronouncements an intention to deny it a role in Israeli culture.[118] Moreover, people involved in law and Halakhah must, by the very nature of their activity, make value choices. Although the law and Halakhah relate to this necessary feature of judicial work in different ways (the law empasizes it and Halakhah conceals it), both use it to achieve the same aim: the creation of an intellectual environment that will enable them to endorse imperialistic patterns of activity and will legitimize their assumption of exclusive responsibility for molding social reality.
The consequences of translating cultural duality into normative duality, and of reducing the former to the latter, are problematic. Everyone must be aware of the limitations inherent in the law, its language, and its frameworks: a legal decision, whether religious or secular, is contingent and haphazard (according to the factual limitations of the case in point), artificial (because it cannot always include macro considerations), and also unprofessional (since the deciding agent lacks relevant training).[119] Settling essential, fundamental conflicts between two dominant cultures in a given society is an unusually complex task. It cannot be achieved by reaching a “correct” decision, and no extant institution can offer “professional” solutions. The anticipated consensus cannot emerge from the application of an external criterion to the experience of those involved in the process.
From this perspective, the task that Israeli society imposes on the law and on Halakhah is far too heavy. It tends to view them as determinant weapons in the intercultural struggle; it resorts to them as gurus, oracles yielding true answers in a complicated reality. The intensive and inflated use of normative systems interferes with the ability of each community to speak with itself, internally, and with the other, externally. As many in Israeli society have now sobered up from the illusion that power can be the main instrument for tackling problems of security and foreign policy, they must also sober up from the delusion that the law can be the main tool for solving social problems.[120] Just as power is a vital component of foreign policy, so is a strong and independent judiciary vital for the relationships between the tribes that make up Israeli society; and so is a halakhic system that is autonomous (but engaged in a dialogue with “life”) vital for preserving the unique character of the religious way of life. Use of state law and of Halakhah, however, must be conscious and responsive to the limitations noted above and, like power, should be viewed as a last resort in the molding of society. Overuse of the law and of Halakhah erodes the authority of the institutions and the personalities implementing both normative systems. It mars the rule of law as well as the authority of Halakhah and, above all, it activates forces that shred the web of shared existence within cultural duality.
This analysis indicates the need to restrict the role of the law and of Halakhah as the bellwethers in the controversy over the character of Israeli society. The discourse between the two cultures requires a change of venue. Social regulation will not be attained in the courts, but in social and political settings. Normative decisions will not heal society nor daunt the opponents. Over the last two decades, decision-making in Israeli society has slipped from ideological systems, through political arrangements, into legal structures. The slide needs to be reversed.
The real chance of stabilizing Jewish society in Israel—however colorful, multifaceted, and sectarian it may be—lies in the ability of each community to reshape its inner attitude toward the two fundamental cultures of Israeli life. As the analysis shows, the three strategies for coping with cultural duality—compartmentalization, alienation, and abdication—share a common denominator that is the main reason for their failure: they preclude the very confrontation with the meanings of life within cultural duality. Neither of the communities offers its members a texture of identity that is both existentially and spiritually satisfactory and coherent with the community’s fundamental principles. The ideological credo of each community as conveyed, for instance, in its models of leadership or in its cultural products, is detached from the basic needs of community members, who experience the complexity of cultural duality.
It is in the distinct interest of each community, therefore, to clarify its own relationship toward cultural duality. Continuing the present pattern, impervious to the basic questions troubling the community’s members, may eventually harm the very ability of each community to preserve itself as an alternative relevant to future generations. I do not place my trust in an increased sense of national responsibility or a preference for mutual responsibility over particularistic interests.[121] Rather, the particularistic interests of each community are those imposing a need for examining the options it can offer its members concerning ways of coping with cultural duality. Communities anxious to survive must react to the collapse of the strategies that served them in the past. They must engage in an authentic ideological renewal that will seek real and experientially persuasive solutions toward a harmonious, or at least dialectical, existence in a reality of cultural diversity.
The trivialization of the cultural discourse and its reduction to normative discourse were part of an attempt to force determination. But cultural duality does not need a determination.[122] Quite the contrary: all parties can actually yield vast benefits from the existence of a cultural other. On one hand, secular Jewish society in Israel is searching for its own uniqueness vis-á-vis global trends toward uniformity; on the other, religious and ultra-Orthodox society needs renewal to cope with hitherto unknown phenomena, such as Jewish sovereignty, secularism, and the demotion of halakhic law from its position of dominance. These overall trends signal the latent advantages of developing and deepening the discourse between the two basic cultures shaping Jewish society in Israel. Each culture must internalize that living its life within a closed, autarchic system is unworthy (and actually impossible). Instead, they must assume their place as partners in a dynamic intercultural discourse where each will shape the other and be shaped by it.[123] Diversity, then, rather than a dubious blessing, will turn out to be a hidden treasure, for the benefit of all.