Rabbis’ Initiative: Don’t Vote for Party that Won’t Compromise

“Rabbis’ Initiative: Don’t Vote for Party that Won’t Compromise”

I saw that headline yesterday in a bulletin of Israel news that’s syndicated to a number of shuls worldwide. I thought it was great – finally there’s an initiative, a rabbinic one, no less, that recognizes that compromise is the bread and butter of politics, and that unforgiving idealism will have little or no impact in a fragmented society such as Israel’s. That the failed marriage of religion and politics is due to exactly that tension – we expect that religion remain pristine and clear, but it gets dragged down by politics which are necessarily dirty. So here are Rabbis acknowledging that religion and politics need to separate, so that each can focus on what it does best. What a welcome change!

When I started reading the article, however, I realized that it’s not about that at all. Silly me. I had read ‘Compromise’ where it simply said ‘Promise’. I guess my own little bit of idealism just suffered a reality check, eh? Well, at least this’ll give me something to do after making Aliyah.