How Not to Perpetuate Judaism in the Jewish State

I am grateful to Mosaic for inviting four such distinguished respondents as Yuval Levin, Ruth Gavison, Joseph Weiler, and Yisrael Aumann to comment on my essay. I am equally grateful to the respondents themselves both for the efforts they have made to address my thesis and for the generosity of spirit with which they have done so. The fact that the differences among us are relatively minor is surely a reflection of the substantial influence each of the four respondents has had on my own thought.

Of the four respondents, the first three all assume that I am making a principled argument for the separation of religion and state in Israel; while agreeing with the main thrust of my remarks, however, they contend that my principles are too weak and my conclusion too strong. For Yuval Levin, I fail to emphasize the exceptional quality of religion as an obligation rather than a choice; for Ruth Gavison, I fail to stress the right of any particular religious denomination not to have the state take the side of its competitors; for Joseph Weiler, I fail to invoke the inherent obtuseness of coercing religious devotion. Each argues that the separation of religion and state, which I am presumed to advocate, is neither implementable nor desirable because it runs counter to the very purposes for which Israel was founded.

There is less to these disagreements than meets the eye—and the reason is that I do not support separation of religion and state in Israel in any of the usual senses of that phrase. Nor, crucially, is my argument a principled one; to the contrary, it is an unprincipled one.