Sarid's Synagogue
By Rabbi Berel Wein

(February 8) In the midst of the depressing turmoil of the 
election campaign and the continual killing and shootings on 
the roads, a very encouraging and heartening thing happened. 
Though it was dutifully reported in the press and on radio 
and television, I don't think it was given its proper due and 
analysis. 

The event was the dedication of a new synagogue in Moshav 
Margaliyot, in northern Galilee, hard by the Lebanese border. 

New synagogues are regularly dedicated here without much 
fanfare. But the leading citizen of Margaliyot is Yossi Sarid, 
head of Meretz, a group not usually identified with synagogues. 
Not only was Sarid present at the dedication, black kippa and 
all, but he was the prime mover behind the drive to build the 
synagogue. 

The chief rabbis journeyed up to Margaliyot to participate in 
the dedication ceremony. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau stated, only 
half-jokingly, that this event marked the advent of the long-
awaited "end of days." 

But it was Sarid's statement that caught my attention. He was 
quoted as saying: "You don't have to be religious to attend 
synagogue." 

At first glance, this statement appears to be the perfect 
oxymoron. But I think I know what he meant by those words. 

"Religious" in this country is always associated, albeit many 
times unfairly, with politics, deal making, stridency and 
isolation. He meant that Meretz also has a claim to the 
synagogue, and that its claim should not be judged inferior to 
that of United Torah Judaism, Shas, or the National Religious 
Party, in Bnei Brak or Mea She'arim. 

ONE OF the tragedies in current Jewish life is the abandonment 
of all connections to Torah and the synagogue by secular society. 
Only the "religious" have a right to synagogue attendance and 
Torah study. Secular means never stepping foot in a synagogue. 

What a tragic misreading of Jewish history and life! Torah 
observance has always been a continuum in Jewish life. 
On Kol Nidrei night we state that we are praying with all Jews, 
as a community of Israel. The synagogue and traditional Jewish 
life was always inclusive and not meant to exclude other Jews. 
The error of the Haskala and the Left of the Jewish world in 
the 19th and 20th centuries was in throwing out the baby with 
the bathwater. 

Unfortunately much of the bathwater has been retained, but the 
baby has certainly disappeared. 

Political disagreements will always exist between Jews. But what 
does that have to do with the synagogue? 

People who do not claim to be fully observant should not feel 
themselves to be automatically excluded from the synagogue and 
traditional Jewish life. In this sense, Sarid is perfectly 
correct in his statement that "you don't have to be religious 
to attend synagogue." 

The foolish abandonment of the synagogue by the secular has 
been matched by the possessiveness by the religious of the 
synagogue and Jewish life. The prophet Jeremiah states: 
"Those that grab and hold the Torah for themselves do not 
know Me." 

Too many in religious society are convinced that the Torah and 
the synagogue belong to them alone. This callousness toward the 
rest of the Jewish people is a product of the defensive posture 
forced on the religious community by the attacks of the Left 
over the past two centuries. But this defensive posture, with 
all the isolation and problems that it causes within the 
religious community, has passed its day. 

There is no group in Israeli society that has more to offer 
society than the religious sector. I am convinced that had the 
religious taken a more active part in solving the problems that 
face us today, those problems would not now appear to be so 
severe. 

So Sarid is to be complimented for his interest and efforts 
regarding the dedication of the new synagogue. Lau may have it 
right that this is a harbinger of "the end of days." 

For the great future that we look forward to is not one of 
triumphalism and exclusiveness, of discarding the many striving 
to be pure for those who claim to have already reached that 
level, but rather of a cooperative effort to rebuild the 
Jewish people in the spirit of its tradition and its prophetic 
destiny. 

Synagogues, halachically correct and spiritually non-partisan, 
are a key to realizing the dream of "the end of days."