Can an age old Talmudic debate shine light on current religious trends in Israel?
In a famous debate in the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Shabbat 21a) the House of Shammai insists that the proper procedure for kindling the Chanukah menorah is to start with eight candles on the first night and to decrease one flame per night ending with a single light on the eighth night. The House of Hillel, in contrast, maintains just the opposite. Night one begins with a single flame and we add a candle each night concluding with all eight flames aglow on the final night. The Jewish law follows the opinion of the House of Hillel and that is what Jews have been doing for millennia.
Each side backs their position with proofs and logic and the topic provides for some great intellectual gymnastics. But could this debate actually shine light on the current religious trends in Israel today?
The Talmud itself seems to ascribe to the notion that as each subsequent generation moves through time and as we travel further from the original Divine revelation of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, we become less wise, possess less knowledge and access less spirituality. As a result, we follow a general rule of thumb that later generations don’t have a license to argue with earlier generations on matters of Jewish law.
Talmudic statements such as: “If the prior generations were like angels then we are human, and if the earlier generations were human then we are like donkeys” (Shabbat 112b) clearly point in that direction.
However, when we look at the current religious and political environment in Israel today we find, much to the dismay and even consternation of our co-religionists in America, that Israel seems to be getting more religious.
Bucking the worldwide trend towards increased secularism, statistics here show that the younger generation is more religiously observant and possesses deeper religious convictions than the previous generation.
Take for example the following study conducted by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics in 2016:
16% of adults ages 55-64 defined themselves as Sabbath observant as opposed to 51% of individuals between 18-24. Even on matters of basic Jewish belief, the younger scored higher than their parents. 58% of Israelis between 55-64 said they believe in G-d, far less than the 80% in the 18-24 bracket.
This clearly shows that unlike almost all other countries in the world where the younger generation is less observant and not as faithful, in Israel the exact opposite is occurring.
The Pew Research Center conducted surveys between 2008 and 2017 on the topic of “The Age Gap of Religion Around the World”. They found that young adults are more likely to be religiously unaffiliated than their parents. This is especially true in North America, where in both the U.S. and Canada younger people are less likely to claim a religious identity. There is a particularly large gap in religious affiliation – 28 percentage points – in Canada (49% of adults under 40 and 77% of older adults are affiliated). The U.S. differential is smaller, though still considerable at 17 points (66% vs. 83%). Europe on average shows a 10-point difference between the share of younger adults who identify with a religion (75%) and the share of older adults who do (85%).
And this brings us to another hot-button topic in Jewish circles in America- the new Israeli governing coalition. Prime Minister elect Binyamin Netanyahu has pieced together a governing coalition encompassing four parties, three of which are comprised entirely of religiously observant Members of Knesset. Combining these three religious parties with several Orthodox members of Netanyahu’s own Likud and we will see Israel’s first-ever governing collation with a large majority of Orthodox Members of Knesset. Contrast this to the early years of the newly founded State of Israel under David Ben Gurion’s leadership or even to subsequent governments and this new reality represents dramatic change.
And, although Jewish leaders of the political left in America are tearing their garments and sitting shiva over this new “devastating” turn of events here, the people have spoken (with a resounding 70.6% voter participation) and it turns out that Israelis are more religious and right-leaning than previously assumed.
In addition to growing numbers of religiously observant youth here, a majority of young Israeli Jews between ages 15-24 also define themselves as right-wing. Sixty-seven percent of Jewish youth define themselves as right-wing (or center-right), while just 16% consider themselves to be left-wing in findings from a survey of Israeli youth by the Macro Center for Political Economics and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
What does all of this have to do with the Houses of Hillel and Shammai and their differing views on how to approach the flames of Chanukah?
Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of pre-State Israel wrote in a letter to a colleague:
“A great general rule is that, even though the world is always in steady moral decline, this is only true from a simplistic perspective, that is, when one looks at actions and deeds of the individual. From this angle, they have indeed fallen and are not equal to those of the earlier generations. But from an inner-perspective, that is, from the perspective of the level of holiness of the entire entity of the Jewish nation, each generation adds to the first generations. The holiness of our relatively small actions and Torah learning add light to the previous generations…and as a result the overall people of Israel contains more light than it did previously.” (Igrot HaRaya vol. 1, 332)
Rav Kook’s perspective can help us understand our Talmudic dispute.
The House of Shammai says we decrease light each night to represent the reality that as individuals, our light decreases over time as we travel further away from the original light of the Torah’s revelation. Each night we remove a candle to underscore the sad reality of our spiritual decline as individuals throughout the generations. On the final night we are left with one pitiful flame representing the spiritual level of the individual soul.
The disciples of Hillel, on the other hand, turn their gaze not to the individual Jew throughout the ages but rather to the entity called Am Yisrael (the collective of the Jewish people throughout time). When we don the spectacles of Hillel, we see a nation that is ever increasing in holiness, adding more and more light into the world and bringing humanity closer to our ultimate actualization.
Where does this leave us? Well, fortunately the Talmud informs us that we follow the opinion of Hillel. But the truth is, we know that already. Just look what is happening here. As the world around us continues its headlong plunge deeper into secularism, the Israeli people, once again have show our ability to swim upstream, against the currents and trends of society around us. As the rest of the world embraces godlessness, Israeli youth are turning to religious observance in greater numbers than ever before.
(note- if you can’t establish if a certain fish has fins and scales, there is another way to determine if it is kosher or not. If it can swim upstream, against the current, it is kosher and If not, it must not eaten. To be a Jew means to model the behavior of the first Jew – Abraham, and to be able to act with conviction and buck the “conventional wisdom” to blaze the trail of monotheism in a world of idolatry).
So, tonight as we complete our kindling of the Chanukah lights for this year and as we prepare for the dark nights of winter to descend, we can take away this heartening message.
Am Yisrael Chai! The Jewish nation lives! But more than that, we are thriving and ascending both physically and spiritually. We have a lot of work yet to do but we are making great progress and forging ahead in the right direction.
Happy Chanukah
