Anything new about religion stirring up controversy?

Not since Cain took exception to Abel’s sacrifice.

Don’t take this as an assault on traditional religions. It addresses all religions, because everyone has a religion. Every person must act without complete knowledge. None of us can prove even that reality exists. We all feel a pull nonetheless to find meaning and live meaningfully and we must take our steps towards that in faith that the effort justifies itself. (RELATED: Today’s Youth: Digital, De-Churched, and Depressed)

We have all felt the abrasion of someone else offending our deepest sensibility, our foundational level of organizing and integrating the unending flow of phenomena into coherence.

We have often tried to resolve these conflicts by using power. Antiochus Epiphanes, Ferdinand and Isabella, and Josef Stalin all tried to establish ideological uniformity by application of violent power.

The emergence of political freedom in the modern West is characterized by the opposite — religious freedom is a litmus test of democracy.

But the commitment to religious freedom is put to the test every day. Two hundred and thirty-plus years after the ratification of the Constitution with its Bill of Rights, a baker had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to be able to be free not to use his craft to celebrate actions his religion views as sinful. (READ MORE: The Religious Liberty Winning Streak)

Thank goodness for the Clarence Thomas-led court, but if every freedom still has to be litigated so exhaustively, we are not truly free. In the Age of Woke, a new religious movement is afoot that finds no virtue in respecting other’s religious commitment. It disputes the need for even tolerating other views. Only their views are right, and they are largely contemptuous of the views of the Framers for embracing the right for others to think things that they know beyond doubt are wrong.

Israel’s democracy is more sorely tested than most. In a region where minorities are routinely fearful of their rights and their lives, Israel must simultaneously defend itself against armed and violent enemies without (many of whose lands do who do not allow even a single Jew to live among) and maintain a free society within.

There, as here, is the woke challenge. It is perhaps more strongly rooted in Israel, for until the late Seventies, Israeli society was dominated by the left, whose anti-religious views were mostly held in check by a sincere belief that religion would simply disappear through the inevitable dynamic of dialectic materialism.

But like so much of Marxism, this prediction didn’t come true.

Largely, the dynamic of opposition has softened. As the lure of communism faded, the left became less persuasive, to themselves and to others. As well, many immigrated to Israel from places where Marxism had little appeal and religion was respected even if not energetically observed. 

A major factor has also been the changing face of religious Judaism. Wise religious leaders learned how to communicate better with free citizens, and the results have been predictably better than simply condemning from a distance the people one doesn’t understand. Rather than assuming that those who don’t observe are hateful, many have found courageous and loving ways to bridge the gap between the religious and secular worlds and to make sense of an immense tradition that stretches back three thousand years in ways that touch the mind, the heart, and the soul.

The Chabad movement in Israel has been in the forefront of that work. One sees them going into public places to offer opportunities to “do a mitzva” — engage in a religious practice that expresses the connection of the people to each other and to God. The first mitzva that they practice is that of loving one’s neighbor — they approach people not as wrongdoers in the dock but as fellows on a path together. Not surprisingly, they are often able through their example to shatter stereotypes and connect heart -to-heart.

One such place where Chabad is active is in downtown Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is a largely secularist city and has been since its founding a little more than a century ago. Orthodox practitioners form a far larger percentage of the population in Jerusalem, Tsefat, or some Tel Aviv suburbs, but the city proper leans to the secular left. 

Therefore, it was less than surprising that the heightened political tensions — very much a product of the Israeli left’s adoption of Obama-style community organizing tactics — should result in a breach of civil respect for peaceful religious expression.

Last week, using typical wokeist inversion, a person made a scene both on the street and in later public complaints, that a Chabad rabbi offering these opportunities to passers-by in downtown Tel Aviv was in fact forcing conversion on others. His mere presence was coercive. The rabbi should be arrested and removed from the streets. Nothing short of muzzling his voice and banning his presence would do to affirm religious freedom, said the very vocal agitator.

Blessedly, very few responded to this call to arms. In fact — and may this be something we see here in America as well — quite a few on the left reacted by embracing the opportunity the Chabadnik continued to offer in his friendly and unflappable way. When Beruria Efune and Yaakov Ort surveyed Twitter for reactions, they found Tel Aviv resident Reuven Segal moved to make an effort to reconnect to his faith-traditions. In his tweet, Segal mentions the mitzva of tefillin, which involves strapping on boxes containing biblical verses written on parchment while reciting those verses in prayer: “I haven’t prayed all year, I don’t keep mitzvot and don’t put on tefillin, but now when I come across a Chabad stand, I will try not to refuse to put them on. For me, this is a start.”

Tweeter Amos Yaar rejected the connection of the Chabad rabbi outreach to Israeli judicial reform, often seen as a confrontation between the religious and the secular. In stark contrast to the Obama-esque politicization of religion, Yaar tweeted: “I am completely secular and oppose judicial reform, I’m a Meretz [most leftist of the major parties] voter, and I have no problem with the Chabad stands. Sometimes, I put on tefillin there with my son.”

The virulence of wokeists sometimes disheartens us into believing that their intolerance has become normative. The reaction of the regular people of Tel Aviv is instructive and should restore our confidence a bit. No doubt, they are just modeling a truth that applies here as well. The silence of so many in the face of the woke onslaught is only shock and sad disbelief rather than acquiescence to intolerance. Our own cheerfulness, persistence, and above all, love for our fellow citizens should motivate us to meet the darkness with increased light. The wide variety of ideas and opinions our fellow citizens hold — right, center, and left — does not mean that most of our fellow citizens have given up on freedom. When we continue in our efforts undismayed and with undeterred good will, we can see here the same kind of outpouring of commitment. 

Don’t’ sell democracy short. Its power is sometimes hidden. Realizing its promise is a religious imperative. Let’s be the leaders in bringing its strength out in the open once more.