If we had not been off to Portugal, this is a post that I would probably have published a month ago, shortly after the mass Haredi demonstration against universal conscription in the Jewish sector, a demonstration that brought much of Jerusalem and sections of the country’s main traffic artery to a halt for several hours. Sadly, the intervening weeks have not made what I plan to say less relevant; if anything, the reverse.

Before I address the issue that concerns me today, I have to acknowledge the extraordinary developments of the weeks we were out of the country. That all of the remaining living hostages, and the bodies of all but three of those murdered and held by Hamas, have been returned to Israel and to their families is wonderful news. I confess that, as I stated repeatedly over the last 25 months, I was not able to envisage any scenario in which Hamas would agree to return the hostages. (So, if you follow me for my geopolitical expertise, you can stop now.) Of course, for the three families who have not received their loved ones for burial, the nightmare is as intense as ever, and the nation continues to work and pray for their release from their personal hell.

To work and pray: two fundamental human activities. Taken together, they reflect the attitude that, if you wish to see a particular outcome, you have to do what you can to ensure the desired outcome is achieved, and you also have to accept that it may not be within your power to achieve this. For some of us, our prayers are to the all-powerful deity in whom, and in whose beneficence, we believe; for others, ‘prayer’ represents the hope and the belief that the desired end can be achieved. (Faith comes in many forms.)

Both elements are essential. Without hope and belief, nothing will be achieved. As the (possibly atheist, and certainly secular) Herzl famously wrote: ‘If you will it, it is not a dream’. As the national anthem declares: ‘As long as Jews look towards Zion, our two-thousand-year-old hope of being a free people in our homeland is not lost.’

At the same time, hopes and beliefs and will achieve nothing by themselves. They need to be backed up by action.

He (Rabbi Tarfon) used to say: It is not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it (Pirkei Avot – Ethics of our Fathers – Chapter 2:16).

All of which is a long and rambling way of reaching the conclusion that the majority of the rabbinic leaders of Haredi community are not teaching their students true Jewish values. These Rabbonim teach the Yeshiva bocher that his Torah study is the most valuable, indeed the only truly valuable, contribution he can make to the future of the Jewish people, and that it is his Torah study, and that of the tens of thousands like him, that is winning the war, and he accepts this. They declare that nothing is more important than his Torah study, and that, as long as he devotes himself entirely to Torah study, he can then rely on Hashem to act in the best interests of the Jewish people, and he accepts this.

The brutal fact, of course, is that the security of the state, and of all its inhabitants, requires that all of its inhabitants also contribute to that security by personal service, in one capacity or another. Israel has been involved in a just war, a holy war, an existential war, and to serve in that war is not only a national but also a religious obligation.

Implicitly believing and following all that his Rabbi tells him, the Haredi in the street genuinely believes that his Torah study, and the religious faith that it represents, will protect him from physical danger. We saw in the mass demonstration against Haredi conscription, tens of Haredim climbing onto the canopy over the pumps in the petrol station at the entrance to Jerusalem, or climbing onto, and sitting on, the arms of cranes tens of metres above street level. These are the actions of men (and they were not just teenage boys – who, by definition, tend to regard themselves as immortal – but included many adult men) who believe that Hashem is personally protecting them from all evil. That they can continue to believe this after the disastrous collapse of the stand at Meron is a measure of the intensity of the belief-system they live in.

And what of the leaders of the Haredi community? They are the ones who devote energy, time and resources to wielding political influence, wheeling and dealing in the corridors of power, organising campaigns that include demonstrations, posters, media appearances, appointing rabbis to serve as members of Knesset and government ministers.. They are well aware that Torah study alone does not guarantee any outcome. They recognise that the process of changing the world for the better is a partnership between man and God. While we may believe that God is the ultimate power in the world, we also must recognise that God created man to be a partner in the ongoing process of creation.

Which brings me to the other side of the counterfeit coin that is so much of Israel’s public life in 2025. With a blind devotion that rivals that of the Haredi community to its Rabbis, much of the Likud party, in the Knesset and in the country as a whole, has abrogated all personal responsibility to Bibi. Whatever Netanyahu says and does is, in their eyes, a priori right. They do not behave as adults responsible for their actions and beliefs, but as unquestioning followers of King Bibi. They willingly give up their right, and their duty, to test the value of Bibi’s words, beliefs and actions against the benchmark of their own intelligence and experience.

As for Bibi, his weakness, it seems to me, is that he has failed to recognise that our work on earth is to be partners of a greater power. For the practising Jew, our partner is God, and the purpose of our Torah study is to help us better understand how we can most effectively play our part in this partnership and continue the work of creation on a daily basis. For a secular person, the partner is a set of moral, ethical values, and the responsibility is to define and understand those values and then to devote one’s life to following, nurturing and promoting those values.

For Bibi, it increasingly seems, the supreme value is not a moral and ethical worldview that is outside of, and greater than, himself, but, rather, his own survival. In his certainty that he, and he alone, knows what is for the best, he places his own continued political survival above all else, and, in so doing, puts the entire Zionist endeavour in jeopardy.

The true Jewish way is not the self-effacing retreat from the world and its problems, nor the placing of self above values, and an over-weening arrogance in one’s indispensability. The true Jewish way is:

It is not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.

Our future as a Jewish, democratic country may well depend on all of us recognising the timeless truth in Rabbi Tarfon’s formulation.