Atheism lost. Secularism won.
How can that be? Because secularism is not atheism. It is not about belief in God. It is a complete system of values, a wagon loaded with decency and culture, within which atheism is merely one option – and not necessarily the preferred one.
Atheism lost big time, because if I had asked, say, the pioneers of the Third Aliyah how they thought the public in the State of Israel would look 90 years on, they would have said with complete confidence that the overwhelming majority would be atheists. If I had asked the people of the 18th-century Enlightenment, I would have received a similar answer. It seemed that analytical reason led to only one place – materialist atheism (the kind that believes only matter exists in the world).
In practice, the exact opposite happened: worldwide, committed atheists are estimated at between 2 and 13 percent, depending on the survey. In Israel, according to various surveys, about 80% believe in God. That is, most of those who identify as “secular” believe in God. And it is not as if reason and rationality reside only with the few percent who are atheists. Believers in God include eminent scientists and researchers, no less rational than their atheist colleagues.
But secularism won. Because secularism brought great values into the world – values that across the Western world, Israel included, almost no one fails to regard as foundational. Secularism has many values, and its three greatest are expressed in the Hebrew words we use for it:
Chiloniut (secularity): a great faith in the chol, the this-worldly. In the tangible. Not a repair of the world achieved through mysticism or escape into realms detached from reality, but through the present and the actual. The poet Rachel described this outlook beautifully: “Here on the face of the earth – not in the clouds above – on the face of the near earth, the mother… Not the mists of tomorrow – the day realized in hand,
the solid day, warm and steadfast: to drink deep of this one short day, here on our own soil.”
Chofshiut (freedom): the freedom to choose. The freedom not to accept authority. That does not mean I cannot observe the commandments – but if it happens, it will be out of deep choice. Hence secularism’s tendency not to accept conventions – not from rabbis and not from anyone. It asks, seeks and searches, and even if it draws near to God, that too will be out of freedom and choice.
Humaniut (humanism): a great faith in the human being. In our abilities. In our goodness of heart. And hence also a more universal outlook. As Tchernichovsky put it so well: “Laugh, for I believe in man, for I still believe in you. For my soul still yearns for freedom – I have not sold it to a golden calf – for I still believe in man, and in his spirit, a spirit of strength.”
True – whoever accepts these three central values may end up less committed to Torah and the commandments. Because when you believe in the natural moral abilities of the human being – there is less need for divine laws; when you believe in deep inner freedom – there is less chance you will do exactly as the rabbis instruct; and when you believe in the this-worldly, in pragmatism, in the day realized in hand – there is less chance you will weigh considerations of “eternity” (for example, is it relevant that Abraham received a promise about the Land at Shechem 3,000 years ago? What is relevant is what is happening now – that there are 200,000 Palestinians there).
But that is only one possible tendency – and by no means a necessary one.
One can embrace all the secular values and be a great believer. It is a faith different from the conventional one; it holds much freedom of choice; it holds the belief that repairing the world is not mysticism but improving the material condition of as many lives as possible on the face of the earth (exactly as in the Bible – “I will give your rains in their season, the early rain and the late rain. And I will grant peace in the land”).
And such a faith is Jewish through and through – or better said, Israeli. Ancient Israeliness was freer, more secular, believing in the human being. Its very meaning: “for you have striven with God and with men – and prevailed.” Freedom allows it to argue even with God, as many Jews have done throughout history, from Abraham our father, through Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi and Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, to Zionism as a whole. And at times it seems that God is simply waiting for such free people. That when He meets them He smiles and says: My children have defeated Me. My children have defeated Me.
