After the week that was, there’s no longer any doubt: The Israeli government is a closed institution whose inmates have seized control of it.
This is the moment to surrender. There’s nothing left to save. The smell of a corpse is in the air, and the attempts to revive it are a waste of time and energy. Neither a protest nor opposition will save it. Because both a protest and opposition are only trying to restore a situation to its previous condition. But even in its previous condition the “situation” was on its way to disintegration.
At such times, a person becomes partial to himself and the members of his community. In my case – the community of the enlightened. Those who are faithful to the basic principles of enlightenment: rationalism, equality between people and equal rights, a steel wall between religion and political power.
We aren’t many. Only a small, despised minority. But proud and certain of its worldview. And although we’re a very polite community, our time to rebel has also come. To revolt. To declare a revolt of the enlightened. As is typical of us, it will be a polite and nonviolent revolt. Its main goal – a change in awareness. Its slogan – every man for himself. In other words, no longer concern for the mentally ill country and its despicable government, but only an egoistical concern for ourselves: for the enlightened individual, the members of his household, the members of his community and the preservation of his heritage.
We will demand an exemption from military service with the excuse that “our enlightenment is our vocation.” We will claim and prove that serving in the army causes serious damage to our emotions and our lifestyle. We will also do our best to redeem our offspring from the abominations of the crooked school system. We’ll provide them, through mutual assistance and to the best of our ability, with proper homeschooling. We’ll teach them languages, sciences, universal subjects (just like the curriculum that Israel is proposing for the children of refugees awaiting deportation …), and to these we’ll add humanistic philosophy and humane, ethical values.
We’ll turn to enlightened countries and ask them to grant political refugee status to enlightened Israelis, who will choose to emigrate while there’s still time. And if an enlightened investor can be found, we’ll initiate the establishment of a preparatory study course for the diaspora – to be called Signs of Exile – which will prepare enlightened Israelis, and those who simply yearn for the exile, for an easier absorption in their new homeland.
They’ll study manners, diligence, self-control in both volume and content. How not to talk on your cell phone on the bus, the meaning of the mysterious _expression_ “waiting in line,” how to identify a garbage can on the street and many such useful skills. The Jews among us will also be offered a course in Yiddish, the lingua franca of the Jews.
It’s important to stress: This is not preaching towards or encouraging emigration, but only an assessment that this is how it will be. After all, that’s the fate of a disintegrating country. Its citizens abandon it, and therefore it’s a good idea to be prepared. Experience teaches that diaspora in a country that cares about its citizens is preferable to continuing moral corruption in a rotting country, which is concerned only for God’s welfare and livelihood.
Surprisingly, quite a few cultural assets were also created here before we became brutalized. In literature, poetry, the arts, philosophy and especially language. These are all worthy of preservation. And perhaps that will be the task of the enlightened emigrants: to bring all these to the diaspora, to preserve them and nurture and maintain them there.
And for those who hasten to remind us of the Nazi Holocaust that murdered one third of the Jewish people, in order to deter the Jews among us, we’ll remind you that the Bar Kokhba holocaust also brought death to one third of the nation and total destruction to its country. And we’ll also remind you that it wasn’t kingdoms, kings and temples that safeguarded our survival, but rather the diasporas and their dispersal.