Ben-Gurion, Spinoza, and Church-State Relations in Israel

• In Event: Orthodoxy and Zionism in Israel and America

Abstract

In light of recent and increasing sectarian conflict—between so-called “religious” [dati] and “secular” [hiloni] camps, as well as those between “orthodox” and “reform” denominations—many have called into question the system that governs church-state relations in Israel. In particular, scholars have examined the circumstances and meaning of the “Status Quo” agreement, based on the letter dated June 14, 1947 sent by Ben-Gurion to the representatives of the orthodox “Agudat Israel,” in which he made certain concessions that would come to govern the relation of the state to the religious parties after independence. Some, like Menachem Friedman, have argued that this was a disastrous ad-hoc agreement. Others, like Nir Kedar, have attempted to situate it in the context of a broader theory of state, what Ben-Gurion called “Mamlachtiyut” (statism), which he borrowed from Russian legal theorists. Yaacov Yadgar has recently highlighted its paradoxical effects. In this paper, I shall claim that there is another likely source for his views, namely, his reading of the seventeenth century philosopher Spinoza. As Daniel Schwartz has noted, in the years follows independence Ben-Gurion lauded Spinoza’s proto-Zionism and sought to overturn the decision of the Jewish community in Amsterdam to ban the philosopher. I shall argue that Ben-Gurion’s views of the Jewish people and the state are closely related to his reading of Spinoza and underlie the “Status Quo” agreement. They both thought that the diaspora had distorted the true political essence of the Jewish religion. Ben-Gurion believed, with almost messianic fervor, that the time had come to realize the political vision that Spinoza had only mocked. The system that Ben-Gurion proposed amounts to what was called in the seventeenth century an “Erastian” theory of church-state relations, in which the secular ruler controls the church in service of a minimal religious ideal. An interpretation of the Israeli “Status Quo” agreement in terms of this view will help us understand the strengths and weaknesses of this model in the present.

Author

• Michael A Rosenthal, University of Washington