The following is a transcript of Episode 106 of the For Heaven’s Sake Podcast. Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Donniel: Hi, this is Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is one of the Institute’s podcasts For Heaven’s Sake, our special edition, Israel at War. And today is day 88.

Yossi, I don’t know if you felt this, but I had an out-of-body experience, I don’t know how to, what to call it exactly. It was like, I almost felt lost. I didn’t understand. The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the Knesset legislation overriding the ability of the Supreme Court to use reasonableness as a criteria for overriding basic laws or any laws, was presented, ensuring that the Supreme Court has a very large amount of latitude. That they don’t just have to override or they’re not just permitted to override a Knesset legislation which violates a law, but that they’re allowed to use an amorphic category called reasonableness. That if something is dramatically unreasonable, they could say, I’m sorry. Part of our check and balance is that given Israel’s democracy and its coalition governments and maybe its history, there needs to be somebody who looks for extreme unreasonableness. 

So the Supreme Court came out with its ruling. And Yossi, I haven’t thought about any of these issues since October 7. These were the issues we became experts in. Overrides, reasonableness, checks and balances, democracy. It’s like I became a constitutional lawyer. Like my whole brain was taken up by every one of these issues. And could the Supreme Court override by what numbers? I can’t tell you. I have so much information that I filed away somewhere. And then all of a sudden, the Supreme Court came forth.

Well, I’m not wired to hear this right now. I’m not arguing whether the Supreme Court should have done it, but it was almost like my body, I’m in another place. Psychologically, I’m in another place. But what made it even more disconcerting, it’s not just the Supreme Court, but the conversation around it.

Today, you know, a member of the senior member of Ben Gvir’s party calls the Supreme Court Hamas. They’re just like Hamas and everybody’s going to have their day. And Levin came out and I literally felt that we were, you know, there’s this movie Back to the Future. It was like back to the past. And our podcast today is called Back to October 6. But I felt like we went back like so quick. And I’m not there. And it was just, it felt strange to me. 

And what we decided we want to talk about today is about this return to some form of normalcy, of a routine crisis as we enter into stage three. These issues are now, are entering our conversation. Are we gonna talk with each other the same way we talked on October 6th? Or is October 7th gonna demand a different level or a different type of conversation? But first, before we get into the depth of, how do we talk? Are we going back to October 6th or are we gonna do things differently?

How did this court legislation, how did you experience it?

Yossi: So you know, Donniel, on the one hand, you’re right. Emotionally, it feels unreasonable in the extreme to be bringing these issues back up again. Every day we’re looking at the news to see the names of fallen soldiers, the hostages’ torment is ongoing. And we’re all in some way still on October 7th. 

There was this tweet going around on New Year’s Eve that Israelis were sending out saying, how can it be January 1st when it’s October 85th? And there really is something in all of us that’s, we don’t want to go back there. 

But I actually greeted the Supreme Court decision enthusiastically for two reasons. One is because democracy, the need to defend the basic identity of this country, which was under assault over the last year, hasn’t eased up. One emergency doesn’t negate the other.

And I’ll give you an example of what this reasonableness clause is intended to protect. An independent civil service, which was one of the great achievements of Israeli governance over the last decades, has been virtually wiped out by this government. And we saw the consequences of that on October 8th, when social services virtually collapsed. It was the protest movement that had to step in and fill the void and help people who were survivors of the massacre.

Donniel: Because political hacks were put into positions which they were completely incompetent to deal with.

Yossi: Yes, yes. And you see this throughout government. You see it in the foreign ministry. I deal a lot with media, with the world media. And I see there’s nobody home at the farm. It’s just a disaster. And that you can replicate throughout government. 

So we need a strong civil service. We need to defend our democratic institutions. And so that was the first relief that I had. And the fact that the government has lost its moral mandate meant that it really couldn’t push back. The court was able to correct this distortion in governance and all the government ministers could do was call them Hamas. I can live with that, that’s fine. 

The second reason why I felt this was actually not coming from nowhere, is because if you look at the discourse that we’re hearing from the government, from government supporters, over the last weeks it’s intensified, but the truth is it never stopped. There are conspiracy theories that are spreading through the right. You hear it on the pro-government TV channel 14, every day, that there’s a cabal of left-wing, high-ranking officers who knew in advance that Hamas was going to break through the border and let it happen because they wanted to bring Netanyahu down. Something like 30% of Israelis say that this might have actually happened. 

Now, when you have a situation where the government has never stopped politicking since October 7th, and that takes many forms. It takes the form, for example, which you and I have discussed, of Netanyahu refusing to hold a session in the war cabinet of what the morning after will look like because he’s afraid of antagonizing his coalition partners. And that directly impacts on our ability to maintain the closeness of relations with America during the war. 

So there are so many ways in which this government has violated the premise of a country at war, that to my mind, the court stepping in.

Donniel: It felt normal. 

Yossi: And it felt like, okay, there’s a certain pretense that we’re all maintaining, that we’re still one. 

But there’s, and one last point here, Donniel, which is that we are a people that carries multiple levels of trauma, unresolved trauma. And to pretend that we could go from October 6th to October 8th and simply let all of those fears and resentments and legitimate anxieties go by the wayside was always unrealistic.

Donniel: So let’s come back to that. First of all, hearing you talk, it’s so interesting. Because I agree with you and I’m in a different emotional place. I felt comfortable with the Supreme Court coming out with their ruling, truthfully, because I’m always for the Supreme Court. I didn’t have reasons. You just gave me reasons.

The truth is, I’m full of it. The truth is, let’s be honest. If I’m honest, it’s like after a year, Supreme Court, they’re protecting my Israel. So whatever the Supreme Court does, I said, okay, I’m happy, fine. I have to tell you, I didn’t have the energy to read. A year ago, by now, 24 hours, I would have read every single opinion. I would have been able to tell you the nuances, you know, and they were speaking about it yesterday. 

It’s so interesting because it was eight to seven to cancel the Knesset’s decision to not allow the Supreme Court to cancel a Knesset decision on the basis of over. Ladies and gentlemen, are you back now? Like this is the story. So it’s eight to seven, but it was 12 out of, after 3, who ruled that the Supreme Court has the right to override a basic law, which at least in theory are the foundations on which the Supreme Court is supposed to rule. 

So for the Supreme Court, which is not a legislature, that was that so but I would have had 

Yossi: That was tremendous. And you know what?

Donniel: Yossi, Yossi, stop a second because I don’t want to talk. It’s like, I want to tell you.

Yossi: One thing, just one thing. 

Donniel: I don’t, like, it’s like, no, just, okay, Yossi, please, I can’t emotionally, you’re bringing me back to October 6th. Okay one thing go. This is after your three things already just for the record.

Yossi: That’s true. This is like, this is number four, but that’s it. What was really interesting about the eight to seven vote was that there are seven conservative justices out of 15. Now, what that means is that the old idea, you know, that the court is to the left of Meretz, is nonsense. The court has changed substantially. And we need to recognize that, and I welcome that. The diversity on the court is terrific, but it, 

Donniel: So the whole claim,

Yossi: Yes, exactly, exactly.

Donniel: That last year, that the court, that we don’t need to reform some of the Supreme Court, but we need to overhaul the whole judiciary because the Supreme Court is being controlled by some far-left cabal. 

Yossi: It was a lie. It was true, it was true 20 years ago, not now.

Donniel: It was a lie. It was a simple lie. So great. Okay. Yossi, I’m happy I gave you your fourth. Great. I’m good. It was good. It was important. It’s just, but for me, it was just so basic. I just, okay. But the experience was just, it was stark. Because as you said in point three, our differences haven’t disappeared. And one of the core methodologies that Israelis are maintaining to sustain our unity is the policy of shh, don’t talk, shh, not now, shh, the soldiers are going to feel delegitimized, shh. 

But there’s something very troubling about that because it is based on the premise that unity requires agreement, that we don’t have a culture of debate in our country, which allows us to disagree without creating bifurcation, without unleashing centrifugal forces. And at the minute you talk, it entails mutual delegitimization. And that’s part of that. That’s been a deep part of the world that all of us have been in since October 7th, or what did you call it? October 85th, day 85. This is the 85th day of October.

But it wasn’t being maintained and you saw constant insidious political positions being put forth. But I tended to ignore them. So they were the more extreme or there was always a response that what you’re doing is inappropriate. So when Minister Strook came out or Barkat, Nir Barkat, the one who wants to lead the Likud in the future, comes out and says, oh, more soldiers are dying because we’re not bombing enough so that we could appease America. Or Strook says, more soldiers are dying, she wants to know, is the Air Force not bombing because of moral considerations? And basically remember that before October 6th, it was the Air Force which led the judicial reform pressure of Air Force officers not wanting to serve.

Yossi: And so we’re in a situation, Donniel, where we have a government minister delegitimizing pilots in the middle of a war.

Donniel: Of course, and so what she was doing, and the idea was, is the soldiers who are dying, half of them come from the religious Zionist community, so she’s saying there’s a cultural war. All of a sudden, I see all of this, and now comes the question, which we have to talk about.

Yossi, I do not have the energy to go back to October 6th. We have to go back. Our big issues haven’t been resolved. They haven’t. What does it mean to be a Jewish democratic state? What are the checks and balances? 

Yes, I want a Supreme Court who uses reasonableness, even though in theory I think it’s insane, but since I know Israeli governments could sometimes be so unreasonable, I love having somebody looking at reasonableness. I, and again, it’s, I don’t, I can’t justify it in theory, but in practice, I feel Israeli society is better for it.

But I don’t want to go back to the winning, losing this. When I hear Strook, or even when I heard Nir Barkat, who is a very serious man, he is a serious man. But he’s in a bind. He’s in a bind because he’s nowhere, because no Likud member could say anything, as long as Netanyahu’s there. So he’s trying to present himself as more right. He felt like if I go more right, I’m safe. That’s a safe criticism. And so he’s trying to appear in the press somehow that I’m still there so that maybe in a post-Netanyahu universe, I could be counted. 

You know, there’s an idea, can I channel, I wanna channel Elana and Elana’s role in this podcast in the past, and hopefully we’ll return to that soon. But our tradition has such a long history of struggling with the issue of how do you debate? How do you argue with each other? 

And one of the key principles of our tradition is that difference doesn’t undermine collective unity. How you relate to difference undermines collective unity. The notion that you have to get rid of difference in order to maintain unity was rejected by the Jewish tradition. 

And it’s actually a page of the Talmud in tractate Yevamot, page 14B, now I’m IEana, I even gave you the B. And moving into page 15A, where they ask, they say, you know, you open up the Talmud. There’s never a time when the rabbis agree. Never a time when the rabbis agree. But they say, but doesn’t that cause a scarring of the Jewish people? 

And the rabbis enact a new law in which the Bible prohibits the scarring of your physical body. That’s why tattoos are forbidden. Piercing, you’re allowed for some reason. But you’re not allowed to scar your body because it’s not yours. And the rabbis say, just like you’re not allowed to scar your physical body, you’re not allowed to scar the body of the Jewish people by creating sects, by creating divisiveness. 

So then the rabbis ask, okay, but then what, we’re disagreeing all the time. So one answer is don’t worry, we disagree. All the disagreements are only in theory. Once we leave the Beit Midrash, everybody agrees with each other. We all follow,

Yossi: The study hall, the study hall.

Donniel: The study hall. We all follow a single ruling. But then the rabbis say, that’s not true. We know that’s not true. We know Hillel and Shammai disagreed with each other in practice. We live different lives. And we still, with those disagreements, we married each other, we ate in each other’s homes, even though at least in theory we shouldn’t have been able to. And there’s a beautiful piece of Torah in the Ethics of the Fathers, which says that there are debates which aren’t for the sake of heaven and there are debates for the sake of heaven. 

Ladies and gentlemen, this is by the way where we got the name of our podcast, For Heaven’s Sake, debates for the sake of heaven. The debates which aren’t for the sake of heaven are the debates of Korach and his followers. 

Yossi: That was my Bar Mitzvah Parshah. Not coincidentally, maybe.

Donniel: Wonderful, so you’re, not a coincidentally. Korach contested Moshe’s leadership. And at least the way the Jewish tradition chooses to read Korach, because you know, you and I, Yossi, we weren’t there. We have no idea what Korach, he might have been a great liberal Democrat, trying to create new voices of leadership. 

But in the Jewish tradition, we see his rebellion as motivated by a desire for personal aggrandisement. He wanted a win for himself. He wanted power. So the tradition says, debates which aren’t for the sake of heaven are going to one day disappear. But debates for the sake of heaven, such as Hillel and Shammai, debates that aren’t about winning are debates that are going to continue. 

So what that means, and this is where I want to now turn this to a question also, it means that we as a Jewish people, despite our commitment to unity, know that disagreements are going to continue all the time. You don’t create unity through the policy of “shh.” You don’t, wrong, it’s the wrong people. You don’t shh, you don’t, like, we’re not gonna handle that. We’re gonna disagree. 

The question is, do we have to go back? And how do we change the culture of October 6th? Because you are right, the differences haven’t been removed. They’re deep. And all you needed was the Supreme Court. It’s just constantly coming out. Do we wanna go back to Strook’s? Do we want to go back to Supreme Court arguments that, oh, you’re the enemy of democracy, you’re the enemy of justice, you’re the enemy of, could we do it differently, Yossi? And if so, what would be the essential place that we have to do something different?

Yossi: That’s a wonderful question, Donniel. You know, when the rabbis disagreed, they had a shared premise, which was we’re all arguing for the sake of the sacred.

We’re in a unique situation now, Donniel. This is the first government in Israel’s history where many, many people don’t believe that their most basic motives are honorable. We could disagree with left, right, center, and the past. That wasn’t the problem. I can have a disagreement for the sake of heaven with people in the government’s camp. 

But this leadership, I feel they’re poisoning everything and they’re poisoning our ability to have exactly the kind of discourse that we need. Now my hope obviously is that this government will be replaced and let it be replaced by another right-wing government. 

Look, I have voted for right-wing governments in the past. That’s not a problem for me. It’s not an ideologica argument.  Yes, of course it is, but an ideological argument is for the sake of heaven. 

When I’m up against this prime minister and the cabinet, I don’t feel like I have a partner in an argument for the sake of heaven. So that’s the first problem, which means this government has to go. And let it be replaced with the same ideology, and then I’ll argue. But I’ll argue from a different place. So that’s first of all. 

To try to answer your question substantively, what I’ve been trying to remind myself, especially after this bitter year that we went through, and then the extraordinary pivot to a semblance of togetherness, is how difficult the Israeli story is, and by extension, the Jewish story. You know, I mentioned before that we’re carrying layers of trauma. For me, that’s a basis for respectfully listening to opinions that I disagree with among fellow Jews, even opinions that I strongly disagree with, we’re all trying to figure out impossible political and social dilemmas within this psychological context of tremendous pain that we’re all carrying and tremendous fears. And so that for me is a useful starting point that I’ve been trying to draw on. 

Donniel: Beautiful. Listening.

Yossi: And saying, okay, you know, I deeply, deeply disagree. But I’m interested to know how you as a fellow Jew are trying to cope with these impossible dilemmas on top of this impossible history that we’re carrying, and okay, I’ll listen to you, I need you to listen to me, and we’re stuck with each other. And more than that, Donniel, a part of me resonates with you.

Donniel: You know, I hear your first point about this government. The only thing I would suggest to you, and by suggesting it doesn’t mean that I’m claiming that I’m right, but a part of me disagrees with you. Because I don’t think you get to pick when you’re going to be having this culture of debate and when you’re having another culture of debate. 

I’m not saying we shouldn’t protest. I’m not saying we shouldn’t work to change the government. But once you unleash a language of delegitimization, I don’t think you get to pull it back. And I think it shapes our society. 

Yossi: I hear that, I hear that.

Donniel: And I’m afraid of it. And that’s like my biggest disagreement with you since last November has been the tenor of your attack against the government. And I have worked, I have been working on your number two, applying it to this government too. 

Yossi: Remind me what my number two was?

Donniel: See, that’s the problem. You want one, two. Can you imagine if this time you did four, where would we be? 

Your number two was the process of disagreeing but listening and trying even to internalize. I separate between the people and the arguments. And I just don’t want to do the type of demonization. And again, I don’t want to paint you into a corner. But there is a demonization, or maybe it’s just you’re saying that’s just a description. I’m not demonizing anybody. It’s just who I’m dealing with. So I don’t want to play like whatever. Keep going. You don’t have to say it. 

Yossi: Just keep going because I don’t have to say anything. You’re already giving my defense.

Donniel: Okay. But whatever it is that it is, I never felt that because I feel that we’re all, if we’re gonna have to overturn this government by going back temporarily to an October 6th culture, then we’re gonna be going back in October 6th. We’re gonna be that way in February and March. Because when you unleash that language, the other side unleashes it, and each one says, I started. And it’s, I just don’t want to be there.

Yossi: Donniel, that’s a very, it’s a very important challenge that you’ve just, you’ve just presented.

Donniel: And I just want to suggest to you, thank you. That’s one of the things I feel October 8th, 9th, 10th maybe redeemed us from. It doesn’t mean that I’m, you know, like you, I’m not a Netanyahu supporter, but I want to differentiate between people like Strook and people like Ben Gvir, who are saying the most horrific things, and other people who I disagree with, and they might be motivated by political interests, but I could give them a more generous reading of what they’re saying. 

But there’s one more point that I wanted to add to your idea of listening and trying to identify. And this also goes back to a rabbinic source. It’s the Tosefta in Tractate Yevamot, which asks about Hillel and Shammai, you disagreed about everything. You disagreed about things that should have prohibited you being able to marry each other and prohibited you being able to eat in each other’s homes. It’s there, you couldn’t, you’re ruling, you should not have married each other, basically Jewish collective life should have been over. 

So how come it wasn’t? And they say it’s because they accepted the biblical, the divine commandment to embrace truth and peace. And what that means is that when you have a truth, you have to ask yourself that part of your truth has to also be a commitment to peace. It also has to be a commitment to coexistence. 

And that means that I don’t wanna win. I want to post October 7th, I wanna stop trying to win all the time. I wanna start compromising. I wanna have only partial victories. I don’t wanna win. And I want to tell you it’s very frustrating, because I love winning, especially since I’m so certain that I’m right. I’m so certain I know what I know, whatever it is, I want to win. 

But at the end of the day, Israeli society, we’re not going to make it if we go back to this zero sum game conversation. That’s what was wrong with the reform from the beginning. And that’s the point you made before. We didn’t need to overhaul the judiciary. It was already eight-seven.

If you would have said, I want to do some moderate things, talked, you would have engaged in a conversation. Israeli society could have had a debate and instead, what did the reform forces do? They said, we’re going to start with the over, the override clause where the Knesset could override anything the Supreme Court decides by a simple majority of 61, basically undermining the Supreme Court.

Yossi: Destroying democracy.

Donniel: Destroying democracy. And then they had the chutzpah to say we’re going to do it by Pesach. So like, here it is, we’re going to win, you’re going to lose, this is a government, yamin al-maleh, right right, full right. But part of what happened in the demonstrations towards the end is we also started to feel our power. We, the democratic forces, started to win. We started to feel that we had a majority with us, the polls. And then we also started to win, win. Any change in the Supreme Court would be the end of democracy. 

I remember that, Yossi. I don’t want to go back to it. We’re going to have some serious debates about state and religion, about Palestinians and the conflict, about Israeli Arabs, about Ashkenazim and Sfaradim, about social justice. We have a country that needs to be built. And we have serious debates about it. 

And what I want post-October 7th is to remember that truth and peace have to coexist. That means just like Hillel and Shammai were willing to give up on some of their truth, that they would look at somebody from the other camp and say, oh, that’s not kosher or I can’t marry you, but for the sake of peace, they said I’m gonna do so. I think we have to go back to that. I think, and if I could just add one more point, could I do two? Just can I do, channel my inner Yossi? Yossi: Go for it.

Donniel: I don’t mean a Bennett-type move where the coalition of Bennett said, let’s be together by not talking about all the issues we disagree with, disagree about. We agree about 70% of the issues, let’s concentrate on the 70. No, I wanna deal with the 100. And I want us to compromise. I want us to say, what do you say? What do I say? How could we as a society stop trying to win? I think that is one of the challenges of this war. When we came this close, I think we owe the responsibility to do better. 

Yossi, I sense from you that I don’t have the right to conclude. I’m going to give you the last word.

Yossi: There is no last word on this. I think we’ve just opened up a very deep conversation. I would just say very briefly without going into details that we’re going to need two moves. The first move is a willingness to change the conversation. And the second is a different mechanism, a structure, a political structure through which we can prevent one part of the country which happens to take power, and it doesn’t matter which part of the country it is, feeling they now have the right to impose the most substantive changes on the other half, even if it means driving the other half of the country to the point of despair. 

And that’s what has to change. And we’ve seen that pattern happening when the left came to power in the early 90s with the Oslo Process. We saw it with the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, and we experienced it over the last year. And what must change is the zero-sum game by which we conduct our policies, our internal policies.

Donniel: And paradoxically, the electoral process, it could be very helpful. So many people fantasize about a different electoral process. The electoral process requires of us to form governments with people we disagree with. 

And so I believe that the challenge of October 7th is to remind us that our existence is precarious and we need to be in this together. But crisis doesn’t create long-standing unity. Disagreement also doesn’t create disunity, creating a different culture, as you said, of no zero-sum game of truth and peace, for that, we need certain types of leaders. On that, you and I agree. And God willing, sometime post this, whatever stage we’re in right now, we will emerge in that direction. 

This is For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at War, day 88. We’re starting to see and feel the end of the war. In light of that, we’re now in a, what we call in Israel, shigrat chirum. We moved from emergency to routine emergency. And in light of this, as we move to the third stage of the war in Gaza, we’re also going to shift our podcast from twice a week to once a week to concentrate on the central issues that have emerged that week. God willing, we’ll be able to stay at that. And if unfortunately we can’t, you and I, Yossi, we’re here. 

Be well, everyone. Let’s continue to think about positive feelings about the day after.

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