In supporting the Basic Law: Torah Study, Israel’s Religious Zionist and Likud parties have traded away their most sacred principles for a very modest “bowl of lentils”: divisive legislation, the support of ultra-Orthodox coalition partners and a few more weeks in power.  As part of a sordid deal between Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Haredi parties, the coalition has agreed to enshrine Torah study as a constitutionally acceptable alternative to military service.

The irony is hard to miss. A government dominated by religious parties and Orthodox Jewish legislators passed the bill’s first reading during the very week when synagogues around the world read Parshat Pinchas. The Torah describes how God commands Moses and Eleazar to take a census after the plague of all men “from twenty years old and upward… who are able to go out to the army in Israel” (Numbers 26:2). The proposed law is a shameful attempt to escape a tribal responsibility that has been part of Jewish tradition from time immemorial.

How the final statute will read is not yet clear. The original version declared: “The State of Israel, as a Jewish state, attaches supreme importance to encouraging Torah study and Torah scholars, and regards those who have devoted themselves to Torah study over an extended period as making a significant contribution to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people.”

The bill that actually passed first reading was watered down: “Torah study is a fundamental value in the heritage of the Jewish people and in the State of Israel, in order to create a just balance in relation to other fundamental values of the State.”

Sagit Afik, the Knesset’s chief legal advisor, who has generally cleared the path for this coalition’s nefarious legislative agenda, is not fooled. Afik opposes the Basic Law. Even the softened language, she warns, is designed to........

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