Pesky on politics

Or at least it's an attempt at a political post.

Like many folks I availed myself of the little quiz available to see who my views most closely mesh with.

The highest score was 77% with Likud. Then 74% with Israel Beteinu followed closely by Ichud HaLeumi at 72%. Shockingly enough, Kadima came in at 72%. I'm ashamed.

For whatever reason, maybe because these tend to be the Big News Items, the big issues for me are about security and religion.

For security, I have a 95% compatibility with Ichud Haleumi (no surprise there) while having a mere 75% match with Likud and 78% match with Israel Beteinu.

So now we're faced with a bit of a conundrum. The whole religious thing.

What can I say? I grew up believing in the concept/theory/illusion of Separation of Church (religion) and State taught to me in Civics class. An interesting discussion at a shiur I used to attend questioned why Moshe Rabbenu wasn't also tapped to be Kohein Gadol. One of the answers was very to the point. Spiritual leaders play different roles than politicians and things really don't go well when both hats are worn by the same person/people.

And unfortunately I see that today. It seems that many Rabbis in politics tend to whore Halacha out for the sake of getting their projects funded, while those who sit quietly on the side... sit quietly on the side. Who needs that? Either we need strong spiritual leaders who are willing to fight for what is Halachically correct (and whose Masorah would we follow, anyway?), or we use religion as a basic guideline, but go the 'more' democratic way of whatever.

And then there's the question of how to vote... is voting for the smaller party you have more of a connection with a 'wasted vote' because chances are, if they even make it into the government, they'll be so small, they'll be easily brushed to the side - and by not voting for them of course they run the risk of not getting in at all... or do you vote for the party that has a better chance of winning, and whose policies (at least on paper) you can sort of live with?

Ugh. I need some chocolate.