The Contribution of Public Religious Education to Promoting Peace: Perspectives From Israel

In Judaism, peace is considered a supreme value. However, debates on the theme of peace in Israel’s public religious schools tend to be in the abstract, with an affirmativeideal orientation, and are part of discussions on tikkun olam (repairing the world). One finds there is an emphasis on either the universal or the particularistic aspects in regard to the belief in Israel as the Holy Land. There is a debate within Judaism in Israel today as to what is more important: the value of saving a life or the importance of the Land of Israel, with different rabbinical positions influencing different streams within Jewish religious education. Judaism distinguishes between peace in the political sense, in the context of international relations, and peace in its spiritual inner sense. Religious schools emphasize the second interpretation and refrain from engaging with the former, which is perceived as political commentary unsuitable for the apolitical public school system. Levinas contends that peace can be defined as having a negative quality, meaning the avoidance of war, or a positive nature – moving closer to the Other. Analysis of the texts taught in state-religious school identifies two modes of reference: an extrinsic approach engaging with peace as societal reconciliation grounded on interests of society’s members, and an intrinsic approach that entails harmony and a positive spirit between individuals. Religious education focuses on peace with an intrinsic nature, and deals with the process in which inner unity intensifies for the person who creates peace. In the context of this sphere in religious education, we generally identify three main approaches: an approach with a harmonious nature, aspiring to eliminate oppositions and thus create peace; an approach that is typically dialectic, underscoring the importance and role of opposing forces in generating true peace within a complex and multi-layered reality; and an approach which applies a synthesis of the other two. Most schools emphasize the harmonious aspect, although many of them make rhetorical use of the dialectical approach but see this as an ideal eidetic notion that will only be implemented with the coming of the Messiah at the “End of Days”. Thus, religious education stresses that it is not enough to love peace and aspire to it but that one needs to take Aaron the Priest who ‘loved peace and pursued it’ as their role model. However, this is a long-term, universalistic principle that will maintain humanity itself.