One of the stunning aspects of the judicial crisis that is roiling Israeli society at the moment is that it’s not about policy. No one’s arguing about illegal outposts or reducing the cost of living or who should serve in the IDF.

For now, the fight is over power and fundamental questions like: Who has final say on the country’s laws and how they should be enforced? Does the Supreme Court have a duty to review laws or just interpret them? Does the government have the right to override the Court? And so on.

In a way, this judicial grenade was bound to explode sooner or later, for the simple reason that Israel doesn’t have a constitution. What it has are Basic Laws. The problem with Basic Laws, however, is that any government can change them at will with a simple majority. The other problem is that, in the absence of a constitution, Israel’s Supreme Court has absorbed more and more power over the years, triggering a backlash from the political branch that is now trying to get that power back.

The current crisis, then, can best be described as a pendulum of power that swung too far in one direction, and is now swinging too far in the other. Both extremes fail the country. In the former, the people are asked to trust unelected jurists with too much power. And in the latter, the people are asked to trust politicians with personal agendas with too much power.

The current crisis can best be described as a pendulum of power that swung too far in one direction, and is now swinging too far in the other. Both extremes fail the country.

A constitution is the one mechanism that can prevent this destructive conundrum.

“Constitutions are important not only because they ideally reflect a country’s core principles, serving both as a mission statement and as an operating manual, but also because they represent a governing philosophy that sits above the messiness of politics,” Michael Koplow, Chief Policy Officer of Israeli Policy Forum, writes.

Indeed, what we’re seeing now in Israel, in an extreme and ugly form, is just that: The messiness of politics.

The new government kicked off the mess by announcing reforms that represent a radical shift in power from the courts to the politicians, calling it a “rebalancing.” When the opposition cried foul, they were met with cries that “the voters have spoken.” This further infuriated the opposition.

Both sides may claim that “democracy” is on their side, but it’s not that simple. For one thing, should democracy allow any future government with a majority of 61 seats to remake the judicial rules to its liking?

As Koplow argues, “In order for democracy to work, there has to be confidence on both sides of the political spectrum that… losing one election or even a series of elections does not mean that things will inalterably change.” The animating feature of constitutions, he writes, is that “they are supposed to reflect the unchanging nature of the system itself.”

This argument goes deeper than, “We won the election so we can do what we want.” As Koplow argues, “democratic politics is a necessary basis for democratic legitimacy but it is not the only one nor a sufficient one.”

At the very least, the opposition ought to put a concrete alternative on the table.

Meanwhile, the opposition has missed the opportunity to make a calm argument about the flaw in Israel’s system and the need for reasonable reforms. At the very least, the opposition ought to put a concrete alternative on the table.

The ideal person to bring the warring sides together in this endeavor is Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Just as a constitution aims to be above the fray of politics, so does the office of the president. The truth is, both sides are victims of a flaw in the Israeli system, and until a constitution is finally established, both sides will need to compromise.

The number one obstacle to compromise, as usual, will be human nature.

The ideal person to bring the warring sides together is Israeli President Isaac Herzog…The number one obstacle to compromise, as usual, will be human nature. Power is intoxicating.

Power is intoxicating. The new coalition, angry that the Courts have had too much power for too long, are salivating to grab that power back. They’re not in the mood to hear anything about compromise. The latest example of this fervor is Interior and Health Minister Aryeh Deri’s refusal to follow the High Court’s ruling that it is “unreasonable in the extreme” for Deri to hold a minister position, given the Shas leader’s multiple convictions.

Like a Shakespearian tragedy reaching its climax, the Deri drama has taken center stage. It has no easy resolution. For a nation that is used to living on the edge, the next few days will offer all they can handle.

My friend Yossi Klein Halevi once described the typical Israeli mindset as “neurotic Zen.” They may look calm and happy, but they never forget that a disaster can happen any minute.

I hope President Herzog will bring his best Zen energy when he brings the sides together. He might want to start as follows: “This crisis is no one’s fault. We need a better system to establish the fundamental rules of the game. For now, however, we must work in good faith and in a spirit of compromise. This is the one question we must address for the good of the country and for the good of all voters: ‘What would reasonable legal reforms look like?’

“Turkish coffee anyone?”

Human beings are the only species who can think about thinking. Animals can think instinctively to satisfy their appetites, but humans are blessed with the ability to reflect on the very art of reflecting, as I am doing now.

It’s hard to imagine a more urgent time to consider the act of thinking, at a moment when deep thought is decidedly under siege. On social media, we’re encouraged not to think but to react, to peck like little birds at our likes and dislikes. In politics, we’re way past the point of honoring deep thought, hypnotized as we are by the lust to crush our political rivals by any means necessary.

And in academia, that supposed bastion of free thought and open inquiry, we’re encouraged to think only to the extent that our thoughts will conform with the progressive dogma that has hijacked so much of our culture.

“The shaping of campus political rhetoric happens primarily through exclusion and drowning out of different voices,” sophomore Darren Chang wrote in the Cornell Daily Sun as far back as 2018. “Students who bring positions that don’t fit with the primary narrative of liberal progressivism are shouted down and insulted, as if their background and political orientation should be rejected prima facie.”

Of course, since Chang wrote that op-ed, things have gotten progressively worse. 

“Thinking for yourself has never been easy, but the question of whether it is still possible at all is of some moment,” philosophy professor Michael Ignatieff wrote this month in a must-read essay in Liberties Journal. “The key ideals of liberal democracy — moral independence and intellectual autonomy — depend on it, and my students will not have much experience of either if they end up living in a culture where all of their political and cultural opinions must express tribal allegiance to one of two partisan alternatives; where they live in communities so segregated by education, class, and race that they never encounter a challenge to their tribe’s received ideas, or in a society where the wells of information are so polluted that pretty well everything they read is ‘fake news.’”

The crux of the problem is that if we use our minds solely to serve an ideology, an ambition or an appetite, there’s really no need to engage in deep thought, especially if that thought may lead to truths that will disrupt the balm of our certitude and introduce that dreaded enemy called doubt. 

The crux of the problem is that if we use our minds solely to serve an ideology, an ambition or an appetite, there’s really no need to engage in deep thought, especially if that thought may lead to truths that will disrupt the balm of our certitude and introduce that dreaded enemy called doubt. 

It’s disheartening to think that human nature may partly explain this aversion to reflection. But Judaism, as we know, calls on us to do the hard work of transcending our natures in favor of higher ideals, such as the search for truth.

That’s why the Jewish community, whether right or left, religious or not, should be particularly concerned with the postmodern assault on the ancient art of thinking. If any act describes our tradition, it would be the act of asking questions, of “turning and turning” ideas in the constant search for deeper truths.

The Jewish community should be particularly concerned with the postmodern assault on the ancient art of thinking. If any act describes our tradition, it would be the act of asking questions, of “turning and turning” ideas in the constant search for deeper truths.

This art of asking questions lies at the heart of “Thinking Critically in College: The Essential Handbook for Student Success,” a new book by Louis Newman and the subject of our cover story this week. 

Newman, longtime Dean of Academic Advising and Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stanford University, takes a nonideological, pragmatic approach to the discipline of critical thinking. Instead of bemoaning issues like groupthink, he prefers to lay out practical advice for cultivating better learning habits, habits that he argues colleges are failing to provide. 

As he writes, “Colleges promise to teach skills that endure long after specific facts fade … [but they] aren’t delivering on that promise. According to a 2019 study from the Society for Human Resource Management, nearly two-thirds of employers surveyed indicated that it was difficult to find college grads with adequate critical thinking skills.” 

The value of Newman’s approach is that he takes critical thinking so seriously that he virtually turns it into a discipline of its own, like a carpentry class with rules and tools.

“All students need explicit instruction in these academic tools of the trade,” he writes. “Students will not become effective learners and rigorous thinkers by osmosis. If faculty aren’t highlighting these habits of mind, students are unlikely to acquire them independently.”

If I were head of a school, Jewish or otherwise, high school or college, I would seriously consider using Newman’s handbook to shape a mandatory class on critical thinking. It would probably be the only instruction these students would ever get on this quintessential human activity that we so often take for granted.

Considering that our thoughts permeate every aspect of our lives, and that the world around us is pushing us further and further away from that activity, it’s hard to think of a more critical class.