Yesh Atid MK Dr. Aliza Lavie did not play to form last Rosh Chodesh. A founding member of Kolech a self-described Orthodox feminist group Dr. Lavie nevertheless declined to join three female MKs from left-wing parties who participated in the monthly gathering of Women of the Wall (WoW) at the Kosel.

WoW seeks every Rosh Chodesh to read from a Sefer Torah at theKoselPlaza and pray there wearing tallitot and tefillin in contravention of a 2003 ruling of the Supreme Court upholding the authority of the head of the Holy Sites to ban such practices at the Kosel. The Israel Police normally enforces the Supreme Court order but did not do so on Rosh Chodesh Nisan because of the presence of the three MKs.

In that same 2003 decision the Supreme Court ordered the government to provide an area for heterodox prayer ceremonies at Robinson’s Arch further south on the Western Wall. Heterodox groups have used that site for their religious rites without harassment from Orthodox protestors.

Explaining her refusal to join her Knesset colleagues Dr. Lavie said that it was inappropriate for an MK to deliberately violate a Supreme Court order even if the threat of arrest was negligible. I suspect that as a mitzvah-observant Jew she was also put off by the use of religious ceremonies to make political statements.

The first gathering of Women of the Wall took place more than 20 years ago during an international gathering of Jewish feminists inJerusalem. It is safe to assume that the vast majority of participants were not faithful synagogue attendees every Rosh Chodesh. If they had any theological statement to make it was: If Judaism does not view men and women as identical we reject Judaism.

About 15 years ago an acquaintance of mine found herself seated next to a newly minted PhD from Michiganon a flight to Israel. The young woman told her that millions of dollars had been raised to send students like her to Israel. When my acquaintance asked her what she was coming to do she replied that she would be going to the Western Wall “to put on a shmatteh.” Seeing the quizzical look on the older woman’s face she added “You know a shmatteh ” while miming putting on a tallit. The frisson of causing Orthodox Jews to gnash their teeth not the religious experience of praying with a “shmatteh” wrapped around her neck was clearly the attraction.

Anat Hoffman the leader of WoW is also the executive director of theIsraelReligiousActionCenter the advocacy arm of the Reform movement inIsrael. As it happens the Reform movement attaches no particular religious significance to the Kosel. The Council of Progressive Rabbis inIsrael(Reform) declared in 1999 “One should not consider the Western Wall as possessing any sanctity.... The approach of the Progressive Jew towards worship and prayer is opposed to any renewal of theTemple opposed to the restoration of sacrificial worship.... The Western Wall does not represent Jewish cleaving to G-d nor the experience of prayer nor Jewish thought for our times.”

But if the Kosel has no particular sanctity in the eyes of the WoW members the rhetorical question asked by decidedly non-Orthodox Hillel Halkin in the Forward more than a decade ago is only strengthened: “Were they to come to the Wall without prayer shawls as a simple gesture of respect for traditions of the place against what sacred principles of their faith would they be sinning? Are there no places in the world inIsrael or even inJerusalem that they must do it at the one site where it is sure to infuriate large numbers of Orthodox Jews?”

Of course Halkin knew the answer to his own question. Creating a ruckus — not religious experience — is the key to the WoW ceremonies at the Kosel. The Western Wall may not possess any sanctity for Anat Hoffman but she is canny enough to know that photos of her being hauled away by the Israeli police as if she were Rosa Parks in Birmingham circa 1956 are great for rallying the troops. Those photo ops serve the interests of the minuscule Reform movement in Israel — in “secular” Tel Aviv there are 550 shuls most of them used daily and one Reform temple open only on Shabbos — and of the heterodox movements abroad as well.

The need for confrontation with the Orthodox inIsraelto fill the coffers of the heterodox movements abroad and the need to “validate” their rites by performing them at the Kosel only betray both their weakness and lack of confidence.

And the reliance on negativity — beating the drums against Orthodox Jews with whom few of their members are likely to have any personal contact — reveals a lack of a positive Jewish message. A woman I know well who has a number of baal teshuvah children asked her Conservative rabbi one year after yet another Yom Kippur sermon on the evils of the Orthodox “Don’t you have anything to tell your congregants especially those who will be here only twice a year other than how bad the Orthodox are?”

WHILE GOOD FOR HETERODOX PUBLIC RELATIONS AND FUNDRAISING confrontation at the Kosel comes at a high cost. The Kosel is the greatest symbol of Jewish continuity — the last remnant from the Beis HaMikdash which stood above on the TempleMountnearly two millennia ago. Were the WoW to achieve their goal of celebrating nontraditional rites at the Kosel the sluice gates would be open. They would soon be joined by others demanding to tear down the mechitzah and allow egalitarian minyanim and even Jews for J groups. Over 20 years ago I asked one of the founders of the WoW whether she would consider a service by Jews for J at the Kosel beyond the pale. She could not answer.

Instead of serving as a symbol of Jewish continuity the Kosel would become a sort of religiousHyde Parkcorner with religious rites as performance art. Leah Shakdiel another early WoW activist admitted as much when she described her vision of the Kosel becoming a place where “different people dynamically evolve various forms of worship so that Jews and Muslims and Christians can pray together to G-d.”

The Kosel imagined by Shakdiel would cease to be a magnet for Jews of all types. While at any given moment the majority of those praying at the Kosel are Orthodox Jews it attracts tens of thousands of non-Orthodox Jews every year. Many come to check out whether they can experience something of the power of the place standing before the ancient stones. Thousands of Jewish lives have been changed by the experience of the Kosel often beginning with a tap on the shoulder from Rabbi Meir Shuster as they pondered those stones.

Others come to pour out to their hearts to G-d. At any given time the vast majority of those at the Kosel are not engaged in formal prayer services but in private supplication. Contrary to Anat Hoffman’s claim that women are silenced at the Kosel every Jew regardless of gender or religious affiliation is free to speak directly to Hashem in any language he or she chooses.

In a video produced by a group of women calling themselves Kolot HaKotel (Voices of the Wall) Sharon Galkin succinctly summed up the matter: “[Anat Hoffman] misses the point. Prayer is not directed at the person next to you. Prayer is not directed at the New York Times. Prayer is about talking to G-d. And He hears the quietest whisper.”

When Later is Better

The first natural gas has begun to flow from the offshore Tamir field to theAshdodprocessing plant. The Tamar field and the even larger Leviathan field are estimated to hold enough natural gas to supplyIsrael’s energy needs for many decades to come and to turnIsraelinto an energy exporter.

In addition to the offshore finds of natural gasIsraelis estimated to have shale oil reserves equal in volume to the known oil reserves ofSaudi Arabia. Besides enrichingIsrael the newfound energy resources hold out the hope of lesseningIsrael’s diplomatic isolation. Western dependence on Arab oil has always been a crucial factor behind the propensity of many Western governments to curry favor with Arab states by adopting a diplomatic stance hostile toIsrael.

So much then for the old jokes about Moses having discovered one of the few strips of land in theMiddle Eastwithout vast natural resources. The belated discovery of huge energy sources however is another aspect of Divine benevolence.

Because of its lack of natural resources Israelhad to develop its human resources to a very high level. Despite a defense burden borne by no other country and despite — or perhaps because of —Israel’s unique level of government support for Torah learningIsrael today has one of the fastest growing and most stable economies in the developed world and exercises a level of fiscal discipline that would be the envy of almost every European country. Revenues from the newly discovered energy resources are icing on the cake not the basis of Israeli prosperity.

By contrast the enormous oil reserves of Arab states likeSaudi Arabia made the development of human resources unnecessary. Labor is disdained by Saudi men. Saudis import slaves to do the manual work and hire foreign experts to do the brainy work. When the oil is used up by Arab countries whose economies are wholly based on their energy wealth their people will revert to being nomadic tent dwellers just as they were before the discovery of oil.

Sometimes late is not just better than never; it’s better than earlier.