How much longer, for heaven's sake, are we going to be preoccupied with these trivialities?

Who is a Jew? Are Reform conversions valid? Only abroad or in Israel too? What does it mean to be a Jew? Is it a religion or a nationality? Does a Romanian woman, whose father is a Jew and mother a Christian, become, upon immigrating to Israel, a "Jew" or an "Israeli?" What is the difference between a "Jew" and an "Israeli?" Is Israel a "Jewish State," "The State of the Jews" or "The State of the Jewish People," as stated in various laws and documents, and what are the practical differences among these three definitions?

On the Israeli identification card, it is written: "Nationality: Jewish." What is a Jewish nationality? A nationality like all other nationalities, such as Italian or Russian? And if so, what business do the priests of religion have in determining who belongs and who does not? And if it is a religion, such as Christianity and Islam, how can one refer to it as "Nationality?"

The State has been preoccupied with these questions from its very beginning, and still the answers elude us. Governments have fallen because of this. Lower and Supreme Court judges contemplate these questions incessantly, mulling them over and over again, but cannot seem to find peace of mind. First we saw three, then five and now already eleven Supreme Court justices, who seem to have nothing better to do than to pinpoint the enormous difference between orthodox and conservative conversions. Conversion for the purpose of entering the "nationality" on one's I.D. card.

All this is more closely related to the Middle Ages than to the last year of the twentieth century and the second millenium. It is much closer to Pakistan than to the U.S. (When Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's president at the time, declared that there have been only two twentieth century states founded on the basis of religion -- Israel and Pakistan -- she was right.) Israel must decide which entity to emulate: Pakistan of the Taliban movement, or the United States.

The underlying principle of the United States is the extraordinary document called the Constitution. And the underlying principle of the Constitution is the separation of religion and state.

Interestingly, the American Constitution was created by religious individuals. Now, too, a large portion or the American public is very religious. The scandal which is so stirring the American public these days, and undermining its very foundations, is, in essence, a religious one. It deals with the President's moral values. But those religious individuals understood two hundred years ago that, in order to secure a modern nation, religion must not be allowed to interfere with public life. Religion belongs in the communities of its faithful, while the State belongs to the entire citizenry. The place for priests is in church.

This principle was perfectly clear to Theodor Herzl, who stated unequivocally that in the future Jewish state, we would know to keep the Rabbis in the synagogues. In Herzl's mind, as it was in Haim Weizman's and Ze'ev Jabotinsky's as well, the principle of separation of religion and state was self-evident. They could not envision anything different. Despite the great differences among them, all three envisioned a modern western nation, at the forefront of the world's most progressive states, if not at their very head.

Why has this not happened? Why the confusion? Why are the poor judges asked to break their heads in order to undo this Gordian knot?

The blame should be laid squarely on David Ben-Gurion, the architect of the State of Israel. He is justly accused of having exempted yeshiva students from military service. It began with 400 and is now reaching 40,000 per year. He is also justly accused of creating a separate religious education network. Today it is crystal clear that Israel's two education systems, which endorse two vastly different philosophical concepts, two different sets of values and to different world views, have inadvertently created two separate peoples, with the gap between them growing ever wider.

But those sins of Ben-Gurion, which constitute a threat to the survival of the state in the coming decades, derive from the Original Sin: The establishment of the State of Israel was not accompanied by the recognition of an Israeli nation. The Americans, most of whom had a British heritage, declared themselves an American naion at the very moment of declaring their new statehood. Whereas here, they have persisted in clinging to the hermaphroditic entity referred to as "The Jewish People" -- part nation, part religion, part international diaspora, part homeland-based political entity. And thus we have inherited the tangled knot which is making our lives so miserable every day.

This tangled knot will keep the government and the Parliament busy indefinitely. It keeps the court busy with the questions of the yeshiva-students' military draft, with the subject of conversions, and of course, with the matter of money, lots of money, billions flowing each year to the institutions and pockets of religious politicians. A most peculiar phenomenon: A secular and democratic state is funding its very destroyers. (I admire the person who coined the astute slogan: "Separate religion from money.")

There is only one way to put an end to this nonsense, as Alexander the Great proved 2,350 years ago: He pulled out his sword and cut the Gordian knot.