New budget clears the way for continued unimpeded violation of other, more serious prohibitions such as embezzlement, deceit, and parasitism.
Jerusalem, February 24 - Lawmakers from Israel's "ultra-Orthodox" factions in the government issued audible sighs today as they observed that it's a good thing the Torah only prohibits the actual flesh of swine, and not, technically, the practice of legislative blackmail to direct public funds toward cronies, pet projects, and favored causes.
The observation came amid fresh coalition maneuvering, as Shas and the Degel HaTorah faction of United Torah Judaism stepped back from threats to block progress on the Arrangements Bill split, allowing a narrow 60-56 vote on February 9 to advance key budget legislation. The procedural step keeps the 2026 state budget on track for final approval before the late-March deadline, staving off automatic Knesset dissolution and early elections, and clearing the way for continued unimpeded violation of other, more serious prohibitions such as embezzlement, deceit, and parasitism.
The budget, which passed its first reading in late January by 62-55, envisions total expenditures of roughly NIS 811.74 billion (around $262 billion), including NIS 580.75 billion in operating costs and NIS 230.99 billion for development. Defense dominates at NIS 112 billion, a reflection of persistent security needs, while the deficit ceiling sits at 3.9% of GDP — a level the Bank of Israel and IMF consider too lax to curb public debt's rise toward 69% amid war costs and mounting interest, but the Haredi parties consider the burdens of war somebody else's problem.
Opposition figures like Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid have slammed the plan as irresponsible, focusing on coalition funds estimated at up to NIS 7.5 billion (with earlier figures near NIS 5.2 billion). These earmarks disproportionately benefit ultra-Orthodox yeshiva networks, religious institutions, and Judea-Samaria settlement projects — the very bases that secure Haredi loyalty — frequently bundled with concessions on military conscription exemptions for yeshiva students, the longstanding Haredi priority that continues to loom over fiscal negotiations, even as the Torah's call for universal military service in the face of existential threats gets not-so-quietly set aside when the draft notice arrives.
While the pork prohibition remains inviolable for the plate, the same coalition architects display remarkable composure regarding the Torah's stern ban on theft, apparently finding no contradiction in redirecting billions of public shekels from the nation's shared purse to insulated sectarian enclaves and political allies.
Deceitand breach of trust prove equally elastic; commandments against falsehood and unfaithful dealings seem to accommodate themselves quite comfortably to the art of whispered promises, selective budget-line transparency, and the strategic omission of inconvenient fiscal realities needed to keep the governing bloc intact. The principle of bal tashchit — prohibiting needless waste — seldom disturbs these proceedings, even as fiscal watchdogs repeatedly caution that the targeted disbursements bloat the deficit and erode long-term economic stability for the sake of short-term parliamentary convenience.
Prohibitions on bearing false witness and exploiting the vulnerable likewise elicit minimal introspection, despite the contortions involved in presenting preferential allocations as equitable necessity, or in framing sustained exemptions from national service as anything other than a selective shirking of communal duty.
As second and third readings draw near, the casual relief over the Torah's narrowly culinary focus on pork has become a quiet running joke in Jerusalem's corridors. To critics and outside observers, it distills an enduring contradiction: meticulous observance of select mitzvot shapes daily ritual and personal conduct with iron consistency, while those commandments that speak directly to public integrity, communal fairness, honest stewardship, and collective sacrifice in times of peril invite a strikingly more permissive hermeneutic — especially when the price of coalition survival is measured in taxpayer billions and shared national burdens.
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