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The two excerpts above where quoted to illustrate that debates over state and religion in general, and over the status of religious “days of worship” in particular, are anything but marginal in contemporary Israel.

The tension between religion and human rights is usually expressed in relation to issues of freedom of religion or freedom from religion. In Israeli law this is just one aspect of the relations between these two realms, since Judaism is a religion that governs all facets of life. This means that Jewish law is relevant to and has a say in every issue that involves human rights. Doctor-patient relationships and decision-making about medical treatment constitute an entire realm of their own. Such relations are fraught with moral and religious issues, and this might be expected to raise contradictions between Jewish and state law. This paper examines the issue of informed consent to medical treatment, in which it has been argued that there is a collision between Jewish law and the secular notion of human rights.

As I sat at my desk in Connecticut to consider what I could contribute to this volume as a cultural historian of American law, I recalled a remarkable visit I took recently to Cincinnati, Ohio. My wife and I had visited Cincinnati immediately following a three-week stay in Germany, and because I hope it will shed light on how many Americans understand the relation between church and state, I wish to begin this essay by describing why I was in Ohio and painting a picture of some of the men and women I met there — a kind of American portrait in thick description. Before I do, however, I wish at the outset to state my basic view of the subject of religion and state neutrality. My view is that state neutrality toward religion can and should remain a guiding aspiration of American constitutionalism, but that the ideal has been complicated in practice by an old and continuing American tradition — one that I believe contrasts with socio-legal life in post-war Germany and, perhaps, Israel, in which universalistic liberal ideals and institutions are grounded in and viewed as inseparable from particularistic religious commitments. The U.S. Supreme Court, furthermore, has played an important institutional role in coping with the cultural tension to which this popular belief system has given rise, using the concept of neutrality as a tool of constitutional cultural management for a society that is at once highly religious, liberal, and increasingly pluralistic.

Much that Professor Mark Weiner has said about the role of religion in the United States, the role of the Supreme Court in attempting to enforce an ideal of neutrality in matters between church and state, and how those two forces greatly influence American society resonates well in the American populace and psyche. Church-state issues are among the most important, and divisive, in American society, a pivotal matter over what it means to be an American. Professor Weiner has offered a nice portrait of this part of Americana. I want to offer some perspectives on Professor Weiner’s comments.