Very well written, but with an issue. You haven't proposed what it is we seculars are supposed to take from both Jewish "religion" (I sort of agree that it's a civilizational culture broadly and shouldn't be compared to an imperial-confessional faith) and, most especially, from the blend of European and Islamic forms that religion officially takes in Israel. I have a fairly reasonable Jewish education myself, am adamantly pro-Zionist, would argue for a particularly Jewish Israel -- but I don't think "God said so as given to Moshe at Sinai then to ... Rav Ovadiyah Yosef then to Yitzhak Yosef" is a source of cultural authority or of culture, period. It is a claim of moral imperative by divine command. If I don't believe in any link in the chain, from Moshe at Sinai down to Rav Yosef - for instance if I am Ashkenazi! - then what am I or the State (which is neither Ashkenazi nor Sefaradi but *Jewish*) supposed to draw from it?